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Old 12-10-2018, 02:58 PM   #4381
Hank Chinaski
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Re: Barcelona

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Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop View Post
There are other people who make less than $100K and who are affluent. They are elderly people who are no longer working, and they tend to vote GOP.
You guys are talking monthly income, yes?
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Old 12-10-2018, 03:59 PM   #4382
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Re: We are all Slave now.

I just found this Krugman column from November which, it turns out, anticipates much of what we have been saying the last few days. Sebby, when you read it, just pretend that he says "inequality" instead of "economic anxiety."

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[T]here is little if any support in voting data for the notion that “economic anxiety” drove people to vote for Trump. As documented in “Identity Crisis,” an important new book analyzing the 2016 election, what distinguished Trump voters wasn’t financial hardship but “attitudes related to race and ethnicity.”

Yet these attitudes aren’t divorced from economic change. Even if they’re personally doing well, many voters in lagging regions have a sense of grievance, a feeling that they’re being disrespected by the glittering elites of superstar cities; this sense of grievance all too easily turns into racial antagonism. Conversely, however, the transformation of the G.O.P. into a white nationalist party alienates voters — even white voters — in those big, successful metropolitan areas.
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Old 12-10-2018, 09:03 PM   #4383
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Re: Barcelona

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You seem to think that I do not believe in equality, or something like that. You are preaching to the choir. I believe in global warming, too, but that does not mean that it caused populism and Trump.
I don't think that. I think that, like me, you don't have a response to inequality. I don;t have one. I readily admit that.

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For your "losers," I think that's loopy. How does Trump "rationally" advance their interests?
You have to focus on their perception. These people have a mixed bag of goals. Some are xenophobes, some racists, some pining for a nation they think existed in the 50s. And some just want opportunity, they "want their jobs back" (South Park inflection).

It's their perception of what Trump would bring that matters, not what he actually provided.

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Dude, you are the pocket Marxist here, the one who keeps saying "inequality" as if everything else just follows naturally from brute economic conditions. I never said economic conditions don't matter. I said that you need *more* to explain where populism and Trump came from.
Fair enough. But I think a solid slice of Trump voters are indeed simply and solely economic voters. They think the President can bring those jobs back. And many others have, as Krugman notes in the excellent article you cited in another post, allowed anger about the economy to transform into anger at "others." This is a common psychological behavior. People need to personalize, to find a human target to blame. It allows for easier cathartic release.

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Where they are and where they see themselves going are two different things. People who voted for Trump, on average, are *more* affluent than people who voted against him. You have a hard time explaining that, and indeed keep constructing explanations that suggest the opposite. What you need is an explanation about how people who are better off than a lot of people nonetheless feel so aggrieved that they turn to populism.
I think the demographics are tricky. I remain confident the majority of Trump voters are lumped around that median, which is not affluent. I also don't think they rate themselves versus those below (except in terms of crying about not receiving transfers). "Affluent" is my word, and perhaps I should not have chosen it. Perhaps the better descriptive is, "stuck in the middle," and a shrinking middle at that.

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If you are going to play Marxist Dude here, you shouldn't pretend that we haven't had a long economic expansion since 2008. Because we have. Yes, I understand that not everyone has done well. But you (again) are not reckoning with the fact that Trump voters tend to be better off than others. Among other things, the problem with what you are saying is that it doesn't explain why people who are doing better than average are voting for Trump but people experiencing *more* inequality and doing worse are not.
It's not that "not everyone has done well." It's that roughly half the nation has not done well. Fifty two percent of people own stocks. Forty eight percent did not enjoy the run-up since 2008. That's a lot of folks who missed the party.

But putting that aside, you need to reckon with this consideration: That the seriously poor vote Democrat does not mean the better off Trump voter is doing well. I don't think he is. As I think I said to Adder before, the Trump voter, I suspect, is king of the slag heap, highest paid in a hollowing middle class.
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Why does that speak to Trump voters and not to others?
That's a really excellent question. My reason for that conclusion comes from actually meeting with lots of poor Trump voters. I've run into lots of Trump voters in the past few years. Some were friends who ran funds, some were small businessmen, and some were middle class, or even quite poor. (I'd like to think I hit a broad group of them.) The poor ones were fascinating. They always had that same gripe, "the banks got a bailout, the rich get richer, and I got shit." That was the same thing I heard after the 2008 crisis.

Unfairness sticks in people's psyches. Evolution has wired us to recoil from it. I suspect Trump voters viewed Hillary as in the bag for the banks and corporations and so voted against her. Democratic voters are a bit less naive. They know the new boss is the old boss and I think decided, "Whoever's in charge isn;t going to do much for me, but I think I'll take the new boss who doesn't want to deport me, and will give me cheaper health care!"

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Then I said, and this is key, The more money you have, the more likely you are to vote Republican.
Perhaps I hang with strange folks, but my quite affluent friends voted D last time around. The people I know who have a billion supported Trump, but they worked in fossil fuels. (And they donated to both sides, as those sorts do.)

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For individuals, there is a direct relationship between income and likelihood to vote Republican. For states, the opposite is true.
I think that's breaking down a bit. There's a good economic reason to vote D. They tend to preside over better markets. Rs give you the tax decrease, which is nice, but you always thing, "What'll this cost me later?" Or, "What long term gain am I wrecking for a few bucks now?"

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I don't care what label you use, but you seem blissfully unaware that inequality and dashed expectations are two different things.
I think they're quite intertwined. Again, we're talking voters, and therefore, it's a matter of perception. If a person is doing okay, but struggling in terms of expectations, while others are handed things, is that person not unequal to those he resents?

If you look like Stanley Tucci but you really wanted the parts Brad Pitt is getting, I think you'll feel unequal.

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Suppose that you are doing 70 mph in a 55 mph zone, and you get pulled over. You say to the office, hey, I was slowing down. Does he give a sh*t? No. Because the issue is your speed, not your acceleration.
Again, it's not about the actual. It's about the perceived. We're trying to get into the mind of the voter.

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As I noted, this sounds right to me. But you are really talking about their feelings, not about objective inequality.
I see little difference between the two when discussing why voters do what they do. In this regard, we may have been talking past each other all along.

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So is your view that populism is rational, and minorities are not rational because they won't support a R populist?
An R populist who desires to deport you has blown the cost/benefit for a minority voter so badly that no economic promise can justify voting for him.

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OK. Again -- not a story about "inequality" -- a story about people who find themselves on the middle of the ladder, unable to climb, and choose elect someone who will punch people below them.
I think you're defining inequality too narrowly, but I agree with the rest. I also think there's a perverse deification of wealth at work here. No matter how hopeless their futures might be, a lot of R voters cling to the belief that they can hit it big. There's something laudable about that delusion. People should never give up and desire that their government alone make their lives better. But it's still quite perverse because, even though they know the guy down the ladder isn't harming them, and the guy up the ladder is actually the one blocking their ascension, they choose to step on the guy below. Shit rolls downhill, right?

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Well, thank you for acknowledging that populism (in this country) is right-wing now.
I don't know how you concluded I didn't think that.
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I think the fundamental reason why you are wrong in your prediction here is that populism reflects a frustration with mainstream politics. Conservatives are much more frustrated with the GOP than the left is with Democrats. So do not hold your breath waiting for left-wing populism.
Really? Did you listen to Bernie? You're aware he rose by beating the crap out of Hillary's traditional party platform, not Trump, right? I mean... srsly?

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But this shows why pointing to inequality doesn't explain populism.
It doesn't explain all of it, but it does explain a lot of it. I remain absolutely convinced that if we had a sudden boom for some unknown reason, and the Trump voters suddenly found themselves accruing all sorts of gains, and saw a bright future for themselves, populism would vanish. Most men can be bought. They have little in terms of principle, and are most concerned with comfort.

Quote:
You are saying, "I blame everyone equally because the only alternative is to absolve people." That's stupid. Tell an accurate story that puts blame where it belongs. You don't have a real explanation until you can distinguish between what different people did, and why it matters.
Apportion blame across all responsible parties to the percentage of liability they own. For instance, the 2008 crisis was 25% banks' fault, 25% borrowers' fault, 25% the fed's fault, and 25% the govt's fault (Bush used a housing bubble to replace the hole left after the tech bubble burst).

You don't pick one bad actor of many and attack that actor as though the whole thing was its fault. That's what I see when people "take sides." They choose to fixate on one group and give others a pass by omission. This creates a false story about what happened.

Quote:
This is the nub of it, and you contradict yourself in the space of two sentences. If the psychology is just a manifestation of economic factors, then it doesn't explain anything. That's a simple Marxist explanation. If psychology matters as an explanation, that means that it can drive a different result than the economics would suggest. You have to make up your mind about whether you think it's all about the economics (and inequality), or whether something else is going on.
Think of it as a process, or perhaps a better analogy is a relay. The economic malaise starts the race, then it hands off to the psychological factors (people starting thinking crazy things and looking for scapegoats), and then that creates a bizarre political environment where the final handoff, to a demagogue and his movement, takes place.
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Old 12-10-2018, 09:17 PM   #4384
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Re: We are all Slave now.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop View Post
I just found this Krugman column from November which, it turns out, anticipates much of what we have been saying the last few days. Sebby, when you read it, just pretend that he says "inequality" instead of "economic anxiety."
I really enjoyed this article. And the link to the article about Wisconsin within it was even better.

I think this explains a significant part of the psychological element of Trumpism. But I'd be careful with the suggestion that Trumpkins resent coastal elites. These groups are like oil and water, and I don't see much interest on the part of Trump supporters to play in the coastal elites' sandbox.

I think we've got two nations, and it might be best to let them separate from one another as much as possible.

Personally, believing most Trumpkins I know are idiots, and most progressives I know are clueless, but both seem to think they know everything, I'm kind of stuck. I think I might retire on a boat.

(Note: I use "elites" here out of laziness. William Henry would not have considered the stereotypical "coastal elite" much of an elite. "Middle minded" was the adjective I think he used. Sadly, we'll never know what he'd have called Trump voters. Paul Fussell nails that type of person a good bit in Class, but it's not the exact breed.)
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Old 12-11-2018, 12:07 AM   #4385
Tyrone Slothrop
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What to do about inequality?

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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield View Post
I don't think that. I think that, like me, you don't have a response to inequality. I don;t have one. I readily admit that.
That's easy. Raise taxes on the rich and use the proceeds to do things that benefit the poor and middle class. Public schools. Health insurance. The safety net. Transit. National parks. Make it easier to unionize. Enforce the antitrust laws. Enforce consumer protection laws.

Will speak to the rest tomorrow.
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Old 12-11-2018, 09:17 AM   #4386
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Re: What to do about inequality?

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Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop View Post
That's easy. Raise taxes on the rich and use the proceeds to do things that benefit the poor and middle class. Public schools. Health insurance. The safety net. Transit. National parks. Make it easier to unionize. Enforce the antitrust laws. Enforce consumer protection laws.

Will speak to the rest tomorrow.
Damn, it's like there is a whole agenda championed by one political party that directly addresses Sebby's point.
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Old 12-11-2018, 09:46 AM   #4387
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Re: What to do about inequality?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop View Post
That's easy. Raise taxes on the rich and use the proceeds to do things that benefit the poor and middle class. Public schools. Health insurance. The safety net. Transit. National parks. Make it easier to unionize. Enforce the antitrust laws. Enforce consumer protection laws.

Will speak to the rest tomorrow.
Taxes will not get you there (an Eisenhower era rate schedule would only dent entitlements). It’s a start, true, but also, most importantly, taxes do not create jobs. And they cause businesses and people to leave.

Public schools are a good idea generally, true. More jobs, higher pay for good educators. Agreed.

Transit is a great idea for environmental reasons, but whatever # of jobs it creates it eliminates elsewhere.

Unionization is a good idea all around. Agreed. Creates jobs, and higher paying ones than non-union.

The safety net? That’s a humane goal, and it has a multiplier, but not much of one.

National parks don’t create many jobs.

Agreed on enforcing antitrust... and readjusting priorities away from merely benefit to consumers.

I’m leery on consumer protection. Too much of it can make it difficult to lend to consumers, which harms them. But things like payday lending should be more vigorously policed.

But still, we come to this issue... To truly tackle inequality, we need to create a whole lot of decent paying jobs for lower skilled workers and workers being rendered obsolete. I hear some of that in what you advocate, but I think you’d only dent that problem.

Henry Blodget offered a good idea: Redefine corporations as having a duty not only to shareholders and customers, but also to workers. Rather than run everything by MBA, focusing on efficiency and labor cost avoidance/reduction, once more start viewing workers as stakeholders, as armies of little purchasers each with unique little multiplier impacts.

I know, pie in the sky. But that thinking really does need to occur. Our current efficiency fixation, viewing labor as a lamentable cost, is a race to the bottom.
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Old 12-11-2018, 10:03 AM   #4388
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Re: What to do about inequality?

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Damn, it's like there is a whole agenda championed by one political party that directly addresses Sebby's point.
National Parks benefit the poor?
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Old 12-11-2018, 10:20 AM   #4389
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Re: What to do about inequality?

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National Parks benefit the poor?
Yes. All parks benefit the poor. If you can't afford to fly your family to Beijing for the Olympics, you probably pack them in a car and go to a national park.

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Old 12-11-2018, 10:28 AM   #4390
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Re: Barcelona

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I remain confident the majority of Trump voters are lumped around that median
You realize that you've provided exactly zero factual basis for this belief, right?
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Old 12-11-2018, 10:32 AM   #4391
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Re: What to do about inequality?

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Taxes will not get you there (an Eisenhower era rate schedule would only dent entitlements).
You realize that you've never once actually provided any factual basis for this oft-asserted belief, right?

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To truly tackle inequality, we need to create whole lot of decent paying jobs for lower skilled workers and workers being rendered obsolete.
Something like a Green New Deal, perhaps?

Yeah, I don't know exactly what that's supposed to mean, but to me a massive effort to rebuild our energy infrastructure around renewable energy has both economic and non-economic benefits that are hard to argue against.

Last edited by Adder; 12-11-2018 at 11:13 AM..
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Old 12-11-2018, 11:04 AM   #4392
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Re: What to do about inequality?

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Yes. All parks benefit the poor. If you can't afford to fly your family to Beijing for the Olympics, you probably pack them in a car and go to a national park.

TM
I have nothing against spending for parks, but to my definition people capable of driving across states to a National Park aren't really the poor. Surely having the parks gives an amazing opportunity to middle class people otherwise without options AND having them probably brings in more foreign tourist money than they cost. But I read the argument as helping people that aren't making it, make it.
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Old 12-11-2018, 11:51 AM   #4393
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Re: What to do about inequality?

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Yes. All parks benefit the poor. If you can't afford to fly your family to Beijing for the Olympics, you probably pack them in a car and go to a national park.

TM
Agreed. National (and state) parks are huge for many people below the national medians. Of course they benefit everyone, just like social security does, but it means more when you have fewer options.

Both Clinton and Obama devoted considerable effort to adding the number of urban national parks as well, which is a very important effort that Republicans almost uniformly oppose.
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Old 12-11-2018, 12:21 PM   #4394
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Re: What to do about inequality?

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You realize that you've never once actually provided any factual basis for this oft-asserted belief, right?

Something like a Green New Deal, perhaps?

Yeah, I don't know exactly what that's supposed to mean, but to me a massive effort to rebuild our energy infrastructure around renewable energy has both economic and non-economic benefits that are hard to argue against.
There are $585 billionaires in the US (Wikipedia). Let's say we confiscated $1 billion from each of them.

It's dent in the budget, like I admitted, but not a huge one: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federa...tax-dollars-go

A Green New Deal would be a fantastic policy. And you'll find no louder cheerleader for infrastructure than me, but as I think you've told me here, there is debate about the size of infrastructure multipliers. Nevertheless, I'd get behind that idea, for many reasons.
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Old 12-11-2018, 12:40 PM   #4395
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Re: What to do about inequality?

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There are $585 billionaires in the US (Wikipedia). Let's say we confiscated $1 billion from each of them.

It's dent in the budget, like I admitted, but not a huge one: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federa...tax-dollars-go

A Green New Deal would be a fantastic policy. And you'll find no louder cheerleader for infrastructure than me, but as I think you've told me here, there is debate about the size of infrastructure multipliers. Nevertheless, I'd get behind that idea, for many reasons.
In 2016, tax receipts were about 21% of GDP (from your link). My contention is that there is a set of possible tax policies that could increase that to 25% or more without meaningfully restricting growth (which would not require mid-20th century rates).

Why do you think that's untrue?
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