Krugman's Last Column Worries Me

In the last sentence of his column he writes:


A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.
Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.

more;

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/opinion/08krugman.htm ...



The rules of the Senate must be changed so something can be accomplished. I have written my Senator about this. I would suggest everyone do the same.

If you changed the rules, all it would do would be to make things worse.

there's always room for improvement. However, rigging the field so that the majority can easily walk over the minorities is not a good improvement, IMO.

I can't find anything in the Constitution about a requirement for a filibuster in the make-up of the Senate.

so that the group in the majority isn't able to bulldoze the minority groups?

The great compromise that led to the ratification of the US Constitution was a stipulation that there be a chamber where small states get equal representation with large states. The Senate was established as the compromise. Without it, the US would not exist at all. The notion that filibusters fall on the original issue of checks and balances is a mute point beyond the fact that the Senate exists.

i know, any other dem., but WHO would be the best majority leader?

i think al doesn't have the seniority, and feingold is too "left" for the centrists who'd have to vote him in. either is sure what i'd prefer though.

I don't think Americans need to be terribly worried about Canada and Mexico annexing the country piecemeal.

but China owns one hell of a lot of the country already. How much longer until they start to "request" better representaion in our Government?

I will move there on day one!

I do think California should split on its own.

I do want the rest of us to get rid of Texas.

For the record, I live in Florida, we can become our own country too, we kind of are down here in South Florida.

OMG WHAT IF HAITI TAKES OVER LITTLE ROCK OR HAWAII INSTALLS A PUPPET IN THE WHITEHOUSE OMG!!!!1!

(I want a cut.)

and just as likely.

Hey, with the economic angle it could cut the legs out from under the whole "zomgislam" Green Scare going on lately. Win-win!

Senator now in office who is not vested in the status quo? How many would vote to change the rules?

These obstructionists have been in action for one year.

Yes, we can revisit the rules, but let's keep our perspective.

The filibuster has been around in various forms since the start of the US, the filibuster as we know it has been in place since 1917. It was at 67 votes when they passed Social Security, the New Deal, civil rights and Medicare. Dropped down to 60 votes in 1975.

Difference between Poland and America. No one will invade America, if America collapses it breaks into smaller entities.

because views on the way to govern are so different as to be irreconcilable.

or we should have CA break into three states so that the electoral college is more representative of national political philosophy.

And Republicans in power now don't want to govern, so why bother to deal with them? Tell them to go home to their districts and tell their representatives that they refused to represent them.

let those states do without federal funding because their senior representatives refused to act in good faith for the good of all the American people since they ran for an office that assumes they will govern...i.e. that's the purpose of government. If they don't believe in the purpose of govt then they should remain in the private sector.

Breaking up the United State peacefully is not possible simply because the biggest asset (the one 50% of your taxes goes to) the Military would be impossible to divide up.

18th century Poland was not the Poland of today, it was an agglomeration of several independent kingdoms with their own parliaments. The so-called Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth included (in modern terms) Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Russia and Moldova. It was an arrangement of convenience. Furthermore, the King of Poland was elected and very weak by law -- he could be vetoed by the nobles and senate on basic matters.

I have a low opinion of Krugman generally, but only an idiot would imply that the history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth teaches us anything about the shenanigans of the US senate.

Comparing today's US to early modern Poland is far-fetched to say the least. As you point out, they had a very weak executive. Plus much of the population was not Polish-speaking and among those who were, only the elites had any sense at all of national identity. To the bulk of the population (mostly illiterate peasants who were still subject to serfdom) a 'Pole' meant a landlord/member of the nobility. Politics in virtually all of its manifestations was strictly the purview of the elite strata. The list of major differences in the two societies goes on an on, not to mention the very different regional contexts.

Pretty lame comparison.

The Obama administration deals with those who would destroy it by going "straight for the capillaries."

The consequence of third-rate leaders managed by first-rate corporate puppeteers.

This isn't government, it's "The Marx Brothers Go To Washington."

vis a vis economic policy. Is there another economist with some good ideas? I bet there is.