"The longer high unemployment drags on, the greater the odds that crazy people will win big in the midterm elections -- dooming us to economic policy failure on a truly grand scale." Paul Krugman
Lately I have been reading Ezra Klein
and Kevin Drum's blogs to keep up on political news from a liberal
perspective. Both are prolific blogers and with one on the east and
the other on the west coast they provide me with news info throughout
the day. Klein in the morning and Drum in the afternoon.
As if I need another book to read someone like Ezra Klein dangles a hook and I semi-bite. Gee that's a very typical graph but the topic is anything but typical. The hook goes in deeper and I follow the link to a short article at TPM Cafe book club. Like the graph the author's talking points are much like others I have read over decades on the urban/rural divide but somehow the presentation seems fresh and interesting. That hook is getting better so off the public library online catalog. Oh rats. They don't have a copy yet and that hook is still tugging in my cheek. Shrug...off to Amazon. Its reasonably priced but do I really need another book on my plate right now. No I don't. Its the holiday season and there are too many other things going. Time to use the blue moon option.
With the press of
a figurative button Authoritarianism and Polarization in American
Politics becomes the third item on my "wish list."
If it still seems good next time I put in an order for something
needed this book will probably join my to read pile.<G>
The hook breaks loose and this salmon is loose. Or at least
free of this particular hook until that next order.
Evade one hook and another catches me. Brad DeLong points to David Frum on "The Inheritance of Rome" and this one is in my public library. The two major reasons its interesting are: 1) Bipartisan support (Yes Dorthy -- In my book Libertarians are closet Republicans) since both DeLong and Tyler Cowern have pointed to or commented about this book and 2) buried in a longish book review by an American Institute mouthpiece is this bit...
”As he tells it, the most important dividing line between “ancient” and “medieval” – the profoundest marker of the “fall of Rome” was not a matter of language or culture, of the shift from togas to tunics or from stuffed swan to roast meat. The most important dividing line was the loss of the power and capacity to tax.The Roman emperors had imposed a wide variety of taxes on trade and land. The revenues from these taxes supported the army and provided the free grain ration to the populations of Rome and Constantinople.After the breakup of the empire, the successor states tried to maintain the old Roman taxes. Some – like the Merovingian Franks – succeeded for a time. But sooner or later, all these tax systems broke down. The world had become too poor, trade and agriculture too unproductive, to yield a positive return on the effort invested in tax collection.'
http://www.frumforum.com/the-inheritance-of-rome
So what is the big policy point from
American Enterprise's favored political party? Its reduce taxes.
Roman thought echos today in the United States. Yesterday I was at the Wreaths Across America ceremony at Winfield Kansas. The cemetery is new. At its center is a plaza with three flag pols backed by a Kansas limestone columbarium. Across from the plaza is a covered area reminiscent of a simple roman temple open on three sides and again Kansas limestone with a low vaulted ceiling done in wood. The speakers lauded veterans present and absent. I've often seen the tag line “If You Love
