Letters to the Editor
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the absense of an idea is not an idea
Obama's stance on economics is neither good nor bad. Simply put he has no idea either way and probably hasn't given it any thought at all. Better to pretend that being vague is zen-like depth than to say plainly "Don't know, don't care" which is closer to the truth. He hasn't been pressed or asked for any specifics thusfar and there's no reason we should expect it in the future.
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I'm sorry, Obamanomics? Really?
Obamabots
Obamapaths
Obamamania
and now...
obamanomics!
What's next?
Obamaphobic - irrational fear of Obama
obamaism - the ideology of Obama.
obamainity - the worship of Obama.
Obamaphile - irrational love of Obama?
I like Obama. I think he's pretty cool. But this is getting so ridiculous. Are we going to have to start putting Obama in front of everything if he gets elected? Am I going to have start saying, have a Obama-tastic Day and you're Obama-riffic? Or how about, Obama you! Handy, did you obama the roof on the obama?
That's right, our potential president has become a smurf. So stop already with Obama-damn Obama-shit.
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2 Things
End the war.
Plan for a balanced budget.
This will reduce inflation, drop oil prices, keep interest rates low, stimulate growth and stabilize the dollar. At that point it will be up to americans to get off their credit jones. Take your medicine.
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"Pragmatic intellectuals"
by definition don't exist. Maybe intellectual pragmatists? No, that doesn't work either.
And the impetus behind the creation of behavioral economics was much more about achieving accurate models and efficient policies than some sort of ideological aversion to firm policies.
And behavioral is still bogus, but it's less bogus than most conventional economics.
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No inconsistency
The idea of using government to nudge people in the right direction is not inconsistent with using the larger tools available to government at the macro level. The nudge hypothesis, best illustrated by the X in the bowl of the urinal, is a micro fix. We make participation in 401K plans the default position, requiring the worker to opt out. We make it harder to get at money put away for retirement. Over the long haul, this kind of change induces broader change.
But the nudge idea doesn't stop the necessary increases in taxation, changes in the structure of taxes, and heavy increases in regulation of corporate greed and manipulation and financial speculation that are necessary to introduce some modicum of redistribution of wealth and income and restore the possibility of a vibrant middle class.
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What good are ideas in the absence of data?
The administration is the branch of government that has the power to collect the data that would be needed to help formulate good policy. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush's administration has demonstrated willingness to ignore, distort, or even fabricate information for political reasons.
I don't think there are many people who really know what the true state of our economy is, and I don't think this is likely to change until Bush is out of office. In the meantime, making hard statements about economic policy would be pretty foolish.
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is a fical policy a nudge?
seems like a category mistake.
same goes for a (de)regulatory policy.
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Every policy has a nudge factor and it shouldn't be ignored
Clinton supports a plan (Gas Tax Holiday) that might have been part of her 'moving quickly to the Left' but there is a behavioral result as well. This plan would NUDGE Americans to drive more this summer, increasing our dependency on foreign oil and hurting our environment while putting even greater pressure on gas prices. None of these behaviors or results are consistent with anything someone on the Left should support.
I'm happy that there is a candidate thinking about how Americans might behave in the future as a result of a potential policy. I'll take this over Clinton's 'how many votes will I get for supporting this?' approach any day of the week.
It's amazing that throughout this campaign, Obama has been cast as a man of rhetorical skills with limited substance. In fact, his rhetoric is so powerful precisely because there is so much evidence of the thought behind it.
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A nudge to a shove
There should be no question that in the next few years nudges will need to become shoves.
Things are going to get really ugly out there.
I don't mind a President who starts with a subtle approach to economics as long as he isn't afraid to turn up the heat when it's required. Obama is obviously not timid (you don't run this kind of campaign at age 46 with only a partial first term in the US Senate if you're afraid to be bold.)
We should look to the cues of the impressive organization of his campaign to get a look at how he will manage the nation. Everybody watching this campaign has been impressed with the approach and execution. He has defeated the established candidate with the most famous name in Democratic politics. He has energized more than a million campaign donors. He will bring these same skills to the White House to great effect.
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Avoidance of economic pain leads to lots and lots of it
" If the next Democratic president wants to leave a truly lasting legacy, he or she will have to do more than nudge the country in a different direction."
As noted here previously, the desire to avoid economic downturns and deal with structural problems such as government spending binges and trade deficits during the Greenspan era and the Bush Administration has lead in great part to our current woes. Printing lots of money, selling piles of government bonds, and keeping interest rates low is an economic heroin and meth speedball concoction. The fact that it was a legal prescription written by the Fed, the Congress and the Executive leaves us no less addicted.
It's probably unrealistic to expect to break this addiction without enduring the shakes, and it's really unrealistic to expect we can continue as is without further deterioration.
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Whatever Obama says, his groupies will proclaim the second coming
If says something or nothing it's all the same brilliance to them. So the whole discussion is rather besides the point. At the end of the day, it all turns into the government telling the middle class to take it in the neck for the poor and therefore become poor themselves.
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A lasting legacy?
A national health plan that is at least virtually universal will be a lasting legacy -- and given the sheer drag on employment that it's absence causes, a major economic one at that.