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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (22647)	7/1/2006 7:04:13 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543697

"Frustration by Jack Grant I’m not sure how to write this post. You see, I have many sources of frustration, ranging from computer issues (I absolutely HATE Windows, but Mac OS X as it behaves on my 2 year old PowerBook isn’t making me a fan of it, either… to make a too long a story short, every computer system I have is misbehaving in some fashion, whether by being far slower than it should be given the memory and processing power available, or requiring a reinstall for causes I deem far from sufficient for a modern OS) to issues too personal to write about here, not mentioning my irritation with those who seem to think they are far more qualified to interpret scientific data than those who actually have both graduate degrees and experience in the areas that they themselves lack. Just because you have an opinion doesn’t mean it has equal weight with those who actually know something about the subject, or even more weight than those who know how to extract real trends from chaotic data because it is what they are paid for (in other words, not to be too arrogant about it, people such as me, who are highly paid to extract the reality from the muddle of conflicting results, compensated because the success of the company depends upon the correct interpretation of hazy fogs of probability). Yet, there are those who proclaim “global warming is nothing but a liberal dream” or “racism doesn’t exist in the United States” or “raising the minimum wage will not reduce the number of unskilled jobs available” in pure defiance of the available data because their ideology over-rules any rational interpretation of the data. With ideology rather than reason determining the predominant view, how can we ever hope to chart the most beneficial path for our nation? At one time, for an all too brief period between the US Civil War and the 1980s, there was a genuine effort to examine data on a scientific, non-ideological basis, but since the Reagan era, everything, and I mean everything, has become politicized, from the potential benefits of a vaccine that prevents cerivical cancer that according to anti-sex extremists would supposedly promote promiscuity, to the obvious (to anyone who truly examines the data with a non-ideological view) effects of global warming, to the intelligence that warns us of the actions of potentially hostile governments. The effects of viewing intelligence data through a lens designed to see only what the ideology wants to see has gotten us into the situation in Iraq, where through both misguided philosophy coupled with incompetence we have prosecuted a successful military campaign that is without precedent that has mutated into an equally unprecedented, incredibly incompetent and subsequently unsuccessful occupation, a situation that was warned against beforehand with rare prescience, which makes the indictment of incompetence all the more relevant and damning. In consequence my frustration builds, arising from my own personal issues to those of a more global nature; where entropy is not the root cause any more so than the incompetence that apparently rules over all, seemingly going beyond the demon god Murphy with his law of “whatever can go wrong, will go wrong” to a state of “anything that is wrong will be decided as the course of action.” So, where do I go from here, without my head exploding from the pressure? Damned if I know…" randomfate.net

To: Lane3 who wrote (22647)	7/3/2006 4:43:15 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 543697

From that article - "The fundamental problem is that labor mobility and significant redistribution are incompatible if the redistribution is done at the state or local level. Milton Friedman once said, "You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state." The same is true within countries as between countries." I'm not sure that they are totally incompatible, but even if they are it only becomes important if you assume that significant redistribution should be the norm. A lower level of redistribution, decided at the state level would probably not be incompatible with labor mobility. "Jeff would like to see less income redistribution. That's a legitimate point of view. And I agree that states would do less of it. But it doesn't follow that the responsibility is a state function rather than a federal one." It doesn't necessarily follow from that argument that redistribution should be a state function, but it also doesn't follow that it should be a federal function. If you assume that a large degree of redistribution is good than you will probably support it being a federal responsibility. If you assume a great degree of redistribution is bad than you will probably support it being a state, local, or private issue. If you assume neither you don't automatically reach the conclusion that the feds should do it. Jeff's argument seems to take this form: Fewer students should study sociology. The math department would do a bad job teaching sociology, discouraging students from taking it. Therefore, the dean should reassign teaching sociology to the math department. Greg's example is a poor one. Its reasonable to assume (and Greg Mankiw does assume) that the sociology department will do a better job of teaching sociology than the math department. Its not reasonable to assume a priori that the feds will do a better job than the states, and what would amount to a better job would be controversial. Also it could be reasonably argued that too much redistribution is a very bad thing. If too many people taking sociology was an equivalently bad thing than, if having the math department teach sociology would reduce the number of people taught sociology, it might be worth a decline in quality in the teaching of sociology in order to reduce the numbers of people being taught sociology. Greg Mankiws argument only hold up if you assume from the beginning either that a large degree of redistribution is a good thing, or that the job will be done better and have overall better results if it is done by the feds. If you assume the latter you have a circular argument. If you assume the former than maybe it would be a job for the feds but I don't assume or support the idea that a great degree of redistribution is a good thing.