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The “S” Word
Paul Krugman has launched a determined ideological campaign for the return of the ideas of John Maynard Keynes as the best and most effective framework, for both economic theory and policy, to address the rapidly spreading global financial and economic crisis. For public policy this campaign implies “very significant” public investments in jobs, income, infrastructure, education. By significant is meant surpassing in size, per year, – if you want to return to something greater than zero growth – the expected contraction in the economy from Dec, 2007, the official start of the current Recession, until it ends. The forecasters with the most accurate record in this crisis expect a 4-6 percent contraction lasting 5-6 additional fiscal quarters. The number of economists predicting double-digit official unemployment rates is swelling. Nonetheless, one should be cautious interpreting any forecasted numbers…economic forecasting is no less difficult or uncertain than weather forecasting.
Paul Krugman’s Ideological Campaign for the Return of “Depression Economics,” John Case, Political Affairs Magazine
It all seems so long ago, but there was a particularly surreal moment in the Presidential campaign when McCain (via his minions) began accusing Obama of being a socialist. Seemingly out of nowhere a friend asked me to define socialism, and it took me a bit before I could come up a more or less standard definition: “democratic ownership of the means of production.”
That’s a very rough definition, and it’s more than a little revisionist in terminology if not in intent. Socialist were certainly more democratic in spirit than, say, Communists, but they did not always put it that way. In any case, it’s got me thinking about how much public economic discourse might change in the post-market era.
Cesear Chavez advocates “Socialism for the 21st Century,” of course, and in England they have never been shy about the need to nationalize banks, given the current crisis. I can’t see the development of a New American Socialist Party, but it would be great if the old Cold War fears didn’t block the debate over the need for investment in infrastructure and national health care.
Small Changes
Educators and policy makers, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, have said in recent days that they hope President Obama’s example as a model student could inspire millions of American students, especially blacks, to higher academic performance.
Now researchers have documented what they call an Obama effect, showing that a performance gap between African-Americans and whites on a 20-question test administered before Mr. Obama’s nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election.
The inspiring role model that Mr. Obama projected helped blacks overcome anxieties about racial stereotypes that had been shown, in earlier research, to lower the test-taking proficiency of African-Americans, the researchers conclude in a report summarizing their results.
SAM DILLON, Study Sees an Obama Effect as Lifting Black Test-Takers. January 22, 2009
I think this study might be some of the best news coming out of the new administration yet. We will have to see if the “Obama-effect” can be reproduced in other studies, of course. It almost sounds too good to be true. But it’s a part of an entire series of small, undramatic changes that might just add up to a very dramatic shift in higher education.
We could have a Secretary of Labor that thinks about working people, and a National Labor Relations Board that isn’t trying to stop graduate students from organizing. “Obama will not fix academic labor’s problems from above,” Marc Bousquet writes, “but he will ensure that labor has the chance to exercise workplace rights.”
What’s really good for education is that we have a president who looks and sounds like someone who reads and writes. The Bush debacle did all sorts of harm, but it might have does the most damage in its brash disregard for learning. Bush seemed to like epitomizing a kind of “ugly student” not like the “ugly American.” I won’t miss that frat-boy con artist.
Rhythm King And Her Friends – No Picture Of The Hero