Responding specifically to Kevin Drum and to those, like me that share the "widely held view" Kevin espoused about the need to addresss income inequality for sustained economic growth, Krugman writes:

This is a widely held view, and I’m as much in favor of a strong middle class as anyone. Nonetheless, I’d say that in terms of strict economics it’s wrong. There’s no obvious reason why consumer demand can’t be sustained by the spending of the upper class — $200 dinners and luxury hotels create jobs, the same way that fast food dinners and Motel 6s do.

Krugman cites NYC as an example. Far be it from me to disagree with a Nobel prize winning economist, but this seems antihistorical to me. Mature economies have depended upon a large middle class. NYC in particular has a large middle class outside of Mahattan (even larger if one consider the entire metropolitan region.) In any event, this gives me a research project on economic history and I will try and see if I can disprove Krugman's argument.

Speaking for me only

Maricopa County (Phoenix, AZ) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who instituted such ridiculous shaming punishments as forcing male inmates to wear pink underwear, making juveniles serve on chain gangs and bury the dead, and requiring inmates to sleep in tents, and who is the subject of a class action suit by the ACLU for racial profiling of latinos in an effort to enforce federal immigration laws, is being given his own tv show on the Fox Reality Channel.

The show is called "Smile, You're Under Arrest". [More...]

Does it really take an investigation to answer the big question here?

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday night that it had missed repeated opportunities to discover what may be the largest financial fraud in history, a Ponzi scheme whose losses could run as high as $50 billion. The commission said it received credible allegations about the scheme at least nine years ago and will immediately open an internal investigation to examine why it had failed to pursue them aggressively.

SEC Chair Christopher Cox is astonished to learn that the commission failed to respond aggressively to allegations of Wall Street executive Bernard Madoff's "financial wrongdoing." He shouldn't be. The regulatory philosophy of the Bush administration (regulators should be helpful, not adversarial, in their oversight of the regulated industry) has always been an excuse for lax enforcement -- and it's a philosophy Cox embraced. That's why President Bush gave him his job.

[more ...]

Responding to Reuel Marc Gerecht's defense of his pro-torture position, Kevin Drum writes:

Sadly, I suspect that Gerecht is right: if torture had been put to a vote back in 2001, it would have passed. The language would have been prettied up, of course, but the intention would have been clear enough and the public would have approved. Even today, I'm pretty sure that a majority of Americans are basically OK with torture as long as it's mostly kept out of sight and they can go about their business.

Drum begs the question - since no such vote took place, torture remained illegal. And of course, if an open vote was held - torture could not have been "kept out of sight." The United States would have had to opt out of the UN Convention on Torture and repeal its codification of the Convention. Would we as a people have approved of this when forced to say "we approve of torture?" I do not know, but the illegality, indeed, the criminality, of what occurred remains manifest. In our names. The stain will never be removed.

Speaking for me only

lilburro offers us two more diaries on the intelligence community and the Obama Administration. Jacob Freeze questions our silence regarding the wiretapping of two Democratic governors by an unreliable Bush Justice Department.

This is an Open Thread.

Actually, Cheney says "we don't do torture." However, a few questions later he contradicts himself:

KARL: And on KSM (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed), one of those tactics, of course, widely reported was waterboarding. And that seems to be a tactic we no longer use. Even that you think was appropriate?

CHENEY: I do.

In case you are wondering waterboarding has been considered torture for thousands of years. It violates US law. It is a crime. Not just a war crime, but also a violation of US criminal law. Cheney has admitted to committing this crime. In our names. And our Congress knew and did nothing. This stain will not wash out.

Speaking for me only

Kevin Drum takes up an issue I discussed on Monday - "secular stagnation" (Paul Krugman's term) and income inequality. Drum, responds, as I did, to something Krugman wrote:

Bob argues that nothing will, unless the government does it. This is a modern version of the "secular stagnation" view popular in the 1940s (and visible in Keynes himself), which argued that there would be a persistent shortfall of private demand, and that we'd basically need a permanent WPA to support the economy. This view turned out to be wrong for the postwar decades . . .

As I argued in my piece, Drum points out that Krugman is ignoring the different situation we now face in terms of income inequality:

President-elect Barack Obama will hold a news conference today and name Colorado Senator Ken Salazar as Secretary of Interior and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as Agriculture Secretary.

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter will name Salazar's Senate replacement. Tonight the local news is reporting the top names are Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Reps. Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter and John Salazar. One clue may be Ritter's statement today:

Wwe are mindful that there is a great deal of work to be done at the very beginning of Congress, the very early parts of January, so we'll take all that into consideration.

That signals to me he will pick someone already in Congress. Also important: Who is a proven fund-raiser. The 2010 election isn't far away and Republicans will make a strong attempt to get the Senate seat back. [More...]

Jesse Jackson, Jr. has been providing the U.S. Attorney's office in Chicago with information about alleged bribes by Rod Blagojevich and details of meetings for months. Some call him an informant. Jackson rejects the label.

I would ask this: If Jackson, Jr. went to the feds to report what he perceived to be a personal bribe by Blagojevich -- a scheme in which Jackson believed himself to be a victim -- is that informing or reporting a crime?

Ratting and snitching are done for personal benefit -- either money or rewards of leniency for one's own misdeeds or for promises to lay off family members. Reporting a crime you witness, without needing, asking for or receiving any personal gain in exchange for the information doesn't seem to fit the label.

Snitching and ratting are bad. I don't think any site attacks the practice of Government purchased testimony from informants, snitches and rats more than TalkLeft. But... [More...]

I'm watching the Biggest Loser live finale tonight. I hope Michelle wins. The first hour of the show will recap the season in case you didn't watch. All the contestants show up and you get to see how much they've changed. Update: No spoilers please, we're all on different time zones and I want to be surprised.

If I weren't watching Biggest Loser, I'd watch the 1978 movie FM (trailer here)which is replaying on VH1. I've seen it many times, and I've liked Michael Brandon since the 70's when he was in Lovers and Other Strangers and did a tv movie with Kim Novak called "Third Girl From the Left", a Maggie May type story where Novak plays an aging chorus girl who falls for Brandon who delivers her groceries. (Here's a great photo of him from back then.)It's never been released on VHS or DVD that I know of. Brandon was briefly married to Bionic Woman Lindsay Wagner and moved to England years ago when he married his co-star in Dempsey and Makepeace. A few years ago he starred in the London play "Jerry Springer the Opera."

What are you watching tonight?

Amnesty International, USA has released a new report on police use of tasers. 334 people have now died from being tasered. The report finds 90% were unnarmed. CA and FL are the states with the most deaths, while Phoenix and Las Vegas have the highest death rates among cities.

The report says police should suspend the use of taser guns.

Amnesty International’s report -- which includes a study of 98 autopsies that were independently reviewed by a forensic pathologist -- found that 90 percent of those who died after being struck with tasers were unarmed and many did not appear to present a serious threat. Police officers used tasers on schoolchildren, pregnant women and even an elderly person with dementia. More than 30 individuals died after being shocked in jails, where tasers are also widely used, or in the booking area of police stations after they were already under police control.

[More...]

We have Con Air for inmates and Ghost Air for detainees and now there's ICE Air. Tonight, Nightline examines ICE Air, the airline that deports the undocumented:

ICE has 22 detention facilities all over the country. When illegal immigrants are caught, they're flown to one of three hubs in Texas, Arizona or Louisiana. From there, ICE Air has daily flights to Central American countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and also frequent flights to Nicaragua, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and the Caribbean. When it gets enough immigrants to fill a plane, it also flies to Asia, eastern Europe and Africa. ICE Air leases nine planes, and sometimes it also charters commercial jets. It flies six days a week.

Business is brisk. [More...]