Interesting times...

[whymc]

I'm not happy about the political prospects for this November, and I'm not at all happy when I look back on the first portion of the Obama presidency. As I look ahead to the fall election, I see two political parties in crisis. The Republicans are being energized by this tea party effect, but the tea party effect is also fundamentally changing

Comments

[voland]

We are already in a depression.

[voland]

Perhaps. But all things considered, people are having difficulty finding 1 year contract Postdoc jobs right now. You know academia as well as I do, and the above is an insanely bad indicator.

[whymc]

That... was fascinating. I've been talking with one of my libertarian friends, and we've mostly agreed that on some level, economic problems boil down to the cultural values of the people in a given society. Almost any social system would work in Scandinavia, because there is a very high (not absolute, but high) level of economic honesty... whereas I guess that Greece might prove that with the right economic culture, *no* social system will work very well... or perhaps at all...

[voland]

Interesting logic. I think your comment highlights my biggest problem with the left and left thinking crowd in general. You never question your ideas or policies, and if they fail, it is clearly the peoples fault.

Substitute USSR for Greece and the priests for Komsomol leaders, and you get a very accurate portrait of life in the socialist workers paradise of USSR. Greece is what left wing anti market policies lead too.

[whymc]

I'd argue that the USSR and Greece have more in common - the best scholarship that I've read argues that the USSR was basically corrupt from top to bottom (the explanations differ, but I'd agree with the basic idea). I'd also argue again for the Swedish counter-example. Sweden, admittedly, isn't entirely anti-market (probably one of the strengths of their system), but markets their are very limited, and the nation as a whole is solidly left of center, and it is a lovely place to live. (I use Sweden mostly because I have family their and in Norway, and I've more personal experience with their systems).

[kelglitter]

Paul Krugman's recent article describing a situation the US found itself in, and then giving a year (1938 - even though it sounded just like today) depressed me enough. I don't know how to keep telling people they're misinformed anymore, except to point them to Roger Ebert's Sun Times blog about it.

[whymc]

The sad thing is that I can understand where the angry comes from - there are thousands of real reasons to be angry... but we have a political system where the only available response is to scamper around and try to talk to two-face's other side... which does not really help.

[voland]

Krugman and his cronies is what got us into this mess.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-why-paul-krugman-imbecile%E2%80%94or-fraud

[kelglitter]

That's right! And "This is America and our only laneguage is English." ;)