http://www.centrarian.com Centering Political and Economic Systems Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:19:51 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en People have long complained about porkbarrel spending - and it continues largely unabated. An editorial in the New York Times today describes all the porkbarrel spending included in the $103 billion supplemental appropriations bill that Congress just passed (and Bush is expected to veto). But this old-fashioned form ... http://www.centrarian.com/2007/03/30/pick-your-patronage-pork-or-outsourcing/ Political conflict between individuals, interest groups and political parties is as old as politics and government. For much of the history of the United States, in fact, this conflict has been essential to social stability, serving as a means of avoiding more dangerous forms of conflict. In ... http://www.centrarian.com/2007/03/23/why-we-need-a-new-kind-of-politics/ The U.S. has finally come to accept that something needs to be done about global warming. The question now is how to do it. The fact that we don't know how much of a reduction in emissions is necessary or how much a given reduction will cost makes ... http://www.centrarian.com/2007/03/04/a-feebate-for-greenhouse-gases-better-than-either-a-cap-and-trade-and-a-carbon-tax/ There has been a flurry of arguments about inequality ever since Bernanke made his remarks on the subject, a few weeks ago. After wading through these arguments - which Mankiw (correctly) sums up as all coming back to Rawls versus Nozick, one concludes that this argument could go on ... http://www.centrarian.com/2007/02/25/inequality-beyond-rawls-vs-nozick/ Whether Gretchen Morgenson has stepped near the edge or over it in her recent column Memo to Shareholders: Shut Up seems to be triggering a debate. Brad DeLong introduces it in his blog - Gretchen Morgenson Has Eaten Her Wheaties, and Tears into Marty Lipton... with: "Marty Lipton has ... http://www.centrarian.com/2007/02/19/executive-pay-part-3-the-other-side-of-the-story/ There has been much written about our political system being broken. But very little about the specifics, of what exactly has gone wrong and what are the systemic causes. Mostly people describe how money has corrupted the process and call for election reform to fix it. Take, for example, Public Funding ... http://www.centrarian.com/2007/02/11/why-political-reform-is-not-enough/ Gretchen has another good article on executive pay, this time on what Congress is contemplating doing about it - Is the Fix Worse Than The Problem?. It seems that Congress claims to have a "fix" to the problem of excessive executive compensation plans but this will do more to ... http://www.centrarian.com/2007/02/04/executive-pay-continued-avoiding-unintended-consequences/ When George Bush starts complaining about executive pay - Bush takes aim at executive pay - you know it's got to be bad. How can we call this a merit system when executives can brazenly take advantage of their power to extract undeserved rewards? I emphasize undeserved. Recently it ... http://www.centrarian.com/2007/01/31/executive-pay-and-golden-parachutes-a-merit-system/ The purpose of the political systems page is to describe the changes needed to political systems. This is a more difficult task than with economic systems for a number of reasons including: Attempting to ascertain public or collective needs is inherently more difficult than determining private or individual needs. It is ... http://www.centrarian.com/2007/01/31/purpose-of-political-systems-page/ If you have read About Centrarian.com you know that politics cannot be centered without also centering economics ― which means correcting the economic system so it lives up to the claims of conservatives, namely that it efficiently allocate resources and approximate a merit system. The purpose of this page ... http://www.centrarian.com/2006/12/25/purpose-of-economic-systems-page/