Counter to “Republicans” and facts

Comment to Paul Krugman’s “Facts Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias”, New York Times, 201-12-08

I think a counter-attack to these distorters of facts should be repeating over and over again their misinterpretation and misrepresentation of so many ideas.

To them, a free market means corporations are free to do what they please.  But a true free market is:

Many buyers and sellers.
Both buyers and sellers are free to enter or leave the market.
Both buyers and sellers have all the information they need.
There are no externalities (all costs are paid for in the transactions

They cherry-pick “sacred” texts to suit themselves.

Adam Smith in “On the Wealth of Nations” observed the England had laws the prevent the workers from organizing to raise wages but none to prevent the masters from organizing to keep wages down.

Adam Smith warned that those who live by profit are not to be trusted.

“Originalist” judges have changed the Constitution to mean that corporations are people.

Comment to Krugman and health care

Don't like paying for health care?  Don't get sick, don't grow old, and don't visit doctors.

I rarely get sick and I couldn't stop growing old, but I do visit doctors regularly to check on how well I am.  For a man my age, the verdicts have been that I am in pretty good shape.  But they have also been concerned about my heart.

This year a cardiologist determined I should be seen by surgeons.  The verdict was that I needed a valve replacement.  Four months later I am slowly getting back to the activity level I once had.

But if had to pay all the costs that have been incurred, I would probably be back in the hospital with a stroke.  If I had to pay all the costs, I would probably have to sell my house.

As it is, I pay a few dollars for this, a couple hundred for that, and on and on.  The max I could pay is $5,000.  I'm not there yet, but I would say that lots of minimum wage workers would have a hard time making those payments.

Posted to http://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/07/opinion/healthcare-single-payer-children.html?comments#permid=23604618.

Charles M. Blow on the fall of democracies

Charles Blow is deeply worried about Trump’s presidency and what it will do to American democracy.  See “The Anti-Inauguration”, New York Times, 2017-01-05.

"Spend part of the day reading about the rise and fall of empires and how it always seems far-fetched and inconceivable until it actually happens. There are many books that address this topic, but if you want something shorter, try Andrew Sullivan’s 'Democracies End When They Are Too Democratic,' a counterintuitive meditation on how tyranny can spring from populism, or my colleague Paul Krugman’s 'How Republics End.’"

These two articles do take time to read, but if you care about a democracy for the many as opposed to a kleptocracy for the few you will be rewarded with some thoughts for protecting and enhancing democracy.

Paul Krugman's use of "free marketer"

I'm surprised the economist Paul Krugman is using "free market" as loosely as the so-called "free marketers" do.  "Free market" too often means fewer and fewer sellers doing whatever they please.  A true free market has many buyers and sellers, both buyers and sellers are free to enter and leave the market, both buyers and sellers have all the information they need to make a decision, and all costs are paid for in the transaction.

How many independent pharmacies are there is our cities? You can probably count on one hand the corporate pharmacies.

How many situations like Epipen where the buyers are not really free to leave the market?

As to full information how much do the sellers know about you while fighting with dozens of lobbyists to hide information about their products. GMOs?

Externalities? These "free marketers" don't want the government to regulate worker safety and don't want government to regulate the pollutants from their smokestacks, farms, and mines going downwind or downstream.

Posted at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/opinion/progressive-family-values.html?comments#permid=19921473

Quips of the day - boom and hype

Paul Krugman used "prophets of boom" and "hype springs eternal" in his New York Times column of 2002-04-30, "Herd on the Street", also published in "The Great Unraveling", p. 75.

I think Krugman is a master of the English language as well as of economics.  Of the latter, his own Cassandra-like predictions have come true more often than not.  The people in power didn't listen to his warnings, he was right, and they still don't listen.

Jefferson, Smith, and Large Corporations

Although Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence was written as a complaint against the King of England it really was a complaint about royal and parliamentary support of abusive crown-chartered private corporations.

Similarly, in the same year Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations warned of the corporate control of government and corporate abusiveness towards the British public.

Now we have Paul Krugman warning of the control of government by Delaware-chartered corporations and their abusiveness towards the American public.

And many of these corporations wrap themselves in the flag and Adam Smith!!!

To paraphrase "Where have all the flowers gone?" when will we ever learn?

Quote of the day.- Compromise

"Compromise, if you must, on the policy--but never on the truth."
Paul Krugman, End This Depression Now!

Labor unions bad, corporate unions good?

Anti-union sentiment is getting more and more vociferous among Republicans.  A case in point is an op-ed in the Star Tribune about day-care providers "union benefits" – "Minnesota is the latest scene of desperation", James Sherk, Heritage Foundation, Star Tribune, 2013-05-26.  However, this article is more balanced in that it questions only a particular situation.  Should self-employed people be forced to join a union?

But isn't a union a group of people with similar interests.  And aren't there many labor laws to ensure that labor unions have democratic leadership?

If we are to ban unions or pass laws that make it difficult for workers to form unions, shouldn't we also ban corporate unions, like Chambers of Commerce or National Association of Manufacturers?

See also Adam Smith on wages and who gets to organize to control them.

Concerning the Heritage Foundation and its bias, see "Heritage Shock", Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2013-06-05 and "Yes, Europe is really is in the throes of austerity", Dylan Matthews, Washington Post, 2013-06-05.

Quote of the day: We do not have grown-ups in Washington

Watch "The Economic Argument is Over – And Paul Krugman Won", Daily Ticker, Henry Blodget.

Quote of the Day: "Everyone knows"

"If you hear that 'everyone' supports a policy, whether it’s a war of choice or fiscal austerity, you should ask whether 'everyone' has been defined to exclude anyone expressing a different opinion."

- Paul Krugman, "Marches of folly", New York Times, 2013-03-17

Critical thinking not practiced

"Last year the Texas G.O.P. explicitly condemned efforts to teach 'critical thinking skills,' because, it said, such efforts “have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”
"The Ignorance Caucus", Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2013-02-11

This sounds like something George Lakoff wrote about in "Whose Freedom? The Battle over America's Most Important Idea".  Lakoff thinks that the battle is between those who have a strict father model and those who have a nurturing parent model.

Fixed beliefs are held by too many wherever they are on the political map, but the Republicans have been ossifying into ever more fixed beliefs for over ten years.  They are even against some things they used to be for because those ideas don't fit the fixed belief structure they now have.

As for fixed beliefs, those who believe critical thinking can be taught, might read the critical thinking article linked above.  One cognitive scientist doesn't believe critical thinking can be taught.

Surprisingly, it was the last great Republican President who said, "As our case is new, so we must think anew."  New thinking does not come from fixed beliefs and parental authority.

Quote of the day - Health care costs

Well, not quite of today.  I'm just trying to make a dent in my backlog of notes.

"How does Medicaid achieve these lower costs? Partly by having much lower administrative costs than private insurers. It’s always worth remembering that when it comes to health care, it’s the private sector, not government programs, that suffers from stifling, costly bureaucracy."
- "Medicaid on the ballot", Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2012-10-29.

For some counter arguments, see "Krugman Flunks Health Econ 101", John Goodman, National Center for Policy Analysis, 2012-11-05 http://healthblog.ncpa.org/krugman-flunks-health-econ-101/

One thing critics ignore about private sector versus government programs is that government doesn't have CEOs taking home eight-figure salaries and other perks.

The second American Revolution has started, and it ain't pretty

The Republican Party has become a revolutionary party, one that tolerates no opposition.

Consider that if a Republican politician doesn't follow party doctrine then he or she is is sidelined as soon as possible.  Why do you think there are so many ex-Republicans?  See Jim Ramstad's praise of Wellstone, "Remembering Paul Wellstone", Star Tribune 2012-10-19.

Consider that Republicans keep insisting that their solutions will solve certain problems even when experts point out historic facts that show similar policies have not worked in the past.

Consider that Republicans' stated goal at the start of Obama's presidency was to ensure he did not have a second term.  Some commentators think this is barely concealed racism.  This may be true, but it is also an effective smokescreen.  Their true motive may be to destroy the Democratic Party and to become the only party.

Consider the Republican claims of voter fraud. Are not voter ID requirements a thinly disguised attempt to reduce the number of Democratic voters?

Consider that the Republicans may have already started a civil war.  As they give more power to corporations, are they transforming our government from "by the people" to "by the corporations"?  Once corporations were tools of the people to be dissolved when their purpose was fulfilled.  Now people seem to be the tools of corporations to be discarded when no longer economically useful.

See "The Great Unraveling" by Paul Krugman.  He saw this revolution in 2003!

Consider that the Republicans call themselves "conservatives" but they are nowhere near being classical conservatives as defined by Edmund Burke in the Eighteenth Century.  In fact, many of the so-called liberals in the Democratic Party may be closer to the Burkian model of Conservative than the Republicans.  For more details, see "Why Voters Should Turn From the Pseudoconservative Party of the Great Recession, Part I", Louis M. Guenin, Huffington Post, 2012-10-24.  It is quite an indictment of the hodgepodge of conflicting ideas of the Republican Party.  Watch for Part II in the Huffington Post tomorrow (2012-10-25).

Quote of the century

"Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over."  Mock quote of President-elect George W. Bush, The Onion, 2001-01-18, quoted by Paul Krugman in "The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century", 2003

Quote of the day - Compromise

"Compromise, if you must, on the policy—but never on the truth."

- Paul Krugman, "How to End This Depression", The New York Review of Books,