Scott Locklin on Michael Lewis and SBF; Brink Lindsey: do we all need reality therapy?; Samuel Hammond learns from LDS welfare; Matt Goodwin on British politics
In Hammond's lessons of welfare policy, there is good emphasis on Federalism and decentralization, plus more discretion at the local level, as well as noting the thick non-gov't civil social support for a culture of work. The local LDS person can suggest what jobs the poor worker might do - the gov't Job Center person is supposed to be more completely neutral.
The silly Fed matching which sends more Fed money to rich states who spend more, per person, than the poorer states who spend less, is clearly sub-optimal.
My suggested trial program would include a specific life-style coach who IS, specifically, suggesting just what jobs the person should apply to, as well as other lifestyle changes to become more employable.
No mention of drug use, or alcoholism, which are often problems among those able to work but without jobs.
It didn't seem like any of the 11 work programs discussed included an automatic offer of employment, and having a gov't temp agency where the able-bodied line up daily for work doesn't seem to have been tried - and it should be.
A key issue is to learn from multiple trial programs what seems to work better, in practice, and do more of that. This is another big reason job programs are better than UBI.
Jobs for low IQ healthy young men is the biggest social need in America, and most of the OECD countries.
"we have gone from a society organized around solving problems in the physical world to a society organized around solving problems inside our own heads."
That is correct, as far as it goes, but the deeper truth is that we gone from a society organized around solving problems in the physical world to a society organized around the reintroduction of those old problems. In short, we are beginning the process of devolving our civilization.
I like Michael Lewis - and also like this critique of him sucking up to SBF. Also the critique of moral preeners:
" For example, Zuckerschmuck and Gates foundations work is always accompanied by a healthy PR budget making sure you know what wonderfully generous people they are, and hoping you don’t notice those are tax dodges to pass their wealth onto their offspring and extend their power without paying a dime in taxes. "
I think NGOs should be much more heavily scrutinized - and the salaries of the top execs should be extra taxed when they exceed 2x prior year's median. So, at a $60k median, all "non-profit" orgs who pay their execs more than $120k should pay some increasing amount non-profit excess wage surtax.
The quick 90 sec video at the end has a great conclusion:
"Gov't regulations don't protect the customer. They protect the crooks. Which is exactly what SBF wanted."
In the 2006-2008 MBS Financial ponzi scheme meltdown, all the Big Banks should have been bankrupted, as what following the "rule of law" would have resulted. "The Big Short" was a fine book - as was "Liar's Poker" and other Lewis books.
"Poorer states need proportionately larger grants to equalize their fiscal capacity and provide comparable services to the poor. Right now, TANF, Medicaid, and most other major federal grant programs do the opposite, exacerbating the inequities between rich and poor states."
One of many ways that ACA could have been improved when Republicans repealed and replaced it in 2017.
Arnold, thank you very much for your refernce to Marc Cohodes. Before reading your post, I had never heard of him. Listened to some interviews with him, and boy is this guy feisty! If you havent already seen it, I would recommend an interview he did with something called Lead-lag live. In it, he has an interesting take on what's wrong with the mainstream media, which I hadn't heard before. learned a lot
But wait a minute, I thought public schools and the universities were supposed to be reality therapy?
And wasn't urbanization supposed to be reality therapy as well? Since urbanites have to buy everything, especially food, they must therefore love laissez-faire economics. Surely there is no way urbanites would deliberately do anything to raise the price of food or energy, right?
Lindsey's recent essays have been very good, and I doubt I would have read them if Arnold and Tyler hadn't linked to them, so thank you. I can't say I disagree with the essays either, but like Tyler I am not as negative on social media and believe that some of the solutions to vexing problems can be found within the scope of this quasi separate digital world. The problem of elite over production throughout history led to upheaval and warfare and death, but with social media we actually have the potential to deal with this problem without all the killing if we so desire (I don't know who the we is here either, I never know who the we is). Instead of giving overproduced elites roles as commissars and actual authority they can just be made social media brand managers. There could even be a range of unique titles for these make work jobs where these people can spend all their time digitally. They can all fight with each other and any one else in a digital world on some platform somewhere, like Mastodon or Parler or wherever.
In Hammond's lessons of welfare policy, there is good emphasis on Federalism and decentralization, plus more discretion at the local level, as well as noting the thick non-gov't civil social support for a culture of work. The local LDS person can suggest what jobs the poor worker might do - the gov't Job Center person is supposed to be more completely neutral.
The silly Fed matching which sends more Fed money to rich states who spend more, per person, than the poorer states who spend less, is clearly sub-optimal.
My suggested trial program would include a specific life-style coach who IS, specifically, suggesting just what jobs the person should apply to, as well as other lifestyle changes to become more employable.
No mention of drug use, or alcoholism, which are often problems among those able to work but without jobs.
It didn't seem like any of the 11 work programs discussed included an automatic offer of employment, and having a gov't temp agency where the able-bodied line up daily for work doesn't seem to have been tried - and it should be.
A key issue is to learn from multiple trial programs what seems to work better, in practice, and do more of that. This is another big reason job programs are better than UBI.
Jobs for low IQ healthy young men is the biggest social need in America, and most of the OECD countries.
"we have gone from a society organized around solving problems in the physical world to a society organized around solving problems inside our own heads."
That is correct, as far as it goes, but the deeper truth is that we gone from a society organized around solving problems in the physical world to a society organized around the reintroduction of those old problems. In short, we are beginning the process of devolving our civilization.
I like Michael Lewis - and also like this critique of him sucking up to SBF. Also the critique of moral preeners:
" For example, Zuckerschmuck and Gates foundations work is always accompanied by a healthy PR budget making sure you know what wonderfully generous people they are, and hoping you don’t notice those are tax dodges to pass their wealth onto their offspring and extend their power without paying a dime in taxes. "
I think NGOs should be much more heavily scrutinized - and the salaries of the top execs should be extra taxed when they exceed 2x prior year's median. So, at a $60k median, all "non-profit" orgs who pay their execs more than $120k should pay some increasing amount non-profit excess wage surtax.
The quick 90 sec video at the end has a great conclusion:
"Gov't regulations don't protect the customer. They protect the crooks. Which is exactly what SBF wanted."
In the 2006-2008 MBS Financial ponzi scheme meltdown, all the Big Banks should have been bankrupted, as what following the "rule of law" would have resulted. "The Big Short" was a fine book - as was "Liar's Poker" and other Lewis books.
"Poorer states need proportionately larger grants to equalize their fiscal capacity and provide comparable services to the poor. Right now, TANF, Medicaid, and most other major federal grant programs do the opposite, exacerbating the inequities between rich and poor states."
One of many ways that ACA could have been improved when Republicans repealed and replaced it in 2017.
Arnold, thank you very much for your refernce to Marc Cohodes. Before reading your post, I had never heard of him. Listened to some interviews with him, and boy is this guy feisty! If you havent already seen it, I would recommend an interview he did with something called Lead-lag live. In it, he has an interesting take on what's wrong with the mainstream media, which I hadn't heard before. learned a lot
But wait a minute, I thought public schools and the universities were supposed to be reality therapy?
And wasn't urbanization supposed to be reality therapy as well? Since urbanites have to buy everything, especially food, they must therefore love laissez-faire economics. Surely there is no way urbanites would deliberately do anything to raise the price of food or energy, right?
Lindsey's recent essays have been very good, and I doubt I would have read them if Arnold and Tyler hadn't linked to them, so thank you. I can't say I disagree with the essays either, but like Tyler I am not as negative on social media and believe that some of the solutions to vexing problems can be found within the scope of this quasi separate digital world. The problem of elite over production throughout history led to upheaval and warfare and death, but with social media we actually have the potential to deal with this problem without all the killing if we so desire (I don't know who the we is here either, I never know who the we is). Instead of giving overproduced elites roles as commissars and actual authority they can just be made social media brand managers. There could even be a range of unique titles for these make work jobs where these people can spend all their time digitally. They can all fight with each other and any one else in a digital world on some platform somewhere, like Mastodon or Parler or wherever.