Keith Humphreys is a healthcare policy expert and a liberal. And my did he step in it Wednesday while writing about economics, A Surprising Comparison of US and UK Economic Growth. He found that the economic growth in the two countries was roughly the same. And since we had a stimulus here in the US and they didn’t in the UK, it doesn’t matter what economic policies a government applies to a recession.

It gets worse. He went in for some good old fashioned false equivalence by noting that this “surprising” result would not sway people on either side. On the one side, “Most of the ‘slim government’ crowd will argue that Britain didn’t cut enough…” On the other side, “Most increased government spending supporters will see proof that the stimulus wasn’t big enough…” Oh how Very Serious Dr Humphreys was being!

I actually saw his article referenced in Washington Monthly (where it was cross-posted) on Wednesday, “At Ten Miles Square, Keith Humphreys compares US/UK economic growth rates and finds them similar despite ostensible opposed strategies.” I didn’t even click. I knew that was wrong. Not only has the UK had poor growth compared to the US, but it had a double dip recession! I should have been more curious.

It turned out that Humphreys was comparing the growth of the last quarter of 2013. This is kind of like saying that there were no casualties in the Iraq War last year. It’s a stunning bit of extrapolation. Luckily, Kevin Drum did what had to be done. At Mother Jones he wrote, The British Economy Is Not a Poster Child for Austerity. He didn’t write much. Mostly, he just provided this graph:

As I said, Keith Humphreys is a liberal. So he was quick to admit his error, Of Blogging, Errors and Boredom. He said that he hadn’t meant to make the argument that he ended up making. I understand that. A lot of times in the rush to get an article out (Any article!) you end up saying things that you didn’t intend.

Just the same, I hate the smug tone of the article. It was a facile effort to stand tall in the middle. “Look! I’m not like those ideologues on the edges!” One thing I’ve written about a lot is that the centrist position is no less ideological than the extremes. And Humphreys’ argument missed the most important point, which is that the Keynesian position is based upon actual data and science. The austerian position is based on faith and simply grabs any data and science that can be found to support that faith. That makes the “centrist” position half science and half faith. That’s nothing to feel smug about.

Today is one of those days when this year’s birthday posts with a single-person focus is hard because there are a number of cool people who I would like to talk about . There is, for example, cartoonist Al Jaffee, the Mad legend. Then there is the great comedy writer and creator of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, David Nobbs. And the surprisingly heterosexual songwriter Neil Sedaka is 75 today. But it is also the birthday of someone even more interesting—at least to me, today.

On this day in 1855, Percival Lowell was born. Now, let me say up front: he was a good astronomer. But there have been a lot of good astronomers and we don’t know their names. Lowell is known for some bad work that he did over a very long period of time. For fifteen years, he sat at his telescope looking at Mars, cataloging its canals. And these were no normal formations: Lowell was very clear that they could only have been created by an advanced intelligence.

The problem is that the advanced intelligence that created the canals were on the opposite end of the telescope from what he thought. There were no canals, natural or artificial, on Mars. No one really knows what Lowell saw, but the canals were nothing more than his own creation. To me, it’s very simple though. The human brain is little more than a pattern recognition system. If you look at noise for long enough, you will start to see patterns. This is why conspiracy theories become more believable the more you study them.

Lowell also spent years studying nonexistent features on the surface of Venus. But his career was far from a failure. He built an important observatory. And as Wikipedia puts it, “[H]is practice of building observatories at the position where they would best function has been adopted as a principle.” Astronomy is a greater science because of him.

Happy birthday Percival Lowell!

Dean Baker has written a very interesting review of Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. I mean “interesting” in a neutral way: it is notable to see Baker so optimistic. It is probably due to his iconoclastic tendencies. He just has to take a contrary position. And based upon the review, he was forced to be at least somewhat optimistic, because Piketty’s book sounds like a real downer!

Of course, that doesn’t mean he is wrong. His thesis is that based upon the historical trends, income inequality will get ever worse. Piketty’s work with Emmanuel Saez on the income distribution of the very richest people are key to this. Baker has nothing but praise for this work. His problem is with Piketty’s proposed solutions such as a wealth tax. Baker thinks these are very unlikely to happen, although Piketty is in agreement on that. Baker, however, sees politically viable solutions as he documented in his last solo book, The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive. These involve things like limiting intellectual property rights and taxing financial transactions.

All of these ideas are really good, and The End of Loser Liberalism is free for your phone, so you really should go and read it. I’m entirely in agreement with Baker that these are incredibly good ideas. Where I differ from him is in that I don’t see limiting patent protections as distinctly more possible than a wealth tax. For example, Baker wrote:

It sounds nice: divide and conquer. But I don’t see this past time when some segment of capitalists sided with progressives. I think the times that he is talking about owed a huge debt to strong unions. There is nothing like that on which to build. What’s more, there seems to be more solidarity among the rich than there ever has been. And there is less among the poor. “Divide and conquer” is working, just not against the rich.

The big problem that I see is that we simply don’t live in a democracy. A financial transaction tax is very popular with actual voters. But it isn’t on offer from any major politician. That’s because before any people get to vote, the rich get to vote on who the people get to vote for. No politician with Bake ideas, much less Piketty ideas, will ever get the money to be a viable candidate. And given that I think that, I guess I’m even more pessimistic than Piketty.

Update (13 March 2014 2:05 pm)

Eduardo Porter wrote a great sorta review over at The New York Times, A Relentless Widening of Disparity in Wealth. In it he sums up something that Piketty said, “The holders of wealth, hardly a powerless bunch, will oppose any such move, even if that’s what is needed to preserve capitalism against the populist impulses of those left behind.” This is an argument I’ve been making a long time: the rich are shortsighted and so greedy they will never give up a little to keep their wealth safe. Look at what’s happened with their spokesmen: the Republican Party. At a time when the rich are doing better than ever, the demands are more extreme than ever. It’s like they want a revolution.

Update (13 March 2014 2:32 pm)

Eduardo Porter also has an interview at The New York Times that is really worth reading, Q&A: Thomas Piketty on the Wealth Divide.

Almost two years ago, I wrote an article, Pena Ajena! It was based upon an article, 25 Handy Words That Simply Don’t Exist In English. The title of my article refers to a Mexican Spanish phrase. Literally it means “grief of others,” but idiomatically it means, “The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation.” I love this stuff, because you not only learn interesting things about language, you also learn something about cultures. For example, I think it is telling that the Mexicans give us “pena ajena” while the Germans give us “backpfeifengesicht” (a face in need of being punched) and “schadenfreude” (the pleasure felt at others’ pain).

It turns out that there is a whole website for this, Better Than English. And it is great. For one thing, the definitions are generally better than one expects from such websites (for example, Urban Dictionary). Its definition of “pena ajena” is, “Shame experienced on behalf of another person, even though that person may not experience shame.” I love the addition that the subject may not be experiencing the shame.

But it goes further than just the definitions. The comments are invaluable. For example, I learned that there is a similar Portuguese phrase, “vergonha alheia,” literally meaning “shame others.” And a different Spanish phrase, “verguenza ajena,” which literally means the same thing. And even the Germans who I unfairly vilify have such a word, as reported by commenter Daniel:

And then commenter Chris sends us to a word coined by Terence McKenna: “Fardow.” He defines it as, “The embarrassment you feel when someone else fucks up and you just happen to be there…”

The website is set up as a blog, and there seems to be something new there every couple of days. Unlike the increasingly useless Urban Dictionary, it isn’t a free-for-all. So you aren’t going to end up fifty slightly different definitions for the same word because the users can’t be bothered to check if a word is already in the database. Along these same lines, the comments are generally very good—generally discussing the words or phrases in other languages. I didn’t see any trolling or other obnoxious behavior.

For a word freak, the site is a whole lot of fun. I just learned the Basque word “Erdera.” It means, “Any language that is not Basque.” Now that is something you would think Americans would have a word for!

H/T: Andrea English

David Weigel continues to be essential reading every day, but “bleeding heart libertarianism” seems to have morphed into old fashioned non-crazy conservatism these days. That’s not too surprising, given that libertarians are, regardless of the number of holes in their hearts, conservatives. It is all based upon the conceit of their personal power and the delusion that they aren’t entirely dependent upon their communities. See, for example, Weigel’s total whitewash of Paul Ryan’s recent racist remarks, Paul Ryan Accused of Racism for Suggesting That There’s Endemic Poverty in Inner Cities. So I wasn’t shocked when Weigel seemed to take a certain delight in Alex Sink’s defeat to David Jolly in the Florida 13th District special election.

But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t as insightful as ever. Yesterday, he wrote, Hey, Democrats! This Election Will Make You Feel Less Sad About FL-13. Actually, the article itself is a confused jumble. But his point is clear enough: it’s the turnout, stupid. As he noted:

And then he goes on to document a number of elections (Not one!) where the Democrats invested in turnout and won. We liberals have long known this. In fact, I have long argued that turnout is the only thing that matters and that Democrats should stop going after what are mostly mythical “swing” voters.

What did strike me in the article, however, was the tone that Weigel set in talking about this. And this is largely the reason for my tone here. For example, he wrote, “They won… But barely.” It’s a though he is trying to make a larger point that his Republican friends aren’t that unpopular. But they are.

What’s more, he seems to be implying that that Democrats aren’t aware that they have an difficult task getting out their voters in off year and special elections. I would say that the Democrats are doing well when they even make such races competitive. (Weigel pooh-poohs this idea as it relates to the FL-13 election.) All I can think is that Weigel is falling for the recent libertarian rhetoric coming out of the Republican Party these days. And all I can say is, “Good luck with that!” Libertarian rhetoric leads to old fashioned anti-individual conservatism.

But the bottom line is clear enough. The Democrats have to spend a lot more money on turnout. That is the key to Democratic electoral success. And that should be clear to everyone, even libertarians. Because when I was a libertarian, I was painfully aware just how unpopular my philosophy was. It’s nice to now have a political philosophy where I cheer for more people to vote.

It started yesterday.

All of the YouTube embedded video code that I copied over had a extra closing parenthesis mark after it as follows. (It’s in red!)

<iframe width=”400″ height=”225″ src=”//youtube…”>&lt/iframe>)

Normally, I would have been concerned. But I have this problem of keeping 50 or more Chrome tabs open at all times. This often causes a number a bugs and so yesterday I found myself unable to run any YouTube videos in Chrome. But I didn’t want to have to deal with restarting Chrome and having to put 50 or more tabs back up. So I started to use Internet Explorer for all my videos. IE is clunky, but it is robust.

So when I started seeing this error, I figured it was an IE bug. But last night, my system forced a shutdown. I knew it was coming and I didn’t intercept it. It gave me a time limit, I missed it, the system rebooted. It happens. Thankfully, Chrome is really good at remembering where it was, even with six windows and, as I said, 50 or more tabs open. And when it came back up, Chrome was displaying videos properly, so I closed IE.

But the embed problem was still there! So I went over to Web Pro News and found an article, YouTube Embed Code Has a Weird Parenthesis at The End. There are a lot of people around who have noticed the problem. And Google has been alerted. But here we are after two complete days with no resolution.

Maybe we should change Google’s motto to be, “Don’t be lazy.”

Update (12 March 2014 10:44 pm)

I noticed that Digby’s videos today have that telltale ) after them. See, for example: Very Serious Clowns.

On this day in 1922, the great Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac was born. I am not a fan. In fact, I absolutely can’t stand to read him. Yet he was an extremely important writer. And (unfortunately) he inspired generations of bad writers. When I was young and foolish and went to poetry readings, half the writers (almost always men) wrote nothing more than bad Jack Kerouac.

I understand the appeal of this. Kerouac’s work seems real and filled with simple truth. And to some extent, I suppose it is. But it is Kerouac’s voice and it speaks of his experiences. If it is true of anyone since, then they are very boring people who have nothing to say that is worth listening to.

Wikipedia was kind enough to provide an excerpt from On the Road that pretty much sums up why I can’t read him:

It’s probably the 1960s that destroyed Kerouac as a going artistic concern. I don’t doubt that future generations will be able to transcend this connection. But for me, I can’t read it without thinking of every idiot hippy I’ve ever seen.

Kerouac is more important in how he inspired Burroughs and Ginsberg, both of whom totally out distanced him. We will have to wait a hundred years to know for sure. But they are the Holy Trinity of the Beat Generation, and I admire them all.

Happy birthday Jack Kerouac!

Digby posted a Quote of the Day that made me burst out laughing. It isn’t actually the quote that was funny. It is how she juxtaposed it with Lee Atwater’s infamous “nigger, nigger, nigger” quote. For those that don’t know it, Atwater gave an interview back in 1981 where he discussed the evolution of racial politics. He said, “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff…”

Well, as we all know, Paul Ryan now “cares” deeply about the poor. He put out his 204-page poverty report and openly campaigned against those evil liberals who want to fill children’s stomachs with food and thus deprive them of a top rate soul. But this morning on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America, Ryan said:

This reminds me of the new The Young Turks segment, Is It Racist? In a word: yes!

But don’t take my word for it. Let’s just finish Mr Atwater’s quote:

It is much more abstract! It just isn’t any less racist.

I actually think that Paul Ryan is actively a racist. He seems like an Ayn Rand true believer. Yet he doesn’t make the Ayn Rand argument: selfishness is good and all that crap. Instead, he makes the argument that is coded to sound okay to moderates but which simultaneously pushes all those tribal and racist buttons. So I don’t think he necessarily holds the “screw the poor” opinions because of any personal racial animus. But he sure is willing to knowingly use coded racist rhetoric to reach his preferred Ayn Rand dystopian future. And that is racist.

I am fond of quoting the opening of A Tale of Two Cities to note that it is always the best and worst of times. But there is one way that I am particularly focused on that modern America is the worst of times. That is the overwhelming influence of the power elite on economic policy. Right now, there is a huge push to tighten the money supply. The net result of this will be to stop even the modest economic recovery we have going. And why do we supposedly need to do this? Because the inflation rate might—Might!—tick up a bit past two percent.

Consider Evan Soltas. In Bloomberg View a couple of days ago, he argued that the economy is nearly at full employment. “The strongest piece of evidence is that far too many people are choosing to leave their jobs in search of better ones—what economists dryly call ‘quits’—for there to be much slack left in the economy and, in particular, in the labor market.” But Dean Baker countered this last night, Getting to Full Employment By Lowering the Goalpost. He noted that although the “quit rate” is up a bit, it is still well below the rate at the bottom of the last recession.

The point here is that the power elites are running around looking for any reason at all to raise interest rates. They’ve never cared about high levels of unemployment. But as long as inflation was running at under two percent, they couldn’t really get away with calling for higher interest rates. Not that many didn’t do just that, but it wasn’t mainstream. Now we have a situation where people are looking at the “quit rate” and screaming inflation, despite the fact that the employment situation looks like this:

This morning, Paul Krugman countered a different attack, Wages of Fear. In this case, the folks who are worried about inflation rising to a reasonable level are arguing that wages are rising and that spells disaster. But as Krugman notes: we are barely seeing any rise in wages and what we are seeing is only quite recent. But more to the point:

Sadly, I have an answer for Krugman. For the people trying to sell the “overheating economy” line, nothing is wrong with rising wages. It is just another plausible sounding argument to justify doing what they want: keeping inflation low. Remember, this is the rentier class. Inflation can’t get too low. The lower the inflation rate, the more their current rents are worth. These people aren’t concerned about the economy generally—only how it affects their particular form of wealth.

Notice that these people can go around and lobby for bad economic policy and no one raises an eyebrow. But the moment the working classes complain about a lack of jobs and income inequality, well, that’s class warfare. It’s maddening. A good economy helps everyone. A bad economy only helps the already rich. This really shouldn’t be a difficult choice. But the fact that even council members of small towns are dependent upon rich benefactors means that their interests take precedence over everything else. And that is class warfare. They’re killing the rest of us.