Patrick Brennan of NRO on Elizabeth Warren
[guest post by JVW]
Great post about Senator Elizabeth Warren’s appearance with the new progressive economic philosopher, Thomas Piketty. Read the whole thing, as Patterico would say, but make a special point of enjoying Brennan’s final analysis:
. . . Elizabeth Warren isn’t an economic expert or a progressive policy crusader. She’s a talented populist who sells clever but unserious proposals with a sense of academic sophistication that makes Bostonians feel like they’re clapping for someone whose views are an intellectual cut above Ed Schultz’s. In the end, they’re not. But they definitely are clapping.
– JVW
I say trade Warren for three goats and a rooster… she’s 1/128th Haqqani, no?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 6/5/2014 @ 4:19 pmI have half a mind to read Piketty’s book, The New Capital, but not this month. I’m a little bit busy. I’m told by someone who’s read it that it’s economic history (or historical economics), not theory, and it shows how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. My interest is in the present trends for the middle class.
nk (dbc370) — 6/5/2014 @ 4:24 pmOk, it would help if I remembered the title. Capital in the 21st Century. I think.
nk (dbc370) — 6/5/2014 @ 4:26 pmHere’s how you can order it with Patterico’s widget.
JVW (feb406) — 6/5/2014 @ 4:35 pm4- I’d as sooner order a Jane Fonda Workout Video.
askeptic (8ecc78) — 6/5/2014 @ 4:37 pmi wouldn’t buy it cause he faked up the data, which is kind of a deal-breaker
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/5/2014 @ 4:39 pmA fake Indian and a fake economist walk into a bar, and…
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 6/5/2014 @ 4:44 pmFake data would take away from him being a historian. I’d rather see the real data and make my own analysis. Where did you get that from, happyfeet? Do they have the real data?
And I don’t see how it helps him as an economist, either. Real economists don’t even bother to fake data. They just imagine up theories, like a trickle down David Stockman’s leg turning into cash in some ordinary American’s bank account.
nk (dbc370) — 6/5/2014 @ 5:03 pmDon’t buy it. Get it from the Library.
Gazzer (c3e343) — 6/5/2014 @ 5:10 pmMy prediction, Liz wins in a walk. You can’t beat a house flipping fake Indian with nobody.
Glenn (647d76) — 6/5/2014 @ 5:12 pmthe real data is definitely out there – The Financial Times got it – maybe they linked the data sets in their reporting
if i have a lull later i might poke around
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/5/2014 @ 5:19 pmI got it. http://blogs.ft.com/money-supply/2014/05/23/data-problems-with-capital-in-the-21st-century/ A wink is as good as a nod to a guy with Google. And there’s also his response on the same Google search page.
If only Google weren’t so damn gay ….
nk (dbc370) — 6/5/2014 @ 5:36 pmWell nk, I’m a businessman with a degree in economics and I began to read Capital in The 21st Century and even though I’ve read some dead-assed boring economic tomes this one makes Krugman or Heilbrunner read like a poem by Frost. It is hard and really, really boring. I have to take exception with your friend. I perceive it as neither historical economics economic history. If it weren’t so boring it could conceivably be hysterical economics but not much more.
If you are interested in middle class trends, look around. The poor are NOT getting poorer. That’s a leftist lie. By definition once one is poor he’s poor. It’s the middle class like you and I who are being squeezed by taxes, regulations and all the policies which push up the costs of every day items like food, energy, education and health insurance. And yes the rich are getting richer but that’s because most fortunes today derive from technology which offers more items to more people at a lower cost than ever before. So when 250 million people by a cell phone the guy who made it get $250 million even if he only gets a buck a phone. The other area of vast wealth is the entertainment and sports industries. But again, if these guys weren’t worth the money they wouldn’t get paid the money.
Please remember, economics is really only the study and observation of people and how they interact for their own benefit. So interact better and do well, others don’t.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 6/5/2014 @ 5:51 pmToday is the tenth anniversary of Reagan’s passing.
Elephant Stone (6a6f37) — 6/5/2014 @ 5:56 pmFact check – the “trickle down’ theory was not Republican, it was a Democratic misrepresentation of of a Republican policy.
Michael M. Keohane (ea7946) — 6/5/2014 @ 6:07 pmThe “middle class” that I worry about are the Archie Bunkers, and I don’t mean their politics. If you had a strong back and a willingness to work you could get a factory job and buy a 3-bedroom house with two cars and 2.8 children regardless of your background or education. I saw it in Chicago with a million people coming up from the South and from other countries in the ’60s and early ’70s. Now all the factories are lofts, the jobs are in Mexico and China, and those people’s children and grandchildren work at McDonald’s and Walmart if they work at all.
nk (dbc370) — 6/5/2014 @ 6:36 pmTwo out my three cats have economic views above Ed Shultz. The third cat just believes in the iron food bowl, so he’s on a par with Ed.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 6/5/2014 @ 6:43 pmShorter Piketty: The poor get poorer, the rich get richer, due to excess profits and stuff I made up.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 6/5/2014 @ 6:45 pmit shows how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer
But the data he based that on show that the poor are getting richer too, and faster, so he fudged it.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 6/5/2014 @ 6:48 pmI understand where you’re coming from nk, but times change. Our government regulations from OSHA to EPA plus the unionization of manufacturing killed the manufacturing industry in this country. Add to that the continued din for raising the minimum wage and you have a perfect economic storm for disaster. Look what Obama is trying to do to the coal and other energy companies through regulations. For some crazy warming theory he is willing to force us to buy our oil from countries who hate us while he drives our own home-grown coal industry and all their jobs out of business. They would move heaven and earth to save a smelt but when it comes to paving the way for economic development through lowers taxes, fewer regulations and payroll incentives it’s “screw you”. Then they complain capitalism doesn’t work when it is they who destroyed the capitalist model.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 6/5/2014 @ 6:48 pmYou are absolutely correct, Kevin N. The poor in this country are the 1%ers of the world. Our poor have cars, homes, health care, TV’s, cell phones, air conditioning and are so damn fat it’s an epidemic. If these sobbing leftists would open their eyes they’d understand that American capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any “war on poverty” in mankind’s history.
I also believe that Piketty began with a desired result then tried to build a case to prove it. Not an unusual system for leftists. They do it all the time with climate, drugs and sexuality.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 6/5/2014 @ 6:56 pmthey tend to have cable too
cable is something i aspire to maybe have in the rest home
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/5/2014 @ 7:00 pmmaybe i can trade my pudding for an hbogo password
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/5/2014 @ 7:02 pmCol, #1: Warren is not constrained by the ordinary laws of physics, let alone antiquated moral precepts. My guess is that she is 1/19th Iroquois.
bobathome (65fa49) — 6/5/2014 @ 7:27 pmI’m a dying before I go into that piss smelling facist rest home.
mg (31009b) — 6/5/2014 @ 7:28 pmyeah I kinda have that same bias
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/5/2014 @ 7:32 pmTV is a big thing among the lower orders. The Cook County sheriff says that’s what inmates like best about jail, and if they don’t like the program that’s on they’ll rip the cables out of the wall.
nk (dbc370) — 6/5/2014 @ 7:34 pmCapitalism has worked well for capitalism-doesn’t-work Warren – gets paid $350,000 to teach one class at Harvard & lives in a $5 million home.
Judy Eaton (9d1bb3) — 6/5/2014 @ 7:51 pmOT. Wendy stank in her primary.
http://thefederalist.com/2014/03/05/just-how-poorly-did-wendy-davis-do-last-night/
Skank stank yippee-I-O-kai-ay.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 6/5/2014 @ 8:27 pm“She’s a talented populist who…”
Talented? I don’t think so.
Bamboozling the very foolish by taking advantage of their vices isn’t all that hard to do.
Blacque Jacques Shellacque (d3cdd0) — 6/5/2014 @ 9:35 pmSay what you want about Elizabeth Warren, I sincerely hope she is the next Democratic nominee for the President of the United States.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 6/5/2014 @ 9:41 pmSenator Lieawatha really should stick to things she knows about, like falsely representing ancient culture that isn’t hers.
Slightly confused here, Ag80. Is that sarcasm, or do you sincerely hope for some massive blowout?
Bill H (f9e4cd) — 6/6/2014 @ 2:19 amI just saw my first “Elizabeth Warren for President” bumper sticker yesterday in Chicago. They guy driving the car also had a “Harvard” and “Academic” stickers as well. No wonder this country is screwed.
Ipso Fatso (10964d) — 6/6/2014 @ 5:40 am31, 33. Hilarity! must diminish and Fauxcohantas must flourish.
Age, health, associations, history all drag the bag lady down, Warren is again the new thingee.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 6/6/2014 @ 6:31 ami agree i think the fasicsts are way better off with a fresher face than with a trashy trashy clotty-headed clinton hoochie
did anyone else see chelsea’s creep glassy-eyed “fast company” cover in the grocery store?
They for reals want us to believe lil hoochie has world-changing power and influence?
She couldn’t even get her loser mother-in-law elected.
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/6/2014 @ 12:19 pm*creepy* glassy-eyed “fast company” cover I mean
happyfeet (8ce051) — 6/6/2014 @ 12:20 pm