GREGORY V REICH
COMPILATION AND COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
FEBRUARY 4, 2019

YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL A RIGHTWINGER BY THE WAY THEY TALK. THIS IS ONE OF THEIR INEVITABLE “TELLS” – “DEMOCRAT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES.” IT ISN’T THAT THEY DON’T KNOW ANY GRAMMAR, BUT MERELY THAT IF THEY SAY “DEMOCRAT” INSTEAD OF “DEMOCRATIC” AS AN ADJECTIVE, THEY’RE DECLARING TO THE WORLD THAT THEY ARE PROUD TEA PARTY RIGHTISTS. THEY DO IT PURPOSELY, AND WITH THE GOAL OF BEING INSULTING. THEY’RE NOT ANALYSTS, BUT PROVOCATEURS. IT’S LIKE CALLING TAN TO BLACK SKINNED PEOPLE “N... ER.” IGNORANCE APPARENTLY REALLY IS BLISS. IT’S A LITTLE BADGE OF HONOR THAT THEY SEEM TO HAVE ADOPTED. HAVING SAID THAT EQUALLY PROVOCATIVE THING ABOUT PROFESSOR GREGORY, OF COURSE, I WILL MAKE CLEAR THAT HE DOES HAVE A PHD FROM HARVARD AND HAS WRITTEN HALF A DOZEN BOOKS AS WELL, SO HE IS A VERY BRIGHT MAN AND WELL-EDUCATED. HE COULD DO BETTER.

THIS WRITER, PAUL R. GREGORY, HAS DONE SOMETHING ELSE THAT “GIVES ME PAUSE,” THOUGH. HE HAS REPEATEDLY MADE AN ODD ERROR, CONFUSING DSA WITH DCA, OR IT MAY BE A TYPO, PERHAPS. HEAVEN KNOWS, MY FINGERS MISSPELL THINGS ALL THE TIME. GOOGLE GIVES VERY LITTLE INFORMATION ON “DCA,” AND CERTAINLY NOT ON AN ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION AS THE ARTICLE SEEMS TO MEAN. IT ALSO STANDS FOR “DOLLAR COST AVERAGING,” WHICH ALSO MAKES NO SENSE IN THIS CONTEXT. THERE IS DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS AND AN UNAPPEALING PUNK ROCK BAND OF WHITE RACISTS. WHAT I HAVE SEEN IN INTERNET ARTICLES BY THE RUSSIAN LIE FACTORY CALLED THE IRA, IS THE FACT THAT THEY MAKE NAME, SYNTAX AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS TO THE POINT THAT I HAVE TRIED TO FIGURE OUT AT TIMES WHAT THEY WERE TRYING TO SAY. SO, I’LL JUST DROP IT FOR NOW AND ASSUME IT’S A TYPO.

WHEN YOU READ THIS ARTICLE, BE FOREWARNED. I’M NOT AN ECONOMIST BY A LONG SHOT, BUT I DID TAKE AN ECONOMICS COURSE IN COLLEGE, (NOT MY FAVORITE OF ALL TIME) AND THE LARGEST PORTION OF WHAT I READ ON THE SUBJECT OF THE WEALTH DIVIDE AND THE WAY BUSINESS WORKS IN CLASSICAL ECONOMICS IS CLEARLY RIGHTIST BY MOST MODERN TERMS, OR AS THEY PREFER IT TO BE CALLED, “LAISSEZ-FAIRE,” MEANING FOR ONE THING, THAT THEY ARE HARD CORE FREE MARKET THINKERS. TO THEM, BUSINESS SHOULD HAVE NO RESTRICTION PLACED UPON IT AT ALL, AND NO MONEY SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM ITS’ COFFERS FOR THE BENEFIT OF “SHIFTLESS SKONKS.” (FROM THE OLD, OLD CARTOON STRIP CALLED “SNUFFY SMITH.”) THAT IS THE HIGHEST LAW OF THEIR UNIVERSE: TO INTERFERE WITH BUSINESS IS “UNAMERICAN.” AND ESPECIALLY, THERE SHOULD BE NO GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION AT ALL. THAT’S WHY, EVEN THOUGH SOME MEMBERS OF THEIR OWN FAMILY ARE PROBABLY DEPENDENT ON SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE, THE “CONSERVATIVES” ARE STILL “AGI’N IT,” ON PRINCIPLE. MY “PRINCIPLE” IS THAT ALL PEOPLE SHOULD BE HOUSED AND FED, NOT JUST THOSE WHO CAN PAY THEIR OWN WAY.

THOSE “CONSERVATIVES” ARE EVEN TODAY TRYING TO DISMANTLE THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM THAT THEIR OWN FAMILY ELDERS PROBABLY DEPEND ON FOR THEIR MONTHLY INCOME. THE PHILOSOPHY? IF IT AIN’T MY PROBLEM, IT AIN’T A PROBLEM. IF YOU CAN’T WORK, YOU SHOULD JUST GO AHEAD AND DIE, BUT NOT ON MY DOORSTEP BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO HAVE TO BURY YOU. AND I DID IN SEARCHING THIS WRITER, PAUL GREGORY, AFTER HE SAVAGED OUR PROGRESSIVES SANDERS, AOC, AND WARREN, FIND A GREAT ARTICLE ON HIM BY ONE OF MY FAVORITE PROGRESSIVES/LIBERALS, ROBERT REICH. IT SEEMS GREGORY TORE INTO REICH PERSONALLY FOR HIS TOO LIBERAL VIEWS, ALSO, BUT REICH IS NOT DEFENSELESS. READ BOTH BELOW, FOR ENLIGHTENMENT AND ENJOYMENT.

YOU WILL SEE SOME ECONOMIC TERMS FROM THESE ARTICLES THAT I MADE A HALF HOUR’S ATTEMPT TO RESEARCH, BUT THE LANGUAGE USED IS SO FULL OF NEW PHRASES THAT I GAVE UP. YOU CAN LOOK THEM UP FURTHER IF YOU WANT TO. ESPECIALLY PAY ATTENTION TO REICH’S COMMENTS ON THE “MIDDLE OUT” INFLUENCE ON OUR ECONOMY. IT CAN BE BOILED DOWN TO THE FACT THAT THE GREAT MIDDLE CLASS MAKE UP THE GREATEST PART OF OUR MARKET, AND THEREFORE THEY SET THE ECONOMIC TRENDS WITH THEIR SPENDING PATTERNS. IF THEY HAVE MONEY ENOUGH TO SPEND ON GOODS AND SERVICES, THE ECONOMY WILL FLOURISH, BUT IF THEY DON’T, WE WILL HAVE YET ANOTHER DEPRESSION. ALSO, IF MOST OF THE MIDDLE CLASS DO WANT TO BUY MORE GOODS, THE MANUFACTURERS WILL HAVE TO MAKE MORE AND THEY WILL HIRE PEOPLE TO DO THE WORK. THEIR HIRING IS NOT DONE BECAUSE THEY HAVE PLENTY OF MONEY TO DO IT, THEY USUALLY HAVE THE MONEY, BUT BECAUSE THEY NEED WORKERS. SIMPLE. TO HECK WITH ALL THOSE CORPORATE GIVEAWAYS THAT THE REPUBLICANS LIKE TO HAND OUT. WHAT THEY NEED TO DO IS PAY BETTER AND HIRE MORE.

FDR WAS A KEYNESIAN IN HIS PHILOSOPHY, LIBERAL, AND HE SET UP THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM, A LIFELINE WHICH I WOULD BE UNABLE TO DO WITHOUT ALONG WITH MILLIONS OF OTHERS. ROBERT REICH IS A WELL-RESPECTED LIBERAL IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. HE HAS WRITTEN A GREAT BOOK CALLED “SAVING CAPITALISM FOR THE MANY AND NOT THE FEW.” EVEN IF YOU DON’T THINK ECONOMICS CAN BE INTERESTING, READ A LITTLE AT THAT ONE. I DON’T KNOW IF IT’S STILL IN PRINT, BUT LIBRARIES WILL PROBABLY HAVE IT.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/428232-progressives-pulling-a-bait-and-switch-with-medicare-for-all
Progressives pulling a bait-and-switch with 'Medicare for All'
BY PAUL R. GREGORY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 02/03/19 11:30 AM EST

PHOTOGRAPH – BERNIE SANDERS SPEAKING

Politicians are known to misrepresent themselves to get elected, but Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is supposed to be an exception. It is said that he has remained true to his socialist convictions through thick and thin.

Surely, such a dedicated socialist can truthfully explain what socialism is. If not he, then Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.), the influential newcomer to Congress and member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), could lend a hand. She must know what socialism is if Bernie won’t speak up.

Prepare for a surprise. Sanders has consistently claimed that his socialism is a Scandinavian-type welfare state. He assures voters that his socialism is comprised of free medicine and education and a fair distribution of income, nothing more, nothing less.

Ocasio-Cortez rattles on about giving things away free and that capitalism is rotten. If pressed, she turns to recipes and social-media tips.

Those who wish for a clear definition of socialism from Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez are left with two possible interpretations: Either they have no idea, or they fear voters would be repelled if they came clean.

With a majority of the Democrat base now claiming to prefer socialism to capitalism, a flood of leftist Democrats (some newly minted) are seeking to co-opt Sanders’ platform of free this and free that. As they roll out their presidential-primary campaigns, they jostle to outbid each other in giveaways and taxing the rich.

That’s all we are going to hear from the left’s socialist crowd on the campaign trail. For those who wish to delve into what socialism really is, the DSA website offers a five-point description:

First, socialism gives free medical care, education, retirement and other requisites of a welfare state to all.

Second, socialism does away with private ownership of small-business enterprises. Municipal authorities or worker collectives will replace private owners.

Third, large companies (which constitute more than half the economy) will be directed by a national planning/regulatory authority. The planning of transnational companies is left unclear.

Fourth, wise technocrats, not private consumers and producers, will decide what is in the public interest. The public interest prevails over private interest.

Fifth, capitalism must be eliminated because it exploits, not Marx’s working class, but women, minorities, gays, immigrants and a whole list of downtrodden folks.

The DCA* [sic] description of socialism represents the consensus view of its 50,000 members, including, we assume, Ocasio-Cortez. It spells out how to construct a socialist America in the abstract, but we have two proposed pieces of legislation that dictate how to restructure American medicine in practice.

We are curious whether these proposed pieces of legislation are consistent with or are derived from the DSA’s version of socialism.

In September 2017, Bernie Sanders and 13 Senate co-sponsors (including five current Democrat presidential candidates) put forward the "Medicare for All Act."

In March 2018, 124 Democrat “progressive” members of Congress co-sponsored House Resolution 676 (HR676), also entitled “Medicare for All.” The Senate and House bills are similar, but we focus on HR676 and ask whether the key provisions of “Medicare for All” follow the DSA model of socialism.

Here are the features of HR676:

Free giveaways: HR 676 makes health care free to all U.S. residents. (The “secretary” decides who is a resident). Moreover, all conceivable medical services (opticians, dentists, chiropractors, doctors, surgeons, medicines, hospitals, etc.) are covered.

Eliminate private health insurance: “It is unlawful for a private health insurer to sell health insurance coverage that duplicates the benefits provided under this Act.” HR 676 includes all conceivable medical benefits; therefore there is nothing left to insure. Health insurance, including employer plans, ceases to exist.

Eliminate for-profit providers: “No institution may be a participating provider unless it is a public or not-for-profit institution.” All for-profit, medical-related practices must be converted to non-profits or government ownership. They are somehow to be compensated for their losses in what promises to be a massive expropriation.

Hand control of all health-care decisions to the government: A mammoth VA-like bureaucracy will determine who is eligible, set compensation of medical providers, determine what services are covered, root out back-alley private providers and so on.

“Medicare for All” provides a revelatory snapshot of Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and, increasingly, the left of the Democrat party. It seeks to destroy private businesses that provide medical care, the most important victim being private health insurance.

HR 676 replaces market allocation with bureaucratic decision-making and control. A giant bureaucracy, not the people affected, determine what is in the public interest and what is not. All of these provisions feature prominently in the DCA* [sic]version of socialism.

If enacted, HT 676 would deliver a potentially fatal shock to our medical care system that accounts for one-fifth of the economy.

Medicare for all has been the Holy Grail of the left for decades. We could perhaps dismiss HR676 as an election stunt. Do not be so confident. HR676 could become law if American voters pay no attention and fall for the false promise of a Swedish or Danish-style welfare state.

Realize that Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and the socialist wing of the Democrat party are employing a “bait and switch.” They are pretending to be European-style Social Democrats not socialists, as defined by DSA.

The European welfare state is the product of European Social Democrats who fought for improved working conditions, pensions and health care, while keeping private ownership and a market economy intact.

Some 90 percent of the Swedish economy is privately owned, and all three Scandinavian countries outperform the U.S. in business freedom. In the process, Social Democrats forged an eventual consensus with their conservative counterparts that the “social state” (Sozialstaat) is here to stay, despite its huge cost.

That political battle is still proceeding in the United States, whose electorate does not relish the astronomical payroll and value-added taxes required to pay for the social state.

"Medicare for All," if properly explained, should markedly increase the chances of Donald Trump’s re-election. The media has already figured out that "Medicare for All" outlaws the employer health insurance of 170 million Americans and that medical resources may cover 44 million currently on Medicare but would be insufficient for 325 million.

Tough decisions lay [sic -- should be lie rather than lay] ahead for the Democrat presidential candidates.

Paul Roderick Gregory is a professor of economics at the University of Houston, Texas, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a research fellow at the German Institute for Economic Research.


REICH BITES BACK

Paul Roderick Gregory
http://robertreich.org/post/60861581406

Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of Nations," and "Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.



http://robertreich.org/post/60861581406
BEWARE CAPITALIST TOOLS
ROBERT REICH
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2013

Forbes Magazine, which calls itself the “capitalist tool,” seems to have a penchant for publishing right-wing diatribes posing as serious economic analyses. The latest is by Paul Roderick Gregory, who accuses me of “false facts and false theories” in a recent piece I wrote about why high wages are good for the economy.

If I’m correct, Gregory asks, how could it possibly be that America become [sic] world’s richest and most powerful economy in late nineteenth century, when the typical worker was earning peanuts?

Gregory claims to be an economic historian but he doesn’t seem to know American history. The answer is simple: Ours was a land of unbounded natural resources. We also found it relatively easy to copy the industrial advances of England and Germany, and erected a protective tariff so that our manufacturers didn’t have to compete directly with them. A giant wave of immigrants came to our shores, willing and eager to work for very little. And our largest industries – oil, railroads, steel – were monopolies or oligopolies that generated huge profits for their owners while skewering their customers. The result of all this was fat corporate profits, some of which were reinvested. Hence, the economy grew.

That was a recipe for economic growth, but not a recipe any sane person would want repeated even if that were possible. The late nineteenth century is hardly a model for twenty-first century American capitalism. I seriously doubt Gregory wants us to go back to an era of urban squalor, robber barons, corrupt city machines, unsafe factories, and poisonous food and drugs.

Gregory then criticizes me for suggesting that Henry Ford benefited financially by increasing the wages of his workers, who could then afford to purchase Model T’s. Gregory says Ford increased the wages of his workers because, in Gregory’s words, “Ford could afford” to pay his auto workers more, given the enormous productivity increases generated by his assembly lines.

Of course Ford could afford it; he couldn’t have paid them more otherwise. But the fact Ford could afford to pay his workers more doesn’t explain why he chose to do so. As any self-respecting Forbes’ capitalist tool knows, just because a corporation can afford to pay its workers more, doesn’t mean it will do so. Ford paid his workers more because he found it in his economic interest to do so.

Gregory goes on to say that total wages rose sharply from 1915 to the Great Depression, but he completely misses (or ignores) my point. Total wages isn’t the issue; it’s the distribution of those wages. (The sources he sites [sic] are about total income or total compensation, not the median.) Income inequality widened dramatically in the 1920s. It reached a peak in 1928, when the top 1 percent took home over 23 percent of total income – just as inequality rose in the years leading up to the Great Recession, culminating in 2007, when the top 1 percent again took home over 23 percent of total income. (These data come from the pioneering work of professors Immanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty.)

It is no coincidence that 1928 and 2007 marked the high-water points of income inequality, and that the bottom fell out the following years. When most of the gains of economic growth go to the top, the vast majority no longer has the purchasing power they need to buy what the economy is capable of producing.

It’s also no coincidence that household debt more than doubled in the 1920s, from 15 percent of GDP in 1920 to 32 percent of GDP in 1929 – just as consumer debt mushroomed eighty year later leading up to the crash of 2008. When most of the economic gains go to the top, the only way the middle class can keep up is to borrow. But as we learned in 1929 and then again in 2008, there’s a limit to how much can be borrowed. Eventually debt balloons burst, and millions of innocent people go bust.

Gregory then looks to the present day and finds nothing at all remarkable or troublesome about corporate profits soaring while the median wage drops, adjusted for inflation. He says it happens in every upturn – corporate profits always rise before worker compensation rises.

Where has this man been living for the past several business cycles? Does he not know that the median wage has barely increased for three decades, and that it is now 5 percent lower than it was in 2000, adjusted for inflation? Does he not have access to the fact that wages are now a lower percent of the total economy and corporate profits a higher percent than at any time in the last thirty-five years?

Gregory doesn’t like the notion of “middle-out economics”* and believes that the captains of industry are the real job creators. But businesses need consumers in order to prosper and grow. Consumers in the middle class and below are the real job creators. In the United States, 70 percent of economic activity is personal consumption. Unless the vast middle class, and everyone seeking to join it, have enough money in their pockets – and share sufficiently in the gains from growth – businesses cannot possibly do well.

Like most polemicists who don’t really have arguments to support their diatribes, Gregory resorts to ad hominem attack (my arguments is, he says, a “hackneyed reprises of Karl Marx;” I’m not a real economist, he says, but a lawyer who “studied a smattering of economics at Oxford,” and so on).Gregory has a history of attacking others, such as Paul Krugman (who happens to have received a Nobel Prize in economics), with the same mixture of illogic, distortion, and disdain.

Why Forbes continues to publish this sort of garbage is beyond me. Perhaps Forbes feels compelled to provide a steady diet of right-wing drivel to its readers. Why someone who holds a tenured position at a university would stoop to write this garbage is also mystifying. Maybe Forbes pays its pundits well. And as every economist knows, money can elicit the most remarkable of inventions.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system
Complex adaptive system
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A complex adaptive system is a system in which a perfect understanding of the individual parts does not automatically convey a perfect understanding of the whole system's behavior.[1] The study of complex adaptive systems, a subset of nonlinear dynamical systems,[2] is highly interdisciplinary and blends insights from the natural and social sciences to develop system-level models and insights that allow for heterogeneous agents, phase transition, and emergent behavior.[3]

They are complex in that they are dynamic networks of interactions, and their relationships are not aggregations of the individual static entities, i.e., the behavior of the ensemble is not predicted by the behavior of the components. They are adaptive in that the individual and collective behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to the change-initiating micro-event or collection of events.[4][5][1] They are a "complex macroscopic collection" of relatively "similar and partially connected micro-structures" formed in order to adapt to the changing environment and increase their survivability as a macro-structure.[4][5][6]



“THE MIDDLE-OUT ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK IS ROOTED IN THE SCIENTIFIC FACT THAT ECONOMIES ARE COMPLEX ADAPTIVE* AND ECO-SYSTEMIC*.”

“middle-out economics”* --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-out_economics

Middle-out economics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Middle-out economics is a branch of demand-side macroeconomic theory. It identifies the buying power of the middle class as the necessary ingredient for job creation and economic growth. With consumption typically responsible for two-thirds of the Gross Domestic Product in the Americas[1][2] consumer spending is key. Middle-out economics maintains it is only the middle class that can create the aggregate demand necessary for business to support full employment levels. Given the wealthy's high propensity to save,[3] middle-out economics holds that large concentrations of wealth are not sufficient cause for job creation. Middle-out economics maintains companies don't hire when they have an abundance of profits; they hire when they have an abundance of customers.[4]

The middle-out economic framework is rooted in the scientific fact that economies are complex adaptive* and eco-systemic*. Economies are characterized by the same ‘circle of life’ like feedback loops found in natural eco-systems. Middle-out economics claims a fundamental law of capitalism must be “if workers have no money then businesses have no customers”. In this sense, it claims that the true “job creators” in a capitalistic economy are customers and not rich business people. It maintains that a thriving middle class is the cause of growth and not the consequence of it.[4] Therefore, the only way to prosperity is from the middle-out.

Middle-out economics favors governmental policies that help to ensure the buying power of the middle class.[5]

Middle-out economics is held in opposition to Reaganomics, sometimes referred to as trickle-down economics.

The term middle-out economics was coined by Eric Liu, a former speechwriter for Bill Clinton and Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist.[6]


complex adaptive* and eco-systemic*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system
Complex adaptive system
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A complex adaptive system is a system in which a perfect understanding of the individual parts does not automatically convey a perfect understanding of the whole system's behavior.[1] The study of complex adaptive systems, a subset of nonlinear dynamical systems,[2] is highly interdisciplinary and blends insights from the natural and social sciences to develop system-level models and insights that allow for heterogeneous agents, phase transition, and emergent behavior.[3]

They are complex in that they are dynamic networks of interactions, and their relationships are not aggregations of the individual static entities, i.e., the behavior of the ensemble is not predicted by the behavior of the components. They are adaptive in that the individual and collective behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to the change-initiating micro-event or collection of events.[4][5][1] They are a "complex macroscopic collection" of relatively "similar and partially connected micro-structures" formed in order to adapt to the changing environment and increase their survivability as a macro-structure.[4][5][6]


ECO-SYSTEMIC* -- Unfortunately I only found this term used in biology and psychology. It probably means something similar in eonomics, also, but I found no definition.