There are a lot of people on the left who are very silly. In fact, I have to work very hard in conversations with liberals not to constantly correct them about things they have wrong. But I understand that being a liberal or a conservative is mostly a tribal thing. And their votes in elections are mostly a matter of their approach to governance, not specific policies. This drives me a bit crazy, but what am I gonna do? People are the way they are and they aren’t going to read a dozen economics blogs each day.

But far more annoying than the vast expanse of low-information liberals are the Very Serious Progressives. I run into them all the time on comment threads. They say that they believe in progressive policy, but the people just don’t want it. The Democratic Party has to pitch a message that will resonate with the moderate voter. We can leave aside the hubris these people show in their claims to know what such moderates think. The truth is, these moderates don’t seem to think much of anything at all — they bounce around with the larger political landscape. The vast majority of people are reliably partisan.

There are more fundamental things that go on in elections. In 1980, most liberals were thrilled that the Republicans had nominated Ronald Reagan for president. He had so much baggage and was so extreme that they thought he would lose. But he didn’t. And he didn’t for the reason that has determined every presidential for the last four decade: it’s the economy, stupid! (The only exception is Ford-Carter, where Ford had the slightest of economic advantages, and undoubtedly Nixon made the difference.)

I bring this up because a couple of weeks ago, Peter Fegan wrote, What’s Really Wrong with America’s Political System. He made some excellent points. For example, Ralph Nader lost Gore the 2000 election. But it is important to note (for the purposes of my model), that Gore won anyway and the Supreme Court simply gave Bush the presidency. But without Nader, it wouldn’t have been close enough to be an issue. What’s more, he’s right about Ben Nelson in Nebraska: Democrats in conservative areas have to be more conservative. It was never fair to compare Nelson, who was an excellent part of the Democratic Party, to Joe Lieberman, a conservative Democrat from a liberal state, who seemed to delight in disloyalty.

But national elections are different. Fegan scoffed at the idea of Elizabeth Warren being the Democratic presidential nominee. He wrote, “Republicans would instantly become the prohibitive favorites to win the White House.” Uh, no. The 2016 election is going to come down to the economy — just like always. The only way it won’t is if one of the parties nominates someone who is really unqualified. If the Republicans nominated Sarah Palin, they would almost certainly lose. (Note: almost certainly.) But would they lose if Ted Cruz were nominated? I’m not at all certain of that. It wouldn’t take much of a recession to assure his win.

Fegan makes the same mistake on this front that he accuses other progressives of: he thinks that policies and “messages” are what determine elections. Many progressives think, “If only people had a real progressive, then they’d vote for the candidate.” Fegan is saying, “If only people had a moderate who didn’t scare the center, then they’d vote for the candidate.” In a hypothetical race between Warren and Cruz, he wrote, “Maybe Warren would be able to articulate her vision for the country better than Cruz and win, or maybe she would be seen as the flip side of the same rotten coin and lose.” Again: no. The voters already have their “vision” of the country. It isn’t fair, but most people vote the same way every time. What swings the mood of the country is the economy.

But then, Fegan complained about Zephyr Teachout’s primary campaign against Andrew Cuomo. According to him, “[T]he fact that progressives would actually run the risk of possibly losing an otherwise safe state house, speaks volumes about their lack of judgment.” No, it really doesn’t. It speaks volumes about how unsatisfied New York Democrats are with Cuomo. And they made the reasonable calculation that the minor chance of Rob Astorino beating Teachout in a general election in a liberal state was worth it to get rid of Cuomo.

What Fegan should have taken away from the Cuomo-Teachout primary is that the New York Democratic Party should have generated more qualified candidates to take on Cuomo in a primary. But Fegan’s idea that sticking with Cuomo just because he’s a sure thing is madness. This is what has allowed the Republicans to now run against establishment Democrats who are more conservative than Republicans were four decades ago. That’s got to feel good for Republicans: knowing that even when a Republican loses, they’ll still get conservative economic policy.

Fegan seems to think it will simply be obvious that Clinton is the best candidate, “If Hillary Clinton is the best the Dems put up in 2016, progressives best play will be to bite down hard and swallow.” What does that even mean? Isn’t that what primaries are for? If we did what Fegan seems to be suggesting, Clinton would have been the nominee in 2008. After all, no one knew if North Carolina would vote for a black man. So Fegan can’t actually mean there shouldn’t be a primary — that Clinton should just be anointed.

That means Fegan’s article is really only saying that the Democratic Party should rally around Clinton when she wins the nomination in 2016. I’m not sure who Fegan is arguing against. I don’t doubt that there are a smattering of liberals around who claim they will not vote for Clinton in a general election. They are lying. In the end, everyone will get behind Clinton. I know a lot of progressives who are still kicking themselves for voting for Nader in 2000. That won’t happen again any time soon.

In the end, I think that Fegan is quite confused about what he wants to say. Some of his statements are shockingly illiberal — even authoritarian. But I think what he’s really getting at is that he is the Very Serious Progressive. And just like all Very Serious Whatevers, he wants to command the world to do the “pragmatic” thing. And who determines that? Why the Very Serious Progressive, of course! He will know who the best candidate will be by — What? — the South Carolina primary? And then the rest of us best get behind the “electable” candidate. (BTW: isn’t that what we did with Kerry?) All this means is that the world is more to Fegan’s liking than it is to, say, mine. It isn’t unreasonable to risk moving two steps backwards when the “pragmatic” choice is to move one step backwards. But regardless, I will completely support whatever Democrat is nominated.

Update (13 October 2014 12:50 pm)

I don’t want to be too down on Peter Fegan. The fact is, I don’t know his work that well. But it did just occur to me that in his article, he defended Thomas Friedman and David Frum. These are both men who are economically conservative and socially liberal. I don’t actually see this in Fegan’s writing. But I think Fegan probably is the flip side of me. I’m both socially and economically liberal. But I would jettison the social side of this for gains on the economic side. (Sadly, things are so bad in this country that many social issues have huge economic aspects, but let’s leave that.) I think Fegan simply cares about social issues more than I do. I would accept much expanded gun rights in exchange for the Federal Reserve increasing its inflation target to 4%. But it is important that we realize we are all on the same team, even when we don’t agree on everything. And that includes tactics. Fegan clearly thinks that a sure thing “better than a Republican” is a clear winner over an uncertain “better than a New Democrat.” That doesn’t mean that either is wrong. Regardless, supporting Warren in a primary is not the same as voting for Nader in a general.

H/T: Infidel753

You may have noticed that I haven’t talked much about Ebola. There’s a reason for this: I focus on domestic issues. That’s not to say that I don’t care about the people of sub-Saharan Africa. I do. I think we should do more for the people there generally, but especially for disease control. Although let’s face it: malaria is a far bigger deal. But here in America? Ebola is a very typical joke: the national version of freaking out about a hangnail while you bleed to death from a gunshot wound to your stomach.

Do you know how many pedestrians will be killed in the United States today? It is roughly ten times as many as the total number of people who have ever died of Ebola in this country. Think of it this way, the most likely way that Ebola will kill you is if you are so worried about it that you get distracted crossing the street and get hit by a car. On an individual basis, Americans who are worried about Ebola are nitwits. I’ve even come up with an acronym: TNT-BAN. It stands for, “Try Not To Be A Nitwit.” I think it is good advice, but I don’t expect many Americans to follow it.

And before someone accuses me of constructing a straw man, last week a Gallup poll found, One-Fifth of Americans Worry About Getting Ebola. And among Fox News viewers, I’ll bet the numbers are vastly higher. Be afraid; be very afraid!

But there is a sense in which we should be worried about Ebola. We should be worried about the spread of all disease. In our ever more interconnected world, the spread of disease is a bigger and bigger threat. But this is America! We don’t think strategically about anything. We just freak out when we are told to. So lots of people are in favor of doing something about Ebola right now. But after the ranters on television stop talking about it, everyone will forget about it and go back to thinking about what really matters: who is next to be voted off their favorite reality show and whether Michelle Duggar’s uterus can manage to produce one more viable Stepford Child.

Sarah Kliff wrote a very interesting article over at Vox today, The Stunning Cuts to America’s Budget to Fight Disease Outbreaks. Remember when Ronald Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Well, Democrats have never really countered that. The two Democratic presidents since him have pretty much gone along with the idea. So it is always easy to cut the Centers for Disease Control. I mean, it is the problem. Am I right?!

Over the last seven years, the funding for the CDC’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement Funding has been cut almost in half. As Kliff noted, it “is one of the federal government’s main ways of helping local areas prepare for unexpected outbreaks.” Yet it is “an easy budget to cut when there aren’t any emergencies happening.” But not to worry, even if an emergency were happening during budget negotiations, it wouldn’t matter. There will just be another continuing resolution. The Republicans are not going to allow a new budget to become law. And they certainly aren’t going to do it with increased funding for anything other than military spending.

Ebola is not a problem. But the idea of the CDC is to make sure that it and so many other things we don’t normally think about don’t become problems. Americans generally accept the aphorism, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” But when it comes to government policy, Americans think, “Meh.” Any day now, I expect to hear Ted Cruz say, “The CDC is not the solution to contagious disease; the CDC is contagious disease.” Go team!

The image below is the current leadership of The John Birch Society. Notice anything about it? The top three leaders (CEO, President, Chairman of the Board) are all white men. Of the regular council members, 23 are white men and one is a white woman. I’m not saying that this alone means the group is racist. The truth is race is an invented construct. And I’m sure even all these nominally white people have lots of mixed genes from all over the world.

But it is certain that everyone in this image thinks of themselves as white. And The John Birch Society has long been closely tied with neo-confederates and Posse Comitatus. What’s more, one of their big complaints is that the government tries to chip away the privilege of whites, even while maintaining that no such privilege exists.

There is no doubt to me that The John Birch Society is a racist group. What’s really sad is that this fact is one of the less frightening aspects of the group. Although it is doubtless true that its racism is a big reason that the group gets people to join where their minds can be further poisoned by anti-government propaganda and the fear that a Communist America is just a couple of years away — just like it has been ever since 1958 when the group was formed.

Afterword

I’ll be writing more about The John Birch Society in the coming days. It is important because it is the prime early example of the combination of rage, ignorance, and conspiracy theorizing that fuels the Tea Party. In fact, during the glory days of the Tea Party, The John Birch Society was right there at events signing people up. Different name; same philosophy; same people.

Ever since I responded to Martin Wolf, Impulse Control and Economic Inequality, I’ve been obsessing about the idea that the cure for income inequality is education. It isn’t that I ever bought this idea. It has always been obvious that it was just a way to minimize concerns about inequality. It is the non-racist’s version of “cultural dysfunction.” But what bugs is that it doesn’t even make sense. How exactly does a college education give one marketable skills except in the sense that employers think it does?

Most recently, I was talking to my partner about our little high tech company. I told him I look forward to the day when we have some money and I can hire “real” programmers to do work that I find interesting, but certainly not the best use of my skills. In other words, as I have had in the past, I want a group of programmers I use to do the detailed work so I can focus on managing the project and moving it in the right direction. Since I have been in the position of hiring such help, I know how I would do it.

When I say “real” programmers, what I mean are people who love programming for its own sake. My approach to programming is very similar to that of most scientists. I just make things work. The code is not well designed and it is rarely even close to being as efficient as it ought to be. So I have a great admiration for people who know how to code right. Of course, I also tend to find them kind of boring — wrapped up in details. But that’s why they are of so much use to me!

I have absolutely no interest in whether such people have a college education. They might, of course. But it doesn’t mean anything to me as an employer. In fact, in my experience, people with computer science degrees are not the best programmers. That’s because computer science isn’t really about programming. It’s about data structures and algorithms and other more theoretical stuff. You know: interesting stuff, but not practical skills. If I had ten programmers, it would probably be good to have one with a computer science degree — but only if he was also an exceptional programmer.

Dean Baker wrote an interesting article that touches on this, David Leonhardt Wonders Why Its Cold In the Winter and Wages Aren’t Rising. Leonhardt wrote another one of those “Why aren’t wages rising?!” articles and, as usual, he rushes to the typical brainless answer: education! Baker fired back that the unemployment rate for college educated workers is 50% higher now than it was before the 2008 financial crisis. But it would seem that people like Leonhardt always look at the unemployment rate of people with college educations and see that they are lower than for people without college education. And this causes them to think that if everyone had college degrees, overall unemployment would be lower. It makes no sense.

Baker noted something that I talk about a lot, but is usually missing from the debate, “Believers in supply and demand would know that more college grads should put even further downward pressure on the wages of college grads.” Yes, the more people have college degrees, the less they mean; they lose the “right kind of people” sheen. But what I think is really going on is that the business community wants to use “education” as an excuse for why it is they sit on piles of case and do stock buybacks rather than hiring people.

So the education excuse for why companies aren’t hiring is just an apologia. The idea of a college education was never about giving people specific skills. In as much as it was ever about employment, it was about giving workers a base of knowledge on top of which a company could provide necessary skills. The idea that someone is going to go to college and get the exact right “skills” that a company wants is laughable. That doesn’t even happen with vocational colleges. So if companies don’t want to hire people, that’s their right. But we don’t have to accept the excuse that it is all about the fact that more people aren’t graduating college.

This graph comes from an article by Cathie Jo Martin and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez that appeared at Vox on Wednesday, How Sweden Fights Inequality: Not by Taxing the Rich. According to the authors, “The figure below makes this point clearly, showing that the more progressive a country’s taxes, the less the country does to reduce inequality.” But it doesn’t show that. And the article is very annoying in providing such a provocative graph with no scale and linking to a report where it is not at all clear what data the authors used to make the graph.

Indeed, the OECD report that Martin and Hertel-Fernandez link to says, “Despite the substantial gains of high-income earners in some countries, income taxes played a relatively minor role in moderating trends towards higher inequality. The reason is that trends towards lower income taxes, on the one hand, and more progressive taxation, on the other, had opposite effects on redistribution and partly cancelled each other out.” So it doesn’t seem that the OECD is making the argument that they are making.

But there is one most frustrating thing about the article: what do the authors mean by “household tax progressivity”? I’m open to their basic argument, which is that taxes are a shared responsibility and we American liberals have to accept that the middle class has to pay more in taxes to have a properly functioning government. Of course, I also know that overall taxes in the United States are not that progressive. (See also: Is “Tax Day” Too Burdensome for the Rich?) So are the authors looking at total taxes? And why are they looking at household taxes rather than individual taxes? This is all extremely annoying because they are making a highly controversial statement. They really need to back up their claims.

As a result of this, I didn’t write about the article. I wanted to wait until someone more versed in these issues came to my rescue, and Matt Bruenig over at Demos did so today, Sweden Does Soak Its Rich. The article is just a tad technical, but I think it is well worth reading. On the central issue, he shows that if you look at tax rates to compare progressivity, you will get a situation where low tax rate countries appear to be the most progressive.

For example, he shows that a country with the lowest tax rate of 1% and the highest tax rate of 10% would rate as very progressive: ten to one! But a country with the lowest tax rate of 15% and the highest tax rate of 30% — just a two to one progressivity index — is actually far more redistributive. Thus, the graph above is almost definitional: countries with high levels of taxation will necessarily have low progressivity indexes.

The best case scenario here is that the authors were just looking for an exciting and counter-intuitive bit of data to make headlines with. And this is a problem with the Vox commitment to #SlatePitch journalism. But I’m inclined not to see it as a simple error, but rather as an ideological ax grinding away. Regardless, it isn’t true that Sweden is some unknown free market paradise where the poor are saved.

Redistribution

Speaking of the poor, the Vox article also claims that the reason that the Nordic countries have a low poverty rate is because they use all that redistributed money to “increasing the skills and earning power of low-end wage earners.” Ah, yes: the old conservative canard that the poor just need to get educated and all problems will be solved. It’s a silly argument that I’ve discussed many times. But Bruenig takes a different approach to the issue.

He shows that the before taxes and transfer programs, the Nordic countries have about the same level of people living in poverty as in the United States. (Poverty is defined as those with incomes less than 50% of the median income in a country.) In fact, Finland has distinctly more people living in poverty. But if you look at the situation after taxes and transfer programs, things look very different. In these terms that are, you know, what actually matter, the United States has roughly twice as much poverty.

Of course, there are other aspects of tax policy. The low tax rates in the United States have caused CEOs to be paid far more than they used to and far more than they are paid in other advanced economies where the top tax rates are higher. Consider what Thomas Piketty had to say about the issue:

There are a lot of reasons that go into our high level of inequality. But clearly, what Cathie Jo Martin and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez are offering up is exactly the opposite of what needs to be done. But like so much of what passes for serious debate in this country, arguments that say exactly what the rich want to hear get big distribution — even in supposedly liberal publications like Vox. It is sad. For all those people asking, “Why can’t we have an honest conversation about…” There is your answer. If an honest conversation would make the power elite uncomfortable, we can’t have an honest discussion about it. And that pretty much means we can never have an honest discussion about anything. Because most of our social ills come down to the fact that we have an extremely unfair society. And that is the last thing the rich want to talk about.

Update (10 October 2014 10:00 pm)

Mike Konczal just wrote, Does the USA Really Soak the Rich? He explains what’s really going on in the Vox article. The authors are looking at how much of the tax revenue comes from the top 10% of earners. So in the United States, it is 45% of taxes; in Sweden, it is only 27%. Thus: taxes are more progressive in America! This is even worse than I thought. As Konczal points out, the reason that the top 10% pay more in the US than in Sweden is because this group in the US makes a whole lot more money (relative to the bottom 90%) than this group in Sweden. He shows that there is a clear linear correlation regarding this. This makes the Martin/Hertel-Fernandez argument totally disingenuous. Their graph above is basically a correlation with itself.