My contention is that unionism represents an alternative to government social programs that can slow the growth of government and act as a third force to counterbalance both government and the corporation.
Completely agree. Which is why, in my capacity to speak for libertarianism (which is to say not all all) I am perfectly fine with, and actively encourage the growth of *private* sector unions as a player for labor in the power triumvirate (ownership/management*, labor, and state). Private sector labor interests can overlap, but are indepedent of the interests of both the Corporation and the Government. *Public* sector unions otoh create a situation were one of the triumviri has the inside track on influencing the other two.
If that is unconvicing ('hey corporations own the government', 'citizen's united delenda est', etc), I would then point out the mundane examples of how public sector union interests have been shown to be at cross-purposes with any attempt to scale back the drug war, and most attempts at trying to get DC public school system off its position as the most expensive institution of kind but with significantly below average institution.
*an under analyzed facet of 'owner/management' as a single class (which is how my vulgar understanding of Marxism I think organizes things on the first order) is that the modern corporate form has created a big divergence in the interests of the 'owners' (Calpers for example, hold around $200 billion in assets, about the same as the market cap of Berkshire Hathaway ) and 'management'. That was made abundantly clear in the 2008 financial crisis.
This says exactly what I was thinking regarding the thrust of Kerr's argument - there are plenty of other people beside the DOJ and the Solicitor General that are always arguing in some court or another about the constitutionality or lack thereof of this or that.
It is a powerful shield from the vicissitudes of political life.
Isn't that why Chester Arthur invented the civil service system?
. In public service, this tension is all the more fraught because we’re dealing with a finite amount of funds; we’re not able to look at obscene profits for corporations and say, “Hey, where’s our piece?
The only corporations I know making obscene profits are those in the porn industry
To be pedantic (but necessarily so) we were never 'unilateral' in Iraq.
And we're plenty multilateral in Afghanistan (over 40 countries involved) and that doesn't mean we (the US and most everyone else) shouldn't have been gone yesterday. (like y'all up there are (mostly) doing)
Ok, good point on the trouble with combining diplomatic with espionage functions (although both Sid Meier and Hillary Clinton disagree) but on the other side, why can't the military be in charge of all the spying (using eyes in both humans and machines that cover the em spectrum) (and with the current and appropriate restriction on turning those 'eyes' on US targets)?
The volatility of oil, while contributing to business cycle to be sure, is also what keeps it in the game. If (and when) supply constraints make it so that oil is permanently and irrevocably above 300-400 US dollars a barrel everything would steadily switch to other sources, as everything else is competitive at that price point. The fact that petroleum is still around 100 bucks for the latest out-year http://futures.tradingcharts.com/marketquotes/index.php3?market=CL means that it's not worth it right now to build something that requires more pricey energy. (you just build your oil thing and buy the hedge)
It's totally possible to replace oil with nukes and coal, if your not worried about the currently uncaptured environmental cost (by any market) of coal, and the currently uninsurable risk (by the private market) of (breeder) nukes.
It's not cost free of course. The economy will take a hit. A year or two. Definitely yes. A decade. Maybe. Decades with an S. No. Growth will slow with higher cost of energy input - but will not stop.
Reason goes after the educational establishment as much as McArdle and most other self-described libertarians do.
(search their site for either 'professor' 'academics', or 'university'). Most of it is in the context of finding excess or uuntenanable promises wrt public funded institutions, and the pitched battle against for-profit colleges.
But all these from Cato, Reason, McArdle and the rest are no more an attack on the academy* or a war on science or any of the other terms of reference than pointing out the wasteful bloated ineffective spending of the US Department of Defense means you hate Teh Troops.
*is their some culture-war team red team blue latter day red-baiting that goes on? (particularly from Moynihan?) Sure. And the commenters became near intolerable right around the run up to not the 2010 election, but the 2008 one - there's entire sites dedicated to documenting their whisky tango foxtrots.
Apparently the university’s single instructor in Greek and Latin was not a major drain on the budget.
"*was* a major drain on the budget" correct? (and used ironically, of course)
hopes to snuff out the humanities altogether are the dreams of barbarians
I believe this is what one calls in the humanities departments 'attacking a person of dried long grass heritage'. Asking 'Hey, can we consolidate all the "Classic Studies" program in the SUNY system at a single campus and make it excellent because all our excellent profs are now in one place and tell the yutes of New York (and elsewhere) "Hey, you wanna study some Sew-Crates and Ver-Jill? Come on over to our excellent program at our campus here" and possibly save some money doing so?" is not quite the same as wishing to "snuff out the humanities."
“Oh, and goods for which monopoly power allows incumbents to reap fat profits, sans meaningful innovation of any kind (hi, telcos)."
I didn't go to no Ivy League school like Umair Haque's but I learned to read in public school, and the text that accompanied the chart said the 17% rise in 'telephone equipment' was all about mobile devices. As in Iphones & Blackberrys and stuff. Not non-innovative monopoly telcos.
“What people are spending more on, in relative terms, as incomes dwindle—what they’re substituting spending for, as budgets decline in real terms—are the most basic of necessities
I also noticed that pace Economist Haque, they spent *less* on some of the most basic of necessities like gasoline, which had a change for the negative that exceeded in magnitude the increases of all but one category. They also spent less on clothes. And shoes. And furniture. But like I said, I only have an undergraduate degree from a public school.
What we’re talking about, then, is a possible revolution in workplace training, one where a lifetime of experience would ideally be sucked from the mind of an experienced worker to be injected into a trainee and then the older worker discarded.
yes, this is called 'apprenticeship' and has been going on since the middle ages, or more properly, when we were all just hunters and gatherers in the rift valley. Although I would use the word 'retired' for discarded these days.
The prison-industrial complex is caused by the prison guard union and residual irrational crime fears in the population; it's not a deliberate decision that was embarked on when the Tru-Valu hardware store closed down. (In any case the root cause of the revenue implosion in most places and esp California is not outsourcing and offshoring, it's the anemic pace of the recovery in the consumer sector and the housing market - localities and states get the bulk of their revenue from sales & property taxes)
the total revenues the colleges need because enrollments keep dropping
This is just plain incorrect. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98
2) the anti-tax crusaders have made it very difficult to raise revenue for all sorts of things including – but certainly not limited to – pension funds;
"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes...you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."
--Barack Obama
Dover NH, Sept 12, 2008
Stupid teabaggin' anti-tax crusader.
But yeah, he was going to raise taxes on the greater than 250K crowd - which he didn't actually do when he had the chance (and his overwhelming congressional majorities). Say he did though.
The over 250K crowd is per the irs webpage and wikipedia is about 1.5% of the population 15% of the national income subject to income tax (around 8.5 trillion) . So around 1.3 trillion of income subject to higher taxes per the Obama campaign plan. Considering the CBO just projected a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit, Obama wouldn't have been able to cover the deficit if the top marginal tax rate were raised to Ike era 90%.
So like I said, stupid tea-baggin' anti-tax crusader that Candidate Obama was.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Labor Roundtable: Dreams of a Libertarian-Labor Alliance”
My contention is that unionism represents an alternative to government social programs that can slow the growth of government and act as a third force to counterbalance both government and the corporation.
Completely agree. Which is why, in my capacity to speak for libertarianism (which is to say not all all) I am perfectly fine with, and actively encourage the growth of *private* sector unions as a player for labor in the power triumvirate (ownership/management*, labor, and state). Private sector labor interests can overlap, but are indepedent of the interests of both the Corporation and the Government. *Public* sector unions otoh create a situation were one of the triumviri has the inside track on influencing the other two.
If that is unconvicing ('hey corporations own the government', 'citizen's united delenda est', etc), I would then point out the mundane examples of how public sector union interests have been shown to be at cross-purposes with any attempt to scale back the drug war, and most attempts at trying to get DC public school system off its position as the most expensive institution of kind but with significantly below average institution.
*an under analyzed facet of 'owner/management' as a single class (which is how my vulgar understanding of Marxism I think organizes things on the first order) is that the modern corporate form has created a big divergence in the interests of the 'owners' (Calpers for example, hold around $200 billion in assets, about the same as the market cap of Berkshire Hathaway ) and 'management'. That was made abundantly clear in the 2008 financial crisis.
"
Shoot, I should have read the rest of the post before responding.
"
under the constant threat of governmental takeovers by libertarians
That Ron Paul he sure came close the Presidency didn't he? He was neck and neck with Bob Barr. Plus the Blue Guy.
(for the record 'takeover by conservatives' is a real and dire threat)
On “The Walker Roadmap”
It's tighter and with sounder endnotes than what Glenn Beck puts out, I'll give you that.
On “The Non-Defense of DOMA”
This says exactly what I was thinking regarding the thrust of Kerr's argument - there are plenty of other people beside the DOJ and the Solicitor General that are always arguing in some court or another about the constitutionality or lack thereof of this or that.
On “Labor Roundtable: Erik Vanderhoff”
It is a powerful shield from the vicissitudes of political life.
Isn't that why Chester Arthur invented the civil service system?
. In public service, this tension is all the more fraught because we’re dealing with a finite amount of funds; we’re not able to look at obscene profits for corporations and say, “Hey, where’s our piece?
The only corporations I know making obscene profits are those in the porn industry
On ““Taking a deep breath in Wisconsin””
Washington National's openning day?
On “US Intervention in Libya”
Ok, that was amusing.
Esp if you imagine of montage of Mr. Kain settling of all of the family business.
"
Fwiw, we're still in Kosovo - http://www.nato.int/kfor/structur/nations/placemap/kfor_placemat.pdf
"
And to be pedantic about my pedantry, the US wasn't unilateral in Iraq until the last year or so.
"
To be pedantic (but necessarily so) we were never 'unilateral' in Iraq.
And we're plenty multilateral in Afghanistan (over 40 countries involved) and that doesn't mean we (the US and most everyone else) shouldn't have been gone yesterday. (like y'all up there are (mostly) doing)
On “Liberal Academia (Part 1)”
Ah, ok, in that context I agree.
"
2. Addressing the criticism could lead to a much more vibrant academic community and improve town-gown relations,
Town-gown relations have frack all to do with ideology, they center on the conflicts around land use (broadly defined) both on and off campus.
On “A Basic Conflict”
Wait, I saw this movie. It had Tom Berenger, right? (then it had Michelle Pfeiffer)
On “Government Spending and Liberty”
Ok, good point on the trouble with combining diplomatic with espionage functions (although both Sid Meier and Hillary Clinton disagree) but on the other side, why can't the military be in charge of all the spying (using eyes in both humans and machines that cover the em spectrum) (and with the current and appropriate restriction on turning those 'eyes' on US targets)?
"
Serious question - what is that utility?
(More precisely, what is that utility that doesn't also already exist in what the diplomatic corps is supposed to be doing day to day?)
"
To pick a nit, it depends on whether or not can leave - the difference between a 'company town' and chattel slavery.
On “The Death and Life of the Great American School System (part one)”
voluntary national standards plus a voluntary national curriculum ... a coherent and consistent set of standards and expectation
If we don't already have this, what the hell *has* the federal D o' Ed been doing for 30 years?
On “Labor 2.0 (initial thoughts)”
The volatility of oil, while contributing to business cycle to be sure, is also what keeps it in the game. If (and when) supply constraints make it so that oil is permanently and irrevocably above 300-400 US dollars a barrel everything would steadily switch to other sources, as everything else is competitive at that price point. The fact that petroleum is still around 100 bucks for the latest out-year http://futures.tradingcharts.com/marketquotes/index.php3?market=CL means that it's not worth it right now to build something that requires more pricey energy. (you just build your oil thing and buy the hedge)
It's totally possible to replace oil with nukes and coal, if your not worried about the currently uncaptured environmental cost (by any market) of coal, and the currently uninsurable risk (by the private market) of (breeder) nukes.
It's not cost free of course. The economy will take a hit. A year or two. Definitely yes. A decade. Maybe. Decades with an S. No. Growth will slow with higher cost of energy input - but will not stop.
On “For the Humanities, a Table of Doom”
Reason goes after the educational establishment as much as McArdle and most other self-described libertarians do.
(search their site for either 'professor' 'academics', or 'university'). Most of it is in the context of finding excess or uuntenanable promises wrt public funded institutions, and the pitched battle against for-profit colleges.
But all these from Cato, Reason, McArdle and the rest are no more an attack on the academy* or a war on science or any of the other terms of reference than pointing out the wasteful bloated ineffective spending of the US Department of Defense means you hate Teh Troops.
*is their some culture-war team red team blue latter day red-baiting that goes on? (particularly from Moynihan?) Sure. And the commenters became near intolerable right around the run up to not the 2010 election, but the 2008 one - there's entire sites dedicated to documenting their whisky tango foxtrots.
"
Apparently the university’s single instructor in Greek and Latin was not a major drain on the budget.
"*was* a major drain on the budget" correct? (and used ironically, of course)
hopes to snuff out the humanities altogether are the dreams of barbarians
I believe this is what one calls in the humanities departments 'attacking a person of dried long grass heritage'. Asking 'Hey, can we consolidate all the "Classic Studies" program in the SUNY system at a single campus and make it excellent because all our excellent profs are now in one place and tell the yutes of New York (and elsewhere) "Hey, you wanna study some Sew-Crates and Ver-Jill? Come on over to our excellent program at our campus here" and possibly save some money doing so?" is not quite the same as wishing to "snuff out the humanities."
On “The Public Pension Problem”
“Oh, and goods for which monopoly power allows incumbents to reap fat profits, sans meaningful innovation of any kind (hi, telcos)."
I didn't go to no Ivy League school like Umair Haque's but I learned to read in public school, and the text that accompanied the chart said the 17% rise in 'telephone equipment' was all about mobile devices. As in Iphones & Blackberrys and stuff. Not non-innovative monopoly telcos.
“What people are spending more on, in relative terms, as incomes dwindle—what they’re substituting spending for, as budgets decline in real terms—are the most basic of necessities
I also noticed that pace Economist Haque, they spent *less* on some of the most basic of necessities like gasoline, which had a change for the negative that exceeded in magnitude the increases of all but one category. They also spent less on clothes. And shoes. And furniture. But like I said, I only have an undergraduate degree from a public school.
"
What we’re talking about, then, is a possible revolution in workplace training, one where a lifetime of experience would ideally be sucked from the mind of an experienced worker to be injected into a trainee and then the older worker discarded.
yes, this is called 'apprenticeship' and has been going on since the middle ages, or more properly, when we were all just hunters and gatherers in the rift valley. Although I would use the word 'retired' for discarded these days.
"
The prison-industrial complex is caused by the prison guard union and residual irrational crime fears in the population; it's not a deliberate decision that was embarked on when the Tru-Valu hardware store closed down. (In any case the root cause of the revenue implosion in most places and esp California is not outsourcing and offshoring, it's the anemic pace of the recovery in the consumer sector and the housing market - localities and states get the bulk of their revenue from sales & property taxes)
the total revenues the colleges need because enrollments keep dropping
This is just plain incorrect. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98
"
2) the anti-tax crusaders have made it very difficult to raise revenue for all sorts of things including – but certainly not limited to – pension funds;
"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes...you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."
--Barack Obama
Dover NH, Sept 12, 2008
Stupid teabaggin' anti-tax crusader.
But yeah, he was going to raise taxes on the greater than 250K crowd - which he didn't actually do when he had the chance (and his overwhelming congressional majorities). Say he did though.
The over 250K crowd is per the irs webpage and wikipedia is about 1.5% of the population 15% of the national income subject to income tax (around 8.5 trillion) . So around 1.3 trillion of income subject to higher taxes per the Obama campaign plan. Considering the CBO just projected a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit, Obama wouldn't have been able to cover the deficit if the top marginal tax rate were raised to Ike era 90%.
So like I said, stupid tea-baggin' anti-tax crusader that Candidate Obama was.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.