Come One! Come All!

Tom Walker, a.k.a. the Sandwichman, invites us to join him in a Facebook group dedicated to the care and feeding of The Greenest Elephant in the Room!.
Walker, a noted Vancouver economist, expounds on the value of working less to gain full employment, a more productive economy, a better comity and a happier society in a greener environment. It is rumored he also contains lanolin. Read through his posts at  Econospeak for a fascinating account of an economic idea that has been shunted aside in as errant an act of piracy as any that festered the Gilded Age. It is that part of Keynesianism that dare not speak its name -- at least in the Halls of Conventional Wisdom.
Do -- please -- check it out.
--ml

Dum Luks Community, economics, Politics

Another POV

According to the best guess of the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security is well funded until 2040, about 6 election cycles from now. (By the way, it is well funded because the baby boomers agreed to tax themselves to pay for their own as well as their parent's retirement, so as not to impose too large a burden on the smaller baby boomlet of their children.)

There is no question that the US pays the most for health care. It has a poor return for that compared to the rest of the developed part of the world.

Of the $1.4 some odd trillion the world spends on War, the US spends $771 trillion, or 48% of the total.

Based on the above facts, it is obvious that the only way to achieve fiscal balance is by cutting Social Security benefits.

Right.
--ml

Dum Luks's stockpot, Politics

Poinarded!

Tristero:

they die under Mysterious Circum-stances (alas, it is the karma for all whistle-blowers portrayed by lower-billed actors in a conspiracy thriller).

This is as bad as being stabbed in the rotunda ...
--ml

Dum Luk's Stockpot

Defy(n)ing Terms

Zeitgeist (pronounced [ˈt͡saɪtgaɪst] is a German language expression literally translated: Zeit, time; Geist, spirit, meaning "the spiritsociety". The word zeitgeist describes the intellectual, cultural, ethical and political climate, ambience and morals of an era or also a trend. In German, the word has more layers of meaning than the English translation, including the fact that Zeitgeist can only be observed for past events.

If we get to some future point that allows the luxury of looking back, I feel certain the term will change to zeitscheiss.
--ml
UPDATE: to correct typos and layout yechh.

Song of the Right Wingnut

Roy, in his Village Voice column observes that some right bloggers think Obama gets ideas from "his fellow socialists at The Economist."

This ricocheted through my synapses to wake the voice of the turtle after an old Quaker saw.

Said the ripe old right Wingnut to his sole confidant:
"All are commies, save me and thee.
All to our left deep dyed in pink, they be.
Nor none to our right may be, nor ever might appear.
Sometimes I think thee a bit of a socialist."

--ml
Dumluks Community, Dumluks Stockpot, politics