Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson on the abundance agenda and liberals - Housing 🏠, Energy ⚡️, Infrastructure 🚊, Transportation 🛣️, etc
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Every major city is ran by neoliberals not progressives you proved his point.Every major city is run by democrats
Is Brandon Johnson a neoliberal?
Opinion | America needs abundance, not just redistribution - The Wash…
Summarize
Construction cranes above the Federal Reserve near the Washington Monument on Dec. 7. (Tom Brenner/For the Washington Post )
Beneath the partisan rancor and the policy disputes, what’s driving politics today is the pervasive feeling that America is broken. Yes, it remains the world’s innovation engine and richest country. But nothing seems to work as well as it could, or even as it did.
America’s economic and strategic dominance is rapidly being eroded by China. Its rising incomes are being eaten by steeper increases in the cost of housing, health care, education and other essentials. Its infrastructure is aging, and policymakers seem unable to upgrade or replace it, much less tackle big new projects. The government struggles even to pass a timely budget, let alone address looming challenges such as climate change and entitlement reform.
Politicians play into this mindset. They get elected mostly by blaming their opponents for breaking the economic engine and by promising to get it humming again. They vow to hammer the villains with new rules and punishments, while rewarding the good people with more spending or tax cuts. Everyone loves a good villain, not to mention a bigger tax refund. But in the long run, this strategy is doomed — indeed, it already has failed.
The engine isn’t purring; instead, ominous new noises have been added to the flashing warning lights. The housing market is frozen, government debt is soaring, and public confidence in institutions, from Congress to public schools, is lower than ever. This is happening because the fundamental problem isn’t evil corporations or woke academics, too many taxes or too little spending. The biggest problem is one of focus.
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Much political energy is spent trying to redistribute what already exists, whether through tariffs to move manufacturing jobs around or wealth taxes to alter who owns what. The economic history of the past 200 years teaches that progress, not redistribution, is the main determinant of living standards.
The future can be better. But getting there requires a mindset of abundance, not scarcity: a bigger pie with bigger pieces for everyone, not a more pleasing distribution of what’s already in the pan. In fact, an abundance mindset is essential to tackling climate change and entitlements.
Faster economic growth is the easiest way to manage high levels of debt and the rising cost of Medicare and Social Security. Without growth, the only choices are a politically unpopular austerity plan — or a fiscal crisis that forces an austerity plan down the road, at higher cost.
Climate change, for its part, is what economists call an externality problem: The costs of emitting carbon are borne mostly by other people, while the benefits accrue mostly to the emitters. Externality problems such as pollution rarely get solved by collective action alone, because people aren’t willing to sacrifice the economic benefits that come from, say, a smoke-belching coal-fired power plant. They are solved when technological progress — cleaner fuels, perhaps — makes possible a solution that doesn’t sacrifice (very much) prosperity.
Of course, few people are against abundance in theory. But two new books — “Abundance,” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, and “Why Nothing Works,” by Marc J. Dunkelman — argue convincingly that, in practice, Americans often make it impossible.
Bureaucracies are hamstrung by procedures designed to keep bureaucrats from abusing their power, which also keeps them from using it sensibly. Environmental laws meant to prevent despoliation of virgin landscapes also prevent the construction of the transmission lines needed to deploy green energy. Community review mechanisms that were intended to curb the worst excesses of authoritarian urban planners like Robert Moses curb housing developers in prosperous cities — and drive out workers who would like to share in the prosperity.
These books do not preach to the conservative choir already skeptical of red tape. Refreshingly, they are aimed at the left. They urge reconsidering how the government does everything from scientific research to environmental review, concentrating more on unleashing possibilities than on preventing all harms.
But people on the right should pay attention, too, because the conservative movement also needs to rethink its priorities. Government-funded research and development has been critical to many of the most important advances of the past half-century, from space exploration to Ozempic. There are so many problems only government has the size and scope to solve: policing the border, generating economic data and coordinating infrastructure projects, such as the national highway system, that stretch across many states. Rather than attack government as incompetent, Republicans should figure out how to make the parts we need work well.
The guy challenging Abundance, ends up justifying Ezra and Thompson’s critiques:
Dems need to cut the fat and get the shyt done
Dems need to cut the fat and get the shyt done
I seen the above interview live and it was fascinating. I don't think it dawned on him fully at first that the woman and guy who mentioned his book, quite like Trump, DO NOT CARE ABOUT PROCESS. As long as the end goal is reached, they don't care how you get there, which is why they were confused that he was confused. To them the right or wrong way that something is done doesn't matter if the destination is reached.
NZA
LOL
TMR is a great listen as this is making the rounds.
The Majority Report
majorityreportradio.com
I think Sam and Paul are nailing it. Read his article here:
The Meager Agenda of Abundance Liberals | Washington Monthly
Previously progressive legislation to stop business has become unsustainable and has hurt local zoning, tax bases and a whole other host of negative externalities.
Ezra answers a bunch of criticism on this episode with Chris Hayes
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