Why did the stimulus go wrong?

In the end, we took a soapbox racer to a go-kart track and then realized we were competing against actual cars.

Great analogy — and better analysis — by Ezra Klein.

In reflecting on Rand Paul and his ever-changing principles, the Lexington Herald-Ledger makes an interesting point about all the small-government types.  Perhaps it says less about the ranters who are leveraging widespread dissatisfaction into cynical grasps for office, and more about the contradiction lodged deep within democracy itself.

In fairness, many of us are guilty of wanting the benefits of something — whether it’s board certification or full campaign coffers — without paying the price.

…

Or all the rest of us, who resent the chunk of change that government extracts from our pockets but want smooth roads, good schools, police and fire protection, national security, personal security in old age, free markets governed by laws, student loans, flood walls, lakes and parks and the list goes on.

As people inveigle against “big government” and “runaway taxes” while paying less tax than any industrial nation and simultaneously living in an age of miracles … it might do well to remember that there ain’t no free lunch and that civilization isn’t gratis.

I hate to turn into just a site that reposts The Daily Show but sometimes they’re spot on.  The continued failure of President Obama to live up to his pre-election rhetoric on the rule of law is the most galling development of his administration.

This is an excellent TED talk about what intellectual property people can learn from the fashion industry. In essence, there is no IP protection in fashion (except for trademark), and yet its economic impact dwarfs highly-protected fields like music or film.
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This piece from the Atlantic captures my feeling pretty close to exactly, re: the recent Rand Paul flap on the Civil Rights Act and his alleged “courage”.  In particular, the conclusion:

Now, after the police dogs, night-sticks and fire-hoses have been beaten back, Rand Paul wants to reopen the question, while, to be sure, claiming that he would have had the “courage to march with Martin Luther King.” This is a common strain of courage. It chiefly shines through in men born 50 years too late. Presently among the crowd, they are distinguished at that decisive moment when queried about wars they won’t have to fight, in times they will never live. These men populate our history books. They are all on the wrong side.

Devastating.

Everyone says they could balance the budget if they were in charge.  Few understand what would be involved.  I just played a neat simulator that actually allowed me to explore what different policies would do.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to post the results, but I did a screen-capture hatchet job:

Click for a full view.  My choices — like anyone’s — probably wouldn’t please everyone but I don’t think they’re monstrous.  A guiding principle was to avoid adding much new until the current spending is more under control.  In reality, I know that government should be countercyclical, so this set of choices might actually be less than wise.  But it was still a good thought experiment.

This (http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/) is an animated illustration of how Facebook has been increasingly defining your personal data as “open to everyone”.

An editorial cartoon responding to the Arizona immigration law

From the cartoonist Lee Judge ( http://media.kansascity.com/images/cartoons/judge/04-2010/judge_04272010_700.jpg)

A meme spreading like wildfire throughout the rabid right is that “47% of Americans don’t even pay federal income tax.”  Clearly it’s time for another tax cut for the uber-wealthy in the interest of “fairness”.

David Leonhardt wrote a piece in today’s New York Times exploring this.  Short version:  The number is true… and meaningless.  The working class pays far more in total taxes (once payroll, state, and sales tax is included).  People aren’t getting a free ride.  The article is worth a read, if only as an example of a calm, fact-based response to overheated breathless propaganda.

Where did the rabid right get the figure of 16,500 new “IRS agents” that (they claim) will be required to enforce the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act?

They made it up.

Really.  It came from nowhere.  In fact, the IRS will add few or no agents, and perhaps hardly any staff at all.  There’s a really nice dissection of this ludicrous claim over at factcheck.org.  Basically, the number was invented based on a bad estimate, inflated through dubious assumptions, and then just hand-waved into fact.

Just remember, the next time someone quotes to you some scary scary provision of the ACA: There’s a non-negligible chance that they are lying or repeating a lie.