ARRA, Tax Cuts, Behavorial Economics

Andrew Sullivan writes:

The stimulus has worked modestly so far, partly because it was a two-year program and its earliest stimuli were tax cuts which people saved.

Actually, the jury is out on whether these tax cuts were saved. In one of the small nods to "behavioral economics" of the ARRA, the tax cuts were not structured as they typically are in these situations-- as lump sum "refunds." Rather they were small incremental refunds on each pay check. The theory (derived from research/experiments) being that consumers would spend more of it then they would if they received a lump sum (which are almost entirely saved).

I can't find the data details... I imagine they aren't yet available: hence the "jury is still out" rather than "Andrew Sullivan is wrong-- yet again-- about economics."

first you get this:

I must say that, to my mind, Steele has a point. It isn't the judicial rulings that trouble me so much as her non-judicial opinions and mindset. The constant, oppressive consciousness of her identity - racial and gender - and the harping on it so aggressively so often does strike me as a classic mode of victimology deeply entrenched in her generation. I don't think it's disqualifying and I don't see any crude racialism in her rulings, but I do think it shows that for Obama, this kind of racial/ethnic view of the world is so endemic it's invisible to him. And it's off-message for his candidacy and life. But, hey, maybe he feels Scalia needs to get as good as he gives.

To which you quite rightly get this

You wrote,

The constant, oppressive consciousness of her identity - racial and gender - and the harping on it so aggressively so often does strike me as a classic mode of victimology deeply entrenched in her generation.

Maybe I have missed something, but I haven't seen any constant harping by Sotomayor over the past few weeks, and I haven't heard any in her history. I do see a constant harping on the "wise Latina" remark (made 9 years ago) and a constant harping on the Ricci case - not by her, but the abyss of 24-hour cable news. Yes, Obama has spoken about her race and gender. But it is an historic pick, and deserves mentioning what she has accomplished. She is a role model for young Latinas and Latinos growing up in inner cities, and the community is better for it.

and this:

So, I guess I was guilty of casual - if unintended - prejudices against gay marriage. Your constant harping (yes, harping) on the subject forced me to acknowledge the sanity and rightness of your argument for gays to marry.

So I'm too weary to describe all the ways in which your post lacks self-awareness. Please reflect on it some and let your readers know if further reflection brings the outrageousness of that quote into sharper focus.

To which our dear Mr. Sullivan replies:

The distinction I draw is the distinction made in Virtually Normal. I do not consider myself better than anyone because I'm gay; I do not think gay people have some superior wisdom; I seek civil equality so the sharp division between homosexuality and heterosexuality can eventually be elided. I've never shied from being honest or talking and writing about being gay, but I hope the goal of all of it is to move beyond the reductionism of the victimology of the left, not to entrench it. If Sotomayor had written an essay called "The End Of Latino Culture" or had written of the day she hopes Latino-specific political organizations disappear, I'd feel differently about her non-judicial record.

Let's go to Sotomayor, shall we... Where she acknowledges a shared idea of utopian justice, while retaining the practical knowledge that William Gaddis so bluntly summarized when he opened A Frolic of His Own "Justice? You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.":

For all of us, how do change the facts that in every task force study of gender and race bias in the courts, women and people of color, lawyers and judges alike, report in significantly higher percentages than white men that their gender and race has shaped their careers, from hiring, retention to promotion and that a statistically significant number of women and minority lawyers and judges, both alike, have experienced bias in the courtroom?

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope that I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering. We, I mean all of us in this room, must continue individually and in voices united in organizations that have supported this conference, to think about these questions and to figure out how we go about creating the opportunity for there to be more women and people of color on the bench so we can finally have statistically significant numbers to measure the differences we will and are making.

By the way, a very balanced speech made in front of an organization promoting Latin Lawyers, where modestly (unlike Sullivan, I think) she promotes Latin judges as a source of (statistical) plurality which undoubtedly would hopefully close the gap between justice and the law while acknowledging that judicial modesty should triumph above all...

No victimology, simply thinking through the consequences of identity on judicial decisions. A rather rational and humble position, especially considering her Souterian reliance on precedent and legal process in what I've seen of her decisions.

P.S. The irony of Sullivan's reply is compounded by the fact that today Sullivan has been running a series of letters from various overachieving (gay) readers about how being gay has shaped their achievements.

P.P.S. Did he read this speech? I doubt it.

How this blog (waste of time? opinion rag without paper?) got started...

Unemployed dissertation writer that I am, I read a lot of blogs on politics and then, (when the economy and my future as an educator at the post-secondary level went in the tank) finance. I'd read something stupid and post a comment about it-- see here, for instance.

What set me off most was this post from Andrew Sullivan. Irritated by his misunderstanding of the issue (see the great bronte capital for an explanation of this misunderstanding), I fired off a snarky email...

Dear Mr. Sullivan,

I am a long term reader of your blog and admire you for your independent stances on numerous issues. However, when you use a term such as "zombie banks" to describe the current situation (with its connotations to Japanese banking and its "lost decade"), you misunderstand the nature of these Japanese problems and of the problems here in the United States. They are not at all alike.

Granted you are parroting your talking points from public intellectuals who are similarly misstating and I could explain this to you more clearly, but I think it ridiculous that someone who is paid to "blog" on these issues should be receiving free explanations. Instead I would point out that the fact that you continually misunderstand these economic issues should serve as a reminder of the old saw, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."

The capital lesson of intellectual responsibility...

Impolitic and snarky, yes, but it gets to my fundamental point... I don't have a particular axe to grind other than thinking most of the punditocracy is a waste. There is way too much information out there for you to have a valid opinion on everything...

Though I'm going to try-- since as is often attributed to Mark Twain (though I think Robert K. Mueller actually said it):

Those who think they know it all are very annoying to those of us who do.

No, really, my goal is to treat issues as in depth as possible and try to point out certain short cuts in people's thinking that ignore the multitude of factors involved in particular issues or over or under-emphasize those factors... I should make clear that I am not an econ. or quant guy, public policy specialist, etc. merely what we would call an over-informed citizen with too much time on his hands...