Posted by Jed Lewison on Sat Jan 19, 2008 at 10:25 PM Pacific

Obama, Glibertarian

H/T to Salo for this turn of phrase: Obama, Glibertarian.

It dawned on me today while driving to have lunch with a friend in town to visit her boyfriend that Obama is a libertarian. A Democratic libertarian, but a libertarian nonetheless.

I mentioned it to some folks at DailyKos, and they responded with these awesome links.

This article makes the case for Obama, arguing that his economic guru, Austan Goolsbee, offers a policy formulation that is orthogonal to the liberal conservative axis. Make sure to read the comments on this one. Massive hilarity.

A screed or two from eriposte. Yes.

Finally, the orthogonalution article linked to an NYT piece penned last March by Goolsbee.

I read it. More massive hilarity ensued.

And this study shows that measured this way, the mortgage market has become more perfect, not more irresponsible. People tend to make good decisions about their own economic prospects. As Professor Rosen said in an interview, “Our findings suggest that people make sensible housing decisions in that the size of house they buy today relates to their future income, not just their current income and that the innovations in mortgages over 30 years gave many people the opportunity to own a home that they would not have otherwise had, just because they didn’t have enough assets in the bank at the moment they needed the house.”

I have to be diplomatic here, because I think that Goolsbee is a good friend of a good friend of mine.

So here's what I'll say. I'm not an economist. I know nothing about economics. Still, I would have laughed my ass off had I read that article in March.

Even as dumb as I am, it was clear the shitpile was bound to implode. In 2000, our residential debt was about half our GDP. By 2006, the number had risen to 83%.

That's a recipe for shitty things, and we haven't seen the half of them yet.

I'm only 34. I wish people my age (or a few years older as in Goolsbee's and Obama's cases) would stop trying to reinvent the fucking wheel.

Update: In this article George Will heeps some lovin' onto Austan Goolsbee.

Obama, Glibertarian

H/T to Salo for this turn of phrase: Obama, Glibertarian.

It dawned on me today while driving to have lunch with a friend in town to visit her boyfriend that Obama is a libertarian. A Democratic libertarian, but a libertarian nonetheless.

I mentioned it to some folks at DailyKos, and they responded with these awesome links.

This article makes the case for Obama, arguing that his economic guru, Austan Goolsbee, offers a policy formulation that is orthogonal to the liberal conservative axis. Make sure to read the comments on this one. Massive hilarity.

A screed or two from eriposte. Yes.

Finally, the orthogonalution article linked to an NYT piece penned last March by Goolsbee.

I read it. More massive hilarity ensued.

And this study shows that measured this way, the mortgage market has become more perfect, not more irresponsible. People tend to make good decisions about their own economic prospects. As Professor Rosen said in an interview, “Our findings suggest that people make sensible housing decisions in that the size of house they buy today relates to their future income, not just their current income and that the innovations in mortgages over 30 years gave many people the opportunity to own a home that they would not have otherwise had, just because they didn’t have enough assets in the bank at the moment they needed the house.”

I have to be diplomatic here, because I think that Goolsbee is a good friend of a good friend of mine.

So here's what I'll say. I'm not an economist. I know nothing about economics. Still, I would have laughed my ass off had I read that article in March.

Even as dumb as I am, it was clear the shitpile was bound to implode. In 2000, our residential debt was about half our GDP. By 2006, the number had risen to 83%.

That's a recipe for shitty things, and we haven't seen the half of them yet.

I'm only 34. I wish people my age (or a few years older as in Goolsbee's and Obama's cases) would stop trying to reinvent the fucking wheel.

Update: In this article George Will heeps some lovin' onto Austan Goolsbee.

The Jed Report Home Page

© Jed Lewison