Stating the obvious to everyone but the republican presidential field, the 27%, and the inside the beltway media, yesterday, in Osawatomie, Kansas (via Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice):
President Obama in Osawatomie, Kansas (December 6, 2011)
President Obama:….Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. The market will take care of everything, they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes, especially for the wealthy, our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else [voices]. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty. Now, it’s a simple theory. And, and we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s, that’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker [laughter]. But, here’s the problem, it doesn’t work. [applause] It has never worked [applause][cheers]. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the fifties and sixties. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade [applause]. I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory. Re, remember in those years, in, in two thousand and one and two thousand and three, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history. And what did it get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class, things like education and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and Social Security. Remember that in those same years, thanks to some of the same folks who are now running Congress, we had weak regulation, we had little oversight, and what did it get us? Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity and denied care to patients who were sick, mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford, a financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy….
[emphasis added]
This morning, online at the Washington Post:
Washington Post online poll result on trickle down economics, at 6:30 a.m. on December 7, 2011. That’s close!
Six years ago at Kung Fu Monkey:
Friday, October 07, 2005
Lunch Discussions #145: The Crazification Factor
….John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is —
Tyrone: 27%.
John: … you said that immmediately, and with some authority.
Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That’s crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population.
John: Objectively crazy or crazy vis-a-vis my own inertial reference frame for rational behaviour? I mean, are you creating the Theory of Special Crazification or General Crazification?
Tyrone: Hadn’t thought about it. Let’s split the difference. Half just have worldviews which lead them to disagree with what you consider rationality even though they arrive at their positions through rational means, and the other half are the core of the Crazification — either genuinely crazy; or so woefully misinformed about how the world works, the bases for their decision making is so flawed they may as well be crazy.
John: You realize this leads to there being over 30 million crazy people in the US?
Tyrone: Does that seem wrong?
John: … a bit low, actually….
Uh, yep. Anyone think the 27% will not vote for Willard in the general election?
