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Mike Konczal

@rortybomb

8 Mar

The American Rescue Plan has $30 billion in federal transit funding.

Rather than self-perpetuating cycles of austerity, the ARP solidifies balance sheets across the nation. And not just for families; transit, states, schools, pensions, and more of our necessary institutions. 1/3

Where we'd normally see the recovery worse from cuts, and financial weakness used as a cynical excuse to slash, privatize, and never restore public functions, the ARP moves to stop that dead in its tracks.

Given the "balance-sheet recession" of 2010s, it's a remarkable move. 2/3

Here's a look from a month ago at what that $30 billion can do to help avert disaster in public transit.

So many things like this. So many crises of public institutions now easier to manage, and won't take place under threat of austerity, from the ARP. transitcenter.org/analysis-how-l…

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Mike Konczal

@rortybomb

5 Mar

The reasonable goal should be to get to back to pre-pandemic employment by the end of next year.

At this rate that will take an additional year, and that assumes this rate doesn't drop and stall with time. Congress needs to pass an additional $2 trillion into the economy now. /1

A problem with focusing on monthly job numbers in the Great Recession and now, is that expectations set too low and people focus on minor deviations.

Job numbers are one major level too low right now. We need it to be well above 500K/month each month, and this is well below. /2

In November of last year, before the election, I would have said ~$3 trillion is the right order of magnitude to get back to pre-covid. Adding $1.9 trillion to $0.9 trillion gets us almost there; would be a remarkable achievement that hasn't been compromised by cynical actors. /3

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Mike Konczal

@rortybomb

11 Dec 20

@mattyglesias

The @mattyglesias post is good, you should read "Racial Realignment" as it's a great recent New Deal book

but the best criticism of “Vulgar Katznelsonism” is this heated 2008 debate between Katznelson and Suzanne Mettler on GI Bill's higher ed money. /1 jstor.org/stable/20446759

By relying so much on private markets and states for benefits, parts of the GI Bill reinforce racial discrimination.

But the eligibility for higher education and training dollars are set federally and independent of need, ensuring black veterans get the same money as whites. /2

But equal dollars go into a higher ed system that is largely segregated and unequal. This is where they disagree.

Katznelson (left) sees this as amplifying inequality while Mettler (right) sees it as undermining, and notes analytically his approach can't disentangle changes. /3

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Mike Konczal

@rortybomb

12 Sep 20

NYTimes has a 50y retrospective on Milton Friedman's popularizing of shareholder primacy, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” with line-by-line commentary from smart folks.

I discuss the essay in my book; some thoughts. /1
nytimes.com/2020/09/11/bus…

They skip what I take to be the most interesting and aggressive part: that a majority of shareholders must not be allowed to vote to adopt "social responsibility."

So it's not really about who gets to make decisions, but about imposing a specific notion of what firms are. /2

Even a critical response here assumes shareholder primacy is historically dominant and "practical."

But as Berle and Means noted, for decades before the New Deal shareholders were shedding legal powers as it was impractical for them to execute it under industrial capitalism. /3

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Mike Konczal

@rortybomb

1 Jun 20

The question of whether people not working during this crisis should have income support delivered through UI or payrolls

has little to do with the collapse of small and medium businesses. That collapse is driven by fixed costs and a fall in expectations of future income. 1/

True that PPP and payroll proposals have some funding earmarked for fixed costs, like rent. But those are completely insufficient by themselves.

We must extend income replacement, with triggers, for unemployed workers. But that won't answer the small/medium business question. /2

@ModeledBehavior

Without endorsing, here's one approach from @ModeledBehavior. Note how he's talking about fixed costs with liquidity and future income with solvency. This plan isn't about worker income replacement; we already know how to do that, and it is different. eig.org/news/main-stre…

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Mike Konczal

@rortybomb

6 Mar 20

Smart by Liz Bruenig on how Sanders should use the family security benefits of his agenda to win over "anxious suburbanites wearied by the tumult of the Trump years." True, but it's worth a memory trip as to how opposed this idea has been on the Left. /1 nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opi…

This well-debated June 2018 piece is 1 of 2 worth revisiting. Geismer/Lassiter argued there's no way to address the concerns of affluent suburbs without demobilizing other voters or throwing the interest of working-class communities under the bus. /2 nytimes.com/2018/06/09/opi…

It benefits from being pre-primary, but it suffers from projecting a 1980s analysis 40 years forward. e.g. suburbs are different, the piece struggles to update for that. But it also assumes what it needs to prove, that there is no agenda capable of bridging the 2 communities. /3

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