Wednesday, April 16, 2014

J.K. Trotter — Income Inequality Institute Will Pay Paul Krugman $25,000 Per Month


Celebrity rent. 

On the other hand, Krugman's celebrity will be directed at what is quickly coming to the fore as the principal issue of our times.

Gawker (via HuffPo)
Income Inequality Institute Will Pay Paul Krugman $25,000 Per Month
J.K. Trotter

See also, Koch Brothers Net Worth Soars Past $100 Billion by Ashley Alman at The Huffington Post

Matt Taibbi: America Has A 'Profound Hatred Of The Weak And The Poor' by Emily Tess Katz at The Huffington Post

14 comments:

David said...

Although I'm not that comfortable tossing the term around, Krugman's little CUNY sinecure smacks of gatekeeperism.

The Rombach Report said...

All economists are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Clonal said...

I don't care what anybody gets paid, as long as the top tier Income tax rates go back to what they were in the late 1950's

The high compensation can be thought of as a measure of merit. But the accumulation of wealth has to be curbed. This can only be done by going back to the golden age of US democracy the late 1950's

The Rombach Report said...

"This can only be done by going back to the golden age of US democracy the late 1950's"

You mean when the US Dollar was still linked to gold via Bretton Woods?

Tom Hickey said...

Only for international settlement and when the US owned most of the gold. Not sure what you think this has to do with US democracy?

In the Fifties, US democracy was abysmal in many parts of the country, especially in the South.

Moreover, the US was controlled by an established elite at that time much more than it is now in that it was impossible for "new money" to break into upper class society and the old boy networks that were formed as early as prep school, much like England.

Clonal said...

In the 1950's, for most purposes, US was off the gold standard. It was not dependent on imported oil. There was a de facto silver standard, but it was relatively unimportant. What was important in terms of inequality was the 91-92% tax bracket rates.

Calgacus said...

No, Clonal, more important for equality was the shared memory of the Great Depression. And thus the idea that the government had a responsibility to maintain some semblance of full employment.

The general population understood it very well, and even the economists, often paid to peddle nonsense, got things basically right then too. Soaking the rich is nice. But much more important is how much the people at the bottom are paid.

The Rombach Report said...

"What was important in terms of inequality was the 91-92% tax bracket rates."

If the government doesn't really collect anything when it levies taxes, what's the point of punishing successful people with punitive taxes of 91-92%? Fact of the matter is that very few people actually paid marginal tax rates that high. High income earners could always afford to hire the best & brightest tax accountants and lawyers to find the loopholes and deductions to bring their effective tax rate down to a much lower level.

Clonal said...

Calgacus and Rombach Report,

I beg to differ. THe stagnation of worker wages began right after the reduction of the rates from 75% to 35%.

The general philosophy of the 92% rate was that very few people would ever pay that rate - the philosophy was give it away or lose it.

Thus charitable giving and charitable foundations as a percentage of GDP were getting much more than they do today. Workers were being paid much more.

The thought process that always works is - if I can't keep it, I would rather give it away, or pay more to my workers, and be a hero. However, if I can keep it, I would rather keep it.

And I do know, because I lived through it, and saw how the people acted. The memory of the Great Depression played only a small part.

Tom Hickey said...

Should we be looking for the cause rather than considering context in terms of prevailing conditions and trying to separate factors that seem to be relevant from those that seem not to be. It looks to me like all the factors being mentioned are highly relevant as contributing factors.

I would add one that I don't recall being mentioned. The integration of women into the work force during WWII, as well as the racial integration of the services, and then the reintegration of the returning heroes into society and the economy, for example, through the educational opportunities made available through the GI Bill, home loans with affordable terms, etc.

Does one factor predominate as necessary and sufficient, or do they contribute to each other in a unique historical context that resulted in the Trente Glorieuses.

Piketty seems to combine the historical contextual approach with the scientific causal one quite well from what I gather (I haven't read him yet). If the Trente Glorieuses was a unique period historically, as he seems to suggest, then it likely cannot be replicated since conditions are different. I am not sure that looking at this period in terms of causality that can be universalized and re-applied is relevant now.

I grew up in that period too and can report that the world then and now are hardly recognizable. It's a wholly different set of circumstances, a different time, and a different stage of collective consciousness nationally and internationally.

Calgacus said...

I lived through that period too. I gave a reason for why a true belief was so widely believed, but the main thing dwarfing everything else put together was the belief in full employment. The Trente Glorieuses were not such an exceptional period in human history. They will happen again when people get together and decide to have full employment. Tax rates were less important than this simple decision.

The 1982 Reagan Volcker imposed recession was the clear end of the period, not fiddling with tax rates which was somewhat coincidental. The Kennedy round tax cuts were not a great idea, Minsky and Galbraith had much better ones, but they did not end the good years and wages continued to rise a good reasonable time after them.

Back then, people decided that there would be no homelessness, and there was no homelessness. The devil is not in the details, but in making the decision to do very easy things and ignore those who say they are hard.

The Rombach Report said...
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The Rombach Report said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Rombach Report said...

"THe stagnation of worker wages began right after the reduction of the rates from 75% to 35%."

18 million jobs were created in the 1980s. Reagan won re-election by a landslide in 1984, carrying 49 of 50 states with a popular vote of 54.4 million to 35.6 million for Mondale.

"The general philosophy of the 92% rate was that very few people would ever pay that rate - the philosophy was give it away or lose it."

That's a lot of BS! The 92% tax rate was a legacy of WW2.

"Thus charitable giving and charitable foundations as a percentage of GDP were getting much more than they do today."

Show me your data.

"Workers were being paid much more."

Agreed. In 1964, the minimum wage was $1.25 or the equivalent of 5 silver quarters. The same silver content today is worth more than $20, so President Obama calling for a minimum wage $10.10/hr comes up short by at least half. Here's what Bill Clinton had to say on this topic...

http://thesupplyside.blogspot.com/2010/05/clinton-on-gold-standard.html