I always knew David Brooks was an asshole ....

LBJ plan to make the right crazier iirc

dean baker's takedown of this feudalistic bullshit is otm

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-primitive-defense-of-the-rich

As it happens, there's also this in the Economist today:

Over the past 30 years the digital revolution has displaced many of the mid-skill jobs that underpinned 20th-century middle-class life. Typists, ticket agents, bank tellers and many production-line jobs have been dispensed with, just as the weavers were.

. . . Over the past three decades, labour’s share of output has shrunk globally from 64% to 59%. Meanwhile, the share of income going to the top 1% in America has risen from around 9% in the 1970s to 22% today. Unemployment is at alarming levels in much of the rich world, and not just for cyclical reasons. In 2000, 65% of working-age Americans were in work; since then the proportion has fallen, during good years as well as bad, to the current level of 59%.

But I'm sure these phenomena are entirely unrelated and it's all teen moms and church attendance.

but yeah, maybe kevin drum is right and it was lead making ppl crazy for 30-40 years

― goole, Friday, January 17, 2014 12:18 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i love this theory btw and i think its really true, also imo the drop in crime will have major positive effects beyond just like having less crime, i dont think legal weed would be happening if we had early 90s level crime, theres increased urbanization which is good for a bunch of reasons, obvs theres no way to start to roll back our horrible police state if w high crime rates etc

love this phrase: Fans of arithmetic everywhere

dean baker's takedown of this feudalistic bullshit is otm

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-primitive-defense-of-the-rich

― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, January 17, 2014 5:22 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ty for this

ruling class pretty much just keeps inventing new terms for the same old class justifications

theyre quite industrious in their own way

it all translates into "if you don't come from money, go fuck yourself"

krugs responds to his colleague

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/why-we-talk-about-the-one-percent/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body&_r=0

wow the times editorial team is acknowledging each other now i thought that was a no no

they do it in their blog posts sometimes but you rarely see it in print

Krugs and David will still go out for martinis after 6 though

and talk shop about princeton vs. yale undergrads

I have stopped caring about this guy. feels like constantly getting outraged about him just encourages him/drives up his profile etc. he deserves anonymity.

the thing that still shocks me every time I read his columns is what a terrible WRITER he is. The last generation of conservative ideologues were at least mostly good prose stylists.

This is actually my favorite part of the whole thing:

Democrats often see low wages as both a human capital problem and a problem caused by unequal economic power. Republicans are more likely to see them just as a human capital problem. If we’re going to pass bipartisan legislation, we’re going to have to start with the human capital piece, where there is some agreement, not the class conflict piece, where there is none.

See, democrats and republicans agree on the republican agenda.

"human capital" is such a gross phrase

let's all agree that capital gains should be taxed no higher than 15%, and that the estate tax is theft, and the jobs will flow!

I feel like he's not the kind of writer that actually shapes policy; his role is more to attempt confuse democrats away from feeling too left about things.

yeah, i mean what has the middle class ever done for america anyways? rich people are the best

his role is more to attempt confuse democrats away from feeling too left about things.

no wonder Obama listens to him

"human capital" is such a gross phrase

12 Years as Human Capital

i mostly feel bad for people who are having things explained to them for the first time by david brooks

i.e. NPR listeners?

no one really likes david brooks hes a token

i mean

i wish that was true

i have conservative friends who call him a voice of reason on the left

lolllll

that's hilarious

lol but exactly and liberals call him the voice of reason on the right but he doesnt really have any influence

liberals call him the voice of reason on the right

I don't believe this.

thats his whole role at the times, the reasonable conservative

its what hes for

I think that's what conservatives put him forward as, but I don't know of any liberals who buy it.

i don't know any either but i'm sure they're out there, lotta dumb ppl across the spectrum

its what the new york (mfn) times puts him forward as

but i mean hes the voice as reason in that he behaves like a nice reasonable young man, no one listens to what he says was my original point

hes a placeholder

i mostly feel bad for people who are having things explained to them for the first time by david brooks

imagine his son

Kid probably just packs another bowl.

kid is doomed what with divorced parents decaying moral fabric etc

Sure he'll get a nice inheritance though unless dad blows all the money on hookers/blow or leaves it to child from new marriage to twenty something model type.

thats what i wld do

Sure he'll get a nice inheritance though

how wealthy is a david brooks???

expert guess his estate is somewhere in the eight figures

multiple best sellers, paid speaking gigs etc

http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/images/IS/esq-david-brooks-new-york-times-102910-xlg.jpg

"son, homeless people taste best barbecued, not fried"