On Monday, Paul Krugman discussed the upcoming elections in the United Kingdom, Economics and Elections. He noted that the current conservative government is likely to stay in power despite the fact that they’ve done a terrible job managing the economy over the past five years. But the economy has been doing better over the last year or so, and that is all that matters to the voters. This is Politics 101, and I talk about it all the time. It is the reason why I hate things like this week’s Tom Tomorrow, where he mocks the chances of Ted Cruz becoming president. If he manages to get the Republican nomination, he will become president if the economy tanks in 2016.

But Krugman noted one thing that is very near and dear to my heart, “[T]he evidence suggests that the politically smart thing might well be to impose a pointless depression on your country for much of your time in office, solely to leave room for a roaring recovery just before voters go to the polls.” Of course, no one thinks people actually do this. For one thing, it is hard enough to get people to accept the well documented fact that people vote on the basis of the economy shortly before an election. Getting them to believe that voters won’t hold leaders responsible for years of suffering would be a harder sell, even if it is almost certainly true.

I’ve been arguing for years that the American political system is naturally designed to elect Republican Presidents. This is because conservative economic policy is bad. When Republicans get into office, they tend to cut aid to the poor and cut taxes on the rich. While this is very effective at making the rich richer, it is not good for the economy. It just puts more money into the hands of those who already have more money than they can spend. And it takes money away from poor people who would spend it all. But after the bad economic policies of the first year, the economy will slowly adjust. By the fourth year of the Republican presidency, the economy is improving and the president is re-elected.

The situation is the opposite with Democrats. Their policies tend to be better (although not that much better). So things like the Obama stimulus really do help the economy — for a while. But (again) as with the stimulus, these programs run out and the economy declines. So why did Clinton get a second term? Alan Greenspan. Why did Obama? Because the economy was so depressed we even have a decent chance of getting a third consecutive Democratic President.

Obviously, this is just a theoretical construct. Unlike my theory about the New Democrats, there is no empirical basis for this. But I still think it is something that we need to think about. It highlights the fact our political system is screwed up and does not lead to us choosing politicians and parties who actually do perform for us. We shouldn’t have to fear that Ted Cruz could be our next president. But sadly, we really do need to fear it. And if he were elected, there is every indication that he would be re-elected.

I get so aggravated by people just repeating the same lies over and over again, with the hope that people will just accept them. Case in point, last week at The Upshot, Tyler Cowen wrote, It’s Not the Inequality; It’s the Immobility. This is a perfect example of a headline used by a Very Serious Person. Yes, silly people like me care about inequality, but that’s not the problem at all! The problem is immobility. I guess Cowen is using the word “mobility” instead of “equality of opportunity” since that phrase has now been totally destroyed as the apologetic drivel that it always was.

Technically, there is a difference between mobility and equality of opportunity. What Cowen is pushing is the old Milton Friedman idea that it doesn’t matter if almost all of productivity gains go to the rich, as long as their rising tides lift all boats. But look at just what a fraud Cowen is; he wrote, “[W]hile we have talked incessantly about the disproportionate gains of the top 1 percent, the wage slowdown in the United States in recent decades is a bigger problem for most people.” He’s right in the second half of that. But does he really expect us to believe that the decoupling of wages and productivity is not a direct result of things like the decline of labor unions that have allowed the rich to capture all of those productivity gains as increased profits?

He goes on to say that inequality shouldn’t necessarily be a negative term. I agree. A certain level of economic inequality is desirable. For example, some people want to work less and are willing to sacrifice the extra money that goes with extra work. And no one has a problem with incentives. But given the staggering level of inequality in the United States and to a lesser extent the developed world, how can anyone talk about inequality being a good thing? If Cowen wants to have this conservation, he can bring it up when corporate CEO wages are back down to 50 times the average worker pay. Until then, inequality is indeed a very bad word.

The entire article is so filled with caveats that it made my head spin. But the point of the whole thing is very clear: let’s not look at inequality! Instead, we are supposed to look at “immobility.” And how? By making it easier to become a doctor or a lawyer? Oh no! We can’t do that. That might cost Tyler Cowen’s friends money. Instead, “[C]onsider the licensing of occupations like interior decorators and barbers.” This is a favorite of upper class columnists everywhere. Those barber licenses are really what’s keeping the poor down! (Note: I think many of these kinds of regulations are stupid. But I’ve written much in the past of the kinds of things that I, as a micro-business owner, find most difficult in making a living. Licensing requirements are greatly overstated as a barrier to doing business.)

He ends the article with some brilliant but pernicious apologetics:

The whole point here is that we shouldn’t pay attention to income inequality. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” The fact, however, is that inequality is largely the cause of immobility. Dean Baker took on these issues in an article, Tyler Cowen’s Three-Card Monte on Inequality. In addition to mentioning many of the same things I did, he noted that inequality itself can reduce productivity growth. And most important of all, “[M]any of the policies that would most obviously promote equality also promote growth.” But this is what Cowen — or any of the Very Serious People — wants to talk about. He just wants to talk about how we can improve the lives of the poor by dislocating the middle class. And never, never, never think about the justice of the rich extracting all the productivity gains of the economy for themselves.