Remembering last year at Jackson Lake Lodge: Global worthies' longing to pull þe austerity-leash choke-chain appears curbed; & þe plague years have shifted þe balance of human activities in þe...
I'm not sure that I'm as optimistic as you are. The maestros of the force and fraud system which you highlight in Slouching seem unwilling to surrender even the smallest particle of their privileges. Like the Bourbons, "They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.". Brighter minds than mine must find a path through this roadblock. Techbros like Ramswamy will certainly athwart trying too obstruct the pathway to Utopia.
Nothing wrong with Ramaswamy's macroeconomics that a more universal index -- say PCE -- to target at a positive rate applied flexibly would not fix. :)
"I expect that governments will learn from their mistakes."
My current sense of this is quite the opposite, at least as far as the U.S is concerned. It's a point worth expanding on, in any case. I'd rather like to be (somewhat) convinced of it.
The lesson I took from our experience is that if this is how we deal with a more or less immediate public health challenge, our prospects for dealing with issues like climate change are vanishingly small. Of course, the governments tend to reflect what is going on in the general population, and the zeitgeist is a fickle thing.
Not quite fair. At first, we really did not know, could not have known what to do. On climate change we have known for decades, disincentivize the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere and incentivize the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Too soon for optimism or pessimism. I think we are in a watching mode. The good part is we proved empirically that governments can pump a lot of money into the economy without long term ill effect, and we can pay people even when they don't work and lo and behood! they do not turn into moochers--they want to get back out there and work again. So a lot of the neo-liberal claptrap of left and right was debunked, and the prospects for utopia improved. I can see why the goof Professor is heartened. However, the self satisfied worthies of the modern world are still trying to recapture the field, as we saw with that GOP debate. Maybe among professional economists the advocates for oligarchy are stunned, but the worthies will start pumping in grants again and the economists shilling for the wealthy will be back in force, I predict. The fight continues.
I agree with all that except I do not see PH folks having learned anything about how to formulate and communicate cost-benefit-based recommendations or the information and tools for other decision makers to formulate cost0benefit based policies. Closing rather than ventilating schools, not using test to stay protocols, no HCTs etc.
I know you have a low opinion of the pre-industrial elite.
Robin Lane Fox’s recent masterpiece, Homer and his Iliad, describes the upper classes depicted in Homer. Part 5 deals with the upper-class society, the even higher upper-class society of the gods, and the place of women. One telling characteristic is that a slave woman was at about the same value as a horse.
Well worth reading.
Allen Kamp, Emeritus, University of Illinois Chicago Law.
I'm not sure that I'm as optimistic as you are. The maestros of the force and fraud system which you highlight in Slouching seem unwilling to surrender even the smallest particle of their privileges. Like the Bourbons, "They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.". Brighter minds than mine must find a path through this roadblock. Techbros like Ramswamy will certainly athwart trying too obstruct the pathway to Utopia.
Nothing wrong with Ramaswamy's macroeconomics that a more universal index -- say PCE -- to target at a positive rate applied flexibly would not fix. :)
"I expect that governments will learn from their mistakes."
My current sense of this is quite the opposite, at least as far as the U.S is concerned. It's a point worth expanding on, in any case. I'd rather like to be (somewhat) convinced of it.
The lesson I took from our experience is that if this is how we deal with a more or less immediate public health challenge, our prospects for dealing with issues like climate change are vanishingly small. Of course, the governments tend to reflect what is going on in the general population, and the zeitgeist is a fickle thing.
Not quite fair. At first, we really did not know, could not have known what to do. On climate change we have known for decades, disincentivize the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere and incentivize the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Too soon for optimism or pessimism. I think we are in a watching mode. The good part is we proved empirically that governments can pump a lot of money into the economy without long term ill effect, and we can pay people even when they don't work and lo and behood! they do not turn into moochers--they want to get back out there and work again. So a lot of the neo-liberal claptrap of left and right was debunked, and the prospects for utopia improved. I can see why the goof Professor is heartened. However, the self satisfied worthies of the modern world are still trying to recapture the field, as we saw with that GOP debate. Maybe among professional economists the advocates for oligarchy are stunned, but the worthies will start pumping in grants again and the economists shilling for the wealthy will be back in force, I predict. The fight continues.
I agree with all that except I do not see PH folks having learned anything about how to formulate and communicate cost-benefit-based recommendations or the information and tools for other decision makers to formulate cost0benefit based policies. Closing rather than ventilating schools, not using test to stay protocols, no HCTs etc.
Not on this particular comment-Dear Brad,
I know you have a low opinion of the pre-industrial elite.
Robin Lane Fox’s recent masterpiece, Homer and his Iliad, describes the upper classes depicted in Homer. Part 5 deals with the upper-class society, the even higher upper-class society of the gods, and the place of women. One telling characteristic is that a slave woman was at about the same value as a horse.
Well worth reading.
Allen Kamp, Emeritus, University of Illinois Chicago Law.
That's a really high value! Are you sure?