Jacob Hacker's new book, The Great Risk Shift will be the topic of discussion this Sunday at the FDL Book Salon. Our good friend Henry Farrell of Crooked Timber (author of this superb piece on the role of blogs in the last election, a must-read if you haven't yet done so) will be hosting the online chat with Hacker. Having been deluged with Regan-era notions of "all government bad" for so long, it's high time to shift the terms of this discussion into what, exactly, the appropriate role of government is in our lives. Hacker argues that while Newt and the Contract With America crowd want to transfer risk off of government or business and onto the shoulders of individuals as they try to "migrate" Medicare or "privatize" social security, it becomes increasingly clear that people are not welcoming the erosion of these safety nets as the opportunity for "choices" they are packaged to be. Hacker's book is an attempt to begin the slow business of reshaping the terms of this public debate. It's a controversial book that recently fueled a heated wonkapalooza over at The American Prospect and we look forward to hosting Henry, Jacob Hacker and anyone else who would like to spend the afternoon pissing off Glenn Reynolds. Good times.
FDL Book Salon Welcomes Jacob HackerBy: Jane Hamsher Tuesday November 21, 2006 2:49 pm |
Login Here
Share This
Spotlight



Support this site!
Keep
up with news
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Advanced search


RSS/XML Feed
Floozy patch!
Regan-era
Shouldn’t that be Reagan-era? (Not that there wasn’t a Regan involved too)
401k’s are another example of this risk shift.
JANE!
KATIE!
LUCY!
KOBE IN HIS NEW WHEELS!
I never signed any damn so called “Contract with America”. Did you?
Have a wonderful holiday, folks. Take a nice break and enjoy the victory.
Go Deaniacs!
http://teocawki.blogspot.com
The senator from New York spent $17,000,000 on her recent campaign. More than any other senator. An election she was in no way going to lose. Hillary, a lot of that money could have gone to feed a lot of hungry people in NY this Thursday. Disgusting.
kristinejoy @
1
Hee!
Patrick 4/4 @ 8
Hee Hee!
I like Pelosi. I do not like Jane Harman.
When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much and decide they want to have a floozy, they head on down to the floozy patch and pick out a very special floozy grown just for them.
They water it and care for it, and one day, when the floozy is ripe, they pick it and take it home and love it very, very much.
And that’s how you were born.
Left you a little something on the end of the last thread, Ok kiddo.
I never, ever signed that stoopid contract either.
It should be noted that the industry which is directly based on bearing risk–the insurance industry–long ago understood that the most rational thing to do is to pool risk as widely as possible. That’s the origin of reinsurance (and even re-re-insurance.) That is part of the reason that there are fewer re-reinsurance companies than governments in the world.
Breaking those pools back down to size “1″ just doesn’t make sense.
Perhaps it is time to think in terms of outsourcing our federal government. I mean these guys are getting paid $160,000 (not including perks) per year for a two to three day work week.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 7
Or the money could have been used to help put a few more Democrats in the House.
Outstanding. Great, promising book and conversation.
Oklahoma kiddo @
7
more than that and still disgusting!
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2.....xpe_1.html
I think that slavery was doomed the minute slaveowners figured out that by freeing their slaves they could out source all the risk. If the workers own themselves, owners don’t have to feed them or clothe them, don’t have to educate or train them, don’t have to look after them when there is no work or when they are sick or old. And owners can really cut those costs because if a free worker dies there’s always another one.
Yes, globalization is about getting someone else to soak up the risk.
“Personal Responsibility” is just the deadbeat daddy party’s Orwellian way of selling irresponsibility
I’m listening to Taylor Marsh’s radio show online. She sounds great!
The hits just keep coming:
Drive by …
Haven’t read the book yet. While Reagan and Goldwater get all the glory about “turning” the country into a “Centrist” “Conservative” country, you have to keep in mind that the Republicans needed a blueprint - and that blueprint was
The Powell Manifesto
Enter Lewis Powell
Powell’s blueprint focused on four broad targets of attack:
Sorry, this post is kinda longish but important if you want to understand how to beat them
john in sacramento –
No apology, please! That’s important information you’ve got there, stuff I probably never would have stumbled over on my own. And you are quite right, we need to understand how all this came about in order to best demolish it.
Thank you!