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Another in a series of posts which I basically wrote and finished except for putting them in WordPress or actually, y’know, posting them, and then forgot about as weeks became months. In this instance, I multiply two of my worst most-endearing habits by posting a “deleted scene” in which I argue back at The Economist. Which really makes you glad to be alive, I’m sure.

So, our friends at The Economist have apparently decided to argue inequality out of existence, by combining a number of inequality-related issues into an artificial whole which is so broad and complex they can easily lose sight of any particular section they don’t feel like dealing with. Their assembly of a giant straw-man complaint is obvious to even rudimentary critical analysis, and frankly it’s embarrassing, particularly relative to the generally high standard of insight and commentary which they produce. (Interestingly, the cover art seems to tell a much simpler and much more believable story; perhaps the editors intended it as “tongue in cheek.”)

Residency restrictions in China, and growth in Latin America, don’t really have much direct relevancy to a tiny portion of America’s populace hoovering up nearly all growth in the country’s overall wealth. But if you don’t notice the conjurer’s trick of tying them all together because they are in some way associated with the word “inequality,” then you might be convinced that inequality is a complex story which seems to be getting better to as-great if not a greater extent than it’s getting worse. Likewise, if you accept some flippantly tossed-out alternative explanations for various social ills attributed to inequality, then you might add that to the suggestion that aside from a very small number of “outliers” Americans are clumped relatively closely together and not actually getting poorer, and might thus be satisfied with the noble-sounding suggestion that “inequality itself [is] less important than ensuring that those at the bottom were becoming better-off.”

Well, yes and no. (more…)

First in a series of posts which I basically wrote and finished except for putting them in WordPress or actually, y’know, posting them, and then forgot about as weeks became months. In this first installment, we get something like the NFL-related post I kept meaning to write back when the NFL season was still fresh in our minds.

So, reactionaries continue to flog the notion that public union employees need to be “taken down” because they get more money and better benefits than “the rest of us,” at least per some sort of dubious comparison. Facts and figures don’t seem to come into it really, as per usual; the argument seems to be a purely-emotional one. “They have more and that’s unfair! And your tax dollars are paying for them to have more, too! LET’S GET ‘EM!”

This appeal of this notion, whether logical or emotional, continues meanwhile to elude me entirely. I’m starting to think that I may have underestimated how many people do find something persuasive in this line of attack, though. Not only because the reactionaries keep shouting it, but also because I encountered a surprising variant form of the concept in today’s reader mail for Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback.

I’ve been playing cards with the same group of 16 guys once a month for the past three years. [...] I wanted to let you know that not one person was on the side of the players. Not that we were pro owners, we were simply just disgusted with the players. Over the past few years, several of us have been laid off, others have taken reduction in pay. Not once did we demand to see our company’s financials. We simply worked harder, either at our current jobs or finding new jobs, to support our families. I doubt it comes to this, but if things get as bad as they were during the strike, you will find me at Fed Ex field every Sunday cheering the replacement players on the Redskins. And I’m a Cowboys fan.

Okay, on the one hand, NFL players seem like a more legitimate target for envy and resentment than government employee unions; as I’ve noted I can’t really sympathize with the players.

On the other hand: seriously? Are you effing kidding me? (more…)

(Note: so, I wrote the rest of this post earlier in the day. Which only multiplied the disconcerting feeling when I returned home, and found that the storefront across the street which has been filling its windows with old clothes now has a sign up. And so for the time being, whenever I enter or leave my apartment, or stand in front of the living room window, I’m going to be confronted with a banner reading “FUTURE NO FUTURE.” Great.)

Is this the link of the week?

I think it may be. I found the whole thing fascinating, in any event. Others may not, and I admit that I’m pretty terrible about being directed to something and then thinking “this is too long, what’s the executive summary?” So I’ll pull out a few key items:

“…cuts are just a sideshow, a diversion from the main event. They’ll keep rolling on and on and on, because the simple truth is that wealth is being extracted from society at an ever faster rate.” Yes, this does seem to be one of our era’s big, largely-unrecognized patterns.

“If America can reform its banking sector, it has a fighting chance at a prosperous future. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t… without the institutional reinvention of finance, America simply won’t be able to create the future, because it will keep investing in yesterday’s already overleveraged, zero-social-return ‘ponziconomy.’”

“…consider the Irish Bankers’ Strikes of the 1970s, when fed-up bankers petulantly decided to go on strike (with the assumption that the economy would collapse, and society would beg to have them back). Instead, the economy kept growing…”

“…the ‘instability’ that is the heart of Wall Street’s scare tactics is in fact already upon us, savagely so.”

“…the Dutch just digitally self-organized to force their parliament to axe bankers’ bonuses. Not just going forward, but retroactively… using technology invented in the U.S.A….” Once again, if only Americans were not so ignorant, and to some extent determined to remain ignorant, of what happens in other societies. If only.

Also, re-reading the interview, it seems like a great many of these comments can be applied to the energy industry as well, probably not coincidentally.

P.S. While I’m at it, “Constitutionally Rotten” isn’t bad, either. Will Wilkinson has one of his good days, doing an admirable summary of a Fareed Zakaria essay rather as I’ve done here with the remarks of Umair Haque. (See also.)

P.P.S. This is rather pithy, as well. And while there’s nothing at all really new, I may as well throw in this while I’m at it. Meanwhile, assuming that I don’t just drink myself to death before I even make it that far, after I get back from France I think I’m going to just stay in bed curled up into a fetal ball for several days.