[Silencer]

So your argument is that unless Sanders is a literal revolutionary, completely outside the system, he is not opposed to it?

(Also, those economists agree with Sanders...or at least their own models do. They just don't want to admit it, because that wouldn't be good for them. It's not like he's making his economics up on the spot.)

[Nevyn]

Andorion, on 01 March 2016 - 11:26 AM, said:

Election day as holiday is something we have here. It works really well and I think its necessary everywhere. What about voting districts? They should be decided by an impartial commission so they don't allow so many safe re-elections

Never underestimate the ability of american partisans to corrupt a process.

Who appoints the commission and ensures their impartiality? What guiding criteria should they use for determining districts?

[Terez]

Nevyn, on 01 March 2016 - 06:35 PM, said:

Andorion, on 01 March 2016 - 11:26 AM, said:

Election day as holiday is something we have here. It works really well and I think its necessary everywhere. What about voting districts? They should be decided by an impartial commission so they don't allow so many safe re-elections

Never underestimate the ability of american partisans to corrupt a process.

Who appoints the commission and ensures their impartiality? What guiding criteria should they use for determining districts?

The best criteria for determining districts should be border hierarchies. Write a computer program to divide up each state into roughly equal population areas using a hierarchy of borders: county lines, city limits, voting precincts. This would theoretically prevent dipping willy-nilly through cities to consolidate the black voters into one district and the white voters into another, or what have you.

As for election days being holidays, that's somewhat helpful but not the end of the problem, since lots of people don't have the luxury of holidays off. Hospital workers will still be at work, as will foodservice and many retail workers, etc. The only job I've held for any length of time (14 years) never closed unless a major hurricane hit. We were open Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's, and all the rest.

PS: This last point was especially relevant during the Democratic caucuses in Nevada, which were held on a Saturday. An actual majority of the Nevadan population resides within one county: Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. The busiest precincts by far were the ones that were actually held inside casinos so that the casino workers could participate. But they did it on a Saturday! Anyone in foodservice or entertainment knows that the weekends are ridiculously busy in comparison to, say, a TUESDAY which is the normal voting day in the United States and the day that the Republicans held their Nevada caucuses.

Now, a lot of people have credited Harry Reid with Hillary's win in Nevada because he pulled some strings at the last minute and got the powers that be in the casinos to declare that anyone who wanted to caucus should stay as long as it took to finish caucusing. Caucusing is nothing like voting; you don't just go in and fill out your ballot and leave, at least on the Democratic side (the Republicans use ballots); you have to stay there and stand in your group and try to recruit undecideds and wait to be counted several times.

Obviously, they didn't shut down the casinos so that all the workers could go vote. That means that there was probably a lot of pressure for people to stay on the job, and that the most senior employees were probably favored over the younger ones when it came time to deciding who would be allowed to leave work to vote. All that benefited Hillary.

Studlock, on 01 March 2016 - 03:24 PM, said:

I'll simply state nothing I've seen him talk about reflects a basic understanding of international relations, specifically the region of the Middle East...

Here is my last response to you, since I doubt anyone else realizes what post of mine you're half-responding to here. As for his understanding of the Middle East, it doesn't have to be perfect. That's what advisors are for. However, we can be relatively sure that he won't arrange weapons deals with oppressive regimes who donate to his private charity which pays him an exorbitant salary. We can be relatively sure that he won't use our military for regime change, and that he won't support military coups, and that he won't pretend like coups didn't happen to avoid cutting off their aid funds. The list goes on and on.

Studlock, on 01 March 2016 - 03:24 PM, said:

....nor economics. You might disagree with the normative stances of economists, I do, you might call out the switch they do from positivist work proving those normative stances, I do, however I think you'd be a fool to overlook or dismiss their positivist work on economics--they understand how the markets work in our current economic paradigm and nothing Sander has suggested is revolutionary enough to actually break down that paradigm so he should probably listen to some of those economists, even if to have opposing view to all the heterodox people from UMass...

I don't overlook it completely, but I certainly don't take what they write on faith. I like to read them filtered through Yves Smith, who seems to have a better understanding of economics than any of them, based on debates between her and Krugman and others. You may have missed comments I made on this subject later in the thread. Have you been reading Galbraith? He responded to the Gang of Four letter which, as I said when I first read it, was notably lacking in substance. They just proclaimed Gerald Friedman's work as not having any basis in reality, and Krugman and his ilk jumped on it with glee as if their point had been proven. It was ridiculous, and I said so here and elsewhere, so I was pleased with James Galbraith jumped into the fray with the same arguments I had made along with his economic expertise. They made no rigorous analysis of Friedman's work and discussed no specifics. Galbraith discusses specifics and determines that Friedman's growth projections are based on some pretty standard modeling.

After Galbraith popped their little argument-from-authority bubble, an actual policy paper was submitted in response. Hilariously, Galbraith had a response pre-written to that one. Linked to Naked Capitalism because Yves Smith's additional thoughts are worth reading.

Studlock, on 01 March 2016 - 03:24 PM, said:

I believe fundamentally false [the] idea that he is some kind of revolutionary outsider of the 'Establishment'. Unless he's calling for the complete and utter dismantling of the economic, political, financial, and military institutions of America (not simply moving them to the left) then he must work with the Establishment.

The Establishment to which he refers is basically the corruption establishment, the cabal of elected officials who—for campaign contributions or private jet rides or IPOs or Foundation donations or what have you—are using their power to serve the interests of the plutocrats rather than the interests of the American people. They serve those interests through lawmaking (see Taibbi's piece on Dodd-Frank, or this sad bit of corruption in action), appointments and administrative enforcement (see Holder at Justice and his refusal to prosecute financial crimes), the awarding of contracts (see Cheney and Halliburton, or Hillary and the Saudis), etc. etc.

Bernie is a career politician, and he never claimed to be otherwise. He talks about his career in politics all the time. He talks about his ability to work within the larger Establishment when necessary. But he is not bought.

This post has been edited by Terez: 01 March 2016 - 07:37 PM

[Studlock]

@ Silencer, Sanders can be opposed to system all he wants, and he can even believe in revolutionary change, but that doesn't matter much to the system unless he operates outside of it. You don't own power, it owns you. Obama is the on powerful man on the planet right now not because of his beliefs, or because some kind of inherent 'greatness' but because he has access to some of the most powerful institutions on the planet. When he steps down he will no longer be the most powerful person on the planet because his position in the institutions has changed. Even if Sanders were to be elected to that same spot, even with all his ideals and principles, would have to comprise on a daily basis to function as president. This is not to say that individuals are not important, but that they are subservient to the institutions they act within. Again I suggest looking up C. Wright Mills and his book The Power Elite (its an older sociological theory book and the literature has evolved beyond it to a point but it's a good foundational text). So yes the problem is he is not revolutionary, to act within the system to act as a power elite, and to act as a power elite is to act subservient to the powerful institutions within the nation. As for your other comment: some economist might have models each show some of Sanders policies to economically viable. I would wager, however, that most do not.

@ Terez, I answered some of your (good) questions and response above. I'll answer more (its my birthday, I'm taking a break to yell at people on the internet like a good, sane individual). I have been reading Galbraith, and I agree we should never just accept the experts opinion (however we shouldn't also just outright dismiss them as well, it's probably a pretty good bet that they no more than the average layman, ie our previous discussions on music), we all have brains, we can think critically. From my understanding Friedman is using standard modeling but committed a mathematical error (or more sinister, made up figures to justify his political beliefs). Here's a response from Justin Wolfers (a fairly liberal economist who is in agreement, at least in kind, with Sanders on a number of projects like the raising of the minimum wage): https://twitter.com/...78943466561541.

I don't think Sanders is economically literate, in the sense that he understands the way the markets work as they are, and I don't a lot of people around him do either. I think he is operating on a older Marxian level of understand the economy, and I say this as a largely Marxian scholar, that is flawed. Much like his interactions with the political institutions I believe he doesn't go far enough with his critiques here, and I think he's main mechanic for addressing economic injustices is flawed (that of the minimum wage). I like Sanders, I like he's morally grounding, however he is still a single human being operating within a system that inherently comprises individuals. We can already see this with reparations (indeed direct payments would be a much better mechanic than minimum wage at alleviating poverty and lifting people out the lower wealth brackets, but that to is probably 'politically infeasible'), despite him probably morally and intellectually agreeing with them has compromised on what he believes to more politically viable route. These kinds of compromises would continue onward if he went further, the system demands it. We can assume that he wouldn't compromise on a number of issues but I really think, like most people operating in the formal social institutions of American, he would.

[Terez]

Studlock, on 01 March 2016 - 11:30 PM, said:

@ Terez, I answered some of your (good) questions and response above. I'll answer more (its my birthday, I'm taking a break to yell at people on the internet like a good, sane individual). I have been reading Galbraith, and I agree we should never just accept the experts opinion (however we shouldn't also just outright dismiss them as well, it's probably a pretty good bet that they no more than the average layman, ie our previous discussions on music), we all have brains, we can think critically. From my understanding Friedman is using standard modeling but committed a mathematical error (or more sinister, made up figures to justify his political beliefs). Here's a response from Justin Wolfers (a fairly liberal economist who is in agreement, at least in kind, with Sanders on a number of projects like the raising of the minimum wage): https://twitter.com/...78943466561541.

Friedman is a supporter of Hillary Clinton. As for Wolfers, there have been responses. According to Yves Smith, Galbraith is working on a longer response, but he responded thusly to her in email on February 27:

Galbraith said:

There could be a "math error" in the Friedman paper; I have not replicated the math or even seen the coding. But I don't think Peter Dorman's point, reiterating the Romers, about time-limited interventions having only time-limited effects is necessarily correct.

One example comes to mind that may be helpful. Suppose a temporary jobs program establishes an income stream for a household, sufficient to make them "creditworthy" going forward, when they weren't before and would not have been otherwise. In that case, the higher level of activity initiated by the public program can devolve upon and be sustained by the private sector afterward; you don't return to the status quo ante.

Another commentary from the Dollars and Sense blog:

Chris Sturr said:

After a phone conversation with Friedman, Wolfers tries to pick apart his analysis based on the Romers' criticisms of it. "Here's the problem: Mr. Friedman's calculations assume that removing a stimulus has no effect. The result is that temporary stimulus has a permanent effect." But by the end of the article Wolfers claims to have cornered Friedman into admitting that his model doesn't depend on standard macroeconomic assumptions, but instead depends on "the understanding of an earlier generation of economists–a sub-tribe of Keynesians he called 'Joan Robinson Keynesians.'" So if Wolfers is concluding that this is based on a theoretical difference, why would he suggest (and why would the Times editors allow him to suggest) that the difference is the result of math errors (or possibly errors in logic)? That would only be true if Friedman were applying the neoclassical models that the Romers and Wolfers rely on. As far as I can tell, the only error Wolfers has revealed is Friedman's possible assumption at he was relying on standard models. That is only a real error if you assume that the standard models must be correct (and even then, it wouldn't be a "logical" error!). There are two other problems with the Wolfers piece. One is that he is biased, having worked with David Romer, also also arguably because his partner Betsey Stevenson worked in the Obama administration until recently (and Obama and his economic advisors are supporting Clinton), which he doesn't disclose. The other is that the title mentions "Bernie Sanders's Economic Plan," which mis-describes Friedman's paper (which hasn't been endorsed by Bernie Sanders–only mentioned favorably by someone from Sanders's campaign).

That last point is really key.

Studlock, on 01 March 2016 - 11:30 PM, said:

I don't think Sanders is economically literate, in the sense that he understands the way the markets work as they are, and I don't a lot of people around him do either. I think he is operating on a older Marxian level of understand the economy, and I say this as a largely Marxian scholar, that is flawed. Much like his interactions with the political institutions I believe he doesn't go far enough with his critiques here, and I think he's main mechanic for addressing economic injustices is flawed (that of the minimum wage). I like Sanders, I like he's morally grounding, however he is still a single human being operating within a system that inherently comprises individuals. We can already see this with reparations (indeed direct payments would be a much better mechanic than minimum wage at alleviating poverty and lifting people out the lower wealth brackets, but that to is probably 'politically infeasible'), despite him probably morally and intellectually agreeing with them has compromised on what he believes to more politically viable route. These kinds of compromises would continue onward if he went further, the system demands it. We can assume that he wouldn't compromise on a number of issues but I really think, like most people operating in the formal social institutions of American, he would.

So what you're saying is, Bernie is like every single person who has ever run for president in living memory, except he has the benefit of at least trying to challenge systemic corruption? And other candidates are more realistic because they just roll with it?

[Terez]

Vermont called for Bernie
Virginia called for Hillary
Georgia called for Hillary and Trump

[Terez]

NBC predictions for poll closings this hour:

Massachusetts for Trump
Alabama for Trump
Tennessee for Trump and Hillary

No further calls on the closings from an hour ago.

[Terez]

Arkansas called for Hillary. Still no further calls on earlier closings, except I think one network has called Virginia for Trump. Rubio was really close for a while there, so not everyone has called yet, but we should expect them to soon. Looks like Rubio won't be able to recover.

[Terez]

NBC just called VA for Trump. Proportional delegates, so he and Rubio might actually get the same number of delegates, but Rubio really needs to win a state. Any state.

[Terez]

Texas called for Cruz and Hillary

[Terez]

Oklahoma called for Cruz

[Terez]

Oklahoma called for Bernie!

[worry]

Two states is better than one, I suppose. Vermont should definitely go to civil war with MA though.

[Terez]

MA has not been called on the Dem side, yet. Only 27% reporting, too close to call.

[worry]

Good point. I hereby downgrade my 'definitely' to a 'probably'.

[Terez]

Arkansas called for Trump.

[Terez]

Colorado called for Bernie

[worry]

For real? If he gets 4 states (MN looks strong, if still quite early) I'd actually consider that a pretty good day for him. MA seems to have gone for Clinton after all though.

[Andorion]

Zoolanderis Derake, on 02 March 2016 - 04:17 AM, said:

For real? If he gets 4 states (MN looks strong, if still quite early) I'd actually consider that a pretty good day for him. MA seems to have gone for Clinton after all though.

Sanders is leading in Minnesota.

[Terez]

MN called for Rubio. His first win.