To be fair, Schleicher was the one primarily responsible for the collapse of the Weimar Republic, Von Papen just found himself parachuted into a shit situation, which he tried to make the best of, but in the end destroyed Schleichers plan to make himself a dictator and instead helped Hitler. By the time Von Papen became a political player of his own right, and not just a puppet of Schleicher, Prussiaschlag had already happened, and the republic was already dead, with most of the actual damage being done by Schleicher as opposed to Hitler, it was simply a choice between military dictatorship or nazism.
And what is this NYT article you speak of?

Von Papen was the one who normalized the concept of Hindenburg ruling by decree. Von Papen was the one who made the public arguments that the Reichstag exercising a "veto" over executive actions was "normal" and represented an acceptable constitutional order in place of an executive exercising a veto over legislative actions. All Hitler did was have the Enabling Acts passed allowing the Chancellor to rule by decree directly rather than "advising" the President to issue the decrees he desired (well, that and change the order of succession unilaterally). While Ebert made liberal use of executive orders, he did so amid actual crises and social upheaval (five major attempted coups, foreign invasion, multiple nationwide strikes that paralyzed the country and two separate hyperinflations). He never claimed that such actions were normal or acceptable as a general governing structure.

Just do a Google News search for "Ben Rhodes". Note that the News Divisions of two different US TV networks are currently run by siblings of high ranking Obama White House staff members. And if you have not been paying much attention to Hillary's emails, one of the first ones released showed The Atlantic Monthly negotiating to include specific phrases when parroting agreed narrative images in articles as a quid pro quo for access. More recent emails show CNN doing even more.

That was idea of Schleicher, the representative of the military at the time, who invented the infamous "25/48/53 formula" that would allow Hindenburg to govern without parliamentary approval back in 1926, just a year after Hindenburg took office, but the country was going pretty well back then, and Hindenburg, despite being THE biggest reactionary there is, actually took his oath to the Weimar constitution seriously and was not at all enthusiastic about this plan (which failed at the time), despite his misgiving about a government involving the SDP (socialists! The horror!) In 1929, the governing coalition had already started falling apart, with a dispute over a battleship construction very damaging in relations within the coalition (no doubt Schleicher did some dirty stuff not recorded by historians), andthe great depression was the final blow, which meant that every party were out for their own and refused any compromise. The previous chancellor resigned, and a new chancellor Brunning was appointed, who started governing by decree. By the time Schleicher brought out Von Papen from a literal nobody into the Chancellor of Germany, Germany had gone through two years of presidential decree, and not a lot of people still had faith in democracy. The final blow, the prussianschlag, was nominally a joint effort by Von Papen and Schleicher, although at the time Von Papen was still simply a puppet that finalized the end of democracy in Weimar Germany with the overthrow of the entire SDP-dominated government of state of Prussia, followed by no strikes at all due to a deal Schleicher and Von Papen reached with the local labor unions, that resulted in everyone who believed in democracy to completely lose faith in everything and simply chose not to vote in the upcoming elections, in which the Nazi party won almost 40% of the vote. Arguably the Nazi party may not have ever received over 30% of the vote if this internal coup didn't happen.

I don't know what these "normalization" efforts by Von Papen that you speak of were, but they probably occurred after Von Papen rose to prominence, when the concept of rule by decree was already quite normalized.

So first off, Brunning worked constantly to try to build a working Reichstag majority. Second, his agenda was in almost diametric opposition to what Schleicher proposed when he was Chancellor. Perhaps this was just Schleicher learning from the failures of Brunning's austerity, but Brunning the LSE graduate had been drawn into politics by the occupation of the Ruhr and the hyperinflation, so his picking deflation over inflation as a matter of policy when faced with the Depression seems an inalterable aspect of his make up. I do not think that Brunning ever argued publicly (or to Hindenburg) that ruling by decree was anything other than a mark of failure. Brunning also tried to ban all of the political paramilitaries in 1932.

To refer to an election in which 71% of the electorate voted as a mass boycott by everyone who believed in democracy seems like a specious claim. As for there being a sudden jump in Nazi support, Hitler had gotten 37% of the vote (13.4 million votes) in the Presidential election a few months before getting 13.7 million votes following the Preußenschlag. The drop from 82% turnout in 1930 to 71% in July of 1932 could easily be explained by election fatigue as it was the third national election in 6 months and remembering that the 1928 elections had seen a 75% turnout. The November elections saw turnout return to 81%. The Nazis saw an only manageable drop in support even with two major negative events: Goebbels got drawn into supporting a Berlin transit strike in alliance with the Communists and Hitler's niece shot herself in his apartment. People who point to this drop without placing it in context misunderstand it. Two major events happened during the campaign which frightened the kinds of movable voters that determine elections and Hitler was forced out of his usual leadership role as a public candidate at the vital moment.

The key point is that Schleicher could not convince Hindenburg that ruling by decree was "normal" and von Papen was so able. To call von Papen a puppet is your judgment, but I am not sure that is the only possible interpretation and I would claim not the one most supported by the facts. Von Papen publicly supported Hindenburg in 1925 when Hindenburg was running against a member of von Papen's Centre Party. Von Papen was maneuvering himself to be the bridge between Hindenburg the Pietist Junker and the western Catholics from the beginning. It was also Schleicher who blocked von Papen's proposal for martial law, and von Papen did end up knifing Schleicher. If von Papen was subtle and lacking in a grand plan beyond personal advancement, then my comparison to Gaius Marius becomes more apt.

To transition to a different controversial personal opinion you might enjoy arguing over, I also view Neville Chamberlain as a brilliant and noble politician and his brother Austen as the man deserving of blame....in other words, Munich was a master stroke of diplomacy and Locarno was the disaster.

I'm pretty Schleicher was the one who came up with everything as well as convinced Hindenburg, he was after all a member of the Kamarilla around Hindenburg, and the entire cabinet of Von Papen was selected by Schleicher with basically no input from Von Papen. Their initial alliance was out of an eventual goal to topple democracy, with Von Papen having in mind an ultra-conservative regime and Schleicher having in mind a military dictatorship. Of course, Von Papen had always supported Hinderburg, given that he was extraordinarily conservative, but if Schleicher hadn't brought him up out of nowhere, Hindenburg would not have gotten acquainted with him. You must understand Schleicher's psychology, he wanted to have someone who he can fully control, and that means this person is bribe-able, has no support of his own, whether in public or in the government, and he actually personally knew Von Papen well from their common history in the army. However, while Von Papen remained as expected hopelessly unpopular with the public, he was able to start cultivating a close relationship with Hindenburg, which alarmed Schleicher, so when Von Papen asked Hindenburg to declare martial law, having failed to form a government again and with no hope in sight of ever being able to do so, Schleicher did everything he could to stop that from happening, including rigging a war simulation, that ultimately forced Von Papen to resign. Soon after that, due to some stupid joke Schleicher made about Hindenburg's son, his relationship with the Hindenburgs was rather damaged, and Von Papen had Hindenburg's ear. Von Papen decided to let Hitler become Chancellor while he can stack the cabinet to "hem Hitler in", to achieve a workable government. So Schleicher was kicked out. Had Schleicher still been the sole voice of the army in politics, he could have declared a military dictatorship right then and there regardless of the consequences, but after he kicked out Bruning, many other prominent people in the army started becoming involved in politics, especially with communications with the Nazi Party, so Schleicher could no longer be assured of the complete backing of the army. He was killed a year later in the night of long knives.

Btw, on the topic of Bruning, one of the reasons he was kicked was precisely because he tried to ban the SA, so Hitler promised to Schleicher to cooperate with the next government should Bruning be kicked, and after just a month was forced to resign. Groening, who backed this ban and stood in Schleicher's way upwards, was also kicked with slandering by Schleicher. There are other reason involved in Bruning's removal, such as him being not right-wing enough, Hindenburg's own anger that he was re-elected relying on the votes of socialists and catholics, as well as the general failure of his policies to do much to help the economy.

I have little opinion on Neville Chamberlain, and in fact little interest in British history in general. I guess I'm just into more exciting stuff and trends from history.

I don't really have the time or interest in continuing point by point (I do not agree with your claims), but I will say that your cultural analysis of the German army is incorrect. Schleicher could never have gone against Hindenburg and had the army's support no matter what his personal political standing within the institution. Even in retirement, the most senior officer in the German army was forever the most senior officer in the German army. After Hindenburg died, Field Marshal von Mackensen inherited that position and retained an unassailable position requiring overt deference even from people who despised him.

So yesterday in the late morning hours the text of Trump's speech was made public. At noon, arguably the most left wing member of my social circle (and I work in at a major research university, so that is saying something) sent out a blast email saying that he had just finished reading the text and announcing that Donald Trump was going to win the general election. Hysteria then erupted. I have him in on record for a ten dollar wager for his claim that Trump will see a 10% swing in the next few days.....that will require a move from down 2.7% to up 7.3% in the RealClearPolitics national polling average. Admittedly, we both agree that Hillary's 2.7% lead relies to a significant on "shy" Trump supporters being unwilling to tell pollsters that they intend to vote for Trump, so just a reduction in "shy"-ness could create much of my friend's predicted swing.

The doyen of the left, Michael Moore is now predicting a Trump win - http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/michael-moore-announces-donald-trump-will-be-president-20160724-gqckup.html. Surprisingly his Jesse "The Body" Ventura analysis in rust belt states and pissed white men being motivated to vote makes a lot of sense.

Don't know what to make of the earlier Trump is a Putin puppet story - http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-election/us-fears-over-donald-trumps-connections-with-vladimir-putins-russia-20160723-gqcg8p.html

It's an Austin paper quoting liberal-biased American media doing their fear mongering thing. Make nothing of it and be more concerned about Hil-liar-y Clinton. Hil-liar-y lies and Americans die.

Ausie damn phone

I will note that I made a previous comment about Putin and emails. I am still expecting the missing Hillary emails showing up.....possibly with a few choice forgeries dropped in for added effect.

In simple terms Trump doesn't have an actual idea about what he is doing just chanting unachievable slogans for the mass consumer who gobbles it up like a free upgrade at Mc Donalds ..

PS he will win in a landslide..

Its like watching the fall of the Roman empire ...bye bye America..swallowed by non other than America..

The analogy to Rome may be an accurate one, but it's by no means constrained to Trump. The decline has been going on for some time. In simple terms the same thing happened 8 years ago, and the country elected a fool with far less experience. The alternative to Trump is inconceivable, as Hillary is both corrupt and incompetent. While it's by no means our finest hour, we're not done yet. The president is only the leader of 1/3 of the government, and there are significant safeguards provided by the constitution to prevent tyranny. We survived Obama's attempts to dismantle the nation. If Trump gets sideways, he'll be reigned in by Congress and the courts.

It is actually more than a bit unfair to dismiss Trump as having no substance. On issues related to trade, we have literally decades of Trump voicing a pretty consistent message. It is worth pointing out that Andy Grove used to voice remarkably similar opinions.

I am by training a macroeconomist specializing in trade theory. My PhD advisor literally negotiated NAFTA. The predictions made by professional economists pre-NAFTA as to outcomes even 10 years later were no more accurate than monkeys throwing darts at a board (according to said NAFTA negotiator). Much of what is happening that we are calling "international trade" is more accurately "multinational production". That means that all economic models of trade are generating estimates for a fundamentally different phenomenon than what is actually occurring. In the interest of honesty and professional modesty, I have to admit that I have seen clips of Ross Perot making that exact point in different language during the public debate on NAFTA.

Paul Krugman earned his well-deserved Nobel Prize for developing a new class of trade models that resolved a series of well documented problems with the classical "Ricardo" models built on "comparative advantage". (We now know that the Ricardo models fail even worse than people of Krugman's generation thought they did back in the 1970s) The modern models are very different from Krugman's models but they are clearly built on the same set of ideas. The entire economic structure of what Krugman was modeling is different from what we are seeing in the US-Mexico and the US-China trade relationship. The dynamics that yield all of the "gains from trade" in the Krugman class of models just simply do not exist in the reality that we observe. I cannot reasonably say that Trump is wrong. But the standard line is either intentionally dishonest or else ignorant on substance.

Similarly, on mass level immigration, adding an unending supply of low-skill labor would seem to have to suppress wages at the low end of the distribution and increase the equilibrium level of inequality. There is also decent evidence to mke an argument that mass level immigration tends to reduce investment and productivity growth. The only Black person to ever win a Nobel Prize in any of the real categories was an economist named Arthur Lewis who argued that when a large agricultural sector provides large flows of people into the urban economy that wages in the cash economy stagnated and productivity growth is depressed. You might have come across articles questioning whether China is at or approaching the "Lewis tipping point" when wages begin to grow again after an urban transition is complete.

Whoever gets in come November, its only 4 years until you can hopefully get someone who has their shit together (Short of a miracle and Gary Johnson sneaking in from the outside!)

It takes a lot for an incumbent to lose in the US. The last two one term Presidents each faced a serious third party candidate who largely stole votes from them.

Hillary or Trump... Good luck to all you Americans is all I can say

Both Clinton and Trump are very dangerous and could declare stupids wars around the world. Unfortunately, it will be bad time for the peace around the world. I'm very sad that Sanders didn't won the democrat nomination. I wish good luck to all the americans who will spend 4 bad years under Trump or Clinton.

Trump has largely run on the idea that America should simply let the world burn, so while one can make a reasonable argument that Trump is "dangerous", the line of reasoning you are deploying is either dishonest or uninformed. Bernie Sanders has supported US military interventions which Trump has said he would have rejected.

Gopher, I feel like you didn't really say everything you wanted to say, (even though you said a lot). I am not a economist, so I must differ to you on these points, but iDisk notice that you seem to have summarily dismiss all of models I was aware of to evaluate trade. Are there exist ideas that better model or current situation, models that could be used to evaluate a "force [insert company] to open factories" stance, that can be used to model the effect of tariffs and similar protectionist tools.

On the prospect of Let the world burn, I have heard heard Trump mention that he would not support countries that pick fights, which at the time was rather clearly saying he didn't intend to further assist Israel, but that is the only such statements I had heard. even if that is his stance, wouldn't such a "fuck them" attitude create the very fires we are discussing? I was of the impression that it was believed our increased interconnectivity was the source for the what little peace we currently enjoy. Would we not we adversely effected by letting the world burn (I mean net of the benefit of not sticking our nose somewhere it does not belong)?

Again, these are honest question because my knowledge of the topic is woefully diminutive .

iDisk = I did
Are there ideas* (omit exist)
Our* current situation
For what little (omit the)
Would we not be*
Questions*

I really need to proof before hitting send

Oh God. NAFTA. The US gives the keys to Canada and Mexico. Cheap unskilled labor goes south and skilled trade labor goes north and the US gets fucked with high unemployment while H1B Indians whose degrees aren't wOrth the paper they are printed on (trust me, I work with these idiots daily) come over and take tech jobs away from skilled Americans. Thank you Slick Willie for fucking up the employment sector.

@Caerus....the claim was that Trump was likely to "start stupid wars". When there are many valid criticisms one could make, that one is not supported by much evidence. Trump has said pretty clearly that he did not view The Ukraine as worth conflict with Russia. He has said fairly explicitly that he would not risk nuclear war over Latvia and Lithuania....something which Hillary attached him for. Trump has intimated that NATO is largely outmoded: that we make unilateral security guaranties for countries that not only do not pull their weight, but fail to even fulfill their minimum required obligations under the NATO rules. He has strongly implied that he would attempt to withdraw US troop from their forward positions in South Korea and Japan, while saying that he would not object to those countries acquiring their own independent nuclear deterrent. These would represent enormous shifts in US policy and are all legitimate things to attack Trump on if one strongly disagrees with him. However, these are clearly isolationist positions and are the diametric opposite of the "Trump is a reckless warmonger who will get the US into stupid wars".

As for economics (like all fields that aspire to the scientific method), my pointing out the failure of every major theory in intellectual circulation does not require me to propose an alternative theory. If anything advocating for an alternative theory tends to reduce the weight that I put on people's criticisms of current consensuses. "Modern" trade theory assumes that firms operate within a single country and ship "new" goods into "foreign" markets. The models do not center on multinational firms relocating the physical production of existing products and then shipping them into the original market. The models generate "gains from trade" through two mechanisms: either the home market gets new varieties if goods which increase consumer welfare or more productive firms gain new markets abroad and increase their employment which shifts workers from lower productivity firms (those driven out of the market by increased foreign competition) to the higher productivity firms that now have new customers abroad. Neither of these two things happen when firms shift to "multinational production". What we get is a world in which Toyotas and Nissans are built in the US and Fords are imported.

Gopher, I do understand that, academically, not purposing an alternative model in the same breath that you dash the prevailing models could lower the conceived amount of bias. This is, however, not an academic paper addressed to members of your field, and the fact is decisions must be made, preferably using the most accurate model available. Because your current audience doesn't create alternative models, suggesting the current model is worthless, without something to fill that vacuum, doesn't change anything. We'd still have to use the best model available to make our decisions, which is the prevailing model until someone can offer something different.

Regarding the "let the world burn" line of conversation, I see now that misunderstood the point you were drawing, that while his stance might be dangerous, it certainly isn't warmongering. I think I must have completely misread that section of the conversation. So I apologize for that.

I think it is even more true when discussing politics. Imagine someone that you know strongly advocates for a flat tax replacing our current system of progressive taxation with tons of targeted tax breaks. When that person makes rhetorical arguments saying that targeted tax breaks are not very effective at achieving their stated goals, do you find such a policy entrepreneur to be more believable than someone making similar critiques who does not have an ideological ax to grind?

But in general what I am describing is how science should work and how fields with pretensions to claiming to be "scientific" should operate. The idea that one can only say that a model can't do what people are trying to make it do if one has a fully fleshed out alternative model seems like a ridiculously high bar for pointing out errors. Building useful mathematical models grounded in structural theory is actually pretty hard. There are things we just don't know and other things we don't understand all that well. But using a mathematical model of one thing and just cavalierly applying it to something totally different is more than a bit weird.

If you knew how monetary policy actually gets done, you would be terrified.

Gopher, I think the issue here is we are operating under different thresholds. I, as a non-scientist, use models of phenomena to make decisions in my life. I am not ignorant of their inaccuracies. I understand that space time isn't actually a massive rubber sheet, but it is the best allegory I have to understand how Gravity functions.

So I am not saying that you can point out the problems in the current model, you should, and I appreciate it. What i am saying is, without a functional alternative or even a prototypical alternative, the criticisms will have no realizable effect. I will continue to use the model i have to evaluate situations, as it is still the best option available to me.

Additionally, for fear of downplaying the difficulty, I understand that creating legitimate economic theory is not some simple task. I was asking if an alternative existed, since you are clearly more knowledgeable in the area. Basically, I am suggesting that you recommend an alternative model if you have one, without fear of the implied bias, because without one no functional effect can come of your argument.

I view the models that I described as being quite workable to describe firms in one country selling goods in another country. So if you want to think about Mexico selling the US oil and the US selling refined petroleum products back to Mexico, they work really well. When Samsung sells you a Galaxy series smartphone, you get a new and different variety of the product from a foreign firm, but when Ford shuts down manufacturing facilities in Michigan to open part of their integrated supply chain in Ontario or Mexico, this is a different phenomenon relative to what the models capture.

The response that I would suggest is "I'm not sure". I mentioned to an incoming first year grad student today that when I was a second and third year grad student, I sat down and did a lot of sustained reading on the Great Depression. When I was done with my reading and had learned a lot of things, I found that the set of things that I "knew" about the Depression was smaller than when I had begun.