In the op-ed, Weber argued that tempering inflation is not a zero-sum game. “If your house is on fire, you would not want to wait until the fire eventually dies out. Neither do you wish to destroy the house by flooding it,” Weber wrote at the time.
She called for an alternative solution, “tailored controls on carefully selected prices”. She pointed out the “explosion of profits” that were seen in the middle of the pandemic: corporations were benefiting greatly from government stimulus and, in turn, continued to jack up prices. The government could step in by capping prices strategically.
The response to her op-ed was eviscerating. First, it was people in crypto and rightwing groups on Twitter that started piling on Weber. Then the economists started weighing in. The Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman said in a tweet – that he later deleted and apologized for – that the idea was “truly stupid”.
“It basically opened up the floodgates of hate,” Weber said.
In the years since, Weber has experienced something of a redemption arc. Though her argument about strategic price controls was seen as radical at the time, now that countries around the world have dealt with skyrocketing inflation and the political fallout it can cause, her ideas now come off as incredibly prescient.
Weber has worked with the federal government in Germany, her home country, to implement price controls on gas and heating prices after Russia invaded Ukraine. The European Union soon followed suit with its own cap on gas prices.
Energy price caps are a successful policy we should do more of? Oh Aye?
How many examples of the poor effects of government mandated price controls do we have to see before people stop advocating for them?
They. Do. Not. Work.
Ah, but this time it be different because reasons.
And of course Germany only needed price controls because they made themselves dependent on Russian gas by closing all the nukes and…
Oh what’s the point.
Whenever something goes wrong, it is usually some half arsed govt policy behind it…
Which then gets a quarter-arsed govt policy to try to correct, and that only fucks things up more.
Every generation of idealistic teenagers looks at the world, decides that it’s shit, and to do something about it. It never occurs to them that previous generations might have done the same thing, had a go, largely failed (i.e. “sold out”), and to wonder why. This problem gets progressively worse with more and more teenagers coming from broken homes and projecting their anger outwards onto the world as a proxy rather than at their parents for failing them. Thus they are suckers for simplistic ideologies that seem “fair”, “rational” and “just”.
Our problem is that we have superannuated idealistic teenagers in government and in power elsewhere. They haven’t reflected on the causes of the apparent failure of previous generations, and ignorantly assume they can do better. This is why we must all suffer the consequences of their ab initio mistakes while they learn, at our expense, then to be succeeded by the next lot.
Another point about idealistic teenagers, especially beta idealistic teenagers, is that in a “fair”, “rational” and “just” world they would also get pussy, not just the alphas, and would even get alpha pussy.
Breaking that delusion is painful.
Help!
My ancient Windows PC won’t access this site. Tried the remedies suggested by Krystal Hosting but to no avail. Flushed the dns cache but no luck. Any clues anyone? One finger typing on my iPad is a pita…
Norman @ 2.39 “Our problem is that we have superannuated idealistic teenagers in government”
Oh boy, that comment in spades…. None have run a business, none have had a ‘proper job’* none have anything greater than a degree in PPE, yet they think they know all the answers and if they mandate it, it will happen. As simple as that.
*They all appear to have ‘worked’ in local government, Union activities, Education, the (sorry, OUR) NHS etc. etc. (except of course for Rachel from
accountsthe complaints department……..).Addolff
Another manifestation of the idealistic teenager phenomenon is rule by human rights lawyers, who seem entirely convinced that they can change the world, and even the very fabric of nature, by “fair”, “rational” and “just” legislation and regulation.
It’s amusing but rather painful spectator sport to watch as the world inexorably proves to them otherwise.
@ Grist
I know Macs, not PCs, but if you can, try changing the DNS server in your network setup from the default, which is probably your DHCP router, to something like 1.1.1.2 (Cloudflare, malware filtered) or 8.8.8.8. (Google). This will bypass any cached outdated DNS that may be causing the trouble.
I know Macs, not PCs, but if you can, try changing the DNS server in your network setup from the default, which is probably your DHCP router, to something like 1.1.1.2 (Cloudflare, malware filtered) or 8.8.8.8. (Google). This will bypass any cached outdated DNS that may be causing the trouble.
My MacBook Air works fine but my iMac can’t access tim’s site directly…
Both on the same network with the same DNS settings…
Our problem is that we have superannuated idealistic teenagers in government
Its 30+ years since the Maastricht treaty and 25+ since Lisbon treaty. Our political doesn’t know how to govern, they got so used to hand off problems to the EU and then shrugging their shoulders when questioned about policies. They don’t know how to make a case for their policies and think people who question are “literally worse than Hitler”.
In effect they’ve become glorified social workers who just want to be nice to nice people and liked by nice people.
This is in no small part why Starmer is struggling and having so many resets, he just has no idea what politics means and how to be a leader. He came in to politics to be a nice person and never had to develop ideals and sell them, the EU meant they could just get their desires implemented.
BiC
Try making a new Network Location on your iMac. This is the easiest non-Terminal way of completely renewing DNS data.
Thanks Norman and BiC, I’ll give it a try when I get home. If I can still type then…
BiND
One of the simplistic ideologies superannuated teenagers believe in is Harry Potter: the idea that there are Good People, and Bad People who can be vanquished with the wave of a magic wand and some garbled Latin.
Two of my best friends’ marriages failed. Their daughters had exactly the kind ideological proxy reaction to the failure that I described. Both are now Corbynista civil servants, one in the Treasury on the Graduate Direct Entry scheme, the other (who is also making a name for herself as a fantasy teen fiction writer, writing in work time) in the Cabinet Office. Both are proud of their activism.
“Which then gets a quarter-arsed govt policy to try to correct, and that only fucks things up more.”
I wonder when we will get a new Newton, who will come up with a theory working with “infinitesimal-arses” and the calculus thereof.
@grist
I found my browser (Firefox) was caching DNS. I needed to go and clear the browser DNS cache. Everything started working fine after that.
Yeah, the problem is that (in the interests of efficiency) DNS is cached in so many different places and (often) for differing periods. Trying to find them all can be a little like Whack-a-Mole.
Norman,
Two of my best friends’ marriages failed. Their daughters had exactly the kind ideological proxy reaction to the failure that I described. Both are now Corbynista civil servants, one in the Treasury on the Graduate Direct Entry scheme, the other (who is also making a name for herself as a fantasy teen fiction writer, writing in work time) in the Cabinet Office. Both are proud of their activism.
There used to be a time when being seen to be politically disinterested* was a badge of honour.
Those days aren’t coming back and as its the left that puts its activists in these institutions the Tories and Reform are going to have put their own people in senior positions if they ever get in a position to govern again. Trump is laying out a template.
@ Grist
From the cmd prompt
ipconfig /flushdns
“Our problem is that we have superannuated idealistic teenagers in government and in power elsewhere. They haven’t reflected on the causes of the apparent failure of previous generations, and ignorantly assume they can do better. This is why we must all suffer the consequences of their ab initio mistakes while they learn, at our expense, then to be succeeded by the next lot.”
Hence my oft repeated demand that no one under the age of 50 should be allowed to stand for public office. End the concept of politics as a career. Make it something you might go into when you’ve actually had a life, learned a few things the hard way about how people and society work, have a bit of money behind you so you’re not in thrall to any passing PR prostitute with some free cash for access, and hopefully will not be a narcissistic borderline psychopath, as all those will have ended up as lawyers or captains of industry where they can play out their power mad fantasies on a smaller audience than the whole country. And won’t want to give up their positions of wealth and power to start at the bottom of the greasy politics pole aged 50.
@Norman
Try making a new Network Location on your iMac. This is the easiest non-Terminal way of completely renewing DNS data.
Thanks, every day is a schoolday!
But that didn’t work either…
If your house is on fire it gets flooded to stop other houses burning down. If the loss of your house would be ruinous you have an insurance policy.
Norman
I was hoping that the strong anti state messaging in Harry Potter would breed a new generation of libertarians. Alas, it wasn’t too be.
Gunker
I haven’t read the books but have watched all the films with my daughter. I didn’t pick up a noticeable anti-State message from them (although it may have been there and I missed it). It seemed to me that the heroes were fighting against a State that had been taken over by Bad People, so the implication is that if Good People were in charge the State would be a benevolent force for good.
That’s also what I’d expect from Rowling’s revealed political philosophy. She’s still an obvious Progressive. For her at the moment the Bad People are the trannies, but that’s because All Real Women Are Good People.
Norman at 2:39 and 2:48 wins the Internet.
Still can’t get to the main page of the blog. Cleared the DNS cache; don’t have an entry for the blog in my HOSTS file; rebooted. I had to do a DDG search and go to a portion of the blog I hadn’t been on before, and from there to the most recent comment.
If I click the banner at the top of this page, I get the error message.
Tried changing every DNS setting in Firefox, and none of them let me get to the main page.
“no one under the age of 50 should be allowed to stand for public office”
The US has minimum ages for President, Senator and Representative in its constitution.
It’s a good idea. Unfortunately those ages (35, 30 and 25 respectively) might have been reasonably old when it was written but today are really quite young.
They should probably be increased. I mean in Canada (where I live) if you’re under 25 you likely will be paying a surcharge for renting a car, due to the increased chance of a collision and general irresponsibility.