The Curley Effect

[sinjefe]

Though touched on in other threads, I thought I would start a new one focusing on this topic specifically. Take the time to read through the article in the link provided:

http://www.economics.harvard.edu/fac...ley_effect.pdf

Reading from page 1 through about 3 or 4, it struck me how the effect noted seems to be EXACTLY the model being followed by the Obama administration. I have to admit that the math hurt my head but, I wonder if politicians are aware that they may actually be harming their electorate by following this model. The cynic in me says they do and don't care because they want power and re-shaping the electorate through re-dtributionist policies ensures they stay in power. After all, that seems to be the point.

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by sinjefe

Though touched on in other threads, I thought I would start a new one focusing on this topic specifically. Take the time to read through the article in the link provided:

http://www.economics.harvard.edu/fac...ley_effect.pdf

Reading from page 1 through about 3 or 4, it struck me how the effect noted seems to be EXACTLY the model being followed by the Obama administration. I have to admit that the math hurt my head but, I wonder if politicians are aware that they may actually be harming their electorate by following this model. The cynic in me says they do and don't care because they want power and re-shaping the electorate through re-dtributionist policies ensures they stay in power. After all, that seems to be the point.

Thanks for bringing this forward as a new thread. IMHO this is the new reality (see my previous on this subject).

{Salute}

[Sigaba]

FWIW, Professor Glaeser is a committed urbanist <<LINK>><<LINK2>> as well as a progressive <<LINK3>> <<LINK3>>. That is, the man is critical of the current president and his policy preferences for reasons many here might not like.

(IMO, the current president got elected and re-elected not so much because he has a nefarious plan to make cities poorer or because he has a master plan to radicalize and further racialize American national politics but because his opposition allows itself to believe that he does. My $0.02.)

[sinjefe]

It seems to me that they are saying that politicians who are like this aren't doing it for nefarious reasons but because they want to stay in power and, in this case, they want their party to stay in power and the way to do it is to re-distribute wealth in what is really a vote buying effort. The second and third order effect happens to be poverty inducing.

At least, that was the way I read it.

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

FWIW, Professor Glaeser is a committed urbanist <<LINK>><<LINK2>> as well as a progressive <<LINK3>> <<LINK3>>. That is, the man is critical of the current president and his policy preferences for reasons many here might not like.

(IMO, the current president got elected and re-elected not so much because he has a nefarious plan to make cities poorer or because he has a master plan to radicalize and further racialize American national politics but because his opposition allows itself to believe that he does. My $0.02.)

Now that truly is "food for thought"! I am going to need to think about that for a while, it really does have far reaching and strategic political consequences.

Really, Really Good Thought {Salute}

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by sinjefe

It seems to me that they are saying that politicians who are like this aren't doing it for nefarious reasons but because they want to stay in power and, in this case, they want their party to stay in power and the way to do it is to re-distribute wealth in what is really a vote buying effort. The second and third ordr effct happens to be poverty inducing.

At least, that was the way I read it.

Has there ever been political party in American history that did not seek to stay in power and use patronage as a means to do so?

FWIW, my reading of the piece is that Glaeser has a myopic understanding of the roles race, ethnicity, and class have played in American political history. Moreover, he strikes me as a person who has accepted uncritically the notion of American Exceptionalism without engaging intensely the other sides of the dice. (Melting place for some, smelting furnace for others.)

Professor Glaeser also strikes me as something of a race baiter. By his account, Boston would never have had a race problem were it not for guys like Curley.* Moreover, Detroit, a American city populated by Americans, is comparable to a third world city because of the skin color of those Americans.

__________________________________________
* The opening vignette of the British soldier should raise twenty foot high flags for all readers. A foreign national attempted to convince Americans to violate American neutrality before the U.S. entered one of its least popular wars and yet somehow Curley is the bad guy. Balls.

[afchic]

The math made my head hurt. The opinions without an ounce proof to support it made my head hurt even more.

So the author believes that Chicago and New York City didn't go the way of Boston and Detroit because the mayors were too short sighted? How about the thought never crossing their minds to do something like Curley and Young.

And for those espousing that POTUS is trying to do the same thing, I believe you are not looking at the entire picture. It is easy to push someone out of a city. You may love Boston or Detroit, but you can still be an American in Houston, or Denver, or Seattle. So if Obama is using the Curley effect to the utmost, which I don't believe, one has to believe that the more affluent of this country are going to start leaving in droves.

The ultra rich, maybe. Those of us in the middle class and upper middle class, not going to happen. And I don't see a scenario where Veterans decide it is time to hit the road, vice fighting for what they have always fought for, The Stars and Stripes, and all Old Glory stands for. She is much bigger, and much stronger than that.

Just my .02 worth.

[sinjefe]

[QUOTE=Sigaba;476322]Has there ever been political party in American history that did not seek to stay in power and use patronage as a means to do so? Appeal to common practice fallacy

FWIW, my reading of the piece is that Glaeser has a myopic understanding of the roles race, ethnicity, and class have played in American political history. Moreover, he strikes me as a person who has accepted uncritically the notion of American Exceptionalism without engaging intensely the other sides of the dice. (Melting place for some, smelting furnace for others.)Straw man

Professor Glaeser also strikes me as something of a race baiter. By his account, Boston would never have had a race problem were it not for guys like Curley.* Moreover, Detroit, a American city populated by Americans, is comparable to a third world city because of the skin color of those Americans. Ad Hominem fallacy



With all due respect, Sigaba, your arguments strike me as logical fallacies. You didn't really address the effect. If it is true that the Curley effect is what he says it is (a politician trying to manipulate demographics by wealth re-distribution for selfish reasons, i.e. to stay in power), how is this not the situation we find ourselves in right now?

To be fair, I agree with you that all politicians probably try this in some fashion but, so what? It is what it is.

My .02 cents.

[Trapper John]

If no one minds, I am going to share the Glaeser paper with a long time (15yr) friend of mine and retired Navy CMDR. He is a graduate of the JFK School at Harvard (MPA) and the Wharton School at Penn (MBA in Finance). He is the most expert person I know in the field of macroeconomics (specialty - health care industry). He may know the authors and I will ask him for an opinion on the validity of the methodology used. Although I can understand it, I cannot evaluate its veracity. I think expert evaluation of veracity of the study methodology would be useful here.

What say you all?

[sinjefe]

Glaeser may be the most biased SOB in the world. I simply perceived what he was saying differently than both Sigaba and Afchic. I didn't see his point as being urban focused, but that he was comparing the behavior of the mayors in question to Obama's from a wealth re-distribution perspective. I ask myself, is Obama trying to re-distribute wealth? I think so. Why is he doing it? Because I believe he wants to reshape the electorate into a larger base so he can stay in power and that is what i understand this study to be saying. Do the republicans, when in power, do the same thing? I think so but I also think they focus on the 53%, so to speak, while democrats focus on the 47% and hope to increase it to a point where they stay in power.

[MR2]

Originally Posted by sinjefe

Glaeser may be the most biased SOB in the world..

Nope - that would be Dusty with MR2 as close second. As for plain jane SOB there is our friend Dozer.

Tag, you're it.

[Dozer523]

Originally Posted by MR2

Nope - that would be Dusty with MR2 as close second. As for plain jane SOB there is our friend Dozer.

Tag, you're it.

huh? Not crazy about being called plain or Jane or sob.
I will say this. My great grandfather got off the boat in Boston and couldn't get to San Francisco quick enough so wreched were the the Irish in Boston. So I stopped reading when I got to the happy horse shit about an integrated city of rich and Irish.
And by the way how do you explain the urban flight to the suburbs? A nefarious plan by the Irish, Blacks, and Hispanics and . . . Who's next?

[The Reaper]

Who knew people would move to areas with less crime, better schools, and lower taxes?

Obviously not the mayors.

TR

[Guy]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Who knew people would move to areas with less crime, better schools, and lower taxes?

Obviously not the mayors.

TR

Was called an Uncle-Tom.

Stay safe.

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by sinjefe

With all due respect, Sigaba, your arguments strike me as logical fallacies. You didn't really address the effect. If it is true that the Curley effect is what he says it is (a politician trying to manipulate demographics by wealth re-distribution for selfish reasons, i.e. to stay in power), how is this not the situation we find ourselves in right now?

Sinjefe--

The point I am making is that Professor Glaeser is offering an interpretation of America's past through a poorly crafted lens that is designed to let us see present-day inefficiencies in public policy.

While everyone has one bias or another, when an economist offers a historical interpretation of the Progressive Era and the early 1970s that suggests that the politicians he doesn't like were racist without looking in depth at broader context of ethnic conflict and racial division (as he does on page 11 and again on page 12), he is leading his readers astray with math. (Based upon the evidence offered, does the reader know if Mr. Crowley or Mr. Young invented the game they played or if they simply played it better/worse than their predecessors?*)

In my reading of American history, racially/ethnically charged rhetoric is not the sole province of urban mayors.

IMO, the lack of documentary evidence of Curley's political plan ("Curley seems" is not nearly as convincing as "Curley did") or of a Young plan ("We cannot be sure that Young’s actions were strategically designed to drive the whites out") in the linked-piece is telling, as are:

• the myopic view of Boston's Brahmins (but then, can you blame two Harvard eggheads for not knowing on what side their bread is buttered?)
• the too short discussion of the broader trends of the Democratic Party since the Gilded Age/Progressive Era,
  
• the tepid contextualization of his two cities in the broader currents of American urban history
  • (What was happening in America's major cities that might have contributed to "white flight" throughout the twentieth century?
  • What about the overall migration of people from the Northeast to the West?
  • Might the ongoing influx of working class Irish migrants have led to Boston's slowing economic growth?
  • How did the world wars reconfigure America's key cities?)
• the lack of evidence showing a direct link between Crowley's and Young's policies and their impact on their constituents, and
  
• an incomplete understanding of how divisive the First World War was in America.**

MOO, given Glaeser's more recent discussions of the Progressive Era, it would be interesting to know why his 2005 piece has such glaring deficiencies.

Originally Posted by sinjefe

Glaeser may be the most biased SOB in the world. I simply perceived what he was saying differently than both Sigaba and Afchic. I didn't see his point as being urban focused, but that he was comparing the behavior of the mayors in question to [the president's] from a wealth re-distribution perspective. I ask myself, is [the president] trying to re-distribute wealth? I think so. Why is he doing it? Because I believe he wants to reshape the electorate into a larger base so he can stay in power and that is what i understand this study to be saying. Do the republicans, when in power, do the same thing? I think so but I also think they focus on the 53%, so to speak, while democrats focus on the 47% and hope to increase it to a point where they stay in power.

Where in the article is the current American president mentioned? (FWIW, the links I provided in my previous post will lead one to Professor Glaeser's views of the current president.)

In any case, does the "Curley effect" provide a better explanation of the modern Democratic Party's approach to national politics that supersedes what historians, political scientists, and presidential scholars have long described as the New Deal coalition? (IMO, the answer is "no.")

More generally, I think we (those who opposed the president's reelection bid) are falling into bad habits. In our search for reasons why the Democrats won, we are looking for "evidence" of dysfunction in America and people to blame. We are looking for magic bullet "lessons of history" that can show us exactly where they screwed up America. I remain convinced that we, not "they," are responsible for our profound disappointment.

(If we were Coca Cola, we'd be running full page ads and sixty second commercials blaming consumers for choosing different soft drinks--"You drink Mountain Dew because you suck!"--rather than looking at the sales report and figuring out how to diversify our product line and re-energize our marketing and advertising campaign.)

________________________________________________
* Of Anglo Saxons in Boston, the piece merely states "In part,Curley’s ethnic politics had its roots in the long-standing battles between the English and the Irish. The English discriminated against the Irish, and the Irish resented this discrimination." Of Detroit, the piece summarizes: "Detroit’s long tradition of institutionalized racism and racial hostility exploded in the 1967 riot, among the deadliest and most destructive in U.S. history...." Yet, without providing any detail of how that discrimination and institutionalized racism played out in Boston and Detroit, how can a reader have a good idea of the contexts of Curley's and Young's responses to those dynamics?
** The historical fact that America fought alongside the British in the First World War should not overshadow the intense debate leading up to that choice.