I really wanted to ignore David Brooks’ piece today, but he was saying excessively silly things in criticizing my friend, Chris Hayes. Specifically, he was responding to the main point of Chris’s new book, The Twilight of the Elites, that the elites have become corrupt and inbred.
Brooks tells us that Chris is wrong:
“I’d say today’s meritocratic elites achieve and preserve their status not mainly by being corrupt but mainly by being ambitious and disciplined.”
Is that so? Perhaps Brooks can tell us what Erskine Bowles did for the $335,000 that he earned as a director of Morgan Stanley in 2008. That year might ring a bell, since that was the year that Morgan Stanley was at the center of the financial crisis. It would have gone bankrupt had it not been for a rescue by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Bernanke used his emergency powers to allow Morgan Stanley to become a bank holding company in the middle of the crisis. This gave the bank the protection of the Fed and the FDIC, halting a bank run that would almost certainly have wiped out the bank. Did the stockholders of Morgan Stanley get $335,000 (more than ten times the median wage in 2008) of value out of Erskine Bowles for his work in 2008?
Of course Bowles is not the only member of the elite who does not seem to provide value for his money. Robert Rubin pocketed over $100 million in his role as a top exec at Citigroup even as that bank was spiraling toward bankruptcy, until it also was rescued by the nanny state.
Anyone who has ever been to Washington knows the town is chock full of 6-figure buffoons: people with no obvious skills who manage to get paychecks that are 5-10 times as high as those of people who work for a living. These people are ambitious and disciplined in that they know to avoid saying anything that will jeopardize their paychecks, but it is hard to see anything else that would justify their salaries.
I really wanted to ignore David Brooks’ piece today, but he was saying excessively silly things in criticizing my friend, Chris Hayes. Specifically, he was responding to the main point of Chris’s new book, The Twilight of the Elites, that the elites have become corrupt and inbred.
Brooks tells us that Chris is wrong:
“I’d say today’s meritocratic elites achieve and preserve their status not mainly by being corrupt but mainly by being ambitious and disciplined.”
Is that so? Perhaps Brooks can tell us what Erskine Bowles did for the $335,000 that he earned as a director of Morgan Stanley in 2008. That year might ring a bell, since that was the year that Morgan Stanley was at the center of the financial crisis. It would have gone bankrupt had it not been for a rescue by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Bernanke used his emergency powers to allow Morgan Stanley to become a bank holding company in the middle of the crisis. This gave the bank the protection of the Fed and the FDIC, halting a bank run that would almost certainly have wiped out the bank. Did the stockholders of Morgan Stanley get $335,000 (more than ten times the median wage in 2008) of value out of Erskine Bowles for his work in 2008?
Of course Bowles is not the only member of the elite who does not seem to provide value for his money. Robert Rubin pocketed over $100 million in his role as a top exec at Citigroup even as that bank was spiraling toward bankruptcy, until it also was rescued by the nanny state.
Anyone who has ever been to Washington knows the town is chock full of 6-figure buffoons: people with no obvious skills who manage to get paychecks that are 5-10 times as high as those of people who work for a living. These people are ambitious and disciplined in that they know to avoid saying anything that will jeopardize their paychecks, but it is hard to see anything else that would justify their salaries.
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Economic theory predicts that when the price of a product substantially exceed its marginal cost that we should expect corruption. Economists usually use this prediction to complain about trade barriers that can the price of protected products by 15-20 percent above their free market price. Somehow they ignore the implication of this prediction when it comes to patent monopolies for prescription drugs that raise prices by many thousand percent above their free market.
This is the basis for the NYT series “Patent Monopolies Lead to Corruption” which documents instances where the market performs as predicted and drug companies or other actors rip off patients, insurers, or the government to maximize their profit from these monopolies. Today’s installment is about how doctors can charge ten times as much for pills dispensed in their office as would be charged by a pharmacy. As with all the other pieces in this series, there is no discussion of the importance of patent monopolies in this story or that we might have more efficient ways to finance development of new drugs.
Economic theory predicts that when the price of a product substantially exceed its marginal cost that we should expect corruption. Economists usually use this prediction to complain about trade barriers that can the price of protected products by 15-20 percent above their free market price. Somehow they ignore the implication of this prediction when it comes to patent monopolies for prescription drugs that raise prices by many thousand percent above their free market.
This is the basis for the NYT series “Patent Monopolies Lead to Corruption” which documents instances where the market performs as predicted and drug companies or other actors rip off patients, insurers, or the government to maximize their profit from these monopolies. Today’s installment is about how doctors can charge ten times as much for pills dispensed in their office as would be charged by a pharmacy. As with all the other pieces in this series, there is no discussion of the importance of patent monopolies in this story or that we might have more efficient ways to finance development of new drugs.
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The NYT Magazine has an interesting piece on Postville, Iowa, a small town whose major employer is a meatpacking plant. Postville gained notoriety in 2008 because of a raid on the plant by immigration authorities that resulted in dozens of undocumented workers being arrested and deported.
At one point the article notes the low pay and bad working conditions in the industry and explains that only immigrants would be willing to take these jobs. Actually the pay in the meatpacking industry was not always bad. In the 70s the meatpacking industry was heavily unionized. The jobs were fairly well paying for workers with relatively education and generally had pensions and health care insurance.
During the 80s, many union plants were closed, driven out by lower paying non-union facilities that often operated with immigrant workers. While meatpacking may inevitably be an unpleasant job, there is nothing about the work that necessitates that it pay poorly.
The NYT Magazine has an interesting piece on Postville, Iowa, a small town whose major employer is a meatpacking plant. Postville gained notoriety in 2008 because of a raid on the plant by immigration authorities that resulted in dozens of undocumented workers being arrested and deported.
At one point the article notes the low pay and bad working conditions in the industry and explains that only immigrants would be willing to take these jobs. Actually the pay in the meatpacking industry was not always bad. In the 70s the meatpacking industry was heavily unionized. The jobs were fairly well paying for workers with relatively education and generally had pensions and health care insurance.
During the 80s, many union plants were closed, driven out by lower paying non-union facilities that often operated with immigrant workers. While meatpacking may inevitably be an unpleasant job, there is nothing about the work that necessitates that it pay poorly.
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The NYT had a piece on the potential impact that uncertainty around the extension of tax cuts and the imposition of legislated spending reductions might be affecting the economy. At one point it tells readers that:
“Outside the military contracting industry, the fiscal cliff has not received the same amount of attention.”
Of course the reason that the impact of spending cuts on the military contracting industry has received attention is that the industry has paid lobbyists to hype its impact. They have circulated studies making outlandish claims about the jobs impact.
While cutting spending on the military in the middle of a downturn will lead to job loss, cutting spending on anything, even if the cuts were on totally pointless spending, would lead to job loss. In fact, since military spending is more capital intensive than most other sectors of the economy, cuts in this sector are likely to lead to less job loss than cuts in other areas of government spending.
As far as the general contention that uncertainty is slowing growth, this does not seem to be supported by recent data that shows a substantial uptick in new capital goods orders. If businesses are uncertain about the future, this is the most obvious place that the uncertainty would appear. If uncertainty were affecting employment we should expect a sharp rise in the ratio of new temp workers to new workers overall. We don’t see this.
The NYT had a piece on the potential impact that uncertainty around the extension of tax cuts and the imposition of legislated spending reductions might be affecting the economy. At one point it tells readers that:
“Outside the military contracting industry, the fiscal cliff has not received the same amount of attention.”
Of course the reason that the impact of spending cuts on the military contracting industry has received attention is that the industry has paid lobbyists to hype its impact. They have circulated studies making outlandish claims about the jobs impact.
While cutting spending on the military in the middle of a downturn will lead to job loss, cutting spending on anything, even if the cuts were on totally pointless spending, would lead to job loss. In fact, since military spending is more capital intensive than most other sectors of the economy, cuts in this sector are likely to lead to less job loss than cuts in other areas of government spending.
As far as the general contention that uncertainty is slowing growth, this does not seem to be supported by recent data that shows a substantial uptick in new capital goods orders. If businesses are uncertain about the future, this is the most obvious place that the uncertainty would appear. If uncertainty were affecting employment we should expect a sharp rise in the ratio of new temp workers to new workers overall. We don’t see this.
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That is the reality, it would have been an appropriate headline.
That is the reality, it would have been an appropriate headline.
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It appears that both President Obama and Governor Romney are going to be accusing each other of being offshorers in the fall campaign. Both have a case, even if not exactly the one they are making.
Obama’s case on Romney being an offshorer is that the companies owned by Bain Capital shipped many jobs overseas. Romney counters that the offshoring began after he had given up his role as a top executive at Bain, although he did still have a substantial stake in the company. He said that while he was running things the company only did domestic outsourcing, they did not ship jobs overseas.
As a practical matter, this would have a similar effect on the wages of the workers affected. Most workers in the economy probably earn some economic rent. This means that if we were to put their position up for competitive bidding to the whole world, there would be someone who was willing to the do their job for less money.
Fortunately for most of us, our jobs generally don’t come up for competitive bidding so we can continue to enjoy this wage premium in bliss. Bain Capital’s outsourcing put workers’ jobs up for this sort of competitive bidding. Whether the auction was purely domestic, as Romney contends, or whether it involved the whole world, is secondary. Ordinary workers would see their pay cut.
Romney has focused his attack on President Obama on the claim that some stimulus dollars went overseas. This is surely true, since it would have been impossible to ensure that all stimulus spending remained in the United States. (Congress did include a “buy America” provision in the stimulus bill, which would have had the effect of reducing the portion of the stimulus spent outside of the country.) The more important question has been the general direction of President Obama’s trade policy and the extent to which it imposes some groups of workers to competitive bidding for their jobs.
This is where Romney has the better case, although it is not clear that he would pursue any different policy. The trade policy of President Obama, like that of his immediate predecessors Presidents Bush and Clinton, has been focused on placing manufacturing workers in direct competition with low paid workers in the developing world. This has the effect of depressing their wages since firms can either directly or indirectly hire workers in developing countries who are paid a fraction of the wages of workers in the United States.
At the same time, his trade policy has done little or nothing to expose highly educated professionals like doctors and lawyers to the same competition. This policy has the predicted and actual effect of depressing the wages of less educated workers relative to the most highly paid workers. This policy is exacerbated by maintaining an over-valued dollar, which further depresses the wages of those workers exposed to international competition to the benefit of those who are largely protected.
President Obama has also done nothing to combat the corruption in the corporate governance structure whereby corporate board members are paid hundreds of thousands of thousands a dollars a year to look the other way as top management pillages the company. A policy that subjects less educated workers to the most vigorous possible competition, while maintaining protection for those at the top will redistribute income upward, as we have seen over the last three decades. Both candidates seem to largely support such policies.
It appears that both President Obama and Governor Romney are going to be accusing each other of being offshorers in the fall campaign. Both have a case, even if not exactly the one they are making.
Obama’s case on Romney being an offshorer is that the companies owned by Bain Capital shipped many jobs overseas. Romney counters that the offshoring began after he had given up his role as a top executive at Bain, although he did still have a substantial stake in the company. He said that while he was running things the company only did domestic outsourcing, they did not ship jobs overseas.
As a practical matter, this would have a similar effect on the wages of the workers affected. Most workers in the economy probably earn some economic rent. This means that if we were to put their position up for competitive bidding to the whole world, there would be someone who was willing to the do their job for less money.
Fortunately for most of us, our jobs generally don’t come up for competitive bidding so we can continue to enjoy this wage premium in bliss. Bain Capital’s outsourcing put workers’ jobs up for this sort of competitive bidding. Whether the auction was purely domestic, as Romney contends, or whether it involved the whole world, is secondary. Ordinary workers would see their pay cut.
Romney has focused his attack on President Obama on the claim that some stimulus dollars went overseas. This is surely true, since it would have been impossible to ensure that all stimulus spending remained in the United States. (Congress did include a “buy America” provision in the stimulus bill, which would have had the effect of reducing the portion of the stimulus spent outside of the country.) The more important question has been the general direction of President Obama’s trade policy and the extent to which it imposes some groups of workers to competitive bidding for their jobs.
This is where Romney has the better case, although it is not clear that he would pursue any different policy. The trade policy of President Obama, like that of his immediate predecessors Presidents Bush and Clinton, has been focused on placing manufacturing workers in direct competition with low paid workers in the developing world. This has the effect of depressing their wages since firms can either directly or indirectly hire workers in developing countries who are paid a fraction of the wages of workers in the United States.
At the same time, his trade policy has done little or nothing to expose highly educated professionals like doctors and lawyers to the same competition. This policy has the predicted and actual effect of depressing the wages of less educated workers relative to the most highly paid workers. This policy is exacerbated by maintaining an over-valued dollar, which further depresses the wages of those workers exposed to international competition to the benefit of those who are largely protected.
President Obama has also done nothing to combat the corruption in the corporate governance structure whereby corporate board members are paid hundreds of thousands of thousands a dollars a year to look the other way as top management pillages the company. A policy that subjects less educated workers to the most vigorous possible competition, while maintaining protection for those at the top will redistribute income upward, as we have seen over the last three decades. Both candidates seem to largely support such policies.
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David Brooks deserves to be congratulated. He has discovered that the children of less affluent people don’t have the same opportunities as the children of the wealthy. While most of us have long known this, David Brooks still deserves credit for being open to evidence. Better late than never.
Of course he still seems to have some problems figuring out what to do about this fact. He tells readers:
“Political candidates will have to spend less time trying to exploit class divisions and more time trying to remedy them — less time calling their opponents out of touch elitists, and more time coming up with agendas that comprehensively address the problem.”
How does this work exactly? If someone proposes taxes on wealthy people to pay for better education for the less wealthy, doesn’t this require talking about class divisions? If we were to change rules on corporate governance so that top management could not rip off shareholders and other stakeholders, wouldn’t this require discussion of class? If we were to impose a financial speculation tax that would crack down on pointless trading and sleaze dealings (e.g. the LIBOR liars) in the financial sector, wouldn’t we have to talk about class? If we adopted trade policies that subjected doctors and other highly paid professionals to the same international competition as autoworkers and textile workers, wouldn’t we also have to talk about class?
Brooks apparently finds discussion of class painful, but it is difficult to understand how one would address the “opportunity gap” he describes without this discussion.
It is also worth noting that the problem of paying too much for benefits for the elderly is not quite what he describes. The problem is not that our elderly are getting excessively generous benefits, the problem is that we are paying too much to doctors and other health care providers. If our per person health care costs were comparable to those in other countries, then our programs for the elderly would not pose a serious burden.
David Brooks deserves to be congratulated. He has discovered that the children of less affluent people don’t have the same opportunities as the children of the wealthy. While most of us have long known this, David Brooks still deserves credit for being open to evidence. Better late than never.
Of course he still seems to have some problems figuring out what to do about this fact. He tells readers:
“Political candidates will have to spend less time trying to exploit class divisions and more time trying to remedy them — less time calling their opponents out of touch elitists, and more time coming up with agendas that comprehensively address the problem.”
How does this work exactly? If someone proposes taxes on wealthy people to pay for better education for the less wealthy, doesn’t this require talking about class divisions? If we were to change rules on corporate governance so that top management could not rip off shareholders and other stakeholders, wouldn’t this require discussion of class? If we were to impose a financial speculation tax that would crack down on pointless trading and sleaze dealings (e.g. the LIBOR liars) in the financial sector, wouldn’t we have to talk about class? If we adopted trade policies that subjected doctors and other highly paid professionals to the same international competition as autoworkers and textile workers, wouldn’t we also have to talk about class?
Brooks apparently finds discussion of class painful, but it is difficult to understand how one would address the “opportunity gap” he describes without this discussion.
It is also worth noting that the problem of paying too much for benefits for the elderly is not quite what he describes. The problem is not that our elderly are getting excessively generous benefits, the problem is that we are paying too much to doctors and other health care providers. If our per person health care costs were comparable to those in other countries, then our programs for the elderly would not pose a serious burden.
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The NYT must assume that its readers know all about the policy impact of allowing the Bush tax cuts on the richest 2 percent of the population. That is the only possible explanation for an article that reported what various political actors had to say about this idea without telling readers what is actually true.
For example, the piece told readers that:
“He [President Obama] said that 98 percent of households and 97 percent of small businesses would receive a tax cut under his plan. But Republicans said the president’s proposal would amount to a broad tax on small businesses because many business owners report their profits as personal income.”
It would have been worth pointing out that President Obama’s claim that 97 percent of small businesses would not see any tax increase under this proposal. Furthermore, even for the most businesses that did pay a higher tax the increase would be trivial.
This is because the tax is a marginal tax. A business owner who earned $300,000 a year, enough to be subject to a higher tax under the Obama plan, would see her taxes increase by approximately 0.5 percent of her income.
The piece also refers to a proposal put forward by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to have the cutoff for those subject to higher taxes be people with incomes above $1 million rather than the $250,000 cutoff set by President Obama. It would have been worth telling readers that would lose more than 40 percent of the revenue projected to be raised under Obama’s tax proposal. It also would have been worth noting that the biggest gainers under the Pelosi plan would be the 0.1 percent of households with incomes over $1 million.
It also is worth noting that impact of the Obama tax increase on families $250,000-$500,000 would be substantially less than the impact of the change to the Social Security indexation formula advocated in the Bowles-Simpson plan and supported by many leaders in the Democratic Party. The proposed change in the inflation adjustment to a chain consumer price index, would reduce benefits by 0.3 percent a year compared to the current formula. After ten years this would reduce benefits by 3 percent, after 20 years by 6 percent. If an average beneficiary survives 20 years, their average cut in benefits would be approximately 3 percent.
Apparently many Democrats, who are unwilling to impose even a trivial tax increase on people earning more than $500,000 a year are willing to cut Social Security for people getting by on monthly checks that average less than $1,200 a month.
The NYT must assume that its readers know all about the policy impact of allowing the Bush tax cuts on the richest 2 percent of the population. That is the only possible explanation for an article that reported what various political actors had to say about this idea without telling readers what is actually true.
For example, the piece told readers that:
“He [President Obama] said that 98 percent of households and 97 percent of small businesses would receive a tax cut under his plan. But Republicans said the president’s proposal would amount to a broad tax on small businesses because many business owners report their profits as personal income.”
It would have been worth pointing out that President Obama’s claim that 97 percent of small businesses would not see any tax increase under this proposal. Furthermore, even for the most businesses that did pay a higher tax the increase would be trivial.
This is because the tax is a marginal tax. A business owner who earned $300,000 a year, enough to be subject to a higher tax under the Obama plan, would see her taxes increase by approximately 0.5 percent of her income.
The piece also refers to a proposal put forward by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to have the cutoff for those subject to higher taxes be people with incomes above $1 million rather than the $250,000 cutoff set by President Obama. It would have been worth telling readers that would lose more than 40 percent of the revenue projected to be raised under Obama’s tax proposal. It also would have been worth noting that the biggest gainers under the Pelosi plan would be the 0.1 percent of households with incomes over $1 million.
It also is worth noting that impact of the Obama tax increase on families $250,000-$500,000 would be substantially less than the impact of the change to the Social Security indexation formula advocated in the Bowles-Simpson plan and supported by many leaders in the Democratic Party. The proposed change in the inflation adjustment to a chain consumer price index, would reduce benefits by 0.3 percent a year compared to the current formula. After ten years this would reduce benefits by 3 percent, after 20 years by 6 percent. If an average beneficiary survives 20 years, their average cut in benefits would be approximately 3 percent.
Apparently many Democrats, who are unwilling to impose even a trivial tax increase on people earning more than $500,000 a year are willing to cut Social Security for people getting by on monthly checks that average less than $1,200 a month.
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