Harry Reid really needs to go nuclear. Mike Konczal has an excellent article over at Wonk Blog about what is going on with the nomination of Richard Cordray to head Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Just look at that face! How could anyone say no to him? Well, as Konczal explained, it isn't about him. The Republicans don't want anyone to head the CFPB. They don't like the new bureau and they are going to hold their breath until they get their way. Or the political equivalent to it.

This is effectively nullification. And this is brand new. Well, Obama new. The Senate is using its right to "advise and consent" on nominations to strike down laws it simply doesn't like. This is a very bad situation. Last February, 43 Republican Senators signed a letter saying they would not approve anyone to head the CFPB unless three of their demands were met. Does that sound like anyone to you? "We will kill all the hostages unless our demands are met!"

So what are their demands? First, they want the CFPB to be run by a bipartisan committee to effectively hobble it. Second, they want to be able to budget the CFPB year by year so that whenever they have the power, they can effectively destroy it. And third, they want a "safety-and-soundness check for the prudential regulators." As Konczal noted:


Get that? It would basically say as long as banks are making money the government has no reason to punish them.

This is all reminding me of the Republican reaction to every other issue where they had no real leverage. Remember during the Obamacare negotiations, the Republicans would have no part of it. It was all or nothing. (In as much as the Democrats ever offer nothing!) And they got nothing. So after it passed they've tried to destroy it. First in the courts and now in the implementation. Here it's the same thing. The Republicans lost their battle against the CFPB. And now they want a do over. As Konczal concluded:


Indeed. For this reason and so many more, Harry Reid needs to go nuclear.

Dylan Matthews just posted a great, short interview with Bernie Sanders. It is about the Gang of Eight immigration bill that most everyone is so excited about. Sanders is not and it looks like he will vote against it. What really struck me was that his position is almost identical to mine: we need to normalize the 11 million undocumented residents but the rest of the bill is mostly bad.

Primarily, his concern is on the issue of employment. He is rightly highly skeptical that firms can't find American workers. He said, "Again, if there's such a crisis, why haven't wages gone up?" That's the critical question. The conservative response is usually, "Those jobs aren't worth that much." The idea here is that companies would go out of business if they had to pay enough for American workers. That is a decidedly non-conservative argument these conservatives are making. Basically, the logic is: the government should provide low wage workers to inefficient businesses. It's madness.

Sanders is really focused on technology jobs. He noted that in the last 11 years, wages have risen only 4.5%. What's more, he noted a clear mathematical problem with the push for more H1-B visas, "I find it hard to understand that, when nine million people in this country have degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, only about three million have jobs in these areas." Part of the answer is that high tech firms tend to be picky, and highly resistant to hiring older workers. (By "older" they mean over 30 years old.) But the larger issue is just that there is a market for about 3 million tech workers and the industry is just lying about the availability of workers in order to keep wages down.

Unfortunately, Sanders hedges a bit. He also blasts the H2-B visa increases that will provide for even more seasonal workers. That's all good. But he says many times that there are companies who just can't find workers. He even provides a full tilt apologia for his home industry:


Look, I understand: the man is still a politician and he has to take care of his constituency. But as Mitt Romney said, "Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." I'm sure that if the Vermont dairy industry paid better, more Americans would take the jobs. I'm sure that Sanders understands this, of course. But he doesn't need the Vermont Dairy Industry Association raising millions of dollars to campaign against him.

The whole spectacle of Bernie Sanders making these arguments ought to cause belly laughs from the nation. Supposed hardcore capitalists like Paul Ryan don't understand the basic economics of the system they publicly worship. Meanwhile, socialist Bernie Sanders understands exactly how the economy works—the labor market anyway. And maybe there's a reason for that. As I discussed last night, most conservatives are very confused about how market economies work. Maybe understanding capitalism has a tendency to moderate one's views.

Apparently there is a push going on to highlight "reasonable" conservative writers. Yesterday, I wrote about Jonathan Chait's article on Josh Barro. And earlier this month, Ryan Cooper wrote an article, Reformish Conservatives. That's a good term: reformish. In general, there are no reformers; there are conservatives who occasionally criticize their movement. And then there is Bruce Bartlett.

Before I get to the controversy, let me discuss Bartlett. He is the only one of the supposed reformers who actively does battle with the conservative movement. He was a conservative economist. He still is a conservative economist. Both the parties have moved to the right such that Bartlett now fits solidly in the Democratic Party. That's an indictment of the parties, not of Bartlett. I don't consider myself a political radical. It is only in our screwed up system with its Overton window so small shifted far to the right that I appear a radical. Similarly, Bartlett is a conservative.

Cooper's article lists a number of these supposed reform conservatives. And it includes some people who are insightful: Joss Barro, David Frum, Ramesh Ponnuru. But even they are mostly apologists for the Republican Party. And the rest? David Brooks, Reihan Salam, Avik Roy, Yuval Levin, Ross Douthat. They are entirely apologists. All they do is put a friendly face on conservatism. They're the guys who tell you in a soothing tone that they really care about the poor and that is why the estate tax must be abolished.

Thankfully, there has been some push back. Paul Krugman said pretty much what I do, "But what the 'reformish' conservatives Ryan Cooper lists do, in almost all cases, is either (a) to follow the party line on these issues or (b) to hint at some flexibility—and thereby cultivate an image of being open-minded—as long as the issues don't get close to an actual policy decision, but to always find a way to support the Republican position whenever it actually matters." This is the problem with the narrative, "I didn't leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left me." The Republican Party has largely been post-fact for 30 years. I can understand taking a while to figure that out—Bruce Bartlett did. But even ten years ago it was too clear that the Republicans had fallen down the rabbit hole. Anyone still supporting them must at base be more interested in party loyalty than facts and policy.

Mike Konczal went even further. He listed the six tenets of the conservative movement. They are really just three: reduce taxes on the rich, cut spending on the poor, ignore (or worse) the environment. (If you think that's a strawman, check out the article because he goes into more depth.) And then he listed the "reform" positions: the Fed isn't all bad; EITC is good; minor financial reform wouldn't be a bad idea; and crony capitalism is bad. These are at best snipping around the edges. As Konczal wrote, this is "more gestural than substantive." And indeed it is! The original point of Cooper's article was that the Republican Party just wants to change its messaging but not its policies. Well, in general, that's all the "reformers" want to do too.

Konczal also noted that all the reformers work in the abstract. They don't call for specific policies. He mentioned calling for the Republicans to stop blocking allowing a head to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Of course, none of them do that. At best, these reformers want to maintain their credibility in the Republican Party. But I think it is worse than that. They want to stay in the Republican Party but they want to signal to their friends that they aren't one of those kinds of Republicans. So they want Republican policy, but they don't want to be embarrassed at Washington parties.

PBS is censoring Citzen Koch, a documentary about Citizens United, money in politics, and the billionaire Koch brothers. You may remember back in November, I wrote an article about an Independent Lens documentary Park Avenue. Apparently, the film made a lot of rich people very angry, including at least one of the Koch brothers. There's even a delicious quote in Jane Mayer's article, A Word from Our Sponsors, "They went on for twenty minutes, warning that such hateful attitudes could lead many wealthy New Yorkers to move to Florida, where the taxes are lower, and arguing that neighbors of theirs who spent millions of dollars on parties helped waiters and caterers." How ungrateful we are not to worship the rich for their consumption!

Well, Citizen Koch was supposed to be part of the Independent Lens series too. But after Park Avenue got all the rich people upset, things changed. In particular, WNET and WGBH, the big New Jersey and Boston PBS affiliates, have Koch brothers on their boards. ITVS, the company that produces the Independent Lens series suddenly became very concerned. They wanted the title of the film changed. And they wanted the film to limit the inclusion of the Koch brothers. And they wanted more negative coverage of the Democrats put in. One of the ITVS executives put it frankly, "We live in a world where we have to be aware that people with power have power."

Eventually, ITVS backed out of the deal. The filmmakers think this is due to pressure from PBS. I suspect that the people at ITVS are just assuming pressure from PBS. They don't want another controversial film to damage their relationship with the network. Regardless of which is the case, it is certainly true that PBS would have had a problem with this film and it would have hurt the relationship. The filmmakers said, "It's the very thing our film is about—public servants bowing to pressures, direct or indirect, from high-dollar donors." Hopefully the film will eventually get a wide release and embarrass both PBS and ITVS. The "public" in PBS has been a joke for a very long time.

The trailer looks really good:

Most people I meet who think they know something about economics are clueless. What I'm thinking about right now are people who think that companies set prices based upon their costs. A standard (incorrect) observation is, "If we raise the minimum wage, the companies will just increase their prices." Think about how ridiculous that idea is. Imagine that McDonald's is selling a hamburger for $1.50. They are selling it at that price because it maximizes profits (or at least they think it does). If they could maximize profits at $1.55, they would sell it for that price. But they know that by raising the price by just a nickle, they would lose a certain number of sales and in the end they would make less money. Note that this consideration has nothing to do with the cost of making the burger!

The problem with these would-be economists is that most of them have never run a business. I've run several, but by far the most illuminating was running a business at the huge San Jose Flea Market. For various reasons that don't matter, I was selling make-up there. When we first started, our margins were enormous. Over time they went down, but not because our costs went up. Over time, other vendors offered the same products and we all competed to get customers and so the prices went down. Again: not costs! Every one of us was trying to make as much money as possible. The high prices at first were part of that. But so were the quickly sinking prices at the end.

I thought about this tonight because I got a copy of the Taxing Times, the newsletter of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. Jarvis was the guy that got Californians to destroy their public infrastructure by voting for Prop 13, which not only lowered property taxes, it made property appraisals lag way behind the times. During the campaign for Prop 13, Howard Jarvis tried to convince renters to vote for the initiative. He told them that with lower property taxes, their rents would go down. Of course, no such thing happened. Why would it? Renters were already paying the going rate. Why would landlords pass on the extra money to them?

That's what I find so frustrating about this kind of stuff. I think that Jarvis really thought that rents would go down. In general, conservatives think that businesses are some kinds of charity organizations. This is why they believe in the myth of the "job creator." It is the idea that business owners hire people because they have excess money lying around. People don't think that way. Consider your own salary: if you got a raise would you (a) improve your standard of living; (b) save it; or (c) hire a kid to do useless work around your yard? That is the decision that rich people have to make when we give them tax cuts. For the record: they choose (b).

This situation comes up every time there is a natural disaster. Someone is caught selling a can of peaches for ten bucks. Then the president or the governor goes on TV and talks about how it is an outrage. I don't get that. These politicians are much bigger believers in capitalism than I am. And all these canned goods sellers are doing is what every business has done everywhere at every time: maximize profits. The truth is that the can of peaches is worth ten bucks at that time and that place. Now, I'll admit, that's a pretty messed up system that allows one person to take advantage of another. But that is the system almost everyone in this country worships. When Walmart illegally (but without fear of prosecution) stops a unionization effort, they aren't doing it to keep their prices low; they are doing it to maximize their profit margins. Why is the can seller evil if Walmart is good? (I would argue that the can seller is more ethical. Walmart is trying to stop workers from organizing themselves—surely the most basic of human rights. There is no coercion from the can seller.)

Is it so much to ask of the world for those who think capitalism is the greatest system ever, to understand its basics? It is particularly galling to hear conservatives talk about the marvels of the free market when they demonstrate again and again that they don't know how capitalism, finance, or markets work. It reminds me of religious people who don't have a clue about basic spiritual issues or even fundamental tenets of their own faith. I think in both cases, these people hold their opinions because it is part of their culture, not because they actually believe. I have had bizarre experiences talking with conservatives only to have them start saying things that are downright socialistic. Based upon this I have concluded that these people really do believe that a company would never price gouge. It's endearing, but our economic policies should be based upon fact, not quaint notions of the honorable businessman.

The next time you think about business regulation, don't imagine the friendly pizza parlor owner who feeds the homeless. He may exist, but he's the exception. Think of the can seller in hurricane ravaged Florida trying to get a twenty spot for a can of beans. That's who the typical businessman is. And he's not evil. He's just doing his job. If you think there ought to be limits on him, then you should be for more general limits on what businesses can do.

The great Italian Mannerist painter Jacopo Carucci (generally know simply as "Pontormo," I guess because he was from Pontorme) was born on this day in 1494. His religious work generally involved crowed, but beautifully composed scenes. His portraits similarly have an other world quality to them. All of his work, while realistic in its details creates an abstract feeling that is hard to describe. (Click over and look at some of his work.) He was also the teacher of Il Bronzino, who paints just like Pontormo, although (I think) better.

German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was born on this day in 1686. Guess what temperature scale he's known for. Queen Victoria was born in 1819. She was Queen of England for almost 64 years, which makes her the longest reigning monarch in British history. But Elizabeth II is gaining fast, and in all likelihood will overtake her in two and a half years. The phrase, "We are not amused" is associated with Queen Victoria, but she maintained that she had never said it. People close to her said that she she had a hardy and easy laugh. I'd like to think so. Here's a song just for her:


Inventor of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, H. B. Reese was born on this day back in 1879. He was not, thankfully, responsible for those terrible "You got chocolate in my peanut butter!" commercials in the 1970s. Like people walk around with jars of peanut butter, eating it with their fingers. I think that Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are the best mass-produced candy in the world. So all we need is a commercial that says, "Remember: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are delicious!" It also has the advantage that it is true.

And finally, relatively minor but incredibly compelling sculptor Sylvia Daoust was born on this day in 1902. She primarily did religious work. But the sculpture on the right My Head from 1930 is typical of the kind of stuff I admire. Her religious sculpture is less artistic, more purely representational, although I'm sure it was good for paying the bills.

The great French actor Michael Lonsdale is 82 today. Comedian Tommy Chong is 75. Liberal linguist George Lakoff is 72. Radar from MASH, Gary Burghoff is 70. Patti LaBelle is 69. Guitarist Waddy Wachtel is 66 and his hair is still perfect. Rosanne Cash is 58. And actor Kristin Scott Thomas is 53.

There are a lot of fine birthdays today, but still, this day was not even close. It belongs to the great Robert Allen Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan, who is 72 today. What can I say about Bob Dylan? Do I need to say anything about him? He made, I don't know, about ten of my very favorite albums. I still listen to him every week. The albums that I never tire of are The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, and Blood on the Tracks. Here he is doing "Tangled Up in Blue":


Happy birthday Bob Dylan!

Afterword

Here is what Loudon Wainwright did for Bob Dylan's birthday 22 years ago:

I have a bone to pick with Greg Sargent. I appreciate his effort, but how long can the man go on spouting happy horseshit without realizing that it has become discouraging. At least a few times per week, he writes something along the lines of, "Boehner has already admitted Republicans won't allow default." In this he is talking about how the Republicans have signaled (and in some cases came right out and said) that they will not allow the federal government to default because of a refusal to raise the Debt Ceiling. Oh, though it were so!

It is true that Boehner said, "I'm not going to risk the full faith and credit of the federal government." But one can only read so much into that. To begin with, Boehner is talking about himself, not the party. But far more important, the statement sounds like a hope more than a commitment. If he is signaling, it is to his caucus, not to the rest of the nation. It's more like, "Please guys, don't do this!" And since saying it, he's been pretty quiet.

My take on the situation is far less sanguine. Even when Boehner was doing his reasonableness tour, much of the Republican Party was enamored with the idea of crashing the economy. I know how revolutionaries feel about this kind of stuff. It is an exciting prospect to remake the society without all those compromises that we've allowed over the last 225 years. Just like young science fiction fans, they see only the good in a post-apocalyptic world.

Even worse, many conservatives seem to have been emboldened by the Sequester. When it went into effect without a global meltdown, they took it as more evidence that fears of any policy are overblown. (Of course, no one said the Sequester would cause a global meltdown—only that it would harm people and the economic recovery.) I think there are easily 100 Republicans in the House who are chomping at the bit to crash the economy. The fact that John Boehner indicates that he doesn't want to do that doesn't mean all that much.

The real question is whether the GOP establishment can figure out a way to raise the Debt Ceiling without it looking like a political defeat. That's going to be important not just for the more radical members of the party. We all know that most Republicans worry primarily about being challenged from the right in a primary. In general, I think such concerns are overblown. Last year, for example, there was great concern that Orrin Hatch would lose his primary. So Hatch moved even further to the right. But in the end, he got more than twice as many votes as his challenger Dan Liljenquist. Just like Democrats pandering to the middle, Republican concerns about right flank attacks are mostly mythical. But they believe them and that could cause them to allow a default, even when they know it is a bad thing.

Hopefully, they will realize crashing the economy will not just be bad for the country; it will be bad for them. Most of these Republicans would suddenly find they have much more to worry about in the general election. With half the country out of a job, they would have nothing better to do than show up at the polls.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of politicians doing things they knew would hurt them. That's certainly what the leaders of the South did. They went for it all and lost it all. That's all good. But it also cost the lives of over 600,000 people. But that's always the case: powerful men thrive despite their mistakes and weak men (by the millions) suffer. Jefferson Davis not only lived 24 years past the end of the Civil War, but he remained rich and respected. Regardless what happens, Ted Cruz's good life is assured.

Gallup reported today, Fewer Americans Identify as Economic Conservatives in 2013. I looked at the article because I wanted some good news. But I didn't really find it.

I'm not sure what people think when asked where they stand on economic issues. Right now, 41% of Americans say that they are economic conservatives. Compare this to 37% who call themselves moderates and only 19% who say liberal. What exactly do people think an economic conservative is? I think this is typical of such polling questions: useless. For example, I suspect that even most Republicans would agree with the statement, "The government should invest in infrastructure to create jobs." Similarly with, "Because the rich have received the vast majority of productivity gains over the last 35 years, they should pay more in taxes." And: "Banks should be regulated to reduce the harm done by their excesses."

It seems that all these polls show is that the word "liberal" has been effectively vilified by the right. That seems to be especially associated with economic issues. After all, it isn't an "inclusive and accepting liberal" it is a "tax and spend liberal." As a result of this, those who call themselves "economic liberals" have been stuck in the high teens since 2001. Meanwhile, self-labeled "social liberals" have moved from the low 20s in 2001 to the low 30s now. According to Gallup, we are moving from a country that wants to kill gay people to one where we are just fine with letting them starve to death.

By far the most disturbing aspect of this poll is how many people identified as economic conservatives after the banking crisis. The numbers jumped from 40% in 2008 to 48% in 2009 and 51% in 2010. This goes right along with Thomas Frank's argument in Pity the Billionaire. The worst financial crisis in generations caused by a housing bubble fueled by banker malfeasance causes people to... demand that the government get off the backs the bankers?! Frank sums it up in his usual wry style:


The good news is that the number of those calling themselves "economic conservative" has cratered over the last year. They stayed in the high 40s through last year but are only 41% now. Similarly, there has been a slow but clear trend upward in terms of economic liberals. Almost all of the changes are between how the moderates and the conservatives self-identify. The total of them both is pretty constant at 80%, although it is down just a tad the last few years.

Again, I think these polls are fairly meaningless. But they do show that the American people have a natural disregard for the only form of economic policy that is geared to their direct interests. Pity the billionaire indeed!

Wednesday, Jonathan Chait over at The Atlantic published an article about the problems of Josh Barro of all people. Regular readers will know that I am of two minds about Barro. On the one hand, he is a smart and insightful guy—one of the best conservative observers around. On the other hand, every time I see his face, I want to punch it. But that's a totally irrational reaction; he just seems like someone who badly needs to be punched. When it comes to policy, I am always interested in what he has to say.

So what problem does The Atlantic think that Barro has? It appears that the Republican Party is unhappy that Barro is attacking it, rather than nibbling around the edges like Ross Douthat. Chait speculates why this is without coming up with anything concrete. Then this morning, Ezra Klein offered, Josh Barro didn't Leave Conservatism. Conservatism Left Josh Barro.

This is not strictly speaking true. Chait even shows this by having Barro go over his own (with Reihan Salam) glowing assessment of Paul Ryan's 2010 budget. It isn't that Barro's outlook has changed in a major way. Rather, he sees now that before he was assuming the best and pushing problems to the side. In other words, he was engaged in apologetics. And that's what I find with all the more reasonable conservative pundits and wonks. And that still includes Josh Barro on a number of issues.

Consider how the Republican Party has changed on healthcare reform. In the past, it was for what has become Obamacare. Why did it change? Well, it actually didn't. Its embrace of the individual mandate was always just a cover against more liberal plans like single-payer and Hillarycare. Once those threats were off the table, there was no need to continue embracing any plan at all. So they stopped embracing any plan. In fact, you may have noticed how the GOP originally called for "repeal and replacement of Obamacare." But they must have figured out that the new plan was no plan because it quickly became simply "repeal Obamacare."

I don't think the Republican Party has really changed. What seems to have happened is that Josh Barro got to see the reality of all the lies that Republicans tell themselves (we really do care about the poor; we want to grow the middle class; we support an culture of life). His change in attitude is very similar to my own change in terms of libertarianism. I still think he's fooling himself with the thought that he just looks at the data. But there is no doubt that he's a whole lot closer to that ideal than he was only two years ago.

Afterword

I believe the reason I have such a visceral dislike of Barro is his attitude that somehow he is just coming to objective conclusions based upon the data. I used to be very much like that. It is a very big delusion of libertarians especially. But as Barro now sees when looking at his 2010 Ryan Budget article, it is much less clear. He wanted to believe what Ryan was selling. There was nothing objective in his conclusions, even if every part of the analysis was objective. Over time, I'm sure my impulse to slug Barro will decrease with his smug certainty that he has possession of the Truth.

Jordan Ellenberg over at Slate reported on Yitang Zhang and the big goings on in the field of prime number theory. There are two stories. One is that Zhang managed to prove some thousands of year old questions. The other is that he is in his 50s.

As I hope you know, a prime number is any natural number that is divisible only by itself and the number one. So 7 is prime, but 9 is not because it is divisible by 3. The first few prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 17, 19, 23, 29. Why are prime numbers interesting? Well, there are many reasons that mathematicians study them. The most fundamental reason, which you may remember from school, is that all natural numbers can be represented by a product of prime numbers. For example, 24 equals 2×2×2×3. But mostly, I think that prime numbers are interesting because they are strange and difficult.

The big news is that Zhang proved that the set of consecutive odd numbers that are prime is unbound. I know what you're thinking, "Wow! I have no idea what you just said!" Don't worry, it is very simple. An example of this is 5 and 7: they are consecutive odd numbers and they are prime. On the other hand, 7 and 11 are consecutive prime numbers but they are not consecutive odd numbers; 9 is in the middle.

As you can see in the list of the first 9 prime numbers above, the further you go up, the larger the gap between prime numbers. In general. But its pretty random. The question is whether as the numbers get big whether these consecutive prime numbers stop occurring. They don't. They get less common, but they never end. Apparently, mathematicians have long assumed that to be true. That amazed me because I always assumed it was not, but then I'm not a mathematician and I've never been that interested in number theory.

So the result isn't amazing. What Yitang Zhang did is prove that this was so. He also proved some other things, but I had enough difficulty getting my head around this one. And of course, Zhang's age makes for an interesting story in a world that (wrongly it turns out) thinks that only young people are great mathematicians.

The whole subject of prime numbers has always bugged me. From my earliest days I can remember being offended by the fact that the number 2 is prime. I don't know how common this is, but I have always personalized numbers. One small part of that is a quasi-racist belief that even numbers are just better than odd numbers. The odd numbers are contrary; they offend me. The prime numbers are even worse! So how can a nice little even number be grouped with those thugs the primes? And it's all because 2 is a Very Small Number. In fact, the number 2 is remarkable: it is divisible by every number equal to or less than itself.

Zhang's brilliance was to treat prime numbers as random. That may seem obvious, but it's not. The fact is that prime numbers are not random. But apparently, treating them like random numbers provides great insights. I don't pretend to understand it. But I feel good that not everyone making important discoveries is younger than I am.

Afterword

Here are two rather large consecutive prime numbers: 104,681 and 104,683.