#NateSilver and #FiveThirtyEight turd-polish with 'Inflation hurts poor more'

Nate Silver, posing for a cheap knockoff of Rodin's "The Thinker."
Photo from The Guardian.

Nate Silver apologists, stop it.

It's true that Nate himself didn't write this piece, but he's the editor in chief who let this dreck slide.

My header pretty much matches the story's of "Inflation may hurt the poor more."

My counter-header should have been: "Dear Nate Silver: No shit, Sherlock?"

Or: "Reading FiveThirtyEight may hurt fanboys more."

Anyway, on to why this piece is a total teh suck.

Ben Casselman offer this early graf:

We tend to talk about inflation as a single number affecting the whole economy. But everyone experiences a slightly different rate of inflation for the simple reason that we all spend money on different things. The price of cigarettes matters primarily to smokers; the price of diapers affects mostly parents of young children; and the price of gas is a much bigger deal to someone with an 80-mile daily commute than to someone who only takes the car out for weekend excursions.

First, there's the rhetorical "we" that is a straw man for what's about to follow, namely that one of Nate's sages will set you the idiot straight of your naive thoughts.

Second?

This ain't new or even close. It's part of the old "buy hamberger instead of steak, you poor moochers."

You know? The "different inflation" is exactly why wingnuts and neolib fellow travelers argue for chained CPI and similar. You know, like neolib fellow travelers such as Obama's best buds at the Center for American Progress arguing for a chained CPI. So, it IS a policy piece of sorts, despite Casselman later claiming it isn't. 

Third, the "long term" and how this is unusual? None of the claims that this is different go back before the mid-1930s and much doesn't go back before the mid-1950s. And, plenty of economists, including Thomas Piketty as part of his massive new book, reviewed here by Silver's bete noire, Paul Krugman, say that the New Deal era up to Nixon's time was an anomaly.

Fourth? That's not all, folks. Watch me, Ben Casselman, invent quintiles!

To figure out how inflation varies by income, I divided the population into five groups by earnings, then calculated how much different income groups spend on each of more than 150 goods and services.

What would we ever do without such brilliance?

Thanks, Nate Silver; how did anybody not named Matt Ygelsias write such incredible insight? Well ... the rhetorical "we" and other stuff reminds me of Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo. It reads like a pedantic high school teacher from the city in his first small-town classroom.

Meanwhile, among other headers on that page? "Jeb Bush has as Good of a Shot as Anybody." Wow!

I never would have fucking known that without the help of Nate Silver and his gang. 

Bottom line? Per the likes of Michael Wolff, this exemplifies everything wrong with "branded" journalism. 

This is also a bright line. I'm putting a "no-follow" on every link to Silver from now on, too.  For more on how the place is pretty much all wet, go here. Speaking of that link, I wonder if Nate has asked Ben to send Paul Krugman a link to that piece. Because, you know, Krugman is so jealous of Silver he probably never realized that inflation hurts poor people more.

Matt Yglesias, Brat Pack pro-bankster libertarian

The "Brat Pack" is a phrase I coined a couple of weeks ago, when folks like Ezra Klein and Felix Salmon started kicking freelance writer Nate Thayer in the 'nads for the temerity of asking Atlantic Monthly to actually pay him money, not "exposure," for writing an article.

At the time, I realized, per Yevgeny Morozov, that most alleged or self-identified neoliberal geeks of this type are actually libertarians in drag.

And now, as if I had much doubt before, I realize Matt Yglesias is part of the crowd with this pro-bankster piece, including this WTF line:

The thing about "too big to fail" is that nobody responsible for bailing out TBTF institutions has ever actually cited size as the key consideration.

No, Matt, but plenty of people outside the Beltway "Responsible People" have said exactly that.  

The rest of the piece?

Matty Y first says that mid-major banks have a vested interest in us actually creating a "too big  to fail" class and breaking them up. That may be true, but the implication that the general public doesn't is bullshit.

He then essentially claims that this is an issue separet from other regulatory issues for banks, then gets into Beltway wonkery.

It's part of a bigger piece wondering Sen. David Vitter (R-Whorehouse) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are making such strange bedfellows on this issue. But, even there, Matty Y whiffs, mainly on not being nearly skeptical enough of Vitter's motives, which could be many, including:

1. Posturing in preparation for a campaign donation shakedown of the banksters, for himself, a 501(c)4 or whatever;
2. Building up cred with any Louisiana Tea Partiers that are actually anti-bankster;
3. Being the GOP senator officially designated to emasculate whatever Brown has in mind.

 Meanwhile, being a Brat Pack libertarian means getting others to work for "exposure" so you can drop 1.2 million large on some exclusive Beltway digs, like Yglesias.

TARPoholic neolib Obamiacs get the vapors

The neolibs and Obamiacs are singing in praise of TARP with its second anniversary approachoing. And, of course, they're singing the praises of George Barack Obama as a large part of that.

First, Kevin Drum:

And the cost of TARP? CBO estimates the government will make a profit of $7 billion from the bank bailouts (though it may still lose money on GM and Chrysler, which were also rescued with TARP funds) and it now looks like AIG will pay back all its bailout money too. Bottom line: the ongoing recession caused by Wall Street's reckless behavior has cost us a bundle. But TARP itself? Its net direct cost is zero, and when you include the fact that it almost certainly saved the banking system and softened the recession, it may boast the biggest bang for the buck of any bill ever passed by Congress.

Drum ignores the debit side, including a financial "reform" bill that does little of the sort, and was probably enabled by TARP, and may encourage further recklessness. He also offers no proof that TARP seriously ameliorated the recession. As for AIG paying back all the bailout, the devil is in the details of stock conversions, etc.

Yglesias unsurprisingly weighs in with more on the profit motive.

Is $7 billion any more than chump change, not a real profit? Of course not, on the size of Big Banking. And, like Drummie-poo, Yggy doesn't even try to calculate potential losses.

Karl Smith ignores the idea we had a better alternative - bank nationalization - even when it's raised by a commenter.

Meanwhile, Ezra Klein decides if he's going to bury his head up Obama's ass on this, he'll go whole hog.

Reality? Bank nationalization would have given Obama easy leverage to do real financial reforms. But, with his Goldman Sachs/Robert Rubin based financial team, and outraising McCain for campaign funds on Wall Street, he never really wanted to do that. Too bad none of the above will admit that.

Meanwhile, Obama again mocked the "professional left," this time while sucking up to the rich in Greenwich, Conn., many of whom he protected from real financial regulation with his pseudo-reform bill.

It's clear that he's a flat-out liar about wanting to be "pushed" by the left. It's clear he's both a worse, and more unskilled, liar about it than Bill Clinton was on the same subject.

Not so fast on ‘McCain train wreck,’ TPM

Both Talking Points Memo and Matt Yglesias are flogging hard on the “McCain train wreck” idea, claiming that the shifting sands of Iraq and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s support for Obama’s withdrawal are Example No. 1 of this.

Well a new Rasmussen poll gives Schmuck Talk an eight-point lead in Ohio. The question is, of course, is that poll an outlier or not?