America's metropolitan elite expresses nothing short of naked disdain for the working class

Clive Crook, here:

I'm a British immigrant, and grew up in a northern English working-class town. Taking my regional accent to Oxford University and then the British civil service, I learned a certain amount about my own class consciousness and other people's snobbery. But in London or Oxford from the 1970s onwards I never witnessed the naked disdain for the working class that much of America's metropolitan elite finds permissible in 2016.  

A little satire on French economist Thomas Piketty, by yours truly

Thomas Piketty has written a big book,

whose thesis is rickety says Bloomberg's Clive Crook,

mistaken about wages both minimum and higher,

for which Diana Furchtgott-Roth says he's a liar.

Entitled Capital in the Twenty-First Century,

its accumulators he'd put in a penitentiary,

while millions now equal (in the theory of this novel),

would no doubt end-up together in a hovel.

We petits rentiers are his "fairly disturbing" problem,

the progeny of capitalism (for Marxists the hobgoblin),

successfully multiplying left and right like rabbits,

Oui! because of our unequal work ethic and habits.

Quelle Surprise: Clive Crook Reads Thomas Piketty And Comes Out For Capital Accumulation

Here he is at Bloomberg View having read Thomas Piketty's new . . . um . . . novel, Capital in the 21st Century, and found it wanting:

There's a persistent tension between the limits of the data he presents and the grandiosity of the conclusions he draws. At times this borders on schizophrenia. ... Aside from its other flaws, "Capital in the 21st Century" invites readers to believe not just that inequality is important but that nothing else matters. This book wants you to worry about low growth in the coming decades not because that would mean a slower rise in living standards, but because it might cause the ratio of capital to output to rise, which would worsen inequality. ... In Piketty's view of the world, where inequality is all that counts, capital accumulation is almost a sin in its own right. ...

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As much as I love the rest of what Clive Crook has to say on behalf of capital accumulation, I think that's it right there. More than anything else, Thomas Piketty is an anti-Calvinist of the French type, an heir of Jacobinism who is more interested in leveling society than in lifting it.

Climate-change activists are exasperated beyond endurance by the gullibility of the people

So says Clive Crook for Bloombergview here.

It illustrates a more general point, that the vision of the anointed is always frustrated by the lumpenproletariat. The elites' response to them is sometimes hyperbolic, as in Lenin's recourse to a vanguard to foist the revolution on a less than enthusiastic population, or as in a certain Penn State climate scientist's recourse to the courts to shut down his critics.

Old Clive doesn't mention those, but he does mention Secretary of State John Kerry's kooky statements, and adds this:

[T]his cause isn't advanced by exaggerating what is known in order to scare people into action, nor by denouncing everybody who disagrees with such proposals as evil or idiotic.

The scientists themselves -- some of them, at least -- are partly to blame. They chose to become political advocates, no doubt out of a sincere belief that policies needed to change a lot and at once. But scientist-advocates can't expect to be seen as objective or disinterested. Once they're suspected of spinning the science or opining on questions outside their area of expertise, as political advocacy is bound to require, they lose authority.

I'd say Clive is definitely showing signs of mellowing since his association with Bloomberg. Before that he seemed less temperate, although too temperate for Paul Krugman.

The incremental change of good old Fabian socialism is what Clive seems to have settled on, as has Obama after an early explosion of revolutionary zeal in 2008 when the realities of office overwhelmed everything.

Fortunately for those of us who disagree about the climate alarums, the John Kerrys and Penn Staters don't seem to have received the memo and keep doing everything to hurt their cause.  

President-Elect Hollande Of France Must Be Reading Clive Crook

Here's Clive just days ago:

The question is whether Hollande will row back from his campaign pledges quickly enough to avert disaster.

The mood of jubilation among France’s unreconstructed leftists will make it difficult. And Hollande doesn’t have much time. Mitterrand took from 1981 to 1983 to discover that his policies constituted the alternative that Margaret Thatcher had in mind when she said, “There is no alternative.” Hollande may have just days to come to the same revelation. Looming parliamentary elections complicate the tactical judgment. Hollande needs voters to give him the majority in next month’s vote for the legislature. He can’t betray his supporters before then.

Whether it’s sooner or later, Hollande will be forced to acknowledge reality, and the disillusionment of the French left will be terrible.

But if it’s sooner, some good could come of his election. ...

Wisely, Hollande’s campaign was more about posture than specifics. We know he’s against austerity and for taxing the rich -- but he hasn’t drawn up a budget. That must wait, he says, until auditors have checked the government’s books. This could give the new president cover to rethink his position on longer-term fiscal control and structural reform. If he does that and insists on short-term fiscal moderation, whether this is deemed a renegotiation of the fiscal pact or merely a supplement to it, his election might help Europe.

And now we have President-elect Hollande today here, taking cover and preparing his supporters for the bad news:

Hollande stuck to his own deficit reduction goals despite new European Union figures released Friday that paint a bleak picture for France and the whole eurozone.

"I have known for several weeks that there was a greater degradation than the outgoing government said there was. We conclude that this is a confirmation," Hollande told reporters in the central city of Tulle.

He said the new figures do not necessarily mean he has less room to maneuver after he takes office Tuesday. "No, we had already expected this," he said in remarks shown on French television.

He said he's asked for an audit of France's budget by the Cour des Comptes, budget watchdog. The audit is expected to be completed by late June.

To Hell With Clive Crook and The Financial Times

For phrases, here, such as:

"if there were any such thing as a moderate Republican;"

and

"a pathologically intransigent Republican party."

Why don't you bugger off to The Guardian or something, Clive? You'd be more happy there, fantasizing about how immune from the dark side of human nature you think you are, and how inferior you imagine the Colonies remain.

We beat you, and we'll beat you again, and again and again and again.

The Dodd Bill Makes Moral Hazard Government Policy

An Opinion from The Washington Examiner

Run against Wall Street

By: Michael Barone

Senior Political Analyst

04/01/10

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, after spending some time negotiating with committee Republicans Bob Corker and Richard Shelby, has decided to advance major financial regulation legislation without bipartisan support. Democratic spin doctors will try to portray the fight over this legislation as a battle between Republicans favoring lax regulation of Wall Street and Democrats favoring tough regulation.

But is the Dodd bill really tough legislation, particularly in its treatment of the major financial entities? My American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison argues that it is not, because it gives Too Big To Fail status to the big entities—Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. This is done by setting up a resolution process for a failing firm which protects creditors more than ordinary bankruptcy proceedings would. Wallison writes:

“From the perspective of its effect on the economy, it does not matter what happens to the company, or to its shareholders and management. The only thing that matters in a government resolution of a failing company is what happens to the creditors--because it's the creditors that will provide the funds preferentially and at favorable rates to large companies rather than small ones.

"In this respect, the Dodd bill does it again--it signals to creditors that they will get a better deal if they lend to the big regulated firms rather than their smaller competitors, and it does this by making it possible for creditors to be fully paid when a too-big-to-fail financial firm is liquidated, even though this would not happen in bankruptcy. There are a number of ways that this can be done, including through a simple merger with a healthy firm. As a prescription for moral hazard, this can hardly be surpassed. The creditors will line up to provide cheap money to the too-big-to-fail firms the Fed will be regulating.”

Wallison is not alone in taking this view. Clive Crook, writing in National Journal seems to agree:

“You do not deal with ‘too big to fail’ by keeping a list of systemically significant institutions: By itself, that makes things worse. You do not deal with it by promising to let most failing financial firms, including those on your list, go bankrupt: Nobody will believe that promise. You deal with it by combining early FDIC-like resolution for all financial firms, banks and nonbanks alike, with stricter and smarter requirements on their capital, liquidity, and leverage.”

Libertarian economist Arnold Kling suggests an even tougher approach, though he doesn’t say how to put it into effect: break up the big banks.

I think as a matter of both policy and politics, Republicans ought to oppose the Dodd bill’s provisions that effectively grant Too Big To Fail status to a handful of financial institutions (and perhaps to other companies, Wallison has argued). They should oppose giving preferred status to the very largest firms as compared to smaller competitors. They should be prepared to argue that the Democratic bill gives vast advantages to firms whose employees have gotten huge compensation (and who, as it happens, tend to give more money to Democrats than Republicans). The cry should be, no favor to the big Wall Street fat cats. Mainstream media is unlikely to transmit this message but, as we have seen in the health care debate, messages can get through without them.