The Horn of Winter

This is another guess about George R R Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" The books contain several references to the horn of Joramun also known as the horn of winter. In the book characters say that it is said that Joramun blew it and woke giants from the earth. spoiler alert -- those who have not read the 5 published books might learn some of their contents after the jump

TARP Bottom Line

TARP Books Closed (give or not give less than $ 1 billion).

According to Lew, the total profit for American taxpayers on TARP investments stands at $15.35 billion. The NYT report added, “Less than $1 billion in taxpayer funds remain scattered in about 35 community banks around the country, but with the sale on Thursday of the government’s last 54.9 million shares of Ally Financial … the Treasury declared the bailouts done.”

For some years now, I have been writing that estimates of the cost of TARP were probably over-estimates (I didn't speculate wether it would actually be profitable). I told you so. It is true that TARP was small beens compared to the much huger Fed bailout efforts. Also TARP profits are tiny compared to the huge immense gigantic profits from the Fed's efforts and the separate huge immense gigantic profits from the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac. In those cases, we are discussing extremely high profits which are, at the least, among to the highest profits ever reported in human history.

Feeling Good is Easy When Barry's solid Blue

I was thinking about the newly liberated Obama here the villagers seem to have decided that Obama was passive, bored and uninterested in his job back when he was laying low to avoid making trouble for Democratic senators seeking re-election in red states. The fact that he had explicitly been asked to to not make too much news seems to have escaped the notice of people whose main problem is that they have litte DC political news to talk about (and heaven forfend that they report on what is happening to ordinary people who, for example, finally have health insurance). I decided to explain to no particular very serious person, that Obama had chosen to focus on not displeasing the median voter in mid term elections in states like Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Kentucky. So I thought that he was thinking of at a Kentucky coal mine not a California shore. Busted Flat in Baton Rouge awaiting a renoff ... Feeling good is easy when Barry's solid blue ... from the Kentucky Coal mines to the California Shore I need help. Probably professional help. ..

the same percentage of US adults have a favorable view of the ACA as say it does not establish death panels.

From the Kaiser Family Foundtion Obamacare Tracking Poll for December 2014 Nearly 5 years after passage and a year after the coverage expansions under the ACA took effect, overall opinion on the law remains stable with 46 percent of the public reporting an unfavorable view of the law and 41 percent a favorable view. FIGURE 10: Misperceptions About ACA Continue To the best of your knowledge, would you say the health reform law does or does not do each of the following? CORRECT INCORRECT No Yes Don’t Know/Refused Allow undocumented immigrants to receive financial help from the government to buy health insurance No Yes Don’t Know/Refused 38% 43% 19% Establish a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare No Yes Don’t Know/Refused 41% 41% 19% I note that fraction who have a favorable view of the law is identical to the fraction who answer no if asked if it establishes death panels.

Kaili Celebrates Chanukah

QOTOD*

In any case, as is traditional on this blessed holiday, Rick Perry, the Simple Child, will now ask the Four questions, and if he can actually remember at least three of them, it will have been sufficient. Dyaneu.

*Quote of that other day

Random Opinions

All Kossacks work for the Kzar, but some Kossacks are more random than others

Yellow pigs forever. Also the bill of rewrites is excellent

sharp as a pin tight as a Drum

Kevin Drum asks an even more than usually interesting question here

He lists Democratic victories in the cromnibus (aside from that keeping the government open thing) then asks

shouldn't someone have been in charge of quietly making the progressive case for this bill? It wouldn't have convinced everyone, but it might have reduced the grumbling within the base a little bit. Why was that not worth doing?

In comments I speculate wildly about 11 dimensional chess (remember the good old days of 11 dimensional chess?).

One hypothesis is a grumbling, indeed rebellious, base is useful to the Democrats who deal with the Republicans. It sure seems that Republicans have gotten rather a lot (especially during the debt ceiling crisis negotiations) based on the argument that they need these concessions to fight off the crazy tea partier base.

I have long thought that leftist attacks on Obama, Reid and Hoyer are useful to them. It helps Democratic negotiators to be able to say they have given up all they can and almost too much. A non grumbling base makes this impossible. It helps most Democrats to be attacked from the left on some issues (although most definitely not for being too nice to bankers).

The huge publicity given to Republican victories which the vast majority of ordinary voters (including tea partiers) hate is also useful to Democrats.

Frankly I think a victory which is perceived as a defeat is the best outcome for Obama. It isn't as if he has to worry about being primaried.

For those with strong stomachs

Pseudo doctor James Mitchell (the man who designed the CIA torture methods and became the first person to commit torture with the approval of, at least, the US National Security Advisor) set up and knocked down a straw man in an interview (which I will not watch because I feel sick and filthy enough after reading the SSCi executive summary).

But Mitchell is largely responsive to Larsen's questions, and perhaps the most striking moment is when he reacts to the intelligence committee's findings that torture had not yielded actionable intelligence. It wasn't supposed to, he says. It was supposed to make detainees more responsive to other questioning. "It's almost like a good cop, bad cop kind of set-up," he says, "with a really bad cop." The point, he says, "was to facilitate getting actionable intelligence by making a bad cop that was bad enough that the person was engage with the good cop," Mitchell continues. "I would be stunned if they found any kind of evidence that EITs, as they were being applied, yielded actionable intelligence."

Mitchell did not respond honestly to the evidence that his torture was ineffective or counter productive. Throughout the executive summary of the SSCI torture report, information obtained before the torture was compared to information obtained during and after the torture. Consider a claim only slightly more absurd, dishonest and irrelevant than Mitchell's. He could just have well have argued that, yes, people didn't give useful answers while being waterboarded, because they could speak no more than they could breath. He absolutely does not address the evidence and made a totally irrelevant argument assuming that viewers would not have read the executive summary. I have read it. There is no evidence that torture caused people to be more cooperative when interrogated *after* the torture. In fact essentially all of the valuable information obtained from Al Qaeda prisoners was obtained before they were tortured, certainly the information most often cited by defenders of the torture program was (this is documented in repetitive meticulous detail in page after page after page of the executive summary). In particular, Rasul Ghul provided key information relevent to finding Osama Bin Laden in the first two days he was interrogated (notably without "enhanced" techniques) then nothing even noted by defenders of the torture program after he was tortured. Mitchell set up and knocked down a straw man. Unsurprisingly he is completely dishonest and pretends to respond to the evidence which he ignores counting on listeners' ignorance. Also his crimes must be prosecuted. Torture of prisoners is almost unique in that the Geneva conventions (which are ratified and therefore US law) do not allow prosecutorial discretion.

Sensible Redactions

The redactions in the Senate Torture Report seem reasonable. They are concentrated in sections where the report explains how valuable intel was gathered and important terrorists captured. The section on the capture of khalid Sheik Mohammad is wonderfully terse as redacted. So that is how history is made, with the text message "I M W KSM". OMG

Ali Soufan Vindicated

Ali Soufan is an FBI agent who claims that he and his partner obtained intelligence from Abu Zubaydah before the CIA tortured Abu Zubaydah. He claims they obtained this information by building raport and that claims about the effectiveness of high value detainee interrogation which are used to justify torture are based on the effectiveness of his opposite approach. Google reminds me, that I have posted on this quite often These claims are contested by vague assertions made often by anonymous sources which imply that those who have full access to classified information know Ali Soufan exaggerated. The Executive Summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee Torture Report strongly confirms Ali Soufan's claims based on access to CIA cables -- Cia intelligence and analysis staff communicating with each other and not CIA employees communicating with the press, congress or the White House.

Senate Torture Report (executive summary)

I am starting at page 192 III "Intelligence Acquired and CIA Representations on the Effectiveness of the CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Techniques to Multiple Constituencies"

Because I assume many others are starting on page 1 and because reading about the torture techniques is very painful.

update: Talk about burying the lead. Only on page 226 does the Senate Report describe the Jose Padilla dirty bomb plot in detail

This is the plot which allegedly made it necessary for the US to completely abaondon the 5th amendment and authorize the President to hold anyone held incommunicado forever on his say so.

An issue key to the assessment of the effectiveness of techniques (which are criminal and unacceptable in any case) is when information was obtained from people the CIA tortured. FBI agent Ali Soufan claims that he and his partner obtained valuable information from Abu Zubaydah *before* he was tortured and that Abu Zubaydah stopped providing information when the "enhanced" interrogation began. I will not how many times CIA representations say something about who talked and what they revealed but avoid any hint about when.

Not in the report, the Washington Post presents both sides of the debate

CIA Director John Brennan on Monday rebutted ...

“Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom [enhanced interrogation techniques] were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives,” Brennan said in the statement. “The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qa’ida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day.”

Note no hint as whether the interrogation which produced intelligence was "enhanced" or on whether it occured before the "enhanced" interrogation techniques were used on that detainee. His alleged rebutal is consistent with Soufan's claim.

The Senate report stresses this issue and claims it is the first official report to address it.

From the report page 206

I think the "time off for a break and to attend to personal matters" tells me much more than I want to know about how seriously Abu Zubaydah's interrogators worried about the morality of torture. Also notice the torture started *after* the discussion of the end game, that is after someone at least raised the question of whether there was any need for further questioning whether "enhanced" or legal.

The report continues

Abu Zubaydah's inability to provide information

So they tortured Abu Zubaydah because they thought he knew things which he did not reveal after being tortured, and which there is no reason to believe he knew. I don't think there is proof that there were Al Qaeda operatives inside the United States at the time.

The not at all shocking at this point fact is that, as the report notes on page 503, long after the water boarding CIA employees repeated the claim that Abu Zubaydah ceased to cooperate before being water boarded and that he then revealed valuable information. Those thoughts moved from hypothesis to history without ever being reported as current events. Or to put it another way, people guessed wrong, authorized torture based on their guesses, and then lied.

Ah this is still shocking. Before torturing Abu Zubaydah the interrogation team wrote in a cable "assumption is that the objective of this operation is to achieve a high degree of confidence that [Abu Zubaydah] is not holding back actionable information concerning threats to the United States beyond that which [Abu Zubahdah] has already provided"

The standard isn't torture if you know it is necessary but torture if you have only a moderate but not a high degree of confidence that it must be useless, because all actionable intelligence has already been obtained by legal means.

This is cute. According to the report the CIA's representations about the interrogation of both Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheik Muhammad bpth contain the unsupported claim that the terrorist "believed the general US population was 'weak' lacked resilience and was unwilling to 'do what was necessary." (I am quoting p210-11 on KSM, but the exact same quote (except missing the period) is on page 205 on AZ). So CIA torture advocates asserted that AZ and KSM believed the US was too weak to support torture and the CIA. Bit of rather obvious reverse psychology there no ?

udate: minor discussion removed for space.

Catch 22. Janat Gul was subjected to "enhanced interrogation" because Source Y said he had vital information related to an imminent atach in 2004. Gul denied everything. When confronted, source Y admitted he lied. So the enhanced interrogation provied the useful information that Source Y was a liar. The vital information Gul revealed was that Gul had no vital information to reveal. Heads they win, tails the Geneva Conventions lose.

Are they even trying ? On page 366

Finding Bin Laden: This is the final and very extensive section on the effectivness of torture. The report makes an absolutely convincing case that "enhanced interrogation" played no useful role in the finding of Bin Laden. They key to finding Bin Laden was determining that Habib al-Rahman was his courier and used the pseudonym Abu-Ahmad al-Kuwaiti. The courier's true name was guessed based interrogation of someone detained by a country other than the USA (such countries are never named in the report). The report also notes the huge amount of valuable information provided by top terroris Hassan Ghul during the two days he was detained at Cobolt (I think NY Times has figured out that is code for Bagram) *before* he was subjected to "enhanced interrogation" and the absense of significant useful information obtained after he was subjected to enhanced interrogation. In contrast KSM denied that Al-Kuwaiti was a courier and said he was retired from al Qaeda. This section is very long. I understand that the debate about whether "enhanced interrogation" was useful in the search for Bin Laden is still very open. I think it is worth reading in full (the report has a table of contents). I can just say that the report is extremely convincing on this point.

Ouch. that's going to leave a mark

It is not safe to debate Chait

I edit down a Jon Chait post

Quin Hillyer @QuinHillyer

Follow Obama: racism 'deeply rooted' in U.S. http://fw.to/KbBforM I disagree. Rather than "deeply rooted," it's "mostly buried." As in near-dead.

[skip]

Hillyer, who is quoted above, participated last year in an unpleasant exchange with yours truly, in which he concluded, “We’re not oblivious to racism; we just want to transcend it by leaving it out of discussions where it doesn’t belong.” Apparently the places it doesn’t belong include an interview about race with BET — which is to say, it doesn’t belong anywhere

On Chait on Klein on Chait on TNR

I don't want to waste anyone's time (even my own) on an inside journalism debate, but I can't help myself. I am just going to cut and past with one or two snarky comments.

Jon Chait feels obliged to write about something Klein wrote about what Chait wrote about The New Republic.

"The New Republic and the Imperfect Media Market

A reply to Ezra Klein, FWIW."

The subtitle is extraordinarily modest "FWIW" for what that's worth, and makes it clear that Chait felt obliged to comment on Klein and felt that "I agree with Ezra" was not an acceptable comment. I think there is something odd and very characteristic of Chait wrong with his reply -- basically Chait is so drawn to polemic that can't resist attacking people, with whom he agrees. I fear that the reason my only other complaint about Chait is that he doesn't blog enough is that I enjoy attacks on the people he usually attacks. Of course Chait's extremely intense feelings about TNR must affect his judgment.

update: the post below is a total waste of pixels. But there is someting so odd about Chait's post, that I want to add a bit which might be interesting. Chait begins "Many journalists, myself included, are currently mourning the meltdown of The New Republic, a century-old liberal magazine currently abandoning its historic mission. But Ezra Klein has a contrary take." I too find Klein's take to be "contrary," because he much more nearly agrees with Chait than anyone else I regularly read. So why did Chait comment on Klein and not the many people who totally disagree with Chait ? I'm sure a large part of it is that Chait wrote he reply before these other people wrote their attacks on TNR, but I suspect that he does not consider them worth his time and attention -- maybe he doesn't read them or maybe he reads but doesn't feel that they are important enough for a reply. Unlike Klein, many writers write that nothing much will be lost as TNR fundamentally changes. Brad DeLong in reply to Klein

The Washington Monthly and The American Prospect at their peak and in their prime may have been better at thinking than today's digital successors. But I am wracking my brains trying to think of examples in which the Martin Peretz-era New Republic was better at thinking.

Max Fisher (at VOX edited by one Ezra Klein) Atrios Atrios again Booman Charles Pierce John Cole Billmon Chait begins

Many journalists, myself included, are currently mourning the meltdown of The New Republic, a century-old liberal magazine currently abandoning its historic mission. But Ezra Klein has a contrary take, summarized in his headline “Even the liberal New Republic Needs to Change.”

Now the fact that Chait makes his claim that Klein's take is contrary after quoting nothing but the title. This does not prove that Chait made the irreversible decision that he and Klein disagree after reading only the title of Klein's post. However, I think the quotations below prove that Chait must have done that -- that there was nothing Klein write after the title to shake Chait's conviction.

Chait himself explicitly notes only one substantive disagrement with Klein.

"Having read through Klein’s story, my substantive disagreements are actually small. He describes TNR as a “policy magazine,” a description he qualifies by noting its tremendous culture section, but doesn’t qualify enough. " -Chait

Not quite a confession that he began writing his reply and maybe typed the word "contrarian" before reading Klein's post, but damn close to one. Of course one can erase typed pixels (I just did when I found I was about to make incorrect claim about Chait's piece based on an incorrect memory of the bit I just quoted).

I quote from Klein "The New Republic, in particular, had an amazing culture section."

I wonder if "tremendous, spectacular, amazing, wonderful, amazing cultural section which consisted of no fewer pages than the policy focused part" would have been sufficient qualification.

Chait describes this as his main substantive disagreement. I think after typing that, he should have realized that there was no good reason for him to write a reply to Klein, and just refrain from posting (as I should just not post this crap).

It is possible that Chait considers the following bit a further substantive disagreement.

TNR has never been a policy magazine. It is and always has been a magazine of politics and culture pitched at a high intellectual level, which necessarily limits its appeal to a slice of the public too small to be financially viable.

Crucially, nothing has changed to make the magazine less financially viable. It has required subsidy for its entire existence.

Now if Klein's claim had been that the New Republic needs to change because it has ceased to be profitable and magazines need to be profitable, the fact that it has always required subsidy would be be substantive and even crucial.

Again I quote Klein

"the TNR of yore, even if it lost money indefinitely (as it has in the past)"

I guess "in the past" doesn't imply "every year since it was founded," but there is no hint anywhere in Klein's post that he thought TNR needed to change because it was losing money in the past. No sensible person would imagine for an instant that Klein doesn't understand the economics of high brow publications (he is editing one). Yet, in spite of the fact that the post contains evidence (not amounting to proof beyond reasonable doubt) that Klein knows all about this, Chait insists that Klein wrote, in effect, "publications always are and should be required to be profitable, so the TNR needs to change".

Am I really claiming that Chait ascribed such a crazy view to Klein ? I quote

The odd thing about Klein’s column is that, other than this small disagreement about TNR’s character, I cannot find anything in it with which I disagree. He straightforwardly described the problem of highbrow magazines that serve a public-interest function and have always lost money. He proceeds from that accurate description straight to the conclusion in his headline — TNR must change — without explaining why. One could just as easily conclude that TNR will always lose money, and its value should be assessed in non-market terms and subsidized accordingly by a willing donor. That unacknowledged leap of logic contains nearly all our disagreement. It seems to be rooted in a deep faith in the power of the free market when it comes to media.

First I note that the disagreement about TNR's character is whether "amazing culture section" is a strong enough assertion. Second I note that when one writes "seems" one should reconsider. Chait should ask if he really thinks media should be judged in market terms (so VOX would rate way behind Hustler). He should (and did) look for evidence. When the best evidence he can find is that Klein defends The Huffington Post's "What Time is the Superbowl" articles as follows

People always bring up that Huffington Post article. What I think is missed in that discussion is that that article is super useful. Every year I need to know when the Super Bowl is. I always forget. I often find that article. It tells me exactly what time the Super Bowl is.

Note nothing about markets or profits. He says he finds "that article" useful. Chait concludes that therefore Klein thinks that the market is a perfect judge of media. Evidently Chait considers it unacceptable for any media to transmit the time the Super Bowl starts and that this is an offense serious enough to outweigh everything else except profit, so any defence of a web journal which reports when the Super Bowl starts is proof that the defender considers profit the be all and end all of journalism. I think this is an entirely fair summary of Chait's argument. And this after (just after) Chait said he had no substantive disagreements with Klein except for the "amazing culture section" stuff.

Ah but Chait notes that Klein's conclusion is inconsistent with the wish that TNR might continue as it was losing money. I quote the last words in Klein's post "something is being lost in the transition from policy magazines to policy web sites, and it's still an open question how much of it can be regained."

Yep sure sounds as if Klein is celebrating the change. No hint that he thinks there could be anything wrong there.

I think most of what went wrong with Chait's post is that he drew a conclusion based only on reading Klein's headline and the wouldn't allow any evidence to make him question Chait's conclusion. Note "the conclusion in his headline". This doesn't necessarily imply that Chait's final guess as to what conclusion Klein reached was based entirely on the headline, but it is a bit more evidence.

Chait entirely ignores Klein's discussion of the influence of TNR

That's why it was believable that The New Republic was the "in-flight reading on Air Force One." President Bill Clinton was a policy wonk. What else was he going to read? But they're no longer the center of the policy conversation in Washington. That conversation has spilled online, beyond their pages, outside their borders. The in-flight reading on Air Force One is probably saved to President Obama's iPad.

Now if one is writing a policy oriented (front half of a) magazine, influence on policy makers is a central concern. This is a "non-market" issue (unless the policy makers are corrupt bribe takers).

In fact, one might even imagine that Klein cares about policy, so he cares about in flight reading on Air Force One because he cares about what that reader will do and not because he cares about the writers. The fact that Chait completely overlooks a discussion of what the President of the USA reads makes me wonder what motivates Chait.

Chait seems to interpret "a viable web publication, in a world where viability — and, arguably, influence — requires web traffic" as Klein saying policy journals *should* be required to have high web traffic. But the full sentence is "Hughes believes his charge is to make it a viable web publication, in a world where viability — and, arguably, influence — requires web traffic." The sentece does not state Kleins view but rather the view which he ascribes to Hughes.

I note that the title is ambiguous. Words all have multiple meanings. Extremely brief statements are often ambiguous with context necessary to disambiguate. In particular "needs" is abiguous. "Needs to Change" might mean "is being compelled to change" or "is morally obliged to change". The literal meaning of "TNR needs to change" and "TNR must change" are the same, but the second is more amenable to Chait's interpretation. The last sentence of Klein's piece is consistent only with "is being compelled to change" and definitely not with "Is morally obliged to change".

My conclusion is that one should read the post before beginning to write a reply to it (this is a do what I say don't do what I do conclusion as I usually comment before finishing posts)

Huh?

I will try to explain what I was trying to write here 1. Many polls show that a solid majority of US adults are economic populists -- they think the rich and corporations pay less than their fair share of taxes.

2. Democrats keep asking each other how they can appeal to the White working class.

3. I think that Democrats can propose raising taxes on high incomes and cutting taxes on the middle and working class. This proposal has been made by Democrats in political campaigns for example by Clinton in 1992 and Obama in 2008. It seems to have worked. But I don't hear any such proposal. I wonder why.

Almost all Democrats don't propose middle class tax cuts (financed by increased taxes on high incomes, capital gains, and corporate income. Why ?

4. I also wonder how Republicans got their majorities in congress and Governorships in purple and blue states (include the two saphire blue states in which I have ever been resident). I am fairly confident that a large part of the reason is point 3.

5. I also can't help believing that if other people knew as much as I know, they would vote the way I vote (that is to say I am human). So I am attracted to the idea that they are misinformed and inclined to blame the mass media. In particular, I don't think they are informed about the effect of the policy platforms of the two major parties on their personal pocket books. Here I guess the most dramatic example is the absurd delusional median guess that the foreign aid budget is about 10% of the US Federal budget. I blame the mass media for not reporting the basic bread and butter facts again and again and again until voters are informed.

6. Elite commentators hate #SocialSecurityAndMedicare. Why ? Many villagers consider the budget deficit the biggest problem the US has. This is a view shared by the extremely rich. Why ?

7. All the elite behavior which seems odd can be understood as the result of a combination of the financial self interes and peer pressure.

the financial interest is obvious -- major contributors to campaigns are rich. Top commentators are rich (which I will define as income over 250000/ year not as income over $150,000/yr -- the median threshold from a poll). Publishers and CEOs of corporations which own networks are rich. There are rich reactionaries eager to pay people to argue against economic populism but no super rich financers of economic populism (I think the rich who care about the non rich and support higher taxes on rich people (Warren Buffet, Bill and Melinda Gates) try to help directly not by influencing politicians and commentators).

But I think the peer pressure is very strong -- that people fear that they will be called demogogues if they are populists (hell "demogogue" is Greek for "populist" and "popolares" is Latin for "demogogue").

Uh oh it almost sounds as I am saying that politics and the discussion of politics and policy is based on elite class interest. Importantly class interest not just narrow personal interest. A commentator can get very famous arguing for egalitarianism (see Krugman, Paul). Politicians can get elected president by promising to increase taxes on the rich and cut taxes on the non rich (Clinton, Obama). But such things aren't done often.

Oh nooooo I agree with Marx.

I hate Marx. I hate the Republicans, conservatives, conservadems, villagers, very serious people, third wayer, DLC and Pete Peterson for making me agree on anything with Marx.

Housekeeping Note

I was thinking of setting up a new blog entitled "An Arrogant Jerk's Stochastic Thoughts" so I could let it all hang out and yet preserve deniability. but I decided that I already post as an arrogant jerk here and besides almost no one reads this blog. The assumption that almost no one reads this blog has caused some trouble when I got very drunk and wrote something rude about something Felix Salmon wrote based on unkind paraphrases, and without reading what he actually wrote. Somehow he found out, and I had to apologise. I was very drunk. I wish that I could claim that the typing of offending statement ".... I recalled taht Salmon had said ... " suggests anything unusual about my blood ethanol concentration.

Vulgar Marxism

To explain, this is not a post about vulgar marxism it is a post which consists of vulgar Marxism.

update: Illustration of vulgar Marx added (clearly aligned left not centered)

I have always been extremely hostile to Marx (this was due to my pathological nationalism -- Marx was less influential in the USA than other countries (back when he had any influence anywhere) -- for the same reason I also said that good cooking is not important).

But even I must be fair to him, and note that he would not ever have written something as simplistic as this post.

I am thinking about US politics. People keep asking what Democrats can do to convince white working and middle class Americans that the Democratic party is on their side. I keep writing that they can propose increasing the progressivity of the US tax code (a proposal also known as class war). A solid majority of US adults support increased progressivity. The Republican party is almost entirely focused on reducing taxes on the rich and on corporations. They also have acquired an interest in raising taxes on the working poor, the working class and the middle class. This is a shift. Reagan was an enthusiastic supporter of the Earned Income Tax Credit. George w Bush Jr (the evil one) signed a bill cutting taxes for the rich and also expandint the child tax credit.

The child tax credit benefits the middle class.

Limitations - The credit is limited if your modified adjusted gross income is above a certain amount. The amount at which this phase-out begins varies depending on your filing status. For married taxpayers filing a joint return, the phase-out begins at $110,000. For married taxpayers filing a separate return, it begins at $55,000. For all other taxpayers, the phase-out begins at $75,000. In addition, the Child Tax Credit is generally limited by the amount of the income tax you owe as well as any alternative minimum tax you owe.

Median household income was around $60,000 per year. people with much higher than median income get the full $1000/child. The credit is non refundable so I sure can't be called "welfare".

Republicans (and Reid and Schumer) were working on a bipartisan bill to make corporate tax breaks permanent without making the child tax credit expansions permanent. They are totally cruising for a bruising. Attempting to reach agreement on this bill was just one of many Democratic attempts at political suicide. Obama intervened with a veto threat (I do not consider this an adequate intervention given the gravity of the behavioral disorger -- I think that Reid and Schumer are also in urgent need of psychological care possible including major tranquilizers as they were clearly delusional -- but a veto threat is better than nothing).

OK Schumer, who said the ACA didn't do enough for the middle class while negotiation a bill whihc would eliminate all incentives for the Republicans to extend the 2009 expansions of the child tax credit also would need treatment for sociopathy, but unfortunately the only known treatment is the so called "primary" which is not available at the moment.

This leaves two questions. The first is why the hell to people in the lower 99% ever vote for Republicans and the second is why don't Democrats propose further expansion of the child tax credit financed by closing corporate tax loopholes and the carried interest loophole and higher taxes on incomes over $ 2 million a year ?

I think it is clear that Republican politicians don't know the answers to these questions. I won't bother finding links to quotes, but they express fear that the USA is nearing a tipping point when the takers outnumber the makers. I think they discuss the possibility that Democrats will begin to fight in a class war, because they know Democrats would crush them in that war if they fought it.

At the moment I can't resist writing that one explanation is that there might be extraordinary bourgeois class conciousness and solidarity. The strange pattern could be explained if almost all members of the upper 5% work together, sometimes sacrificing their personal interests, for the greater good of the upper 5%

Thus politicians refrain from recommending that the middle class fight back in the class war, because their respect for the subcultures norms that this must not be done is even stronger than their desire to win elections. Also, and very importantlly, journalists do not inform the public about current US tax policy, proposed reforms (and where the parties stand) or about where the US Federal budget is spent (hint not foreign aid). I think most of them are generally inclined to inform the public, but I wonder if their fear of unleashing the raging lower 95% (which would hurt the 96-99 percentiles while aiming for the top 1%) is stronger than their desire to do their job (and really I don't doubt that most journalists would, in general and if class interests are involved, prefer that the public be informed). I also think most of them vote for Democrats, but their desire that the Democratic party win is weakened by their fear of the raging red lower 95% of the US public which might raise the taxes they owe by say $500/yr (I am saying top tax rate up 5% times income $10,000 over the top bracket).

I hate to admit that Marx might have had a point there. I hate the vulgarity of my involuntary lapses into Marxism. But I just can't fully convince myself that there is, that there must be, any other hypothsis which is consistent with the available data. I certainly can't come up with one.

p.s. It is not easy for me to write the word "bourgeois" for at least 3 reasons.

1) I hate to admit that the USA is not a classless society.

2) I hate to admit that Marx might have had a point.

3) I don't know how to spell "bourgeois"

I am not typing it -- I am pasting after copying it to my clipboard. (well actually I copied "bourgeoi" by mistake so I'm typing in the s(. To spell [cntrl-v]s uh I mean "bourgeois", I googled a misspelling (I don't remember what exactly) waited for google to ask me if I meant to google "bourgeois" and then copied bourgeois to my clip board. I think this demonstrates not only my general contempt for spelling but also my particular hatred of Marxism.

Bang the Drum repeatedly

Kevin Drum notes that Obama did stuff for the middle class. Later in the same post, he asks what Democrats could possibly do to convince the middle class that Democrats are on their side. He notes that he keeps asking this question. In comments I note that I keep answering it and he keeps ignoring me me meeee.

Drum (my bold)

In broad terms, I agree with Schumer's critique. Democrats need to do more to appeal [to] the working and middle classes, not just the poor. But Schumer is maddeningly vague about just what that means. And as it relates to 2009, in particular, he's full of hot air. In the first few months of the year, Obama passed a big stimulus. He rescued the auto industry. He cut everyone's payroll taxes

. Then he changes the issue from winning politics to effective policymaking and asks

"what big ticket items are left that would buy the loyalty of the middle class for another generation?"

(how about permanenly reducing the payroll tax (say cut it in half) and replacing the lost revenue with higher taxes on corporate income, capital income and capital gains ? That big ticket enough)

I'm all in favor of using the power of government to help the middle classes. But what does that mean in terms of concrete political programs that (a) the middle class will associate with Democrats and help win them loyalty and votes, and (b) have even a snowball's chance of getting passed by Congress?

Hey wait how did "getting passed by Congress" get added ? Earlier the issue was "appeal the working and middle class" now it has become actually helping them, rather than just getting their votes. Drum is too public spirited and high minded to be willing to talk about political strategy without slipping into a discussion of practical effective policy making. That means that he is not interested in proposals which aren't enacted.

Of course you have to actually deliver in order to win the votes of socially conservative working class voters who don't give a damn that Republicans claim to be pro-life since they haven't managed to reverse Roe V Wade. Oh and who also don't care at all about prayer in school or teaching the kids to respect tradition and their elders. Oh and Republicans gained nothing from trying to block the ACA, because they failed. I think that purely political calculation doesn't have a snow ball's chance in hell for occupying Kevin Drum's brain for an entire blog post.

The world would be a better place if we were all like Drum in this way. But it would be a worse place if all Democrats were like that yet in that imaginary world as in this real one most Republican politicians are mainly interested in political strategy.

my comment at his blog.

You keep asking the same question and I keep giving the same answer. To appeal to the working and middle classes, Democrats should propose raising taxes on the rich and cutting taxes on the working and middle classes. You note that they have done this "He cut everyone's payroll taxes."

Now I'm not claiming that a proposal to increase tax progressivity has a chance in hell of being passed by this congress, or even by this senate with a thermonuclear option eliminating the filibuster -- it would be blocked by conservadems even if there were no house and no filibuster.

But the original question was about using policy proposals as a political strategy. In general, people judge parties by results and a proposal which isn't enacted doesn't have much effect. However, tax progressivity is a very simple issue where Republicans and the vast majority of US adults have strong diametrically opposite views.

I think that proposing tax increases for the rich and tax cuts for the middle class works even before the policies are enacted. The reason I think this is that two democrats have done this. They are Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. They are also the only non-incumbent Democrats elected at a time when the income tax was constitutional and the top marginal tax rate was less than 69%. They are also the only non incumbent Democratic presidential candidates who promised such direct and clear class war. Obama even delivered on his promise.

This is a long long sad story in the comment section of this blog. I recall (with pleasure) how you and Felix Salmon say people in the USA oppose higher taxes on the rich. Then I pointed you to the Gallup polls starting in 1992 all of which show solid to huge majorities think the rich pay less than their fair share of taxes. Being a classy guy, you noted this and even quoted me and said you had been wrong. Being a classless guy, I keep reminding you and also keep reminding you that there might be a whole lot of political support for soak the rich class warfare.

The Democrats have tried it before, and it has ever failed them yet.

Oh it would also be good policy if enacted, but that's not so relevant, since that won't happen.