I Wonder How Much BBQ Grills Will Cost in 5 Years?

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Gruel: Soon to be re-named "Fairness Food."  Hell, nutty libertarians want us to all eat beans, so it is hard not to believe the left wants us to eat gruel.

Hmm?

[K Frame]

Next time you're over, I'll either use one to cook or I'll give you one to try for yourself.

Chris

You used one last year, I think. I recall whatever it was that we ate tasting like a Pu Pu Platter...

[mtnbkr]

I didn't have them last year.  I've only used two and you weren't there for either one.

Chris

[K Frame]

Someone used one where I was in attendance.

That's right, I eat other people's burgers, too!

[roo_ster]

Hmm?

Tyler Cowen, economist at George Mason University.

http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303342104579097482945031804?cb=logged0.5428346160333604


http://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/10/tyler-cowen-90-of-americans-will-and.html

To sum up, Mr. Cowen believes that America is dividing itself in two. At the top will be 10% to 15% of high achievers, the “Tiger Mother” kids if you like, whose self-motivation and mastery of technology will allow them to roar away into the future. Then there will be everyone else, slouching into an underfunded future of lower economic expectations, shantytowns and an endless diet of beans. I’m not kidding about the beans.
Poor Americans, writes Mr. Cowen, will have to “reshape their tastes” and live more like Mexicans. “Don’t scoff at the beans,” he says. “With an income above the national average, I receive more pleasure from the beans, which I cook with freshly ground cumin and rehydrated, pureed chilies. Good tacos and quesadillas and tamales are cheap too, and that is one reason why they are eaten so frequently in low-income countries.”
So what am I to do to save my sons from this bean-filled future?

I realize I'm a wacko extremist, unlike all the mainstream intellectuals such as Tyler, but maybe instead of 85 or 90% of Americans living more like Mexicans, the government should try to, you know, restrict immigration?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101137659

...In his final chapter, "A New Social Contract?," Mr. Cowen cruelly lays it all out. "We will move from a society based on the pretense that everyone is given an okay standard of living to a society in which people are expected to fend for themselves much more than they do now." The top 10% will have it better than ever. The majority will suffer stagnant or falling wages but have more opportunities for cheap education and cheap fun. The rest will fall by the wayside, with government less and less able to take care of them. It will be dazzling at the top, and "meh" to miserable for the rest.

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?action=printpage;topic=41784.0

[cordex]

Did you really get from that summary that Cowen or other nutty libertarians want everyone to eat beans?  I suppose Malthus wanted to see overpopulation drive famine as well?

[K Frame]

"...In his final chapter, "A New Social Contract?," Mr. Cowen cruelly lays it all out. "We will move from a society based on the pretense that everyone is given an okay standard of living to a society in which people are expected to fend for themselves much more than they do now." The top 10% will have it better than ever. The majority will suffer stagnant or falling wages but have more opportunities for cheap education and cheap fun. The rest will fall by the wayside, with government less and less able to take care of them. It will be dazzling at the top, and "meh" to miserable for the rest."

Wow. You mean, like, how the founders and framers expected things to work?

Inconceivable.

[roo_ster]

Did you really get from that summary that Cowen or other nutty libertarians want everyone to eat beans?  I suppose Malthus wanted to see overpopulation drive famine as well?

Yes.  His colleague at Mason has written and said as much.  He explicitly stated that we need to have open borders and even out the wages between the USA and the third world.  That it is racist and jingoist and nationalist not to. 

To quote Dave Barry, "I am not making this up."  Take a gander:
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/909-let-anyone-take-a-job-anywhere

Nutty libertarians be nutty.  Nobody forces them to make nutty statements.

"...In his final chapter, "A New Social Contract?," Mr. Cowen cruelly lays it all out. "We will move from a society based on the pretense that everyone is given an okay standard of living to a society in which people are expected to fend for themselves much more than they do now." The top 10% will have it better than ever. The majority will suffer stagnant or falling wages but have more opportunities for cheap education and cheap fun. The rest will fall by the wayside, with government less and less able to take care of them. It will be dazzling at the top, and "meh" to miserable for the rest."

Wow. You mean, like, how the founders and framers expected things to work?

Inconceivable.

Ayn Rand was not contemporaneous with the Founding.

At the founding we had a rather large and educated supermajority middle class with very small upper and lower classes.  The founders and their documents give no evidence that they thought to change that.  On the contrary, there is evidence that they sought to sustain such a societal composition.  The writings of Ben Franklin allude to this. 

And there is the wee concept of "Jeffersonian Democracy" which thought the middle class exemplified what was best in America and that gov't policy ought to be for its benefit.  Now just who might this "Jefferson" fellow be?

As was noted in the other thread I linked, Cowen is incorrect in that the top 10% is not likely to be the most intelligent and productive, but that the 10% will be the best connected. 

His premise is wrong from the start.
It won't be techno-nerds and high achievers who are the top 10-15%, it will be the QE thieves/bankers and leaders of the 'party' who will be on top, with everyone else on the bottom. Its happening already, and we are well on our way.

...We may reach a 90%/10% situation, but it won't be because of technological progress or genetic trends. It will be because of political machinations and manipulations, just like it has been for the history of the world.

Six of the top ten counties with the highest median household income surround Washington, DC, and are due to fed.gov bureaucrats, policritters, and hangers-on.  Another one, Los Alamos, NM, is also due to fed.gov largesse taken from taxpayers at the point of a gun.  A last two are bedroom communities for Wall Street financial folk, who are wealthy nowadays due to the multitudinous bailouts of their corporations with taxpayer dollars(1).

Only one of the top ten counties has a median income that can not be linked to fed.gov machinations.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper/2013/04/25/americas-richest-counties/
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eddf45kjmh/where-they-make-the-most/

The top 10% won't be the smartest, but relatively smart folk who are connected to fed.gov.  Note that notoriously productive places like Silicon Valley are not in the top ten.  Petroleum boom locations are not, either.  The top 10% will not be folk who provide/produce useful goods or services, but the agents of the state and their coteries.  Even really smart IT folk in Arizona will be eating beans with the rest of us.



(1) The recent sub-prime mortgage bailout is just the latest in a series of bailouts.  A chronic underestimation of risk with the foreknowledge that fed.gov will bail them out when their bets go tits up.  (AKA "moral hazard") Off the top of my head: Mexican economic collapse, Russian economic collapse, Eastern Europe collapse, Asian currency & market collapse.  There are more.

(2) Here are a few listed in wiki.   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_debt_crisis#Effects_of_Latin_American_Debt_Crisis_and_the_IMF
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_economic_crisis_in_Mexico#Financial_assistance_package

[T.O.M.]

I really need to get appointed to the federal bench...   

[cordex]

Yes.  His colleague at Mason has written and said as much.  He explicitly stated that we need to have open borders and even out the wages between the USA and the third world.  That it is racist and jingoist and nationalist not to. 

Wait, are we talking about Cowen or his colleague now?

[roo_ster]

Wait, are we talking about Cowen or his colleague now?

Yes. 

Only question, "Which one is nuttier?"

Cowen: "Let them eat beans" author. 
Caplan: Wants to bring in enough third worlders such that American and third world wages intersect.  Says it out loud.  And we (Americans) are Very Bad People if we don't let them.  So extreme in his views he even lost an audience of affluent lefties during the debate on immigration in the UK. 

[cordex]

I'm still not catching on to to what Cowen said that was so shocking, but okay.

Just out of curiosity, is the next step that by extension all Libertarians are nutty?

[HankB]

Gruel: Soon to be re-named "Fairness Food."  Hell, nutty libertarians want us to all eat beans, so it is hard not to believe the left wants us to eat gruel.

SOYLENT GREEN

I've heard more than one liberal/environut assert that MEAT should be outlawed, as we can grow more food per acre if what we grew was destined directly for people rather than food animals. (Besides which, flatulent livestock emit global warming gasses. No joke in their minds.  )

[roo_ster]

I'm still not catching on to to what Cowen said that was so shocking, but okay.

Stock up on beans, then, and start learning to love the crony corporatist state.  Because I doubt you have the connections necessary to be one of the chosen few(1).

Just out of curiosity, is the next step that by extension all Libertarians are nutty?

What do you think?  The idea of America with third-world class demographics and 90% of your countrymen so poor they can not afford meat doesn't bother you, a body's gotta wonder.  I hope that Cowen and Caplan are SPECIAL and not representative, but your reaction is not a good sign. 




(1)The thing about all these utopian creeds is that the adherents all assume they will be the ones on top and not dead in the ditch or eating the beans.

[cordex]

Stock up on beans, then, and start learning to love the crony corporatist state.  Because I doubt you have the connections necessary to be one of the chosen few(1).

Oh, now I get it. Somehow you came up with the idea that Cowen was advocating declining living standards due to increased automation as some sort of Libertarian ideal.  No wonder you have been making no sense.

What do you think?  The idea of America with third-world class demographics and 90% of your countrymen so poor they can not afford meat doesn't bother you, a body's gotta wonder.  I hope that Cowen and Caplan are SPECIAL and not representative, but your reaction is not a good sign. 

So I have the advantage of having actually listened to an interview with Cowen a while back as opposed to just misreading a book review and letting my biases run free.  I don't think I agree with most of his conclusions, but it is my understanding that his predictions are not made from the standpoint of "this is the way I want it to be because of my philosophy" so much as "this is the direction we are inevitably heading due to the development of technological solutions that replace human labor and the globalization of marketplaces."  As far as him being the shining beacon of Libertarianism, well, based on what I know he is pro-Iraq war, pro-big government, pro-bailouts ... Not exactly some Utopian Libertarian. Comes down more in the Republican camp really.

I heard an interview with Caplan years ago and did not find it compelling.

[roo_ster]

Oh, now I get it. Somehow you came up with the idea that Cowen was advocating declining living standards due to increased automation as some sort of Libertarian ideal.  No wonder you have been making no sense.

So I have the advantage of having actually listened to an interview with Cowen a while back as opposed to just misreading a book review and letting my biases run free.  I don't think I agree with most of his conclusions, but it is my understanding that his predictions are not made from the standpoint of "this is the way I want it to be because of my philosophy" so much as "this is the direction we are inevitably heading due to the development of technological solutions that replace human labor and the globalization of marketplaces."  As far as him being the shining beacon of Libertarianism, well, based on what I know he is pro-Iraq war, pro-big government, pro-bailouts ... Not exactly some Utopian Libertarian. Comes down more in the Republican camp really.

I heard an interview with Caplan years ago and did not find it compelling.

You have no advantage.  I saw several of his talks & interviews when the book came out.

I've also presented enough data on Cowen's and Caplan's views to choke a horse as well as criticism where I think they get it wrong.  And I have read them both to see how Caplan is bombastic in his insistence on on open borders to dilute the earning power of Americans and how Cowen is giddy at the thought of 90% sucking hind teat, in part due to the open borders fanatics.  Maybe he was just animated in pushing his thesis (and his book), but both his tone and actual content sure make him come across as an advocate.  And it is odd how an economist would miss how reducing the influx of foreign labor would reduce his projected inequality, unless he was hunky-dory with that influx or that influx was necessary for his thesis to have any validity.  Is a supply and demand curve too much for him to comprehend?  Maybe so, since his thesis and income from his book depend on him not understanding the relationship.

[freakazoid]

You have no advantage.  I saw several of his talks & interviews when the book came out.

I've also presented enough data on Cowen's and Caplan's views to choke a horse as well as criticism where I think they get it wrong.  And I have read them both to see how Caplan is bombastic in his insistence on on open borders to dilute the earning power of Americans and how Cowen is giddy at the thought of 90% sucking hind teat, in part due to the open borders fanatics.  Maybe he was just animated in pushing his thesis (and his book), but both his tone and actual content sure make him come across as an advocate.  And it is odd how an economist would miss how reducing the influx of foreign labor would reduce his projected inequality, unless he was hunky-dory with that influx or that influx was necessary for his thesis to have any validity.  Is a supply and demand curve too much for him to comprehend?  Maybe so, since his thesis and income from his book depend on him not understanding the relationship.

How exactly is that libertarian?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Open borders is a core plank


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[freakazoid]

Open borders is a core plank


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For any that do believe in "open borders", it's contingent on other things first. And "open borders" isn't the only thing he is talking about.

[erictank]

Would you guys knock it off.  We need to get back to the FEMA shelter (40 to a box) so we can huddle around the single candle and eat our .gov approved and issued bowl of gruel.

Where the hell are you getting GRUEL from, prole?!? Who told you you could have something like THAT? 

Remember, that candle has to last you 3 more months - you won't get another just because you burned it up early. And don't forget to pay your carbon tax on that!

[erictank]

Open borders is a core plank


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After (and ONLY after) demolishing the Welfare State, sure.

[cordex]

You have no advantage.  I saw several of his talks & interviews when the book came out.

So you know better, but maintain your glaring misinterpretation out of dishonesty rather than ignorance?  Here I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt like a sucker.

I've also presented enough data on Cowen's and Caplan's views to choke a horse as well as criticism where I think they get it wrong.

As I said, I'm not invested in either man's theories, but I have yet to see where you've done anything but attack straw men in a weak attempt to smear an opposing ideology.  On reflection, perhaps that much straw could choke a horse.  Perhaps if you made your sparring partners from hay or oats?

Again, Cowen's book is making predictions (right or wrong, for better or worse), not suggestions, and he is politically closer to Republicans than Libertarians anyway.  You keep trying to conflate Cowen and Caplan's views despite the fact that they bear little resemblance to each other.  But then, you are so familiar with them that I'm sure you already knew that.

In conclusion, I wouldn't have Cowen or Caplan over for a cookout, with or without a catalytic converter.

[K Frame]

"Ayn Rand was not contemporaneous with the Founding."

Uhm... really?

You mean Ayn Rand came up with that concept, and those Founders/Framers were just a bunch of drunk prats?

It doesn't much matter what the Founders/Framers thought of the structure of society.

What matters is what they expected people to do inside of those structures, and the big one was be productive and fend for yourself.

[MechAg94]

Open borders is a core plank


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Our current Govt leadership is also pushing for effective "open borders".  That doesn't make them libertarians. 

That said, I think there are kooks in all of the parties that have strange ideas.

[MillCreek]

http://www.ibtimes.com/scientists-breed-heat-tolerant-beans-endure-global-warming-1858310

Just in time for global warming and the division of society into haves and have-nots, science has come up with bean crops that will thrive as the climate changes.