Reading List For The Last Week Of October

Tax plans, spending, and eyeglasses
"In a hand-waving routine you’ll see more of as these plans come under more scrutiny, expect the candidates to talk about all the spending they’ll cut. But the WaPo’s point about sequestration is well made in this regard. The Congress can’t live within the spending caps they themselves invoked. It is absolutely implausible that they’ll find trillions more in cuts such that these tax plans won’t blow out the deficit." - Jared Bernstein

Who Needs Posner When You Have Mises and Hayek?
"There are two big reasons today's right loves the Austrians. One is that Austrian economists reject empirical analysis, and instead believe that you can reach conclusions about correct economic policies from a priori principles. It's philosophy dressed up as economics; with the Austrians, there is never any risk that real-world events will interfere with your ideology." - Josh Barro

The Mystery of the Vanishing Pay Raise

Ever since the Great Recession battered corporate revenues and profits, many companies have been far tougher in containing fixed costs, including labor expenses. “With the stock market’s wild behavior and what we’ve seen in China, companies continue to hold on to huge amounts of cash and are reluctant to increase their costs in the form of increasing wages,” said Kerry Chou, a senior practice specialist at WorldatWork, a nonprofit human resources association.

Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., put it another way: “There’s this pervasive norm” among employers “that labor costs must be held down at all costs because maximizing profits is the be-all and end-all.” - Steven Greenhouse

 

The GOP and the Rise of Anti-Knowledge

"Thanks to these overlapping and mutually reinforcing segments of the right-wing media-entertainment-“educational” complex, it is now possible for the true believer to sail on an ocean of political, historical, and scientific disinformation without ever sighting the dry land of empirical fact." - Mike Lofgren

 

Springtime for Grifters

"There was a time when Mr. Rubio’s insistence that $6 trillion in tax cuts would somehow pay for themselves would have marked him as deeply unserious, especially given the way his party has been harping on the evils of budget deficits. Even George W. Bush, during the 2000 campaign, at least pretended to be engaged in conventional budgeting, handing back part of a projected budget surplus.

But the Republican base doesn’t care what the mainstream media says. Indeed, after Wednesday’s debate the Internet was full of claims that John Harwood, one of the moderators, lied about Mr. Rubio’s tax plan. (He didn’t.) And in any case, Mr. Rubio sounds sensible compared to the likes of Mr. Carson and Mr. Trump. So there’s no penalty for his fiscal fantasies."  Paul Krugman

 

10 TIPS for Moderators to Improve Political Debates

3.  When the candidate ignores the question and talks about something totally different as John Kasich did with his first question, cut him off.  His time to answer is done.  When candidates know they can't talk when refusing to answer a question, behavior will hopefully change.  This is an easy rule for candidates to understand.   If the candidate doesn't immediately address the question asked, the candidate's mic will be cut.    Currently, candidates know they can ignore the question and make any political speech they choose.   It's not surprising that's what they do.  The loser is the voting public. - Karl Idsvoog

 

The Republicans are right. We in the media do suck.

"...by Wednesday, the candidates had all learned to dodge difficult questions by accusing the moderators of bias. Usually, the charge was that they were too liberal. (Yes, CNBC, the channel that launched the tea party and employs the United States’ most famous supply-sider, is apparently a commie paradise.) Or they accused the media of not asking substantive questions, right in the middle of ducking substantive questions." - Catherine Rampell

The GOP Circus: Truth-Defying Feats
"It takes a lot of energy to sustain a lie. When enough people do it together, over a sustained period of time, it wears on them. It also produces a certain kind of culture: one cut loose from the norms of fair conduct and trust that any organization requires in order to survive as something more than a daily, no-holds-barred war of all against all. A battle royale. A circus, if you prefer.
"And the act in the center ring? The Amazing Death Spiral. One performer does something so outrageous that anyone else who wishes to further hold the audience’s attention has to match or top it––even if they know it’s insane." - Rick Perlstein