It’s time for another (and perhaps the final?) round of the Stark/Studebaker Minimum Wage Debate. For those new to this back and forth, Stark, a broadly Keynesian blogger who has my respect, came out against Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour. I responded to his argument, and since then we have had a back and forth. Stark has done us the service of compiling the relevant posts in order here. Stark took issue with some of the casual terminology I employed in my last post, and in the interval between that one and this one we have messaged back and forth via Facebook to sort out for our mutual benefit precisely what one another means. In some cases, I thought Stark’s terminological criticisms pedantic, but in other cases he was right to press for clarification. Fundamentally, if I write a post and an intelligent person (which Stark is) has trouble sorting out what is meant, that’s on me. Now that we have sorted out our positions, Stark has posted his latest attack on the minimum wage hike, and I think myself ready to take it on. So here goes.
Tag: Deficit
Small Government Democrats
I ran across an interesting hunk of data supplied by Paul Krugman that confirms what I have long suspected–American politics is no longer a contest between the progressive left and the conservative right; it is a mere feud between different conservatives. Let me show you what I mean.
Contraction Reaction
The United States has just now posted the worst quarterly growth figures since 2009. The United Kingdom, the country in which I study, is also experiencing economic contraction again, in what may be the start of a triple dip recession in that country. What’s going on? Let’s have a look.
Joe Scarborough is Not an Economist
Joe Scarborough, a former congressman and currently a co-host for the show Morning Joe on MSNBC, had Paul Krugman on his show the other day (you can view the clip in its entirety here). In the segment, Krugman gave what amounts to a standard Keynesian view of the global economic crisis–spending cuts damage growth, the stimulus package was insufficiently large, debt and deficits should be tackled only once growth has been restored, and so on. For those of us who check in with Krugman on his blog, they amount to the key set of Keynesian insights Krugman chooses to highlight. What is much more interesting is the opinion piece Scarborough wrote afterwards, in which he demonstrates that, like Jon Stewart, he is not an economist.
Jon Stewart is Not an Economist
Today the treasury ruled out the magic coin, the denarius ex machina meant to save us from yet another debt ceiling fight. But before it did, Jon Stewart decided to give his opinion on the coin to his nationwide audience of over 2 million people, many of whom get their news from his show and from few other places. Unfortunately, Stewart decided to use his show to misinform the public. While many pundits and programmes disinform the American population on a daily basis, Stewart is often viewed as credible. What I am about to detail should remove that hard-won credibility.
Benjamin Studebaker 