Economists Assemble in Support of þe IRA, &
BRIEFLY NOTED: For 2022-08-04 Th
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CONDITION: Slouching Towards Utopia Blurb of the Day
First: Economists Assemble in Support of the IRA
1/10—or perhaps, more optimistically, 1/4—of the scale at which we should be operating. But at least we are operating—if it passes. But it might well not pass.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing is not a single Republican senator is willing to be Manchin’s friend—to say “I’ll vote for this”, in order to give Manchin the power to hold firm in case other Democrats misunderstand and wind up blowing up the deal. Such loyalty to McConnell rather than to the country is extremely disturbing:
Joe Stiglitz & al.: Letter from Economists to Congressional Leadership: ‘Dear Senate Majority Leader Schumer, Senate Minority Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, and House Minority Leader McCarthy,
We write to strongly urge you and your colleagues in Congress to swiftly pass the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
This historic legislation makes crucial investments in energy, health care, and in shoring up the nation’s tax system. These investments will fight inflation and lower costs for American families while setting the stage for strong, stable, and broadly-shared long-term economic growth.
This legislation represents the single biggest step to date in tackling the climate crisis. It makes key investments to incentivize the transition to cleaner energy sources and greater efficiency. It also invests in the current energy distribution system to make it more resilient, lowers energy costs for families, and helps protect U.S. family budgets against future shocks.
This legislation will quickly and noticeably bring down health care costs for families. It allows Medicare to negotiate lower prices with pharmaceutical companies, reduces Medicare out-of-pocket costs for drugs, and reduces insurance costs for 13 million Americans by building on provisions in the Affordable Care Act.
These investments would be more than fully paid for. The revenue raised to finance them would come exclusively from wealthy individuals and corporations. Further, the revenue stems from enhanced tax enforcement and closing some of the most distortionary loopholes in the tax code.
This proposal addresses some of the country’s biggest challenges at a significant scale. And because it is deficit-reducing, it does so while putting downward pressure on inflation. We strongly recommend Congress act decisively to build a stronger economy by passing the Inflation Reduction Act as soon as possible.
Sincerely, Joseph Stiglitz…
LINK: <https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22124998-letter-from-economists-to-congressional-leadership>
I was very happy to sign this letter. I give my somewhat more nuanced view over at Project Syndicate:
One Audio:
Joe Wiesenthal, Tracy Alloway, & Anna Stansbury: Boosting Worker Bargainin Power <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-04/odd-lots-podcast-economist-anna-stansbury-on-the-labor-market#xj4y7vzkg>
One Image: Thomas Palley:
Very Briefly Noted:
Nick Cohen: The Historian Who Inspires Liz Truss: ‘Rick Perlstein… <https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/liz-truss-s-critics-are-making-the-same-mistakes-as-reagan-s-enemies>
Brad DeLong: I’m Brad DeLong: Ask Me Anything! <https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/weg0bq/im_brad_delong_ask_me_anything/?sort=new>
Ben Thompson: Political Chips: ‘Last Friday AMD surpassed Intel in market capitalization…. AMD… only designs chips; Intel both designs and manufactures them. It’s when you include AMD’s current manufacturing partner, TSMC, that Intel’s relative decline becomes particularly apparent… <https://stratechery.com/2022/political-chips/>
Kenneth Koch: You Want a Social Life, with Friends <https://polyarchive.com/you-want-a-social-life-with-friends-kenneth-koch/>
Twitter & ‘Stack:
David French: Nancy Pelosi Takes a Stand: ‘There is an admirable consistency to Nancy’s Pelosi’s long opposition to the communist Chinese regime…
Charley Johnson: Accidents Are Inevitable: ‘I wrote about pseudonymity, harassment, and what they reveal about our relationship to technology…. Normal accidents!—to explain what’s happening in decentralized finance or ‘DeFi’…
¶s:
Using “race” means that outsiders can never really join one’s country—that, at most, we will agree to pretend that they can join, and tolerate them as long as it is to our advantage. With Hungary things are even more fraught, because a great deal of the historical “culture” involves the domination of other ethnicities in the region—all except for the Turks and the Germans, who had strong and strongly enforced beliefs about who were really the top dogs:
John Ganz: Orbán the Toe: ‘Rod Dreher, despite being unceremoniously booted from Hungary for overstaying his visa, remains a reliable lickspittle. He claims that Orbán, “using the term “race” as a symbol of religion and culture (and I wish he would not have done that, because it makes it hard to explain what he means).”… The most important piece of context for this speech: Hungary’s history of antisemitism…. Historian of fascism Stanley Payne writes, “Of all states in interwar Europe, Hungary probably took the prize for the largest assortment per capita of fascist-type, semifascist, or right radical movements.” The system was divided essentially between right, far right, and extreme right: with the national conservatives around the regent Horthy in competition with explicitly fascist and national socialist groups like the Arrow Cross…
LINK:
This is the most bizarre story about cancel culture that I have seen. Note what is going on here. It is not that someone with substantial social power and influence but crazy and malicious views—someone like the KKK cross-burning Charles Murray, for example—is being confronted by people asking: why do you deserve such a loud megaphone, and our attention? It is, rather, that a grifter is inducing community that someone cares about to shun her, knowing full well that she has little social power to respond and is thus a weak target. I am told that the Lambda Literary Awards were a semi-important thing before Mardoll tricked them. I doubt they are even a semi-important thing now:
Lauren Hough: Who Is Ana Mardoll: ‘I am left with a deep sadness. Sandra Newman never gets that book announcement back…. And there are his fans, those who thought he was one of them, who thought he needed help, who donated money they probably didn’t have to give, because that’s what we do for our friends…. So when I say this, please believe that I mean this, truly, with all my heart, fuck you Ana Mardoll, whoever the fuck you are. You can buy Sandra Newman’s book…. You can buy Brandon Taylor’s book…. As far as I know, Isabel Fall doesn’t publish anymore…
LINK:
My big question: Where is Steve Mnuchin? What does he think he is doing? Yes, I know he thinks that, as a plutocrat, the kleptocrats are his allies. But that is not the case. In reality, the kleptocrats view him as their potential prey:
Timothy F. Geithner, Jacob J. Lew, Henry M. Paulson Jr., Robert E. Rubin, & Lawrence H. Summers: ’As former Treasury Secretaries of both Democratic and Republican Administrations, we support the Inflation Reduction Act which is financed by prudent tax policy that will collect more from top-earners and large corporations. Taxes due or paid will not increase for any family making less than $400,000/year. And the extra taxes levied on corporations do not reflect increases in the corporate tax rate, but rather the reclaiming of revenue lost to tax avoidance and provisions benefitting the most affluent. The selective presentation by some of the distributional effects of this bill neglects benefits to middle-class families from reducing deficits, from bringing down prescription drug prices, and from more affordable energy. This legislation will help increase American competitiveness, address our climate crisis, lower costs for families, and fight inflation—and should be passed immediately by Congress…
I wrote about this before:
Why is there no Democratic Party infrastructure? Why is there only a network of semi-grifter consultants sending me panicked fundraising emails of which they get an excessive cut?:
Micah L. Sifry: An Activist Base Is a Terrible Thing to Waste: ‘The Beltway Brain churned and burned through the post–2016 surge in Democratic volunteerism…. My friend Josh Nelson, who is one of a handful of digital strategists who has been trying to address what Democratic spam is doing to their base, told me after reading our article that, "I’m not surprised that this struck a nerve.” On a positive note, he said, “More and more campaigns are explicitly calling this out in their own fundraising emails. We’ve seen it recently from AOC, Maura Healey, John Fetterman, New Dems Action Fund and the Democratic Attorney Generals Association. I take that as a positive sign that the industry is taking notice and the counteroffensive is building steam”…. If you want to find groups to give to that do year-round community organizing aimed at lifting the voting participation and power of those who have less power, the best single resource is the Movement Voter Project, which has been going since 2016…
LINK:
