Daniel Gross Is Shrill...

Greg Mankiw has driven Daniel Gross shrill. Daniel writes, apropos of Greg Mankiw's oped:

Daniel Gross: May 28, 2006 - June 03, 2006 Archives: Greg Mankiw... posted on his blog the text of his op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal, which bears some close reading. In the early part of this decade, Mankiw worked in the White House as it conspired with the Republican Congress to inflict serious damage on the nation's balance sheet--slashing taxes, generally on the wealthy, again and again; letting the AMT spread further to the middle class; and engaging in an orgy of government spending that included the creation of a massive new open-ended prescription druge entitlement.

So what does Mankiw offer to help clean up the mess? Regressive taxes.... Raise taxes on gas, on carbon, and on cigarettes and alcohol. "Maybe we should consider higher taxes on smoking, drinking, gambling and other activities about which people lack self-control."... But lets not just stick it to the poor, he writes. Lets stick it to the higher earners who live in Democratic-leaning coastal states. Mankiw advocates broadening the tax base by effectively raising federal taxes on people who live in high tax states and by scaling back the mortgage deduction.

Oh, and Mankiw has another idea. Old folks should work longer before they collect retirement benefits. "If we raise the age of eligibility for retirement benefits, people could still retire early, but they would do so on their own nickel, rather than the taxpayer's." Given the state of savings, the median size of 401(K) plans, and the ongoing pension cram-down, a nickel is precisely what many older workers will have to retire on.

In theory, raising the retirement age or the eligibility age for collecting Social Security isn't a bad idea. But that would mean something like a sea change in the way corporate America views it's older workers.... It would be nice if we could all grow old on the job, enjoy ironclad job security, and see our wages rise every year. But not all of us can be tenured professors at Harvard.

One thing, above all, has excited Daniel's ire. It is Mankiw's list of the causes of America's long-run fiscal imbalance:

The government budget is on an unsustainable path. Americans are living longer and having fewer children. Together with advances in medical technology that are driving up health-care costs, this demographic shift means that a budget crunch is coming when the baby-boom generation retires. The promises made to my generation for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are just not affordable, given the projected path of tax revenue...

There is no mention of the role played by the Bush tax cuts and the Bush Medicare Drug Benefit in causing these imbalances, is there? Mankiw doesn't say "George W. Bush promised a Medicare Drug Benefit but it is just not affordable, given the projected path of tax revenue..." He says "the promises made to my generation..." Passive voice. Evasion of responsibility.

Mankiw probably has a different view. He (probably) sees himself as undertaking a veiled critique of Bush administration fiscal policy, according to the following syllogism: (i) The long-run fiscal imbalance is a bad thing. (ii) We all know that George W. Bush's fiscal policies play a big role in creating the fiscal imbalance. (iii) Policies that create bad things are unwise. (iv) Therefore George W. Bush's fiscal policy is unwise.

Mankiw, I think, believes that his readers are smart enough to connect the dots, and understand that he thinks that passing the Medicare Drug Benefit without making any provision for funding it was a really bad idea, and that tax cuts without offsetting spending reductions do more economic harm than good.

Comments

[theCoach]

...and yet he cowardly never says anything about it, and despite his discrediting of the economics profession, economist are still in genreal apologists for the man.

[Jean-Philippe Stijns]

... and when he was inside the administration, he could at least pretext that this cowardice was for a good cause, i.e. implicitly pretend that he was trading his credibility for insider's influence on the policy making process (apparently, we are supposed to believe that things would be even worse had he not done that.) Or he is just cynically maximizing, possibly in a myopic way, his chances of landing again a prestigious policy job in the next Republican administration?

On the other hand, I can see merit in raising taxes on gas and carbon, and in raising somewhat the retirement age *if* this is not used as a tool to provide further or even justify current tax cuts for the richest of the rich.

[save the rustbelt]

Mankiw, like most of his ilk, probably knows no blue collar workers except for the illegals who clean his office and mow his lawn.

So it would be fine for 70 year olds to be shoveling asphalt and assembling cars.

The Bushites see a society in which 10% are wealthy and 90% form a cheap labor pool. Mankiw is still close to the head of the Dubya parade.

[Tom DC/VA]

"Mankiw, I think, believes that his readers are smart enough to connect the dots, and understand that he thinks that passing the Medicare Drug Benefit without making any provision for funding it was a really bad idea, and that tax cuts without offsetting spending reductions do more economic harm than good."

Or, perhaps, Brad, you should take him at his word, realize he's lost any principles he once had, and then stop trying to defend him.

[Sean Matthews]

Brad, has it occured to you how Straussian your attempts to defend Mankiw are becoming

:-)

[Sean Matthews]

Brad, has it occured to you how Straussian your attempts to defend Mankiw are becoming

:-)

[hackticus]

It's interesting that you feel compelled to read between the lines and find some reasonable hidden message in Mankiw's outwardly hacktackular writings. How many conservatives perform this free service for, say Paul Krugman? Not that Krugman needs this particular service.

[marc sobel]

or the whole lower taxes mantra is really a variation of NIMBY, lower taxes for me. The effect of 20 years of Republican tax action has been to shift taxes from the ultra wealthy and corporations to the poor and middle class while lowering services to the poor and middle class. Iraq can be argued as service to selected corporate interests.

[Carol]

Please please please stop talking about raising the retirement age. It is now 67. The only people who want to be working past 67 are desk jockeys in high paid jobs (see Mike Wallace for instance, or Andy Rooney)and other white collar workers. The rest of us who have been hacking away at low or middling wage jobs with no prospect for anything except the enjoyment of retirement along with our multiple aches and pains DON'T WANT TO WORK FOR EVEN MORE YEARS to get where my parents got to at 59 1/2.

[anne]

Though the Medicare Drug Benefit legislation was flawed, I am especially pleased that a bill passed and a drug benefit will be included in Medicare from now on. Given a Republican Administration and Congress, there no better legislation was possible. So, a compromise was fine and I support the benefit completely. Be assured the benefit will not be taken away, and beware the political cost in trying to take away the benefit.

[anne]

Carol is completely right :) Please please please stop talking about raising the retirement age. Please stop talking in such a manner which amounts to cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits. Cut the damnable war in Iraq and save the $10 billion a month for what America truly needs.

[Raul]

Mankiw does not have the courage of his convictions, assuming he has any convictions at all. If he wants to criticize the Bush fiscal policy, he should do so forthrightly. And he should acknowledge his responsibility for enabling the debacle, which with his "veiled critique" he continues to enable. Mankiw has disgraced his profession.

[elliottg]

Brad, please, please, please stop talking about Greg Mankiw as if he is a respected economist or even an errant child who just needs some guidance. He's a hack.

[Jason Allen]

The Drug benefit is an ad hoc solution that is not particularly well crafted, not particularly well run, and not particularly cost effective for taxpayers. In other words, it is a terrible plan whose sole purpose is to (eventually !) blow a hole in the budget whilst enriching big pharma and big in$urance. I like having a drug benefit that my parents can use, but we, as Americans deserve to have a serious debate about HOW the plan is set up, WHO benefits (is covered, etc.), and WHAT measures of cost containment are appropriate to offer quality coverage to the largest possible body of beneficiaries. In fact, the plan does not go far enough, and should be extended to all Americans along with a single payer "default" insurance plan. My two cents.

[Tom]

"If we raise the age of eligibility for retirement benefits, people could still retire early, but they would do so on their own nickel, rather than the taxpayer's."

Wow. What a load of disingenuous spin. Retirees have of course paid social security taxes, it's not like they're getting something for nothing here. I understand that one could argue that certain individuals receive more than they paid in, but that's not what's going on here.

I now officially think the SS tax should be scrapped. It's regressive, it is effectively double taxation, and it has for years been used as general tax revenue. Given the latter, it should simply be done away with and any "assiatnce" to retirees should come from general tax revenues.

I find it telling that although conservatives spin SS tax as "your money", no ever talks of ending the the tax. They simply want to funnel your money into private accounts with high administration fees. A windfall for the financial industry, but still not really "my money".

[RT]

What anne, Carol, and save_the_rustbelt said: raising the retirement age to 67 or even 70 wouldn't be a hardship for most of us desk jockeys, but most Americans aren't desk jockeys, and many of them have very physically taxing jobs that just plain wear their bodies out well before that age.

My father-in-law was an electrician who worked on refrigeration equipment used in food processing. Not only did his job involve a lot of technical know-how, but it also involved a lot of crawling around under machines at all sorts of different temperatures. Thank goodness he was able to retire at 62 just a few years ago, because his body was just plain worn out by that point.

It would be one thing if the chattering classes who propose raising the retirement age would, in this discussion, acknowledge and wrestle with the fact that there are millions of people like my father-in-law out there. But they don't: they assume without a moment's reflection that everyone's job is like theirs. The sheer obliviousness of such people is what burns me most.

[bakho]

Trying to discuss fiscal problems without discussing the Bush tax cuts and Medicare D is like trying to dicuss AIDS prevention without discussing safe sex. It is remarkable how stifled our public discourse has become.

[Bruce Wilder]

A lot of ideological conservatives arrive at their political views by way of a worldview, which is highly selective of what it acknowledges

Mankiw, as an ideologue, does not "believe in" the benefits attending the provision of insurance by government. He sees Social Security as imposing a huge burden on the society, a burden the society would be "better off" without. The suffering of those, who would be deprived of adequate financial means in old age or disability, does not enter his mind. He can hold to the ideology he has, because those factors do not enter his mind.

The need for insurance and a wide variety of circumstances in which government is the only effective provider are central tenets of economics. That Mankiw elides this whole area of economics, and never acknowledges the implications for the distribution of income and wealth of eliminating such insurance, makes him a hack.

[jerry]

Mankiw, I think, believes that his readers are smart enough to connect the dots, and understand that he thinks that passing the Medicare Drug Benefit without making any provision for funding it was a really bad idea, and that tax cuts without offsetting spending reductions do more economic harm than good.

And Mankiw is cowardly in general, and intellectually dishonest in that unique way that some academics have of believing they are being crystal clear as and the rest is their student's problem.

In the meantime, I want to be able to work into my 80s, BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE FORCED TO. Especially since I am one of those prepaid/overpaid social security victims of the 80s that Mankiw is advocating stealing from to pay for his crimes.

At any rate, it is nice to see you today at Walmart, and can I get you a shopping cart?

[ItAintEazy]

Come on, Brad Delong of all people should find it really difficult to attack the Godfather of Harvard economics since unlike most of the commentators here he knows Mankiw personally throughout his formative academic career.

But since I don't, Mankiw's not just a hack, but a dangerous hack.

[Fledermaus]

he thinks that passing the Medicare Drug Benefit without making any provision for funding it was a really bad idea, and that tax cuts without offsetting spending reductions do more economic harm than good.

Jebus, I'm not a Harvard professor but I could have told you this. And I didn't need Bush's failed presidency to come to that realization.

[anne]

What is not being discussed is the cost of the war in and occupation of Iraq. What is not being discussed is the terrible material cost of $10 billion a month beyond the even more terrible physical and psychological and moral costs of Iraq. Then discussion of spending and taxing proceeds. I am not interested in butter and guns conversation where the trade in guns is never to be mentioned. Leave Iraq, and the economy can be fine.

While I would like to have the Medicare Drug Benefit broadened and allow public negotiation of drug prices and insure a proper revenue source for the benefit, I find no problem there remotely touching on the cost of Iraq. Iraq is the problem, rather than drugs for those who may be so helped.

[pfc]

"Mankiw advocates broadening the tax base by effectively raising federal taxes on people who live in high tax states and by scaling back the mortgage deduction."

Didn't foreclosures on personal homes go up some enormouse amount in the first three months of this year? Can you imagine what effect scaling back the mortgage deduction would have on that trend?

[knut wicksell]

I think Save the Rustbelt has Mankiw fingered. He's probably a kid from an upper middle class family bright enough to get into good schools and do good work in a field where a certain type of brightness (not to be confused with depth) can take one a long way. Although he surely knows what the distribution of income in the United States looks like, I'm ready to bet real money that he probably has no understanding of anyone who lives below the 70th percentile.

Rich kids. They know nothing.

[anne]

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/05/robert_reich_on.html

Mark Thoma:

"Opie is looking only at federal income taxes (as does the IRS, in its various calculations of who pays what). Include all other taxes -- especially sales, payroll, user fees et al. -- and lower-income people are paying a larger portion of their earnings to the government than are upper-income people. As to income taxes, the rich (earning over $200K a year) are paying a smaller portion of their incomes than they have at any time since the start of World War II. The only reason their payments total up to be a large percent of revenues from income taxes is the rich are taking home the largest slice of the nation's total income than at any time since the 1920s (and by some measures, the 1890s). Shift your gaze from income to wealth and it's even crazier. Bill Gates alone owns more assets than the bottom fifty percent of Americans put together."

[Bernard Yomtov]

I also think you are really stretching to defend Mankiw here.

Remember that the readers who are supposed to figure all this out are WSJ editorial page readers. They may be able to figure it out, but by and large they don't want to face it. To get the point you claim Mankiw is trying to make across you have to hit them pretty hard.

[a different chris]

> and other activities about which people lack self-control.

Urination!! I know I pee all the time and can't help it. That would be quite a revenue, uh, stream.

Seriously, I've been telling everybody inside and outside the blogosphere to watch out for big step ups in "sin" taxes. The Rethugs at all levels can't spend what they need to spend and still play tax cutters, *unless* they can find a class to tax.

And that class sure as hell isn't going to be the rich.

So, in our hyper-pseudo-moral environment, nobody can argue against anything once it gets labeled "sin". And that runs right up the R's alley - tax the sinners. They can just stop sinning if they don't want to pay.

That means gambling is, oddly, popular, like here in Pa. where they want to cut property taxes but need revenue. Gambling will do it! They're sinners anyway!! Don't want to pay taxes, don't gamble or run a gambling business!! Now how can we help you build your casino, sir....

I'm also betting on a stunning increase in speeding ticket fines, as states and municipalities scrape for every penny for highways in a condition that would get Roman engineers executed.

In any case, the range of "sins" will gradually grow, and most interestingly the behind-the-scenes coddling of government over industries that produce "sinful" things.

Mankiw, toady that he his, has just run it up the flagpole. Expect others to salute.

Ugh, I think I'm gonna throw up now.

[me]

Right on RT,

Your father-in-law and the little lady at UPS hauling 50 pounds packages up to the door. I can't really picture her at 70 running across my yard.

knut,

Again right on. Mankiw has impeached himself yet again as a right wing hack, not worthy of discussion. He merely advocates treating government like a "business", corruption and all. Private enterprise has ended pension plans after decades of promises and decades of withholdings from employees compensation to pay for it. Witness bankruptcy Bob Miller telling workers at Delphi they are overpaid while management is underpaid. Now Mankiw wants governement to come along and make the rest disappear.

What really needs to disappear is Mankiw, back under whatever rock he crawls out from to spew his utter ignorance.

This is the same Mankiw that told us how great offshoring of our jobs to India is. If it is so great a deal then why are Indians now protesting that their jobs are being outsourced?

"According to India's Economic Times, Indian workers employed by the country's reserve bank this week held demonstrations to protest possible plans by the bank to outsource some routine jobs to the private sector. The Times provides the following quote from K K Sharma, secretary of the All India Reserve Bank Employees Association: "We have two main demands--implementation of the revised pension scheme and no utsourcing of jobs from RBI."

Back-office workers at the RBI are worried about their positions going to a private group called the National Payments Corporation of India. They're concerned that the private sector will pay less and provide shoddy work. Does this sound familiar? I don't know much about NPCI, but with salaries increasing across the board in India, maybe it's also planning to move RBI jobs to China, or Vietnam, or some other lower-wage country."

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2006/05/heres_a_twi
st_w.html

[Emma Anne]

Like Carol, Anne, et al. I think raising the retirement age is a terrible idea. Our elders have been working all their lives and paying taxes, and the richest country in the world can afford to let them retire at a reasonable age. If we have trouble meeting the bills, we can go back to taxing Paris Hilton et al. And yes, pull out of Iraq.

My mom just retired at 65 1/2, and from her experience, I wouldn't even say the desk jockeys would be at all happy with working until 70. She says you get tired easily, and your concentration isn't what it was. She liked her job, but she was really ready to not work anymore.

[Rebecca Allen, PhD, ARNP]

I'm always amazed by commentators who advocate raising the retirement age as the cure for the aging problem. Don't these idiots read the papers? There's stories all the time about older workers being forced out in various ways, to make room for younger, cheaper workers. In other words, they're not being allowed to retire later. As long as these practices are permitted, "raising the retirement age" is just a bunch of words, that have no relationship to the real world.

[dryfly]

::::::
What anne, Carol, and save_the_rustbelt said: raising the retirement age to 67 or even 70 wouldn't be a hardship for most of us desk jockeys, but most Americans aren't desk jockeys, and many of them have very physically taxing jobs that just plain wear their bodies out well before that age.
::::::

Actually today most Americans are 'desk jockeys'... or at least don't do physically taxing labor. They are clerks, admins and middle 'managers'. In fact if they were able to do more 'work' they might be 'better off'.

And I don't mean we should all go out & get jobs pouring liquid metal all day at a foundry (toughest job I know - manipulating heavy ladles of molten metal to pour in molds... very difficult, dangerous work). Fact is most foundries I know have robots doing this now. The workers operate the robots.

But I feel most 'desk jockey' jobs are killers worse than all but the most demanding & dangerous labor jobs... and the killer they face is stress.

Few admins, clerks and even low-to-middle managers have any control over their job task, outcome expectations & performance metrics to which they are graded. Yet they are often held 'responsible' for everything whether they control it or not. Result - HIGH STRESS.

Couple high stress with long idle hours in a cubicle and you have the recipe for physical & mental ruin. Few will make it to 70 under these conditions - they'd have better chances if they were out on a construction site or 'modern' factory floor where they could at least blow off a little steam once in a while with a hammer.

And if you are looking for someone to blame for this I nominate Jack Welch, ex-CEO of GE and life long asshole.

While he isn't the only a-hole out there, he is the poster child, the quintessential sphincter.

He became 'famous' for his employee grading system - now copied by others - that is in many ways responsible for so much stress. His system is both counter productive & unfair - google it sometime. However it will work magic in the short run if your goal is to walk away with beau coup stock options - the bodies be damned.

If there is a special place in Hell... Jack Welch will be there... right along with Cheney, Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz.

[Mads Keller]

Mankiw's macro book was the first one I ever was taught economics after, that may affect my opinion of him. I do not see him as a hack. He is just a center right economist. As is Delong center left. Both are very talented guys. the namecalling always strikes me as an own goal. Except when one can back it up, as in Delong vs. the press. Regarding Krugman and any rightwing speaking highly of him, Mankiw gives a link to such a thing.

[rivw24]

We could start with a "liar" tax, collecting 400,000,000,000 dollars from those who advocated the war, to be paid back to the treasury belonging to the people of the United States.

[Kenji]

This is a good example of how you should attack Mankiw (as I have mentioned before, your previous critiques tended to be deficient). You acknowledge that the internal logic of Mankiw's argument makes sense, but the politics supported by the argument is highly problematic. I hope you will continue to attack Mankiw in this manner, if you choose to do so.

[Buce]

Re passive voice, I remember my friend Jean who was going an arbitration in which there was a possible murder charge: apparently someone had died during as party, and there were lots of questions about the circumstances. Asked how it all happened, the witness replied:

"I don't know, the dude come up dead, is all."

Mistakes were made. The dude come up dead.

[dale]

Since Social Security is just fine for 40-50 years, and perhaps indefinately, anyone who suggests that Soc Security is or will be a problem, is actually saying that we should not pay back the debt to the trust fund. That we shouldn't or can't pay back the treasuries where the SS surplus have been invested.

If Mankiw is suggesting default of some sort he should just come out and say it. I suppose, to be consistent, he is also warning that we can't pay back debts owed to wealthy Americans, corporations, and foriegn nations as well. I suppose he must be advocating cancellation or restructuring of all other US treasury obligations- to rich and poor, foreign and domestic?

[telly]

Yeah, you know, it's not so hard to imagine working until you're 70 if you work at a desk in an air-conditioned office.

But even those people-- even tenured Harvard professors-- must occasionally drive by construction workers who are out doing manual labor in the summer heat or winter ice. I would hope they'd give a thought to what's it's like doing that work when you're 69.

Of course, what they count on is that sort of work to kill the workers long before they can collect Social Security. My steelworker grandfather died at 65, my waitress grandmother at 66. They at least got a couple years of SS before-- but they wouldn't get a penny under this system. And that's just fine, because it leaves lots more for Mankiw to get as he finally leaves Harvard, complete with a fat pension (brought no doubt by the union he hates) and a nice healthy Social Security monthly payment too.

[me]

"I do not see him as a hack. He is just a center right economist."

Let me tell you something. I was 53 and IBM sent my job to India. Now you, and Mankiw may think that opened doors and endless opportunities for me, but I have news for you, it didn't. In my peak earning years I have earned nothing.

My wife has just turned 53 and IBM will be sending her job to Brazil. She will have 29 years and needs at least 30 to be elgible for the few retirement benefits left.

We will have lost healthcare, pension and income.

I have 4 years of grad school and have learned the harder you work the harder you get screwed. My job goes to India but was I elgible for TRA? NO.

Mankiw and his ilk think this is great. Wonderful globilization. Move he tells us.

All of his solutions fall on workers. What the hell did he do to promote higher wages and employment growth in this country? What the hell did he do period?

If you like Mankiw and Bush and their tax cuts for the rich and destroying this country with offshoring great, but he helped destroy everything I worked a lifetime for and he is a hack. Furthermore, if he didn't know better, then he isn't very bright either.

[David]

a) Greg Mankiw offers sly syllogisms faulting the Bush administration

b) Karl Rove understands syllogisms.

c) Greg Mankiw sleeps with the fishes

[liberal]

rivw24 wrote, "We could start with a 'liar' tax, collecting 400,000,000,000 dollars from those who advocated the war, to be paid back to the treasury belonging to the people of the United States."

Damn straight.

[liberal]

Mads Keller wrote, "I do not see him as a hack. ... the namecalling always strikes me as an own goal."

There's no namecalling here; "hack" is simply an appropriate label for Mankiw.

"Except when one can back it up, as in Delong vs. the press."

But it's very easy to back up in Mankiw's case. Among what I'm sure are many other examples, he has (like many others) drawn upon the "socialsecuritymedicare" obfuscation.

[billy]

Mankiw is the classical conservative - a bully.

Prof Delong thinks that Mankiw is a polished man, debating economics with people like him.

He is not.

The purpose in life of conservative economists is to invent 'polite verbiage' for conservative ends. They start from the required result, and works backwards to create reasons. Reality does not matter to them, it is all faith.

As JKG aptly put it, "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness"

Call a spade a spade.

[Charles]

The idea of making day laborers, nurse's aides, and waitresses work into their seventies and 80s is really great, Keith.

Maybe we could force people who are on their deathbeds to engage in direct mail or some other money-producing activity. And children-- my God, think of all the dollars that could be made by forcing eight year olds to labor.

The current Republican Party should market itself as an emetic.

[Mads Keller]

First of, I am Danish, and I fully support the Danish system. That is a system that’s much more generous than your system. Think an income tax at about 50 pct. Think very high income transfer to the +65. Think free healthcare. I am fore these things. But if Mankiw disagrees he is still not a hack. A hack is Ann Coulter, Bill Falafel and the rest of Fox “news”.

[Mads Keller]

First of, I am Danish, and I fully support the Danish system. That is a system that’s much more generous than your system. Think an income tax at about 50 pct. Think very high income transfer to the +65. Think free healthcare. I am fore these things. But if Mankiw disagrees he is still not a hack. A hack is Ann Coulter, Bill Falafel and the rest of Fox “news”.

[Doctor Biobrain]

"The Bushites see a society in which 10% are wealthy and 90% form a cheap labor pool."

10%?!? We'd be lucky if they wanted 1% to be wealthy. The Bush taxcuts were designed to help the top 0.1%, and everything else is just smoke and mirrors used to hide that fact. In fact, the whole Republican con was to convince large groups of people that they were the chosen minority who will truly benefit by Republican rule. And almost every one of them is being fooled.

[Bruce Webb]

When you think Supply Side Economists you need to think Mob Lawyers and not honest participants in an economic debate. Which is why coach's initial comments hit the target "economist(s) are still in general apologists for the man." Well yes, just because he went to Business School with you and bought you a drink at the last conference of economists doesn't mean Mankiw and Samwick are not just formulating their arguments around their conclusions. A point reinforced by Billy: "The purpose in life of conservative economists is to invent 'polite verbiage' for conservative ends. They start from the required result, and work backwards to create reasons."

I love the Dixie Chick's newest song "I am not ready to make nice". And like the Chicks I could give a shit that the economic equivalents of Toby Keith don't like it.

AS (either one) doesn't have to like it, nor does identified dunce DL, or for that matter identified subject GM. Because we got numbers.

[Eli Rabett]

Look, Mankiw knows that most people won't be able to work to 70, what he wants to do is to make the pensions they get at 65 smaller. That is the principal effect of raising the age at which one gets the full benefit. That and a whole bunch more of physically broken down people who die earlier. Which, of course saves money. Quite the piece of work our Greg. Hack is kind.

[christo]

The 0.1%, great business leaders like Dirk (shoot your old friend in the face) Cheney, John Snow(job) and probably "We dare as we have the too big to fail safety net" Paulson.

[lonesome moderate]

The economists who suggest raising the retirement age are responding to a real problem that is going to be much worse because we spent so much time pretending it didn't exist (and yes, GW Bush is pretender numero uno). Social Security should be OK for a long time but we can expect Medicare to be busted in a few years, and Medicaid is already busted. I don't know what the "right" answer is. But, come the next economic crisis in a few years, we are going to see changes that amount to either a de facto raising of the retirement age or a massive scaling back of the benefits we give to our retirees. The slow death of Medicaid essentially means that this is already happening, at least to the poorest.

[christo]

How about scaling back the aircraft carrier fleet from 9 or whatever it is to 5, tops, for example? How about scaling back our armed presence from the 140 countries or whatever to 12, say?

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/arts/music/21pare.html?ex=1305864000&en=916802c60a537929&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

May 21, 2006

The Dixie Chicks: America Catches Up With Them
By JON PARELES

THE DIXIE CHICKS call it "the Incident": the anti-Bush remark that Natalie Maines, their lead singer, made onstage in London in 2003. "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas," said Ms. Maines, a Texan herself.

It led to a partisan firestorm, a radio boycott, death threats and, now, to an album that's anything but repentant: "Taking the Long Way" (Open Wide/Monument/ Columbia). The Dixie Chicks — Ms. Maines, Emily Robison and Martie Maguire — were the top-selling country group of the late 1990's and early 2000's. After country's gatekeepers disowned them over politics, they decided to keep their politics and let country music fend for itself.

The Incident is very much at the center of "Taking the Long Way." The album could have been "way safe and scared," Ms. Maines said. "We could have pandered." They didn't. The new songs are filled with reactions, direct and oblique, to the Incident. There are no apologies.

"We had to make this album," Ms. Maines said. "We could not have gotten past any of this without making this album. Even if nobody ever heard it."

The Dixie Chicks were in New York this month to make media appearances and to perform at the party for this year's Time 100, the magazine's list of influential people, which includes them. Sitting around a dinner table in a Chelsea loft that Ms. Maines owns but hasn't used much — a former gallery with artist friends' paintings parked on the brick walls — the three Dixie Chicks dug into takeout Italian food and sipped red wine. "I've thought about all this way too much," Ms. Maines said.

"Taking the Long Way," due out on Tuesday, is the first Dixie Chicks album on which group members collaborated in writing all the songs. The first single, "Not Ready to Make Nice," declares, "I'm not ready to back down/I'm still mad as hell," and starts with a tolling guitar more suitable for a Metallica dirge than a honky-tonk serenade. The Dixie Chicks and their manager insisted to their record company that "we need to approach everything like not one radio station is going to play one single song," Ms. Maines said. Asked about country radio, she said, "Do you really think we're going to make an album for you and trust the future of our career to people who turned on us in a day?"

Instead the album wraps gleaming California rock around its raw emotions. Although there's plenty of country in the music, "Taking the Long Way" reaches not for the lucrative yet insular country airwaves but for an adult pop mainstream. Meanwhile the core country audience may not be so hostile anymore. The album arrives at a time when approval for President Bush has dropped to as low as 29 percent, in a recent Harris Interactive poll....

For those who expect knee-jerk Republicanism from country singers, the Dixie Chicks never fit the stereotype to begin with. "I always knew people thought that about us, and it bugged me," Ms. Maines said. "Because I knew who we were, and I knew who I've been my whole life. So to me it was such a relief for people to know." ...

[No von Mises]

"Nixon is no longer the worst President ever."

[me]

"The album arrives at a time when approval for President Bush has dropped to as low as 29 percent, in a recent Harris Interactive poll...."

And the album is#1 on Billboard.

[Eddie]

Someone mentioned raising fines for speeding to help state revenues...How about the German plan where they base the fine on income? I love this idea and think it should be expanded to many more fees and fines collected by the government. Imagine some well deserved progressivity on all those regressive schemes that the right love to drop on us in the name of cutting taxes.

I also guarantee that the crime of driving while black will stop being in the headlines replaced by driving while rich. I think it is a fair exchange and would limit the numbers of Mercedes and BMWs that fly by me at ridiculous speeds on Fridays and Sundays to reach their vacation homes.

[Dave]

"Mankiw, I think, believes that his readers are smart enough to connect the dots, and understand that he thinks that passing the Medicare Drug Benefit without making any provision for funding it was a really bad idea, and that tax cuts without offsetting spending reductions do more economic harm than good."

All of this is likely true, but there's nothing to prevent Mankiw from actually _coming out and saying it_. I don't think Mankiw's a hack: what he is is a coward. He isn't brave enough to admit that the administration has taken the wrong path and that he was a participant in that process.

[sm]

"How about scaling back the aircraft carrier fleet from 9 or whatever it is to 5, tops, for example? How about scaling back our armed presence from the 140 countries or whatever to 12, say?"

In the USA, no one can hear you say this. I heard it but I am not there.

[Brad DeLong]

Dave protests that "there's nothing to prevent Mankiw from actually _coming out and saying it_" (that the Medicare Drug Benefit was unwise).

Very true, and Greg's predecessor Glenn Hubbard has done so:

'R. Glenn Hubbard, former chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, says the Bush-backed expansion of Medicare to include prescription drugs was "unwise."

'"The Medicare expansion without substantial reform of the system was unwise fiscal policy," Mr. Hubbard, now dean of Columbia University's business school, said in an online exchange sponsored by The Wall Street Journal.

'"The current Social Security and Medicare systems are on an unsustainable path," Mr. Hubbard said in the exchange with Robert Reich, a Brandeis University professor who served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration. "In both cases, sound fiscal reform should involve slower benefit growth for high-income households. In addition, fiscal reform for Medicare must be accompanied by reform of health-care markets."...

'Mr. Hubbard was chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers from February 2001 until March 2003, where he advised President Bush on economic, tax and budget policy, international finance and health care, among other issues.

[derrida derider]

If Mankiw said directly that the problem was greedy and unwise tax cuts he'd never be published in the WSJ's op-ed pages. Their enforcement of the party line ranks with that of Pravda in the old days.

That said, it was cowardly to write in code - there are plenty of other papers that would have published a more honest approach. He's obviously seen what happened to other "renegades".

[liberal]

Mads Keller wrote, "Think an income tax at about 50 pct."

Hmm...but how good is the tax code at preventing the truly wealthy from hiding income?

And how much do you guys tax land? My impression is that Europeans tax land even less than we Americans do, which (if true) is pathetic.

"Think very high income transfer to the +65."

While there are many not-so-wealthy people over 65 who need assistance (especially those whose jobs were physically demanding and can't work as long as those of us blessed with "nice" jobs), income isn't the right measure. There's no reason retired people shouldn't be expected to spend down some of their accumulated wealth.

As usual, when it comes to well-being, _wealth_ is the right measure, not income.

"Think free healthcare. I am fore these things. But if Mankiw disagrees he is still not a hack."

You don't understand. I'm not calling Mankiw a hack because of a normative position he's taken. Rather, I'm calling him a hack because of his presentation of facts, like his (and others') "socialsecuritymedicare" canard. (Which Mankiw committed rather early on in his blogging career.)

"Socialsecuritymedicare" means lumping together the trend in the fiscal balance of SS with that of Medicare, thus making SS look bad as a result.

He's a hack.

[Bernard Kelly]

I agree with most of what you're saying about pensions- governments around the world will not be able to pay the pension as we have come to expect.

It's a consequence of medical science allowing us to live far, far longer than the old economic models allowed for.

In Australia, for example, the government introduced compulsory pensions saving in 1993 - initially at 3% and it was to increase by 1% each year until it reached 15%.

However it has been frozen at 9% since 1996.

At this level, if you pay this amount of your income into your own fund from your first day in the workforce, you will end up with enough to pay youself what the government pension is today.

However, those workers who have been paying 9% for the past ten years are now only in their 30s, so the vast majority of workers will be hard hit when the government finally admits it can't afford to pay the pension as we have come to expect.