Intellectuals and Politics

We discussed something similar in Health Economics on Thursday...

NYT Opinion
The Stone: Intellectuals and Politics... Good politicians don't need to be intellectuals, but they should at least have intellectual lives.
By GARY GUTTING Published: December 7, 2011


"It’s often said that what our leaders need is common sense, not fancy theories.  But common-sense ideas that work in individuals’ everyday lives are often useless for dealing with complex problems of society as a whole.  For example, it’s common sense that government payments to the unemployed will lead to more jobs because those receiving the payments will spend the money, thereby increasing demand, which will lead businesses to hire more workers.  But it’s also common sense that if people are paid for not working, they will have less incentive to work, which will increase unemployment.  The trick is to find the amount of unemployment benefits that will strike the most effective balance between stimulating demand and discouraging employment.  This is where our leaders need to talk to economists."  (emphasis added)

Link to full article:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/intellectuals-and-politics/

Presidential candidates slip on Econ 101

Interesting read on CNN.com today...

Economics: Presidential candidates slip on Econ 101 - Nov. 9, 2011

The Social Contract

Check out Krugman's op-ed today on The Social Contract (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/krugman-the-social-contract.html).

Also check out Elizabeth Warren's explanation of the social contract, one of the best simple descriptions I've heard and I hope some of our political leaders plagiarize it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htX2usfqMEs

Rising Income Inequality: The Class Warfare Debate

The following is my comment to Paul Krugman's blog post titled, "Millionaires, the Middle Class, and Taxes" on 9/21 in the NYT.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/millionaires-the-middle-class-and-taxes-actual-numbers/

Regarding the often quoted argument that the wealthiest Americans (previous comment noted Top 400) pay more nominal dollars in tax today than they did in the 90s despite higher tax rates in the 90s - and isn't that better?...
Consider this, due to deregulation of the banking system and many pro-business regulations in the 2000s, the top 0.1% of the population (>$2,000,000) saw their incomes grow over 14% per year while 90% of taxpayers saw their incomes grow at 0.8% per year from 2002-2007 (CBPP). Regardless of the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans, when 1% of the population owns almost 23% of the total economic pie (Dungan & Murdy, 2010), the top 1% is going to pay a lot in taxes. Tax rates should not be the basis for a class warfare debate, the fact that the top 1% takes home 23% of the economic pie (largest since late 1920s) should be the debate and maybe the underlying point of Buffet's comments regarding a millionaires tax increase.

Former Christie Lecture Speaker Now Chair of Council of Economic Advisors

Alan Krueger was the 2004 Christie Lecture Speaker at Millersville University. Yesterday, he was named the Chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisors.

Who Is Alan B. Krueger?

http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/08/29/who-is-alan-b-krueger/