Robert Samuelson, who is, frankly, rarely my favorite economics pundit, writes a not entirely terrible column, “Upward mobility is a myth”, largely pivoting off a recent study, “The Fading American Dream: Trends In Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940”, issued by the National Bureau Of Economic Research, put together back in March 2017 by a bunch…
Tag: economic growth
La Trahison des Milliardaires
In 1927, Frenchman Julien Benda wrote La Trahison des Clercs (“The Treason of the Intellectuals”), a plea, basically, for a return to Enlightenment thinking. Well, we could definitely do with a little more enlightenment thinking these days—and a little more enlightenment as well—but our real problem is not so much treacherous intellectuals as treacherous billionaires…
Yo, Paleoliberals! You can’t go home again! (not really)
David Ignatius reports that Charles Peters, long-time editor of the Washington Monthly and, not incidentally, one-time mentor/editor to David, has the solution to the Democrats’ electoral woes, presented in his new book We Do Our Part. In writing the book, Charlie gets in line behind paleolibs Thomas “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” Frank and Michael…
Passing the buck: Smith to DeLong to Krugman
Writing in Bloomberg View, Noah Smith offers Four Ways to Help the Midwest, prompting Brad DeLong to go off on a bit of a tangent, musing about “Regional Policy and Distributional Policy in a World Where People Want to Ignore the Value and Contribution of Knowledge- and Network-Based Increasing Returns” (aka “the Human Condition”), causing…
Harvard douchebaggery not exclusively a left-wing phenomenon, study reveals
Well, it did. I did the study, and I’m revealing it. In fact, I already revealed it last week, with my takedown of right-wing Harvard douchebag N. Gregory Mankiw for trying to make us feel sorry for trust-fund babies. Well, now I have a new study, and it seems that there’s a goddamn outbreak of…
Globalism lays an egg. Why?
As unprecedentedly awful as America’s politics are right now, in one way, we’re perfectly normal, because we’re just like everyone else. The monumental disarray of our Republican and Democratic parties is perfectly mirrored in the UK by the Conservatives and Laborites. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson could be twins. The specter haunting Europe these days…
Brexit, Part 2: What is to be done?
The impact of Brexit continues to roil and rumble. Paul Krugman say’s it’s not that big a deal—well, not unless you live in the UK itself, where “it looks all too likely that the vote will both empower the worst elements in British political life and lead to the breakup of the UK itself.” So,…
Donald and the Bern: What’s a billionaire to do?
The big surprise Tuesday night was not Donald Trump’s wins. “Trump losing momentum” stories have been written so often that when we see one we automatically rewrite it to read “Trump on a roll!” No, the big story was Bernie Sanders’ big, big win over Hillary Clinton, a victory won almost entirely on the basis…
What could be done, and why liberals won’t let it happen
It’s no secret that a large chunk of the American people are very upset these days, mad as hell and not going to take it any more, and also no secret that family incomes that have flat-lined for the past 15 years are a large part of the problem and also no secret that neither…
The Way We Were, and Why We Won’t Be Going Back There
Donald Trump from the right and Bernie Sanders from the left are leading the charge, not back to the future, but rather back to the past, a past that many if not most of their followers can’t even remember. This is why: As late as 1970, the “West”—basically, western Europe and North America—held an overwhelming…