Club Troppo

Ayn Rand denounced social work as "monstrously evil". In a letter to philosopher John Hospers she declared that to "choose social work as a profession is to choose to be a professional parasite."

Ed Kilgore of the Progressive Policy Institute sees a Rand-like hostility bubbling to the surface in America’s Tea Party movement. In the New Republic he argues that progressives and libertarians are now further apart than ever:

Progressives who previously fawned over the libertarians’ Jeffersonian modesty are now exposed to the unattractive aspect of libertarianism that is familiar to readers of Ayn Rand: a Nietzschean disdain for the poor and minorities that tends to dovetail with the atavistic and semi-racist habits of reactionary cultural traditionalists. After all, it is only a few steps from the Tea Party movement’s founding "rant"—in which self-described Randian business commentator Rick Santelli blasted “losers” who couldn’t pay their mortgages—to populist backlash against all transfer payments of any type, complaints about people "voting for a living" instead of "working for a living," and paranoid conspiracy theories about groups like ACORN.

These are exactly the kind of sentiments American Enterprise Institute president Arthur Brooks tries to exploit in a recent piece for the Wall Street Journal. In the wake of the Greek crisis, Brooks contrasts hard working Americans with leisure loving Europeans. Europeans like to say that Europeans work to live while Americans live to work, writes Brooks, and "Many Europeans also expect others to work so they can live."

While protesters in Greece demand handouts, America’s Tea Party movement demands the opposite — an end to government handouts, bailouts and spiraling deficits. Brooks sees this as an encouraging sign. Unless Americans preserve their culture of self-reliance and willingness to take risks, he argues that Greece’s present will become America’s future.

Not everyone in the free market movement thinks it’s a good idea to encourage the tea partiers. Brink Lindsey of the Cato Institute agrees that differences between the American welfare state and welfare states in Europe are rooted in differences in culture. But this isn’t a good thing:

(Continued)

In a delightful doco, “In the Hands of the Gods”, Diego’s injunction is to “Love the ball, love the game”. I love the sentiment and its simplicity. And I love the fact that he can still say it after all the game has brought him, and wrought upon him. Now on the sidelines, he is still that “extraterrestial” kid juggling a ball on a patch of dirt. But I’ve always been a Maradona fan. I say forget the “hand of god”, but remember and marvel at the second. Peter Reid et al will be forever remembered.

So, I do hope Argentina beat Germany. I think they will. Argentina was one of my pre-tournament fancies given the strength of their squad, along with Spain, for similar reasons. I saw the Argentina v Brazil qualifier, and although Argentina lost 3-1, they were better, but just defended absurdly.  Their defence is still their chink. Which German “ruthless efficiency” and dogged tenacity may exploit.

The two best players in the tournament will be on show: Messi and Ozil. Messi plays with a devastating incisiveness and a prodigious imagination. The simplicity of his dribbling reminds me of Best and of course Diego. He has an insatiable appetitie for the ball. Ozil is a delightful player, subtle, cultured but very effective.

Again, I say England lost because they were inept, not because the Germans were that good. Although they carved them up in a very similar manner to Australia. The first two goals were  farcical. To see Terry running forward on the long ball from the German goalie, have it go over his head by about 20 metres and leave a huge hole behind him was perplexing. Combine this with James’s dithering about whether to attack the ball and then arrive too late, and its a comedy of errors. Add to this James’s charge from the near post when Podolski had no angle, only to be beaten through his legs and it is just slapstick!

Holland v Brazil will be an absorbing encounter. Holland’s play is not to my taste. Too slow, over-elaborated, ponderous from what I have seen. Brazil is efficient, all are comfortable wih the ball and it has players who can create chances out of nothing and who can score.I love watching its players move for each other. It’s like embroidery with the pattern never repeating. I think Brazil, but it could go to extra time.

In the other matches,  I think Spain will win in what could be a dour struggle. Xavi and Iniesta play some delightful soccer. And finally I think Uruguay will beat Ghana.

Just think what could have been. I thought Australia in 10 in the second half were the better side against Ghana.

At Catallaxy, Rafe pings Club Troppo for getting "excited by a report from the US which suggested that a large proportion of Republican voters have really silly ideas, indeed they are practically insane. Interesting to read that this result came from a survey commissioned by Daily Kos and they have now admitted that the survey results are bogus."

What’s this about?

According to poll results posted on Daily Kos: 63% of self-identified Republicans believe that Obama is a socialist, 42% believe he was not born in the United States, 31% believe he is a racist who hates White people and 31% think contraceptives should be outlawed. After looking over the results Markos Moulitsas said :

… I expected some of these questions to generate some pretty crazy responses. But I gotta say that it sorta exceeded all, all my expectations. I mean you have a third that’s just certifiably insane. You have a third that’s fairly reasonable. And generally you have a third that thinks it’s debatable whether Obama’s a socialist. Thinks it’s debatable whether Obama’s a racist who hates white people. And so on and so forth. So I don’t know if I quite expected just how crazy these results were going to be.

At the time, Moulitsas was working on a book called American Taliban. The book argues that American conservatives share the same agenda as the Islamic world’s radical Jihadists. "I found myself making certain claims about Republicans that I didn’t know if they could be backed up", wrote Moulitsas. "So I thought, ‘why don’t we ask them directly?’ And so, this massive poll, by non-partisan independent pollster Research 2000 of over 2,000 self-identified Republicans, was born."

The results generated excitement and more than a little scepticism. At Atlanticwire Michael Kinsley noted that "Even some on the left believe the poll also had structural deficiencies." Debate raged over the effects of sampling bias, response rates, and acquiescence bias. But at the time almost everyone assumed that the poll was legit. Earlier this week that assumption collapsed when Moulitsas announced that a year and half worth of polling results were probably “bunk”.

(Continued)

From my recent Fin Column.

Recent articles in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age – sister publications of the AFR – told us that Warwick McKibbin has concerns about the Labor government’s stimulus programs. As those newspapers say, McKibbin is a prominent economist: he is the executive director of the Australian National University’s centre of applied macroeconomic analysis. But what distinguishes him from other professors – and what makes McKibbin’s views noteworthy – is his second hat: for the last nine years, he has been a member of the board of the Reserve Bank. That position gives McKibbin access to Reserve Bank macroeconomic research and analysis. It also allows him to learn of any Treasury views which the secretary of Treasury, Ken Henry, might share with his fellow board members. Thus, when we read about McKibbin’s statements we do not judge them in the way we might assess musings from the score of other economics professors at ANU or the hundreds of economics professors at Australia’s 38 other universities.

One complaint McKibbin reportedly made about the government’s stimulus is that “It wasn’t evidence-based policy, they panicked”. Readers were not told how McKibbin came to this conclusion, but information available to the public – mainly through evidence provided to the Senate Estimates committee – does not support his view. Treasury was aware of economic literature about the effects of stimuli, although little analysis existed anywhere about the likely impacts of the global financial collapse. And reports praising Australia’s policies from the International Monetary Fund last November and from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in September give no comfort to McKibbin’s argument that the government’s spending package was the result of panic. The government had to act quickly to ensure confidence was not destroyed, but there is no evidence that it acted precipitously or extravagantly.

Indeed, McKibbin could have mounted an argument that the government responded too slowly.   (Continued)

I don’t doubt Krugman’s right to suggest we’re in the early stages of a Third Depression. The last few years have been a first instalment in what will prove to be a drawnout, volatile and painful downturn. I also agree it’s “primarily [about] a failure of policy”. Where we differ is on the nature of these failures.

First though, some points of agreement.

Krugman was vocally unhappy about much of what took place during the boom years. He railed against the excesses of the financial system, and the deregulatory zeal that allowed it to run so completely out of control. He expected it all to end badly, although perhaps not quite to the degree it has. He’s also consistently argued that deflation, not inflation, is the greatest danger for the foreseeable future.

No argument, from me at least, on any of this. Nor do I really want to argue with his critique of the simplistic view put forward by those he terms “the apostles of austerity”; namely, that cutting spending and/or raising taxes won’t bring on further short-term pain. It will. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous at best.

The real question is whether there’s any way to avoid this pain that doesn’t bring even more disastrous consequences in its wake. (Continued)

The front page of today’s Sydney Morning Herald: We have Phillip Corey describing the changes to the Rent Tax.

Dwarfing this, and by far the largest story on the front page : How a $7m advertising campaign saved a fortune .

Thank god that when it comes to a major issue we have Phillip Lee,  Marketing Editor, leading the coverage with a focus on the questions that really matter. Whose advertising campaign was more successful?

All this fantastic coverage comes under the  heading “Smart tactics from the resource giants strike gold as labor compromises on tax”, which not only provides entertaining syntax, but makes sure the events are framed by the important issue of PR.

Oh…there’s some boring stuff about the implications of the policy or something – *yawn* – but it’s buried in the innards of the paper thankfully.

Alekhine was one of the greatest chess players that ever lived (I guess this is as opposed to those who haven’t lived, but I digress).  In WWI in 1916 he was wounded. I don’t know if he was blinded by the war, but he played this blindfold game of chess.  With a comical start, it is a doozy.