{"id":13182,"date":"2014-07-08T00:01:44","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T07:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13182"},"modified":"2014-07-08T00:01:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T07:01:44","slug":"open-thread782014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/08\/open-thread782014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–7\/8\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 78.  I\u2019m feeling much better, and I hope I have my sleep schedule back on track.  It\u2019s early morning, so news is still slow, but I think I found an excellent theme for the day.  I have a lot of house work to do.<\/font><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s took me 2:44 (average 4:43).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>…Some background: On the eve of the Great Recession, many conservative pundits and commentators \u2014 and quite a few economists \u2014 had a worldview that combined faith in free markets with disdain for government. Such people were briefly rocked back on their heels by the revelation that the \u201cbubbleheads<\/a>\u201d who warned about housing were right, and the further revelation that unregulated financial markets are dangerously unstable. But they quickly rallied, declaring that the financial crisis was somehow the fault of liberals \u2014 and that the great danger now facing the economy came not from the crisis but from the efforts of policy makers to limit the damage.<\/p>\n

Above all, there were many dire warnings about the evils of \u201cprinting money.\u201d For example, in May 2009 an editorial [Faux Print delinked<\/em>] in The Wall Street Journal warned that both interest rates and inflation were set to surge \u201cnow that Congress and the Federal Reserve have flooded the world with dollars.\u201d In 2010 a virtual Who\u2019s Who of conservative economists and pundits sent an open letter [Faux Print delinked<\/em>] to Ben Bernanke warning that his policies risked \u201ccurrency debasement and inflation.\u201d Prominent politicians like Representative Paul Ryan joined<\/a> the chorus.<\/p>\n

Reality, however, declined to cooperate. Although the Fed continued on its expansionary course \u2014 its balance sheet has grown to more than $4 trillion, up fivefold since the start of the crisis \u2014 inflation stayed low. For the most part, the funds the Fed injected into the economy simply piled up either in bank reserves or in cash holdings by individuals \u2014 which was exactly what economists on the other side of the divide had predicted would happen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, it\u2019s not the first time a politically appealing economic doctrine has been proved wrong by events. So those who got it wrong went back to the drawing board, right? Hahahahaha.<\/p>\n

In fact, hardly any of the people who predicted runaway inflation have acknowledged that they were wrong, and that the error suggests something amiss with their approach. Some have offered lame excuses<\/a>; some, following in the footsteps of climate-change deniers, have gone down the conspiracy-theory [TEAbuggery delinked<\/em>] rabbit hole, claiming that we really do have soaring inflation, but the government is lying about the numbers (and by the way, we\u2019re not talking about random bloggers or something; we\u2019re talking about famous Harvard professors). Mainly, though, the currency-debasement crowd just keeps repeating the same lines, ignoring its utter failure in prognostication…<\/p>\n

Paul Krugman is spot on! This is a small excerpt from the middle of an extensive article. Click through for a stunning expos\u00e9 on how Republican choose what they want to believe over what they actually know in economics, just like they do in the physical sciences.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>GOP lawmaker calls climate control biggest deception in history of mankind.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Similar to abortion foes, climate denialists are in competition for who can be more hyperbolic about the threat real science poses to mankind. Louisiana state Rep. Lenar Whitney (R) threw her hat in the climate denial ring this week when she released a campaign video accusing liberals, such as former Vice President Al Gore, of advancing "the greatest deception in the history of mankind" (manmade climate change) in a fiendish scheme to empower the executive branch and increase taxes.<\/p>\n

Brilliant! Wish we had thought of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cA specter is haunting America,\u201d Whitney warns ominously in the video. She goes on to claim, entirely inaccurately, that the planet "has done nothing but get colder each year\u201d since the release of Al Gore\u2019s An Inconvenient Truth in 2006.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite inconveniently for Al Gore, and for the rest of the politicians who continue to advance this delusion, any 10-year-old can invalidate their thesis with one of the simplest scientific devices known to man: a thermometer,\u201d Whitney said, citing record sea ice<\/a> in the Antarctic sector.<\/p>\n

Yes, her argument is very much like that of a 10-year-old, who decides that because today is chilly, or it snowed last month, climate change is a hoax, scientists be damned.<\/p>\n

As Huffpo points out, \u201cWhitney\u2019s own state is one of the most vulnerable regions in the country to climate change, with rising coastal sea levels estimated<\/a> to submerge the Louisiana coastline by 2100.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of physical sciences, there they go again! This is only the seventh of seven vile Republican statements from last week alone. Click through for the other six.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Crooks and Liars<\/a>: <\/font>…Out of nowhere, Bob Schieffer dropped The Question. "I have to ask, Senators, how do you feel about being part of a Congress that doesn’t do anything?"<\/p>\n

Suddenly the sounds of pins dropping could be heard across the nation. John McCain stepped up first, proclaiming his commitment to keep on fighting while respecting his colleagues in the House, but rapidly pivoted to the bogus argument that it’s all Obama’s fault because he ‘changes every law he doesn’t like.’ <\/p>\n