Jill Stein of the Green Party has announced the forming of an exploratory committee for the 2016 run for President.  She has an announcement page on her web site.

Here is a video of the press conference.

I have had several requests for an opinion on Jill Stein as a candidate. I didn’t (and still don’t) know too much about her. I’ve decided that as I learn more about her, I will be posting what I find out on the blog. Adding her voice to that of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the run-up to the 2016 election can only amplify the progressive message. In answer to another question I received, amplifying the message is one approach to changing people’s thinking about politics.

Naked Capitalism has the article Robert Parenteau: The Large Fly in Krugman’s New Keynesian Soup.

Paul Krugman had a delightful field day with his March 2nd New York Times column trashing media poseur economists like Larry Kudlow – economists who somehow manage to survive on their entertainment value alone, despite their repeated analytical errors. No doubt their prolonged shelf life has more than a little to do with the fact that the points of view they espouse tend to encourage their readers (or viewers) to think that their self interests are perfectly aligned with the self interests of say, oh, the Koch Brothers and their ilk. Useful idiots is the phrase that comes to mind. Useful idiots engaging in willful ignorance.

On his way to skewering the clownier clowns of the economics profession, however, Krugman could not help but to once again remind his loyal readers that everything you ever needed to know about macroeconomics was already discovered and described in his 1998 paper on Japan’s alleged liquidity trap. Humility is not one of Krugman’s strong suits, but we will allow you to come to your own conclusions after reading yet another of his repeated attempts at shameless self pimping in the March 2nd piece:

I thought it might be fun to see Paul Krugman being skewered, but by the time I got to the end of the article, my head was spinning.  Then I read the comments among very well read people arguing over who did or did not say what or how you could or could not interpret their words.

I offered the following comment:

Let me see if I can bring this discussion back to reality by quoting Greenberg’s Law of Reverence

Principles are not great because a revered person spoke of them. A person is revered because he or she spoke of great principles.

The argument about what Keynes did or didn’t say is not useful in proving or disproving the correctness of any economic principle. The economic principle is either correct (or applicable) based on reality. To the extent that Keynes is revered, it is because the principles he espoused were correct (applicable). Pretending or interpreting an idea as something that Keynes said is not proof of that idea.

The upshot of this understanding of Greenberg’s law is that it is a blind alley to pore through the writings or sayings of Keynes to find out if he did or did not say something, when what we should really be after is whether or not an economic idea is both correct and applicable to the current situation. This talk about economic experts is devolving into an almost Biblical discussion of whether or not you can find something in the Bible to support your argument.

The graph of economic growth versus real interest rates should not be surprising. The economy (society) is so full of competing forces that it is foolish to think that you can find a single measure that will always correlate with (much less be the cause of) one single other measure.

Besides the complexity argument, you have the idea of reflexivity (credit to George Soros, not reverence for him). The actors in this complex system read about what is said about how the system works, and they make judgments on how others will behave given this knowledge. No physical system of inanimate objects bases its behavior on what it thinks the other objects know. So thinking you can ever make a model of the system the way physicists do in purely inanimate systems is going after a fool’s errand.

<ironic self deprecation>I so fell in love with my brilliant analysis that I decided to blog about this whole episode.</ironic self deprecation>.

There is a YouTube video Sanders on Netanyahu Speech.

The irrational “journalists” ask if the Iranian leaders are irrational.

The fact that we and Israel have made it very clear to Iran that they will get no respect, but only bullying if they do not have nuclear weapons makes it extremely rational for them to want nuclear weapons. Even so, they have made no claim that they want nuclear weapons. So who is it that is rational and who is it that is irrational?

See my previous post Netanyahu Feeling Like Trip To US To Start World War III Went Pretty Well. One of these posts is an “actual” news show and the other is satire. I think the satire is so good, that you may have trouble figuring out which is which.

The Onion has the article Netanyahu Feeling Like Trip To US To Start World War III Went Pretty Well.

“I think I did a good job laying the groundwork for a nuclear holocaust that will kill billions of people and eventually end the world as we know it. Sounded like everyone really liked it, too.”

Found this as a comment on a Facebook post.

Come on people, do I have to tell you what kind of web site The Onion is?

Elizabeth Warren has posted Let the NLRB do its job on her Facebook page. You can join the conversation there.

Instead of implementing policies that strengthen the middle class, Republicans are pressing a bill to stop the National Labor Relations Board from modernizing its procedures because it might help – yes, help – America’s workers. Share this video to help tell Congress: Let the NLRB do its job.

I imagine it is Facebook rules that make it difficult to find the video to embed in my blog, but I managed to find it on YouTube anyway. There is is called Sen. Warren to GOP: Stop Ambushing Workers’ Rights.

In a speech on the floor of the United States Senate on March 4, 2015, Senator Elizabeth Warren urged Congress to reject a Republican resolution aimed at stopping implementation of the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) new rule to make workplace union elections more efficient and effective.

I wonder what potential candidates for the Democratic nomination to run for President in 2016 have to say about this. Can you hear their voices as loudly? For some reason, I am hearing only silence.

If You Only News has the article Watch Elizabeth Warren Destroy Every Stupid Anti-Vaxxer Argument In 2 Minutes (VIDEO).

I am not a believer that you should ever hide the facts in order to prove a valid point, so I offer the article Former Mooresville child compensated by federal ‘vaccine court’ from The Charlotte Observer.

As they started their family, Mooresville residents Theresa and Lucas Black dutifully got their children immunized, never doubting their doctor’s word that vaccines are safe and necessary.

But their faith in those promises was shaken in 2001, when their 3-month-old daughter, Angelica, developed life-threatening seizures and brain damage just three days after getting several vaccinations.

For some balance to the balance, you might want to Google “vaccine court”. The WikiPedia article Vaccine court provides some perspective on the “vaccine court”.

Vaccine court is the popular term which refers to the Office of Special Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which administers a no-fault system for litigating vaccine injury claims.

To add even more balance until you topple right over, you might want to refer to my previous post Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks.

I can imagine how the author of the aforementioned book might respond to some of what is in The Charlotte Observer article mentioned above.

Today, two of the Blacks’ oldest children have children of their own, and they’re struggling with vaccine decisions.

Stephen, now 22, has a daughter who’s had some vaccinations, but when she was 12 months old, after getting the MMR for measles, mumps and rubella, she “lost all the verbal skills she had attained,” Theresa Black said. The child is now getting fewer vaccines at a time. At 20 months, she’s seeing a speech therapist to help regain what she lost.

The fact that two generations of this family have had problems might indicate to some that there is an inheritance of the sensitivity to vaccines. Another possible interpretation of the correlation which does not mean causation (see Diversion–Highway Fatalities and Lemons) is that the medical problems of both children had nothing to do with the vaccine and everything to do with a genetic disorder that runs in the family.

Your News Wire has the article Why Netanyahu Is ‘The Right Man’ To Address US Congress On Iran.

Jewish Professor Yakov M. Rabkin reckons that the Israeli Prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu- Bibisitter in his latest election videos -is talking nonsense about The Iranian Nuclear Threat.

He is the right man to address Congress, because after all, it was Israel and its allies in Washington who fabricated ‘Iran Nuclear Threat’ issue to begin with. It is thus incumbent upon Mr. Netanyahu to try to give credence to that allegation by attending.

The article raises some very good questions about whether or not the existence of Israel is promoting or harming the welfare of Jews around the world.

Why fool around with an opening statement or two when you can watch the entire forum?

There is a YouTube video of this entire first session of the forum.

Streamed live on Feb 24, 2015

The Middle Class Prosperity Project, launched by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Cummings, will examine economic policies that threaten the middle class and identify new proposals that will ensure the middle class remains the engine of America’s economic growth.

Today’s event is the the first in a series of congressional forums to hear directly from leading economists about how the nation’s economic system has been rigged against the middle class over the past several decades. More details about the Middle Class Prosperity Project are available at http://1.usa.gov/1acRUgT.

Panelists include:

– Dr. Jared Bernstein, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
– Dr. Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. Chief Economist at Standard & Poor’s Rating Services
– Dr. Gerald Jaynes, Professor of Economics and African American Studies at Yale University
– Dr. Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor at Columbia University

There is 2 hours and 13 minutes in this video, but nothing happens until about 11 minutes and 49 seconds, so you can skip through the frames until you see Elizabeth Warren. Rep. Elijah Cummings makes his opening statement at about 18 minutes into the video. The rest of the video is equally fascinating. If you consider yourself a progressive political junkie, you need to watch this video.

The one thing missing from this excellent forum is an expert in Modern Money Theory. Even the Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz falls for the fallacy that increases in government spending in a country with a fiat currency must be “paid for” by cuts elsewhere or increases in taxes. Many of the spending cuts and tax increases they mention have merit for other reasons, but “paying for” increases in government spending is not one of the major reasons. If they had the Senate Budget Committee’s Ranking Member’s economic adviser, Stephanie Kelton, on the panel of one of these forums, they would find that the solutions they are seeking are a lot easier than they realize.

That Ranking Member, Sen. Bernie Sanders, needs to have a talk with Elizabeth Warren to set her straight.

It is time we also hear from Rep. Elijah E. Cummings about the Middle Class Prosperity Project Forum that he is co-hosting with Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

He gets short shrift in this interview, Warren and Cummings on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, but at least he does get to field a few questions. He is much more eloquent than one would imagine from seeing video clips where he silently stands beside Elizabeth Warren.

This is all about getting some political focus on these issues instead of the ones that the wealthy want us to concentrate on.

Elizabeth Warren has posted this video on her Facebook page.

I have a message for my Republican colleagues: you control Congress. Don’t just start talking about helping the middle class – start doing it.

Watch and share my opening statement from yesterday’s first Middle Class Prosperity Project forum.

The video Middle Class Prosperity Project Forum Opening Statement is also posted on YouTube with the following introduction:

The Middle Class Prosperity Project, launched by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Cummings, will examine economic policies that threaten the middle class and identify new proposals that will ensure the middle class remains the engine of America’s economic growth.

This February 24, 2015 event is the the first in a series of congressional forums to hear directly from leading economists about how the nation’s economic system has been rigged against the middle class over the past several decades. More details about the Middle Class Prosperity Project are available at http://1.usa.gov/1acRUgT.

Panelists included:

– Dr. Jared Bernstein, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
– Dr. Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. Chief Economist at Standard & Poor’s Rating Services
– Dr. Gerald Jaynes, Professor of Economics and African American Studies at Yale University
– Dr. Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor at Columbia University

Warren is right, talk is cheap. This is what she is doing to keep this topic in the forefront of the political conversation. What can you say about certain other potential Democratic Presidential contestants for 2016? What are those candidates focusing on, and what are they doing now to get action?