Other Writing

I haven’t been posting much here recently, although some of the world’s most distinguished economists -- and several other very smart people whose identities I don’t know -- have joined the comment thread on the post entitled, "The BS Human Capital Story." I was particularly fascinated by James Galbraith’s comments on the different effects of increasing income inequality and wage inequality.

I’ve got a few other pieces of writing up here and there: Last week, my review of this year’s crop of books about what’s wrong with the Democratic Party appeared in The Washington Monthly. (Hint: Crashing the Gate, by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong is remarkably good.)

My column this month in The American Prospect has a few things to say about Senator John McCain, and the point that even when he’s trying to engineer bipartisan compromises, he’s basically serving the purposes of one-party rule. This week seemed to be the moment when everyone suddenly "discovered" that, ewww, John McCain’s really a pretty conservative Republican, so the Prospect put the full column up on the web a bit before the next issue comes out. My previous column, which is on a different way to think about campaign finance reform and the lobbying scandal, is still subscriber-only. (Please subscribe.)

I’ve also been taking advantage of my rights as a columnist to post occasionally on the Prospect’s blog, TAPPED, which has been extremely lively and provocative since they added comments.

I’ve got a couple of things to post in the next few days.

Comments

[Neil the Ethical Werewolf]

If you have anything to say on this whole Feingold/censure deal, I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in hearing about that.

Personally, I'm not happy with anybody in the situation -- Feingold for going ahead without telling anybody what the plan was, and everybody else for not being quick enough to get behind the obviously right censure call. Really, it seems like a calculated gambit on Russ' part to make himself look like a hero for '08 while all the other Dems get caught flatfooted.

[Keir]

This is something I've always wondered about `progressive bloggers': What evidence is there that the `DC insider' methods don't work?

After all, `DC insiders' almost won three presidential elections straight, right?

Aside from the cheap, and how many have the `netroots' won, snark, I don't really see what the problem is with the DC insiders.

And, secondly, take Joe Lieberman. How is his repudiation of withdrawal different from Sweitzer's stance on gun control?

It looks to me awfully like that the `netroots' are just repeating the same mistakes that lead to the `ineffectual' Dems of today, just quicker. And with AJAX...

[David Weman]

You really ought to fix the link to TPMcafe in the sideabar.

[David Weman]

"I’ve also been taking advantage of my rights as a columnist to post occasionally on the Prospect’s blog, TAPPED"

I was rather surprised to hear that, and did ctrl f on tapped's archives from ow to october. No Mark Schmitt posts. ???

[Neil the Ethical Werewolf]

Here is some of the Prospect stuff you've been looking for.

[Neil the Ethical Werewolf]

There's also this.

[MaryCh]

The BS Human Capital Theory post obviously struck several nerves. Your writing, and the comments you draw, make your readers want you to post more often, pretty please.

Regarding that post, I'm curious how progressives can overcome the tide of increasing income / wealth inequality. That is, as 95+% of Americans see our standard of living level off (or decline, or at least measure up less and less well compared to the TV ads norms), won't the political fulcrum shift to the right, becoming the opposite of 'vote your hopes, not your fears'?

I write this with fingers crossed, hoping that we're emerging from a political nadir. Still, I wonder what America's economy could become in the next few years to sustain anything like today's middle class.