System Fail

Sometimes I ponder a culture of policy wonks who look at an economy where significant numbers of adult workers are on or near (the ridiculous federal) minimum wage and think, "this is good, or how it has to be, or any attempt to change this much might be bAd fOr tHe eCoNoMy," or whatever, and think, "you're all a bunch of sociopaths."

I've gotten a bit more left wing over my life, but more than that I've become a lot less tolerant of people who are basically amoral psychopaths posing as left-of-center people. Especially the real estate heirs. The luxury of being a dumb guy with a blog is that I don't have to pretend people aren't completely full of shit.

Furman is saying that helping poverty, reducing pollution, or doing anything good will probably require giving up growth. Being rigorous means acknowledging trade-offs, otherwise you're engaged in self-delusion.

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) October 6, 2022

"Begging the question" is a very misused phrase if you are a pedant about such things, but economists like Furman constantly beg the question (genuinely) whenever anything left wing is proposed. If we assume that such proposals are too costly, then we can conclude they are too costly! This is science. Evidence is in the margin of a paper you cannot see, because my girlfriend in Canada stole it.