So I'll feel better once we've crossed over into the new year. All this year end business is a drag to me. I used to do these year-end posts where I'd highlight one blog post from each month of the past year or list my favorite quotes. I had my archive to mine for this sort of material. But I've written close to 5,000 posts this year. I'm not going to run through all of that, even quickly. I can only wonder what the hell was it? I know the feeling of assurance that there is always something to write about, that each day brings a new set of topics, but I'm puzzled, at year end, at the what could have mattered. 5,000 things?!
If I had to list what really mattered, not for its day, but enduringly, what would it be? Of all the things we talked about, each in its own day, what do we carry with us into 2013?
I know: President Obama got reelected. We did a hell of a lot of yammering for that one take away. Is everything else ephemera?
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So April, when do you think he'll fly back to Hawaii?;)
So the reality that life in America is sinking fast does not compute. It is all the fault of Romney and Bush. Got it.
I guess after 4 more years of total economic disaster you will still blame Romney and Bush.
Kind of sad.
I think he will fly back after his impeachment. Just kidding. ;)
Ritmo, that President Romney website gave me a cold chill. I can only imagine what the next 4 years would be like.
A few years of trying things that didn't work before over and over again. Capitulation to everything the extreme right-wing says it wants. Blaming Americans for what he's made easier for foreign competitors at lower value. And repeat until the left made an even greater comeback from an even greater disaster.
My only question is why it takes Americans so long to learn.
The even creepier part is son Tad (or whatever his name is) admission that Romney totally didn't even want the job.
These people weaken the government to the point of incompetent ineffectiveness and then wonder why everyone the government's supposed to police get away with everything.
It's just retarded.
April - you should try to reason less. You're not very good at it.
I think the Republikinder just like drama. They like for things to be harder and more desperate than they need to be. It helps give them a sense of purpose or something.
In any event, the bullshit Romney would have tried had been tried to the point of not working even worse. Europe's in worse shape than us due to austerity. But I guess most every politician needs to feel he's trying something new and interesting. Luckily they may finally be pushing back.
Ritmo, whose name autocorrects on my Android to Turmoil, let me assure you since you seem to doubt it:
Sir, you are a viper.
Ritmo,
Let me assure you that everyone here understands you are an idiot.
I think he or his advisors think it might be very bad to project austerity in a time of austerity.
There is no austerity so no reason to "project" it. Austerity is a manufactured and imagined solution to a real problem. It seems to stem from brain disorders in certain Republicans that confuse debt and deficits with economic growth. The relationship is not what it appears and is generally separate.
If you disagree, please cite an economist who can show a link and the degree to what it exists. Also, remember that in WWII our debt/GDP ratio was much higher and so was our economic growth. But then, we all know what you guys like to do with history: Revise the shit out of it until it conforms to the myth that you want to believe.
Cheers -
It's not understanding you mean but mental myth making.
And let me assure you that you purvey it par excellence.
You never have any working, factual rebuttals, and neither do any of the other supposedly good folks here who would agree with you.
How this makes one intelligent -- a fact-free intelligence(!) -- well, only you can tell us that, April.
Someday I hope to bask in your lectures on how ignorance, exaggeration and stereotypy are the ways to wisdom.
I guess you won't be delivering them today, though.
Darn.
@nichevo: Ritmo isn't a viper--he's just peeved that I told him earlier that he'd lost his alpha-Sullivanist mojo. He wants that crown back.
Ritmo said: Europe's in worse shape than us due to austerity.
Just what is "European austerity"? It's another Sullivanism aped by "The Economist" or vice verse. Is "European Austerity" code for no more German handouts to Greece?
"European austerity" is being played out right now in France and everyone is laughing at Hollande.
BTW Ritmo: Is it it true that your hero and The Economist's John Micklethwait were chums at Oxford? It would explain a lot.
"Sir, you are a viper."
Hiss..... Bite!....
Dude, you could always just go the factual way. I just can't respect the thought of debating people who hate facts. And you can always play nicely, too. You really are much more the pussycat to my, er, snake (or whatever) and I don't pounce on pussies. Well, not in that way, anyway...
But Thomas is a deviant douchebag who suckles for sympathy when he trashes everyone who deserves it. He's too obsessed with projecting the imperial anger that covers over his weak wailings. Really, a true bully at the core and all the way to the top - through and through. Not worth the time or the basic human respect.
And you saw how he chose to martyr himself over it. Was that not revealing?
Well, like you say to the jihadis who want to meet their maker, and the marines who only arrange the meeting, I have arranged for the comeuppance with courtesy that Thomas seems to so sorely crave.
But you, nice young pussycat, rest assured that I will leave you alone and in peace.
Cheers -
I thought Austerity is used by the left to say - "How dare you make me pay for all these free goodies. I thought the gravy train was to go on in perpetuity? Come on Germany, slave up. I have a vacation planned."
Just what is "European austerity"? It's another Sullivanism aped by "The Economist" or vice verse. Is "European Austerity" code for no more German handouts to Greece?
"European austerity" is being played out right now in France and everyone is laughing at Hollande.
Your denial of basic truth and fact here really is sad, Mr. Chickenie. Austerity is the amount of deviation from basic government services that Europe implemented. They went on full-steam. No stimulus. The results, after four years, are in. Greater unemployment losses than us. Read your facts, Sir.
Hollande was just elected. There has been no time to implement policy, let alone to pass judgment on it. His immediate predecessor, in case you were unaware, was a right-of-center guy known as Nicolas Sarkozy. Perhaps you might have heard of him and what he's for, as well as what he sounds like. This poor soul apparently didn't.
Sad, really.
If you disagree, please cite an economist who can show a link and the degree to what it exists.
Voilá
Oh no, chick, I think he is. I wouldn't like to be within his power IRL. He has never shown a jot or tittle of human kindness, only of its opposite. I won't delve into comparisons to odious persons but I think he is a very bad man. I disagree with April that he is an idiot, and he has pretensions to coolness, but he seems to think that either his disagreement with or superiority to another essentially makes that other his lawful prey.
Oh whatever, Nich. But thanks for not following April's "lead" (chuckling at the thought of those two words together).
You must be very boring to hang out with. There are all sorts of ways of being nice. Some deeper than you're aware of. Much deeper.
Happy New Year, Man.
By the way, it's past my bedtime, so I surrender the field. Please don't confuse this with victory. Why don't you go jack up Cedarford if you're looking for a fight?
Does the paper show how to deal with crises, Chip? Why do we need a century-long analysis for good times when the question before everyone is how to get through and out of a depression?
Or did you want to hold up Shlaes as an "economist"?
Go ahead and slash debt in good times. The issue is how that helps/hurts a recovery.
Chip S. said...
Voilá
Jeez, Chip, you better than Candy Crowley! ;)
April, Ritmo, Chip: I must bid you a good night. It's time to watch "Sherlock"
Cedarford's not here, Nichevo.
This really isn't a board game with characters and figurines you can just conjure from the set.
Even if sometimes it feels like it.
Amazing to realize that some of the people who chime in here actually exist in real life, innit?
Good night, Chickie. And enjoy Sherlock.
Didn't Rogoff author This Time is Different. Kudos to him on that, but I think his pertinent paper isn't the one you cite.
Really though, if you like his work there, then what of his thesis for the mighty tome he just co-authored, and the insistence of Republicans to challenge it by stating that this time is so different that the austerity that never worked before will work now?
You go ahead and tell us about some of these deep ways of being nice, Ritmo. Perhaps you can use small words so that my limited, boring, shallow, square perceptions may apprehend your vision, however dimly.
(Do you give blood? I am giving platelets tomorrow. Dull, but some people appreciate it. I allude to it not for kudos but to encourage others to do likewise.)
But by all means I will accept and reciprocate the courtesy; I may be a Bear of Very Little Brain, but I do like to think that, as Crane said, I'm schooled in the small forms. Happy New Year to you and all.
Not that it would be apparent because I'm not a heavy commenter, but I don't seem to come here much anymore. Sorry if I missed anyone's Christmas, Hanukkah, Boxing Day, birthday, Diwali, Eid, et cetera.
Happy New Year Nichevo and good of you to donate.
That was a small statement but the sentiment was big. ;-)
Amity Shlaes is simply a popularizer of the scholarly research by economist Lee Ohanian, among others. It's more or less the new conventional wisdom about the Great Depression.
Go ahead and slash debt in good times.
So far in this thread, you're the only one I've noticed confusing debt w/ deficits. Nobody is talking about "slashing" the debt. The "austerity" of the "fiscal cliff" cuts the deficit in half--which means the debt still rises.
What's playing out in Europe isn't the consequence of "austerity", it's the consequence of capital flight due to the accumulated debt by the PIIGS and the expectation of bailouts by the remaining solvent countries of Europe.
The clear implication of Reinhart & Rogoff's work is that the time to "slash" the deficit is before we blow past the point where the debt is more than 90% of gdp.
In terms of federal debt held by the private sector, we're past 70% and rising fast. In terms of total federal debt, we're already there.
Chip - I know the difference between debt and deficits - no reason to patronize. So did Clinton (a Democrat), the only president in 40 years to demonstrate it.
To say that austerity doesn't affect Europe's response to the crisis is to say that no policy would matter. Either spending/taxing policies matter during this crisis or they don't. You can't say they do in America but not in Europe - where the opposing example clearly exists.
And thank you on clarifying the timing issue. Yes, I agree - Bush and Co. shouldn't have reduced revenue when it mattered. Also, they might have tried being honest about figuring in the massive war debt they accumulated into the actual budget.
A guy not unlike you, Ritmo, wised me up a long time ago. "I play to the crowd," he said, "you don't." So I decided, long ago, to be who I am.
A shocking number of my friends are dead at a young age, but they like, or liked, me for who I am. Either they think I'm cool, or, I guess, I don't have to be for them. My bestie, Mike, was a total liberal but not a leftist; we didn't ignore it, we went at it hammer and tongs all the time; but our friendship, and our recognition of each other's worth, ran far deeper than topics and politics.
I wonder if you can understand what I have just said, or whether it bored you too much.
I understand, Nichevo. And I like you for who you are too.
Sorry if I have been too hard on you in the past. I think a lot of times there were simply misunderstandings than conflicts. Sometimes, even moments after something was written, posted, or read, I thought to myself, "Oh, I see how this might have been misinterpreted." And by then it was too late.
Oh well. That's life. It's never to late to make amends, though.
Ritmo, don't write stuff like this
It seems to stem from brain disorders in certain Republicans that confuse debt and deficits
and I won't snark in return. I'd rather deal solely in facts, as I believe you would.
To avoid a lot of typing, I'll just send you to this shameless self-link, which lays out my views more clearly than I could do here.
Ok I'll read your link (thanks, actually), and sorry if I was too harsh on that last bit.
My issue there, to the extent that it matters, is the way most Republicans I hear immediately go from complaining about the economy to complaining about the debt (and vice versa) as if there were an immediate and definitive link.
Perhaps there is some sort of a link, but it seems that it is more abstruse and complicated than that. And I think we can all agree that recovering economic growth is more important now.
What enrages Democrats is that it seems obvious that a crisis of low demand won't be healed by returning more tax payments to those with the most, rather than the least, amount of disposable income. But it sure will increase debt. So they see a link between nonsensical policy, callousness, and a sketchy at best if existent economic pay-off. It drives us nuts.
And the real kicker is that the guys at the tippy top don't even tend to vote Republican. There are wealthy Republicans, but by income, they tend to be more in the millionaire and low multi-millionaire club. For some reason, the real bigwig billionaires and those slightly below them, seem to be a bit more unevenly populated by left-leaning folks.
So the constituency that would most seem to benefit - even if by short-term gain - by the upper-bracket tax cuts that Republicans defined as life-or-death, don't even agree with that policy, if you were to poll them. It's crazy.
But what's even crazier is the number of people not making jack who seem to believe that defending the excesses of the wealthy is the best way to defend the American way. Or maybe just the promise that they, too, might one day become billionaires.
It's really a bizarre way of going about things, but seems to be the way we like it America.
Even if it's killing us.
Chip - on a completely unrelated note, I notice that your blog categorizes the Althouse link under a heading entitled "Lancaster".
Can I ask, whatever do you mean by that? I'm kind of curious.
I think you'll get it if you look at the other headings.
I must be feeling stupid today, so I won't hold it against you that I still don't get it. The only connection I could draw before, though, was that York and Lancaster are both in PA. Not that this helped me figure out what Googie Land had to do with anything. But then, Mid Century Modernists was another passion you described.
Perhaps there's no theme to the categories, York just meant people who hang with the Trooper, and Lancaster denoted some sort of bumpkinism of Althouse's Madison. And perhaps I just linked Lancaster with the nearby city of York because - for me no less than anyone else - all politics is yokel.
Oy I feel stupid right now. Perhaps I'm overthinking all this. Apologies.
BTW, Lileks is a good writer, I agree.
His thinking is another matter. But his writing is entertaining and good fun.
Ritmo, a bit of English history for you.
As you might imagine, I'm a fan of Lileks' odes to mid-century modernism.
Also his nostalgia bits. He manages to make me feel wistful about places and people I never heard of before.
Ahhh... thank you. A "bit" that I never got around to learning. That helps.
He manages to make me feel wistful about places and people I never heard of before.
Definitely the mark of a good writer.
And I noticed his period interests, too, when I read him (that requiring a purview of his illustrative aids).
In this respect he does for you what Garrison Keillor does for me.
BTW, I'm reading the extended comments from Althouse you linked from August 2011. There's a lot of, er, stuff in there. Juice bits and witty ripostes, too.
Thomas, I'm starting to wonder if Myrna died just to get away from you.
I've read so many ugly things on blogs I thought I was inured. I'm not, apparently. That was as wicked a statement as any I've ever seen. What sort of human being could write something like that and hit the "publish" button? The mind reels. God help us.
I used to enjoy Keillor. Then he started getting all political in a nasty way and lost me.
Lileks, I think, does the political stuff in a way that I'd hope is inoffensive to his lib readers.
Wow. You might not have gone as harsh on Fen as some of the others (with whom I actually agree, and this probably explains why he's here a lot less often). But I just got to Cedarford's reprimand for his saying that Jodie Foster "encouraged" Hinckley to shoot Reagan. Wow.
And whew!
That's really craptacular.
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