Author: Matt Bruenig

Tradition-Aggression-Desert Whack-A-Mole

Earlier, I outlined the familiar game of capitalism whack-a-mole. In this game, proponents of capitalism shift constantly between the incompatible normative frameworks of voluntarism, desert, and utility. It’s funny because, during the whack-a-mole game, the underlying reasons that they claim to motivate them change dramatically, but their conclusions never do. Yesterday, I was host to… Continue reading Tradition-Aggression-Desert Whack-A-Mole

Is Social Security defensible on traditionalist grounds or not?

I wrote about the new hotness of mushy traditionalism (instead of conventional normative argument) being mobilized to somehow support libertarianism. I got this response from Adam Gurri, which am not satisfied with because it does not answer back my concerns, but rather rehashes an abstract explanation of what traditionalism means. To show I read it,… Continue reading Is Social Security defensible on traditionalist grounds or not?

Here is exactly how the Census supplemental poverty calculation is derived

Previously I wrote the smashing hit “Here is exactly how the Census poverty calculation is derived.” It explains in great detail how the Official Poverty Metric (OPM) works. Here, I do the same thing for the Supplemental Poverty Metric (SPM). Units All poverty metrics require some way of drawing lines around sets of people and… Continue reading Here is exactly how the Census supplemental poverty calculation is derived