July 26, 2015

Not only "passed with a veto-proof majority"; Truman vetoed it then the "Republican dominated

Congress" passed it over his veto.

You are right. Unions cannot regain the health they had under FDR, or the relative health they now have in Europe and other developed countries, with Taft-Hartley restrictions, including 'right-to-work' laws, in effect.

July 24, 2015

Krugman: The EU may have been a great idea. The euro, not so much.

Annoying Euro Apologetics

Yes, I’m a dumb uncouth economist, completely unaware of the role of politics and international strategy in policy decisions, who never heard of the European project and its origins in the effort to put Europe’s legacy of war behind it, not to mention strengthen democracy in the Cold War.

Well, actually I do know all about that. The point, however, is that while the European project has at every stage combined economic objectives with broader political goals – it’s about peace and democracy through integration and prosperity – the project can’t be expected to work unless the economic measures are a good idea in and of themselves, or at least a non-catastrophic idea. What happened in the march to the euro was that European elites, in love with the symbolism of a single currency, closed their minds to warnings that currency union – unlike the removal of trade barriers – was at best ambiguous in its economic logic, and arguably, even ex ante, a very bad idea indeed.



After that slump, Finland experienced a long stretch of solid economic growth. But so did Sweden, and it’s hard to see any real difference in their degrees of success. There’s certainly nothing there to indicate that euro membership was crucial to growth. Since 2008, on the other hand, Sweden has – despite bobbling its monetary policy – done much better.

As I said, maybe there are good arguments against the proposition that the euro was a mistake. But pointing out that politics matters, and economies grow, doesn’t cut it; these aren’t the factoids you’re looking for.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/annoying-euro-apologetics/?_r=0

July 24, 2015

Pew Poll: Iran Nuclear Agreement Meets With Public Skepticism. Large partisan divide.

Among those who are familiar with the agreement, three-quarters of Republicans (75%) disapprove of it, while just 14% approve. Opposition is particularly pronounced among conservative Republicans, with 82% disapproving of the agreement. Among moderate and liberal Republicans a smaller majority (58%) disapproves.

Democratic support for the agreement outweighs opposition by more than two-to-one (59% approve, 25% disapprove). And liberal Democrats are particularly supportive: 74% approve of the deal. Conservative and moderate Democrats who are familiar with the agreement support it by a considerably narrower margin (48% approve, 33% disapprove).



Most Americans Continue to Say Diplomacy is Best Way to Ensure Peace

In general, the public continues to say that good diplomacy, rather than military strength, is the best way to ensure peace. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) say good diplomacy is the best way to ensure peace; 30% say the best way to ensure peace is through military strength. These views have changed only modestly since the question was first asked two decades ago.

There continue to be wide partisan and ideological divides on this question: While 72% of Democrats (including 81% of liberal Democrats) say that good diplomacy provides the best path to peace, Republicans are more likely to say military might, rather than diplomacy, is the best way to ensure peace (49% vs. 36%).



http://www.people-press.org/2015/07/21/iran-nuclear-agreement-meets-with-public-skepticism/

July 19, 2015

I found some Krugman articles that dispel the "it was all the tech bubble" that caused the boom

in wages and employment during the Clinton years.

Clinton presided over eight years of job growth, with job growth at roughly equal rates in the first and second halves of that eight-year period, and the internet bubble inflated only in the second half.

Yes, dotcoms went to ridiculous levels — but people weren’t borrowing vast amounts to buy them, so there wasn’t a deleveraging crisis when the bubble burst.

The point here is that while there was irrational exuberance in the 1990s, the Clinton-era expansion wasn’t fundamentally unsound the way the expansion of 2003-2007 — the “Bush boom” — was.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/a-tale-of-two-bubbles/

July 17, 2015

Is Donald Trump the New Ross Perot? Or the Next Pat Buchanan?

Who are these Trump backers? As the accompanying table shows, they are disproportionately white. Favorable views of Trump among African Americans are minimal, and Hispanic boosters are at a higher level than blacks but well below that of whites. Older voters (those age 65 and over) undoubtedly form his core; in fact, the 65+ group is the only age cohort to view him favorably, 59% to 39%, virtually the opposite view of all other age groups. Trump has particularly little appeal among younger, more diverse voters: 20% of those under 30 rate Trump favorably (versus 60% unfavorably). Trump also fares somewhat better with men than women, and those with lower incomes ($40,000 and less).



How does the Trump profile compare to Ross Perot ...? ... there are significant similarities in the support profile of Trump and Perot, as shown in Table 2. Perot’s vote was disproportionately white, male, and Republican or Independent. However, there is one notable difference: Perot fared best not with the oldest cohort but with voters between 25-29 years, and more generally with voters under 50 — not the retirees attracted to Trump.



The other modern candidate bearing some resemblance to Trump also comes from 1992. Populist conservative Pat Buchanan challenged President Bush in the Republican primaries, and ran fairly strongly in the New Hampshire primary (37% to Bush’s 53%). ... Buchanan trailed Bush 18% to 77% nationally among Republicans; still, the former Richard Nixon aide and TV personality ran better with men, younger voters, and those with less than a high school education (and presumably, those with lower incomes).



It’s easy to conclude that Donald Trump isn’t going to help the GOP’s image with Hispanics and many swing voters, but it’s also impossible to know how much Trump will actually injure the Republican brand in this cycle. How long will he stick around? If Trump drops out before the voting begins in early 2016, or even midway through the primary season, voters will have many months to forget and move on. Yet Trump could stick it out, get his slice of votes all the way to June, and deliver a raucous, memorable address to a huge TV audience at the national convention. In the short term, Trump takes up a huge amount of media oxygen. There’s only so much coverage to go around, and if television segments and news stories continue to focus on Trump, that’s airtime that candidates with less name recognition — like Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, John Kasich, and many others — are not getting.

In the worst nightmare for the eventual Republican nominee, Trump might run as an independent in November once the primary process has concluded. “Sore-loser” laws that exist in 44 states do not generally apply to presidential candidates, and even in the few cases where they do, a court challenge by Trump might well be successful. In part, this is because the “candidates” on the ballot in a general election for president are the electors, not the politicians to whom the electors are pledged.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/