This morning, Andrea told me that she started to watch a movie but only made it three minutes before she turned it off—it was so bad. That peaked my interest. Andrea has reasonably good taste in films, but she’s also quick to judge and often bases her dislike on minor things. A single aspect of a film can ruin it for her. So I asked what the film was. It was Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. I told her that it sounded fantastic to me and she replied, “I know! That’s why I put it on!” Then she gave me a summary of the start of the film: young couple having sex in a graveyard; zombie hands coming out of the ground; one hand sticks a finger in the man’s anus; it is broken off. That was about all Andrea could take.

On Netflix, the film has a rating of 2.9 stars with a “best guess” of 2.9 stars for me. For Andrea, it gave the film a “best guess” of 1.0 stars. So Andrea’s rating made sense. But what are we to make of my rating being exactly the same as the average? In general, I figure I will like a film if the “best guess” for me is higher than the base, regardless of the rating. After watching the film, I can see why the rating was the same. I suspect that other film viewers who are like me are split on the film: some hated it and some loved it. Because I loved Poultrygeist and I also hated it. But that’s to be expected. It is from Troma Entertainment, the company that brought us such similarly great and repellent titles as The Toxic Avenger and Blood Junkie.

On the bad side, the film is disgusting. There is a whole lot of John Waters in this movie. A perfect example of this is where the morbidly obese Jared has gastrointestinal problems and so we see close-ups of his defecation numerous times. By the end of the scene, the entire bathroom is covered with feces. The film is filled with similar scenes although every other time it is vomit or, much more commonly, blood. It is also filled with a 13-year-old boy’s idea of what sex is all about and a similar idea of what is sexually funny like one character who has a mop handle shoved up his anus (I guess) and out the front of his body so he walks around for most of the film with a five foot long phallus in front of him.

Now that list isn’t that long, but it makes up 70% of the movie. Most of the second half of the film consists of showing various ways that blood and gore can be distributed on a film set. I’m not a big fan of this kind of art, but I was impressed with the creativity of the efforts. Think of all the ways that one could die gruesomely in a fast food restaurant and there is a good chance it is in this movie. And the special effects were quite impressive—undoubtedly taking up most of the $450,000 budget.

On the good side, the film is a blistering social satire. Let me lay out the basic plot: a fast food restaurant (American Chicken Bunker) has been built on a sacred Indian burial ground. The restaurant is owned by General Lee Roy. Get it? The “bunker” owned by the general?! It’s delicious. At one point, the General is forced to eat his own chicken which has been infected with the Indian chicken green bubbling sludge (or whatever). Afterwards, he says, “It’s fine! In fact, it’s delicious! I’m lovin’ it!” The last line, of course, is the McDonald’s slogan. The film is filled with such moments. Of course, after this scene, like pretty much every scene, the General ends up defecating an egg that turns into a chicken and… Actually, I forget what exactly happened to the General except that he died bloody.

The “bunker” was managed by Denny, sort of a black nationalist parody, but without any of the politics. His big scene is a parody of the Indianapolis speech from Jaws:

And then a chicken bites Denny’s head off. The film’s like that: it has brilliant bits throughout it. And then there is a gore fest, because ultimately that’s what the film is all about. And actually, the gory scenes are the funniest things in the film. They go so far past the point of any real idea of gore to pure silliness, although I will admit, most people would not find this aspect of the film funny.

Oh! Did I mention it is a musical? Or at least the first half of the film is a musical. The second half of the film pretty much isn’t. At the very end, they throw in a song. But apparently, they didn’t want to interrupt the gorefest for a song. And that was probably a good call. The songs are actually rather sweet, if puerile in content like the rest of the film.

I always want to judge films on their own terms. And I don’t see how this film could be any better for what the filmmakers were trying to do. For me personally: I would rather watch something else. But the good in it made wading through the rest worth it. The filmmakers add a great deal of creativity and wit to a tired genre.

Many years ago, I read about the events that led up to a terrible airline crash. The pilots had set their plane on automatic pilot so that they could work on a problem they were having with their landing lights—an important but non-critical issue. But something had gone wrong with the automatic pilot system and the plane slowly descended. When the plane was about 100 feet off the ground, the pilots noticed the problem. But they were stunned. They just couldn’t believe that they were actually so low to the ground. And so they did nothing for several seconds and the plane crashed killing hundreds.

I had that same feeling this morning reading about Julie Boonstra in The Detroit News, Dexter Cancer Patient Who Called Health Care “Unaffordable” Will Save More Than $1K. It is about a Michigan “information” ad from Americans for Prosperity that features Ms Boonstra complaining that Obamacare canceled her old policy and now she can’t afford health insurance. Following my rules in Obamacare Helps the Poor and Sick, you should already know that this story is nonsense. There will be losers in Obamacare, but they won’t be middle-aged cancer patients.

And sure enough, The Detroit News finds that the combined total of her new policy and the maximum amount of out-of-pocket expenses will be $1,248 less than just the premiums on here old policy. So she’s likely to save way more than the one thousand mentioned in the headline; that amount is a bare minimum. When the ad came out, most observers were skeptical and now we know for sure. Case closed.

But that’s not the interesting thing about this story. After Boonstra was told what the truth was, she said that it couldn’t be true, “I personally do not believe that.” And I’m sure that’s true: she really doesn’t believe it. After all, she’s doubtless been told over and over by Fox News and hate radio (Who else would get involved with Americans for Prosperity?) that Obamacare is terrible. Remember: all the Obamacare scare stories that got debunked were never debunked in conservative media. They were reported, and when they didn’t pan out, the stories were just dropped.

So Boonstra is just like those pilots: she is so committed to a particular belief that she can’t see reality. Of course, the pilots were in that state for a couple of seconds. Boonstra and the folks at Americans for Prosperity are now trying to massage the story. Now it isn’t that the new plan is unaffordable. It is that the out of pocket expenses may come all at once. A spokesman for the group said, “Before her plan was canceled by Obamacare, Julie knew what her monthly costs would be. Now those costs are unpredictable and the potential for spikes in any given month make them unaffordable…”

But that’s not the case at all! Boonstra’s premiums were constant—and twice what she used to pay. She still had out-of-pocket expenses that she admits to in the article. Based upon what her new insurer says, those drugs are included in her new plan. In fact, the new insurer seems to be working really hard to calm the situation down. I’m sure they get a lot of Julie Boonstras: people who are determined to be upset about their new plans regardless of the facts.

There is another correlation between Boonstra and those pilots. Their mistaken certainties aren’t just hurting themselves. An airplane full of people died because of the pilots’ mistake. And a whole country is getting a worse political system because Boonstra and so many more like her are determined to see Obamacare as a terrible thing—even as it is actually making their lives better.

H/T: Jonathan Chait

Last year on this day, I talked about Osama bin Laden. And I recommend that you click over, because I think I was rather insightful. The article was called, Entitled Rich Boy. But I don’t have any more insights into the man. Rich people are simple to understand. They can afford to be. So as a result, I am doing Edie Brickell who is 48 today. (I was off by one year last year year.)

I don’t know much about her other than the fact that she’s married to Paul Simon. Although that relationship passes the “half plus seven” test, I still think it’s creepy. Also, she’s recently been playing with Steve Martin. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring you any of that because I find Martin annoying as a singer, even when he is backed up by Steep Canyon Rangers who are totally kick ass. In fact, screw it. Let’s listen to some Steep Canyon Rangers:

But it is Edie Brickell’s birthday, so here’s her song “Once In A Blue Moon,” which is lovely:

Happy birthday Edie Brickell!

Jonathan Turley is a great man and I very much admire him. He is an idealist in a world gone mad with cynicism. Even when I disagree with him, I see his point. And mostly, I do agree with him. And that brings us to his op-ed in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, The President’s Power Grab.

Turley’s position is that we are at a tipping point with regard to what he calls the uber presidency. Far beyond the unitary executive, the idea of the uber presidency is that the executive branch is taking over powers that are rightly the purview of the legislative branch. In general terms, I’m right with him: the president is far more powerful than is envisioned by the Constitution. But “tipping point”? I don’t think so.

We have gotten to this point quite gradually over the last 225 years come this 30 April when George Washington became the first President of the United States of America. I was particularly aware of this happening during the presidency of George Bush the Younger. (Not because he was the first, but just because I hadn’t been paying attention before that.) And I would say to myself, “Hopefully, a Democrat will become president and reverse all of this!” And then I would laugh and laugh at my little joke. I’m far too cynical to think that this kind of stuff ever reverses itself. I know of no president who ever willingly gave up power.

It is hard to say exactly where Turley is coming from in all of this. He lists seven examples of President Obama’s executive over-reach, each one of which is entirely underwhelming. One of them is: “The administration ordered all US attorneys to stop prosecuting nonviolent drug crime defendants who would be subject to what Atty Gen Eric H Holder Jr called draconian mandatory minimum sentences.” That seems to fall completely under the authority of the executive branch, which gets to decide how it wants to utilize its prosecutorial resources. And Turley must know this because after his list, he writes, “Some of these changes are admittedly close questions, and federal agencies are given considerable discretion in crafting regulations.” Right! So what’s the problem?

In the end, Turley’s problem isn’t with Obama or Bush or any president. It is given that these men are going to abuse their powers. The problem is with Congress, who he thinks should be fighting a turf war. But there are problems. First is that these are not such great examples of executive over-reach. I’m much more concerned with the practice of slicing and dicing legislation with executive signing statements—a practice that while nothing as extreme as under Bush the Younger, is still going on. The second, and more important issue is that Republicans are a bunch of authoritarians who want some kind of dictator. So they are never going to be against the uber presidency. And as long a Democrat is in the White House, the Congressional Democrats aren’t going to fuss. The one thing that unites Democrats is their fear that a Republican will get in the White House.

Regardless of all this, the truth is that we are at no tipping point. The situation simply gets worse and worse every year. And it will continue on that way until the entire American Empire collapses under its own weight. In the end, there are far bigger things to worry about than the fact that Obama is circumventing the No Child Left Behind Act with waivers. Jonathan Turley is coming off like a pedantic schoolboy.

If a public official is acting really badly, you can depend upon the fact that he is doing it, “For the kids!” It’s gotten to the point where much of the country is determined to destroy itself in the name of keeping the development of children arrested. It boggles my mind. Children are much less naive than most people think. Before puberty, no amount of access to naked people will make them interested in sex. And after puberty, no amount of naked picture depredation will keep them uninterested.

But that doesn’t stop many and sundry fools from trying. A new crop of neanderthals has decided to get upset about a state-approved sex education diagram being seen in a middle school, Kansas Senate Weighs Bill to Ease Prosecution of Teachers Over Offensive Materials. The State Senate is currently working on Senate Bill 401, which would pretty much make illegal anything that any of the fellow neanderthals are against.

The bill specifically targets “teachers, librarians or school principals.” Because the only way to stop an intellectual with “bad” facts is a conservative neanderthal with an unconstitutional law. The crux of this law is that “community standards” should rule. And so if a teacher talks about something that offends the local purveyors of intolerance: off to jail with them! Right now, it is all about sex. The “offensive” poster that caused all the ruckus was called “How Do People Express Their Sexual Feelings?” It listed things ranging from “cuddling” to “anal sex.” Personally, I think the girls need to learn about anal sex, given how many of them will be practicing it after their virginity pledges.

Regardless, after a parent complained about the poster, it was removed. What’s more, the state decided to reconsider its prior approval of the poster. That’s where it all should have ended. But instead, the conservative ideologues jumped on it and used it as an excuse to effectively criminalize the teaching of anything that they don’t like. Of course, it isn’t the actual penalties that matter, but the effect it will have on teachers. The Kansas—National Education Association wrote that, “The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill that will purge literature from our schools, censor art classes, and stop field trips.” They noted, “The lead proponent of this legislation is the American Family Association in Kansas which has been leading an effort to force the removal of a sculpture of a bare-breasted woman from a public arboretum in Johnson County, going so far as to successfully petition to impanel a grand jury on the issue.”

Proponents of the bill claim it is necessary. For example, Mary Pilcher-Cook, one of the bill’s sponsors, claimed, “Right now if a teacher were to give pornography (to a student)… it is not likely at all that a prosecutor would take the case because there is such a high hurdle protecting our schools.” This is not true, of course. According to the president of United Teachers of Wichita, Randy Mousley, the law is a solution in search of a problem. “It’s just an overreach where some particular group is trying to impose their values on everybody else in society.”

What I think is very interesting is that the bill is so broad that it could include anything. And here I’m not thinking about art, but basic science. The same people who don’t want anyone’s children to know about different sex acts also don’t want them to know about evolution and that the earth is more than six thousand years old. I’ve been hearing for years that such supposedly anti-religious teaching are harmful to children. In fact, a 2003 study by the National Center for Educational Statistics found that 30% of parents home schooled for explicitly religious reasons. And another 31% did so because they did not like the school environment, which I figure is mostly religious too. A lot of those religious concerns are nothing more than fear of the teaching of natural selection.

None of this too much matters. The ACLU seems to think it is clearly unconstitutional. (Of course you never know.) But I’m more interested in it just in terms of what it says about our culture. We are extremely intolerant and closed-minded. The American Family Association is not concerned with keeping their children from seeing the breasts on the Venus de Milo. They want to stop everyone’s children, and by extension, everyone. It’s sad, but even worse, it’s dangerous.

I spent much of yesterday over at the Jack London State Historic Park. Not being much of a fan of his writing, I wasn’t that keen on it. But it turned out to be fairly interesting. It was also a good excuse to walk ten miles through the woods.

A lot is made of how the Londons (Jack and Charmian) encouraged their friends to visit them. Indeed, the whole complex seems to be set up for entertaining. But I think that the Londons had much the same experience that other rich people have when they build their dream homes in the middle of nowhere. Basically: it’s boring. So unless people are visiting there isn’t much to do. But given that they did have interesting artist friends, it sounds like it was a fairly fun place.

Of particular note is the Wolf House. This four story mansion (it might be more accurate to call it a castle) was clearly designed for entertaining. It must have been magnificent when it was completed. But it burned down before the Londons were even able to move in. But the ruins are still there, with the four story high fireplaces buttressed by steel supports.

What I find most interesting about London is how strong a supporter of socialism he was publicly. But you would hardly know this touring the site. In the House of Happy Walls Museum, there is one small display about London’s socialism. And most of it talks about how his socialism was somewhat theoretical, in his person he was a rugged individualist. We can’t cause the American visitors any consternation about the one true path of dog-eat-dog capitalism to the promised land of neo-feudalism!

Of course, London wasn’t what one could call an intellectual socialist. He believed in labor unions and seemed to have a practical bent in the philosophy, as he did in most things. George Orwell thought that London was more of a fascist based on his writing. In My Country Right or Left 1940-1943, he wrote, “With his love of violence and physical strength, his belief in ‘natural aristocracy,’ his animal-worship and exaltation of the primitive, he had in him what one might fairly call a Fascist strain.” I think there is a lot to be said for that view. In terms of his fiction, I see much Ayn Rand in Jack London with the romantic characters and the rugged individual against the world.

Regardless of all that, once London settled down in Glen Ellen, he lost interest in the worker struggle. It is hard not to conclude that his main interest in socialism was his desire for a bloody good fight. I’ve known a lot of young radicals who weren’t interested in social change so much as shouting and throwing rocks. London was in his late thirties when he was settled on his ranch. It isn’t that he repudiated his former beliefs so much as that he was simply bored with them.

By far the most interesting item in the whole collection was a letter from Jack London to the workers on his ranch. It is a list of rules. And some of it is kind of nice like his mention that he doesn’t care about the morality of the workers. What they do on their own time is their business. But the overall tone of the letter is that these working class stiffs were determined to do as little as possible and steal from him. In fact, the very first rule involves how “lost” tools will be charged to the employee. Hero of the working man!

Another thing that is very clear is that towards the end of his life, he’s just pumping out crap for money. He even says so—repeatedly. He’s just writing to build his ranch. In Americans and the California Dream, Kevin Starr said that there was always “a good deal of pose” to London’s socialism. And he quotes Mark Twain as saying, “It would serve this man London right to have the working class get control of things. He would have to call out the militia to collect his royalties.”

What I came away with from my visit is that London was an upper class bohemian with attitudes that were entirely typical of his class and time. It’s probably best to think of him like John Lennon who also died at the age of 40. That isn’t to say that either man was bad. I’m sure if I ever had anything even close to their success, I would be a far worse person. But great social reformers and thinkers they were not. Overall, they were on the right side of history. And they both left some art that rightly lives on. That’s not bad.

On this day in 1940, the actor Raul Julia was born. I hesitate to call him “great” even though he was a very fine actor. The problem is that he was in so much crap, it is amazing. Take, for example, Frankenstein Unbound. It isn’t that it is a bad film, it’s just so odd and silly. Yet up their on the screen are John Hurt and Julia acting their asses off. They are both so much better than the movie. And that was generally true of Julia’s career.

One movie that especially stands out to me, however, is Kiss of the Spider Woman. Raul Julia and William Hurt are great in that and they are about all their is in the film. Unfortunately, I can’t find much of the film online. The film is typical of another aspect of his career: he rarely played the lead role. Another great, but small, role: Sandy Stern in Presumed Innocent. That’s fine; he’s a great ensemble actor, which is the best kind of actor to be.

Some of his star roles are definitely worth checking out, even if they will require more effort than a Google search. One is as the title character in Mack the Knife, a twisted version of the Brecht play. And another title role in Romero, a low budget film made by Paulist Fathers, a group of Catholic priests. It was about Bishop Oscar Romero who was an outspoken advocate for the people, who was assassinated for his troubles. And, of course, Julia was the unquestioned star of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. It was not his fault! (You can watch the MST3K treatment of the film on Youtube.)

But Julia is probably best known for the ensemble comedies The Addams Family and Addams Family Values. And since I can actually find decent clips for them, here is a wonderfully twisted romantic scene with the similarly wonderful Anjelica Huston:

Happy birthday Raul Julia!

One hundred and twenty-two years ago, Mississippi John Hurt was born. But I gave the day to him last year. And just a couple weeks ago, I wrote, A Little Mississippi John Hurt. It isn’t just his music that I love, although that would be more than enough. He also has a great life story. But I can’t write yet another article about him. So instead, let’s talk about a man who I don’t have such nice things to say about. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr was born on this day in 1841.

Most people have an overall good impression of Holmes. He was known for his wit, and he wasn’t on the Supreme Court until after Plessy v Ferguson, so there was no opportunity for him to completely embarrass himself over that issue. But he did write the opinion in Schenck v United States. This is where he wrote his most famous sentence that the First Amendment was not absolute allowing for one “falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.” I think that logic appeals to a lot of people. But it is pernicious.

I remember some time ago, a friend of mine told me about being in a crowed theater when the fire alarms went off. Everyone looked around and saw that there were no flames and no smoke. So they ignored it until the management got the alarm turned off. Even Holmes’ analogy is wrong. People don’t get panicked just because of an alarm. But I understand that this was not what Holmes meant. So let’s talk about that.

What exactly was Charles Schenck doing that Holmes thought was akin to shouting fire in a theater? He was sending out leaflets to men facing conscription for World War I. In fact, it argued that the daft was “involuntary servitude,” which had been outlawed by the Thirteenth Amendment. I think that is entirely a correct reading the amendment and I’ve never understood how it is that conscription is constitutional other than the fact that powerful people want it to be so. Regardless, if Schenck was doing anything, he was shouting fire in a theater that was on fire.

The overall decision, which was unanimous, found that the First Amendment did not extend to encouraging insubordination. This sounds so much like the Animal Farm ending, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The Supreme Court decided that people could say anything they wanted, as long as the power elite didn’t mind. And what that means is that we only have freedom of speech as long as our leaders decide we do. And that means we have no freedom of speech.

In his later years, Holmes tried to finesse his opinion. He took every opportunity to say that the opinion in Schenck was razor thin. I think this indicates that he knew he had blown it. But by and large, the other justices did not see the ruling as problematic. What this shows is that even honest and good men like Holmes crumble to the desires of their class under the smallest of pressures. The United States was only in World War I for a year and a half. The biggest thing that came out of the war was that the United States repudiated one of its most cherished founding principles.

Happy birthday Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr?

You’ve probably heard about the kerfuffle between the House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa and the ranking minority member Elijah Cummings. It was quite a show with Issa breaching protocol by ending the session without Cummings getting to speak and then killing Cummings’ mic and walking out. It was such a blatant act of disrespect that it was hard not to be shocked. What’s more, given Issa is a Republican, it is hard not to assume that there isn’t some racial animus thrown in for good measure. If you haven’t seen it, I’ve embedding the incident below.

At first, Issa was unrepentant and acted as though he was the one harmed. This kind of conservative thin-skin cry baby behavior is getting tiring. Right after the incident, Issa said, “He was actually slandering me at the moment that the mics did go off by claiming that this had not been a real investigation.” But this didn’t fly and it looked like everyone was against him. The best he could get was Fox News just ignoring it. There were no segments with Hannity celebrating how Issa had struck a blow for the straight white conservative non-IRS employed man.

On Thursday, Mediaite reported that Issa had personally appologized to Cummings for the incident. Issa said, “As chairman, I should have been much more sensitive to the mood of what was going on, and I take responsibility.” So the whole thing is over. Right? Well, not really. What happened is typical of how Republicans manage to avoid a lot of bad press. By acting so horribly, most of the press managed to miss the deeper meaning of that House hearing.

Joan Walsh explained the situation last week. IRS supervisor Lois Lerner was slated to testify for the committee. At this point, it is well established that there is no IRS scandal. But early on, Lerner took the Fifth to avoid becoming a scapegoat in all of this. That’s not at all a bad idea. After all, Steven T Miller was fired as head of the IRS, even though he wasn’t in the position during the supposed scandal. But Issa was in search of some more coverage on Fox News, so he brought back Lerner to provide some more video of her not answering questions.

But what Cummings was going to say was that Lerner’s attorney was willing to tell them what she would say if they granted her immunity. This is a standard legal practice, which Issa surely knows. But he didn’t want to find out what Lerner knows and what she did. Most likely this is because she will say the same thing that everyone else has said: there is no scandal. So that is what Issa wanted to stop from happening. He didn’t want to get all the way through his media circus and then have Cummings point out that it wasn’t necessary and that Issa wasn’t interested in actually getting the information.

Darrell Issa is a great embarrassment in the House. And that says a lot for a House led by John Boehner and filled with people like Louie Gohmert. Issa has used the Oversight Committee in as reckless and self-serving a manner as Joseph McCarthy. Unfortunately, Issa is in a very safe Congressional district. He won the 2012 general election by 16 percentage points. But hopefully he won’t be in power for much more time because I know of no one on the national level who so abuses his power.

John Quiggin at Crooked Timber wrote a very interesting article last month, Macroeconomics Made Easy? In it, he discusses a new book by Kartik Athreya, Big ideas in Macroeconomics: A Nontechnical View. Athreya is a “freshwater” economist, which basically means that he’s a conservative who doesn’t believe that recessions are caused by a lack of demand. I’m being mean, but Quiggin is actually rather nice to Athreya and his book. That doesn’t mean that I’m wrong, however.

Back in 2010, Athreya wrote an article called “Economics Is Hard.” He attacked people like Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong as being the “patron saints of the ‘Macroeconomic Policy is Easy: Only Idiots Don’t Think So’ movement.” His point was then that “real” economics is about teasing out aggregate behavior based upon individual actions. Now this is what statistics does and no one feels the need to run around complaining that lay people use concepts like means and standard deviations.

In order to back up his argument, Athreya seems to have written his book where he discusses what sounds like a lot of interesting economic concepts. And according to Quiggin, it is really well written. But it is not what we normally talk about in terms of economics, because it is highly theoretical. What we talk about is what might be called “practical economics.” And it is in this distinction that Quiggin thinks he might have found how all those very intelligent and learned freshwater economists could spout such rubbish:

I’ve seen this in a lot of academic fields—most notably climate change science, although the problem is nothing like it is in economics. The freshwater folk are so focused on the intricacies of their models that they don’t really care that they have little relationship to what is going on in the real world with its real markets. As Quiggin says, “[I]t’s OK to assume full employment, and ignore inflation, but not to omit rigorous microfoundations for your model.” That is: it is fine to make assumptions that render your models useless, as long as they are built on first principles.

That would all be fine and noble academic work. There is no doubt that such work does increase our understanding of economic systems. The problem is that people who think in this very limited way also want to be taken seriously in the policy debate. But when it comes to actual people who depend upon having useful results—people at the Federal Reserve and the Congressional Budget Office and Goldman Sachs—they use Keynesian models. They do not use these freshwater models because they can’t assume full employment; they can’t ignore inflation.

But the total practical uselessness of the freshwater economists’ models does not make them irrelevant to politics. Politicians who want to push policies for totally different reasons (for example, enriching the rich at the expense of the poor) are more than happy to use these economic theories. And all too many freshwater economists like Greg Mankiw and Ken Rogoff are more than willing to help out. This seems to be because they are political ideologues first and foremost. So at least Kartik Athreya is being honest: his economics is hard and mostly useless on the macro-scale. His work for the Richmond Fed is, after all, microeconomics, not macroeconomics. But why he thinks he should be talking about macroeconomics is unclear to me. The point seems to be to define actual macroeconomics out of existence so that we are all forced to bow down to the freshwater folks and believe in the faith-based ideology of expansionary austerity and other freshwater fantasies.