U.S. Politics 2016 Seasonal Hiring Edition: "You're fired"

[OldGimletEye]

45 minutes ago, Crazydog7 said:

Apparently and I am quoting my uncle here who I thought was an otherwise intelligent person the Republicans are better than Democrats because they always “surround themselves with excellence” I have been trying to think of a stupider thing I have heard since I became consciously aware of politics 20 years ago and I can’t do it.  I guess in Republican land they have a different definition of the word “excellence” must mean something closer to cronyism or nepotism.   

 

I think I would have just said, "Okay uncle. I see your point. By the way, would you mind if I borrowed your copy of 'Bullish On Bush'"?

And then would have walked off and laughed hysterically.

[OldGimletEye]

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Hensarling is about as clear a proponent of economism—the belief that the world operates exactly as described in Economics 101 models—as you’re likely to find. He majored in economics at Texas A&M, where one of his professors was none other than Phil Gramm. Hensarling described his college exposure to economics this way:

“Even though I had grown up as a Republican, I didn’t know why I was a Republican until I studied economics. I suddenly saw how free-market economics provided the maximum good to the maximum number, and I became convinced that if I had an opportunity, I’d like to serve in public office and further the cause of the free market.”

Once again, Republicans with Microeconomic 101 textbooks in their hand are extremely dangerous.

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This ritual invocation of markets ignores the fact that there is no way to design a contemporary financial system that even remotely resembles the textbook competitive market: perfect information, no barriers to entry, a large number of suppliers such that no supplier can affect the market price, etc.

This stuff gets mentioned in Micro 101 and gets covered, in greater depth, in more advanced courses. It seems though, that Republicans, fall a sleep in class when it does it get covered.

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Hensarling, who likes to quote market principles in the abstract, doesn’t appear to have moved on much from Economics 101. The Dodd-Frank Act, he has said, “is gradually turning America’s largest financial institutions into functional utilities and taking the power to allocate capital—the lifeblood of the U.S. economy—away from the free market and delivering it to political actors in Washington.” The alternative he proposes is to “restore market discipline, end taxpayer bailouts and protect consumers with innovative, competitive markets policed for fraud and deception.

There is plenty of theory, starting with your basic Diamond-Dybvig model, and empirical evidence out there to suggest that Hensarling is selling bullshit.

https://baselinescenario.com/2016/12/20/jeb-hensarling-and-the-allure-of-economism/

[mormont]

9 hours ago, Squab said:

The useless amateur considered the electoral college and the one with all the experience didn't seem to or wasn't effective in doing so.

Except there's no evidence of this being true at all in either respect, or there being a difference in their approach. You're reasoning backwards: Trump lost the PV but won the EC so he must have planned for that outcome, is your logic. But he didn't. He'd 100% rather have won both, and clearly didn't expect to win either. Meanwhile, if Clinton had been the one behind in the polls, she'd definitely have focused more on winning the EC, but she, too, would rather win both. No Presidential candidate has ever or could ever think differently: the EC allows for a candidate to lose the PV and win but it's too risky for it to be a deliberate strategy.

As I said earlier, Trump blundered through his campaign and won more or less by accident. A campaign's competence is judged on how well it is run: Trump's was run very badly until the final weeks, when he was finally persuaded to do as he was told.

8 hours ago, Squab said:

I believe people are more similar than different. It would be incorrect to think that conservatives think one way and liberals in a completely different way.

But the difference between conservatives and liberals is literally how they think. That's what politics is about.