Betsy DeVos on wrestling the deep state; John Cochrane's economic advice; Glenn Reynolds on the vibe shift; Ian Leslie on same; Marc Andreessen admires President Trump
These are great links, but we want to know more about what Arnold Kling thinks. It’s Inauguration Day, and it feels almost like Christmas for some reason. Papa Kling - What prophecies can you share with us? What will happen over the next four years? Are you optimistic? Excited? Will you be watching the Inauguration? Are you hosting an Inauguration Day party with popcorn, nachos, and soda?
Sorry for all the questions. Just curious what you’re thinking.
"Marc’s primary claim is that President Trump has a good feel for business reality."
Really? How much has he grown his father's fortune? How many times has he avoided bankruptcy only by debt restructuring (forgiveness) that creditors decided they would suffer smaller losses?
I suppose he has a lot of experience but what's the evidence he has expertise?
"I’m aware of another agency where work-from-home is 100 percent."
I know a State Department employee who is 100 percent in the office because of security clearance and likes it this way. He claimed the in-office rate for federal employees was 6 percent. I also know someone who works for the FAA that is 100 percent work from home, but he has to travel a lot and goes to Airports all over the world, so the 100 percent figure is misleading high in his case, and also the 6 percent number would be misleadingly low. Also, are the VA and the Post Office included in these numbers and are they pulling everyone else's in person numbers way up? Together they employ near 1 million people.
The Betsy DeVos comments about institutional entrenchment ("So much of Washington is entrenched in their positions, perspectives, and ways.") is not surprising. However, it makes me wonder about which departments are the most intractable, if they were ranked from worst to best in this aspect. The Department of Education is easy to imagine as the worst.
" the new positions feel closer to what most leaders instinctively believe - that you should hire and promote people on individual merit; avoid internal divisions wherever possible; treat people the same regardless of race or gender; do the work in front of you rather than debate politics; show up every day and work hard unless you absolutely can’t. These are common sense principles of successful and thriving organisations and it’s the privilege of those who aren’t in charge to believe anything else."
Instead of the woke converses: promote based on identity, punish any who fail to pledge support DEI, positive discrimination to members of less successful group, be activists instead of producers. Ian noted the Germans laughing at Trump for calling them dependent on Russian oil -- but Trump Was Right. (Which Arnold hasn't seriously listed the big criticisms of Trump, and how often Trump was more right than the critics). Trump is more normal common sense than the Democrats.
We watched the inauguration on Sky news, rather than any American channel. "Hitler" with a Jewish Rabbi & a Black MLK quoting preacher plus a normal white male priest. My wife didn't like Melania's great looking hat which mostly covered her eyes. Barron is really really tall. There was some criticism of Biden not dropping sooner, and to become the "reason" that the Dems lost, but my view is that no Dem would have done better, and yet Biden was also a bit correct that neither Harris nor any other Dem would have beat Trump. Since the Dems were being rejected by the independents, as not as good as Trump.
I'm expecting to read the transcript soon, too. Probably ai-generated (a fine app for ai: voice to text, in near real time. Plus translation possible.)
Where is the Arnold Kling list of cabinet secretaries of Biden vs Trump 45, with notes on which ones were better? There were a few cases of Arnold claiming Trump's bad picks was a reason he was weak, but I don't recall any such note about Biden's lousy, wimpy cabinet.
The first thought that leaps out at me is this: The information age, by facilitating communication, submits us to a deluge of drivel, of endless BS that isn't even written coherently. We need fewer words and more ideas.
For example, I just read this on this site: …"why pervert taxes to do the work of redistribution? If you want to redistribute, send people checks. On budget, annually appropriated, not perpetual entitlements." I wish people would speak in clear, declarative sentences.
I am on this site for, I suppose, ignoble purposes: I am just trying to disseminate my radical take on things. How radical am I. Along the lines of Ravachol, of bombs blowing up mansions and police stations. This is how I connect the inauguration of Donald Trump and Luigi Mangione:
Cochrane: So woud he agree to finance our social insurance system with a VAT? But if you want to transfer, why wouldn't a progressive consumption tax be even better?
Vos: I'd rather see slow movement to more charter schools. They ought not be so scarce that entry is by lottery. But slow.
Would Andreessen's story about the 90s and Clinton/Gore and the good government guys of the 90s sound so rosy if told by Bill Gates? Maybe they were the good enough guys. Reason has claimed many times Gates tried to sit out politics and just run a business and politicians of all stripes showed him the error of his ways of not paying his bribes and kissing the ruler's rings. Maybe they are overly favorable to Gates as well, but Andreessen's story sounds a little too close to an after the fact just so story of what Gates ended up doing. Make your billions and become a philanthropist and government just exists somewhere else over here and stays out of the way. Maybe it should be noted as well that the following happened after Netscape was sold and Andreessen wasn't there.
"In these less formal settings, last summer's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Microsoft, in which Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) laid into Bill Gates, are dismissed with, "What else would you expect from a senator who has Novell in his state?" Testimony in the ongoing Microsoft trial about the frequency with which the head of Netscape, the moving force behind the lawsuit, met with Klein and other Antitrust Division representatives is greeted with blasé yawns. So are testimony and e-mail messages showing that high-tech companies regard government antitrust action as simply one more tool in their competitive arsenal, an alternative to price cuts or new products. And as the head of Netscape said when asked why he did not file his own suit, it is much cheaper to use the government's lawyers.
Behind the scenes at the conferences, you hear snickers about the innocence of Microsoft, which thought it could sit out there in Redmond writing software and ignoring Washington, D.C.--as if such a big pot of wealth could go unnoticed by a rapacious imperial capital. The idea that perhaps a company should be able to do its business and ignore Washington is regarded as hopelessly naive. Microsoft is now playing catch-up, adding former congressional aides to its staff and boosting its budget for political contributions."
What's interesting and a bit confusing to me about the changing winds in corporate culture is that while the governing regime is changing, the demographics of high net worth customers have not. The people who were most progressive on November 1 haven't suddenly become Trump fans - they're maintaining both their fortunes and ideals. So how much of this is genuine change of heart, and how much of it is prophylaxis against claims that these companies were actively engaging in racial and gender discrimination (the good kind! They would protest) for the past decade.
Remember that Trump saved Exim Bank the last time around. There's little reason to believe that he will do much of substance to cut back the "deep/administrative state" this time.
Arnold thanks for messaging me. It gives me the same "something went wrong" when I try to open your link that it does when I try to subscribe. Thanks for the attempt though.
My guess is ad-blocker / cookie-rejection or VPN or some combo. It's been getting harder and harder to perform even simple online transactions while running "enhanced" online privacy protections, even though all the ones I mentioned put together still isn't particularly robust. My reading about how Substack works is that it simply breaks if anyone tries to both sign in and get genuinely serious about security and protecting one's identity, especially if one goes beyond leaving comments.
So for the first time I decided to become a paid subscriber, but it just keeps giving me an error when I attempt to subscribe. Same error if I try to subscribe to Lyman Stone. I'm signed up for stripe through the account and all that.
This is a bit of a stab in the dark but I'd check the credit card info you entered, or possibly to see if your credit card company is rejecting the transactions for some reason.
These are great links, but we want to know more about what Arnold Kling thinks. It’s Inauguration Day, and it feels almost like Christmas for some reason. Papa Kling - What prophecies can you share with us? What will happen over the next four years? Are you optimistic? Excited? Will you be watching the Inauguration? Are you hosting an Inauguration Day party with popcorn, nachos, and soda?
Sorry for all the questions. Just curious what you’re thinking.
Your mediocre, non-elite, commenter.
Scott
Arnold predicted that left-wingers would take to the streets in advance of the inauguration, so take any other predictions with a grain of salt.
"Marc’s primary claim is that President Trump has a good feel for business reality."
Really? How much has he grown his father's fortune? How many times has he avoided bankruptcy only by debt restructuring (forgiveness) that creditors decided they would suffer smaller losses?
I suppose he has a lot of experience but what's the evidence he has expertise?
"I’m aware of another agency where work-from-home is 100 percent."
I know a State Department employee who is 100 percent in the office because of security clearance and likes it this way. He claimed the in-office rate for federal employees was 6 percent. I also know someone who works for the FAA that is 100 percent work from home, but he has to travel a lot and goes to Airports all over the world, so the 100 percent figure is misleading high in his case, and also the 6 percent number would be misleadingly low. Also, are the VA and the Post Office included in these numbers and are they pulling everyone else's in person numbers way up? Together they employ near 1 million people.
6% sounded unlikely to me.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/verify/government-verify/6-percent-of-federal-employees-work-in-the-office-fact-check/536-0b6e4537-677e-4bab-ac00-62e98c3824a8
I haven't noticed that Fox has gotten any less biased.
Agreed. But as time goes on I notice more bias from NYT, PBS, NPR, network news, etc.
The Betsy DeVos comments about institutional entrenchment ("So much of Washington is entrenched in their positions, perspectives, and ways.") is not surprising. However, it makes me wonder about which departments are the most intractable, if they were ranked from worst to best in this aspect. The Department of Education is easy to imagine as the worst.
Well described vibe shift (Ian Leslie):
" the new positions feel closer to what most leaders instinctively believe - that you should hire and promote people on individual merit; avoid internal divisions wherever possible; treat people the same regardless of race or gender; do the work in front of you rather than debate politics; show up every day and work hard unless you absolutely can’t. These are common sense principles of successful and thriving organisations and it’s the privilege of those who aren’t in charge to believe anything else."
Instead of the woke converses: promote based on identity, punish any who fail to pledge support DEI, positive discrimination to members of less successful group, be activists instead of producers. Ian noted the Germans laughing at Trump for calling them dependent on Russian oil -- but Trump Was Right. (Which Arnold hasn't seriously listed the big criticisms of Trump, and how often Trump was more right than the critics). Trump is more normal common sense than the Democrats.
We watched the inauguration on Sky news, rather than any American channel. "Hitler" with a Jewish Rabbi & a Black MLK quoting preacher plus a normal white male priest. My wife didn't like Melania's great looking hat which mostly covered her eyes. Barron is really really tall. There was some criticism of Biden not dropping sooner, and to become the "reason" that the Dems lost, but my view is that no Dem would have done better, and yet Biden was also a bit correct that neither Harris nor any other Dem would have beat Trump. Since the Dems were being rejected by the independents, as not as good as Trump.
I'm expecting to read the transcript soon, too. Probably ai-generated (a fine app for ai: voice to text, in near real time. Plus translation possible.)
Where is the Arnold Kling list of cabinet secretaries of Biden vs Trump 45, with notes on which ones were better? There were a few cases of Arnold claiming Trump's bad picks was a reason he was weak, but I don't recall any such note about Biden's lousy, wimpy cabinet.
I just discovered this site.
The first thought that leaps out at me is this: The information age, by facilitating communication, submits us to a deluge of drivel, of endless BS that isn't even written coherently. We need fewer words and more ideas.
For example, I just read this on this site: …"why pervert taxes to do the work of redistribution? If you want to redistribute, send people checks. On budget, annually appropriated, not perpetual entitlements." I wish people would speak in clear, declarative sentences.
I am on this site for, I suppose, ignoble purposes: I am just trying to disseminate my radical take on things. How radical am I. Along the lines of Ravachol, of bombs blowing up mansions and police stations. This is how I connect the inauguration of Donald Trump and Luigi Mangione:
https://davidgottfried.substack.com/p/trumps-ascension-to-power-means-luigi
"How radical am I. Along the lines of Ravachol, of bombs blowing up mansions and police stations."
That's not radical. That's just stupid. And sentimental: "the romance of violence".
Cochrane: So woud he agree to finance our social insurance system with a VAT? But if you want to transfer, why wouldn't a progressive consumption tax be even better?
Vos: I'd rather see slow movement to more charter schools. They ought not be so scarce that entry is by lottery. But slow.
Would Andreessen's story about the 90s and Clinton/Gore and the good government guys of the 90s sound so rosy if told by Bill Gates? Maybe they were the good enough guys. Reason has claimed many times Gates tried to sit out politics and just run a business and politicians of all stripes showed him the error of his ways of not paying his bribes and kissing the ruler's rings. Maybe they are overly favorable to Gates as well, but Andreessen's story sounds a little too close to an after the fact just so story of what Gates ended up doing. Make your billions and become a philanthropist and government just exists somewhere else over here and stays out of the way. Maybe it should be noted as well that the following happened after Netscape was sold and Andreessen wasn't there.
https://reason.com/1999/03/01/the-new-trustbusters/
"In these less formal settings, last summer's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Microsoft, in which Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) laid into Bill Gates, are dismissed with, "What else would you expect from a senator who has Novell in his state?" Testimony in the ongoing Microsoft trial about the frequency with which the head of Netscape, the moving force behind the lawsuit, met with Klein and other Antitrust Division representatives is greeted with blasé yawns. So are testimony and e-mail messages showing that high-tech companies regard government antitrust action as simply one more tool in their competitive arsenal, an alternative to price cuts or new products. And as the head of Netscape said when asked why he did not file his own suit, it is much cheaper to use the government's lawyers.
Behind the scenes at the conferences, you hear snickers about the innocence of Microsoft, which thought it could sit out there in Redmond writing software and ignoring Washington, D.C.--as if such a big pot of wealth could go unnoticed by a rapacious imperial capital. The idea that perhaps a company should be able to do its business and ignore Washington is regarded as hopelessly naive. Microsoft is now playing catch-up, adding former congressional aides to its staff and boosting its budget for political contributions."
What's interesting and a bit confusing to me about the changing winds in corporate culture is that while the governing regime is changing, the demographics of high net worth customers have not. The people who were most progressive on November 1 haven't suddenly become Trump fans - they're maintaining both their fortunes and ideals. So how much of this is genuine change of heart, and how much of it is prophylaxis against claims that these companies were actively engaging in racial and gender discrimination (the good kind! They would protest) for the past decade.
Remember that Trump saved Exim Bank the last time around. There's little reason to believe that he will do much of substance to cut back the "deep/administrative state" this time.
https://www.exim.gov/news/president-donald-j-trump-signs-historic-seven-year-long-term-reauthorization-exim
Arnold thanks for messaging me. It gives me the same "something went wrong" when I try to open your link that it does when I try to subscribe. Thanks for the attempt though.
then it doesn't seem like a substack issue. Something with your browser or your network. Try a different browser
My guess is ad-blocker / cookie-rejection or VPN or some combo. It's been getting harder and harder to perform even simple online transactions while running "enhanced" online privacy protections, even though all the ones I mentioned put together still isn't particularly robust. My reading about how Substack works is that it simply breaks if anyone tries to both sign in and get genuinely serious about security and protecting one's identity, especially if one goes beyond leaving comments.
Seems likely.
So for the first time I decided to become a paid subscriber, but it just keeps giving me an error when I attempt to subscribe. Same error if I try to subscribe to Lyman Stone. I'm signed up for stripe through the account and all that.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
This is a bit of a stab in the dark but I'd check the credit card info you entered, or possibly to see if your credit card company is rejecting the transactions for some reason.