USA Politics (redux)

[drogulus]

     The Covid Trauma Has Changed Economics—Maybe Forever

     This is good, real good.

FOR CENTURIES, theorists have pondered the recurring and inevitable swings that make up the business cycle. They've looked for causes in mass psychology, institutional complexity, and even weather patterns. According to the traditional laws of the cycle, it should've taken years for households to claw their way back from 2020's sudden collapse in economic activity.

     Note that shrinkster dogma said this couldn't happen. Government dollars can't expand the economy because people think taxes will go up. What if they do think that? I think that, and I still want more income and I still spend more when my income goes up, or at least feel free to do so. Paying more tax on more income doesn't bother me as much as paying less tax on less income. More is better than less. As for tax rates, they can go all over the place on the whims of policy makers based on no consistent theory on the effects on economic growth.

The new pandemic economics also shielded the financial system, but from the bottom up instead of the top down—a point repeatedly made by Neel Kashkari, who helped lead the rescue as a U.S. Department of the Treasury official in 2008 and who's now head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. As their jobs vanished in the spring of 2020, Americans struggled to make rent, pay mortgages, and cover car payments. Without the government's efforts to replace lost income, the health crisis that had already triggered a jobs crisis would have morphed into a financial crisis.

     This time shrinksters were ignored and the government spent into the hands of bank customers and didn't need to fix the banks in a way that helped no one else. Let's see how long it takes to unlearn this lesson (watches clock).

After an initial burst of spending, many countries quickly pivoted to reining in their budgets in the years after 2008, driven by concerns about rising public debt—a trend that was most pronounced in Europe. In the U.S., state and local government cutbacks resulted in mass job losses. In both cases, relatively high unemployment and low growth rates persisted for much of the decade.

     I don't understand how a bigger number we'll never pay is more threatening than a smaller number we'll never pay.

     

[greg]

https://www.isidewith.com/profile/4658280864/parties

My result: 78% Republican, 31% Democratic

74% American Solidarity
62% Peace and Freedom
56% Socialist
55% Transhumanist
54% Democratic
53% Green
50% Constitution
48% Republican
38% Libertarian


Many issues I'm undecided on so it may have skewed the results.

[SimonNZ]

Which were the "transhumanist" questions?

I don't think I got any of those.

[SimonNZ]

The Pod Save America guys were reminiscing about some of the ridiculous "scandals" of the Obama era when they all were working in the White House, and one mentioned "Jacketgate", which I hadn't heard of before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVsUa-lQ2WY

^ that Daily Show recap of Jacketgate proves once again that there's an old long-forgotten hypocritical pre-president Trump quote for everything

[Karl Henning]

Trump was always an arse-wipe. There are even people who have since migrated to the MAGA-verse who knew that.

[Karl Henning]

Legislative bills take aim at school segregation in Mass.

[Fëanor]

     Note that shrinkster dogma said this couldn't happen. Government dollars can't expand the economy because people think taxes will go up. What if they do think that? I think that, and I still want more income and I still spend more when my income goes up, or at least feel free to do so. Paying more tax on more income doesn't bother me as much as paying less tax on less income. More is better than less. As for tax rates, they can go all over the place on the whims of policy makers based on no consistent theory on the effects on economic growth.

Agree.  I'll be upset earning more when the marginal rate exceeds 100%

The new pandemic economics also shielded the financial system, but from the bottom up instead of the top down—a point repeatedly made by Neel Kashkari, who helped lead the rescue as a U.S. Department of the Treasury official in 2008 and who's now head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. As their jobs vanished in the spring of 2020, Americans struggled to make rent, pay mortgages, and cover car payments. Without the government's efforts to replace lost income, the health crisis that had already triggered a jobs crisis would have morphed into a financial crisis.

     This time shrinksters were ignored and the government spent into the hands of bank customers and didn't need to fix the banks in a way that helped no one else. Let's see how long it takes to unlearn this lesson (watches clock).
...
     I don't understand how a bigger number we'll never pay is more threatening than a smaller number we'll never pay.

Well there is, I guess, a point where servicing a huge debt becomes a problem.

But at least for the USA the solution is to Tax the Rich.  Too much as gone to the Rich for too long without much improvement for typical Americans.

[drogulus]

Well there is, I guess, a point where servicing a huge debt becomes a problem.

     Why guess? If it was real nobody would have to guess. It's what I call the nominal argument. There's an amount of money that can't exist because dollars can no longer be produced to pay for things. It's always "some day" the Big Number arrives, but not a particular day or particular number. The goalposts are always moved to an unspecified point in the future.

     It's totally bogus. As the real economy grows more dollars can be created to run it (and must be created) and there's no nominal limit. The money system can never run out of itself. The limits are the ability of the real economy to produce what can be bought and sold, not some dollar amount.

     As it happens huge public debt bulges tend to coexist with very low interest rates, not because a high interest bill can't be paid but because GDP relative to debt is low. The irony is that if you wanted the government to pay more interest the best way would be to run the economy hot. I think there are better reasons to run the economy hot than to pay more interest to pension funds, but really I don't think what the government pays matters as a burden. That's not a factor at all.

[Florestan]

Which were the "transhumanist" questions?

I don't think I got any of those.

I believe there are no party-specific questions. You answer the questions as they come and in the end they calculate your results. Still, you can see the answers of any given party if you click on their name in the result page.

I wasn't even aware of this party. What a bizarre name... 

[Florestan]

Now, this is fun! 

https://arzamas.academy/materials/1269

My result: Cadet.

[SimonNZ]

Were you imagining yourself a Russian laborer from the Tsarist era when you answered those questions or did you answer as yourself in 2021?

I'd be a Menshevik. But I already knew that.

edit: I just noticed autocorrect changed "Tsarist" to "statist". How curious.

[Karl Henning]

Investigating yet another Trump stooge.
FBI investigating Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in connection with past political fundraising

[greg]

Which were the "transhumanist" questions?

I don't think I got any of those.

I'm not sure, I didn't get that as a category, never clicked "show more of x questions," and don't recall any questions on that topic.

[Karl Henning]

It's still a great distance from repudiating The Yuge Lie.

Pence: Trump and I likely won't see 'eye to eye' on Jan. 6

[Florestan]

Were you imagining yourself a Russian laborer from the Tsarist era when you answered those questions or did you answer as yourself in 2021?

I imagined myself in Tsarist Russia exactly what am I in real life: an educated "bourgeois" or if you prefer, a member of the intellectual middle class. What I support now I would have supported back then too: rule of law (preferably in a constitutional monarchy) and free market (with some restrictions). As a Christian I'd have rejected militant and aggressive atheism, as a Liberal (in the European sense of the word) I'd have rejected statism and collectivism and as a cultural traditionalist I'd have rejected the proletarianization of the society. Ergo, there would have been no way I'd have supported any party of the Left.

Just like you, I already knew what I'd be. I've always wondered what I would have been back then and there --- and always answered Cadet because really there was no alternative, being the KDP the only non-Socialist party in 1917 Russia.

That being said, I cannot exclude a priori the idea that I might have succumbed to the syren song of Socialism / Communism, especially if I had been a peasant or worker (though not all of them were Bolshevik / Menshevik / SR and conversely there were many well-to-do intellectuals who were). But I'd have probably ended up in bitter disillusionment. Be it as it might, either Cadet or B / M / SR, I'd have probably ended up in emmigration or in Gulag, in case I wouldn't have been killed in the Civil War.

[drogulus]

     Why I Can't Stand Rich People With Liberal Lawn Signs

     

     It's the misplaced priorities I can't stand. If you improve peoples lives substantively they might stop hating you long enough to listen to what you say. Trumpists know no one on either side has run to their rescue. Biden may be able to change that and there are encouraging signs that he will tilt the balance in favor of bottom up growth even though further expansion efforts will be smaller than he wants.

[Fëanor]

     Why I Can't Stand Rich People With Liberal Lawn Signs

     

     It's the misplaced priorities I can't stand. If you improve peoples lives substantively they might stop hating you long enough to listen to what you say. Trumpists know no one on either side has run to their rescue. Biden may be able to change that and there are encouraging signs that he will tilt the balance in favor of bottom up growth even though further expansion efforts will be smaller than he wants.

Yeah, the only Rich man's lawn sign I want to see says, "TAX the RICH !!".

[Karl Henning]

Trump's White House Lawyer Don McGahn Finally Talks to Congress
He long flouted a congressional subpoena, but will at last testify about Trump's obstruction of justice as outlined in the Mueller report.

[drogulus]

     There's a Bipartisan Way to Save $1 Trillion: Cut Benefits for the Rich

While economists debate the magnitude, there is a broad consensus that steep tax rate increases reduce incentives to work, save, invest, and be productive.


     The rich don't work, save, invest and produce enough to make a difference in the total productivity of the economy. They own real and financial assets. Taxing these helps keep taxes on productive people low. That's something, though the big action is on the spend side, not the tax side. I maintain that spending increases are a better targeting tool than tax cuts for the same purposes. The same net spending differential gets you more of what you want.

[greg]

Can't remember if we already went through the Six Moral Foundations.
Retook it just now...

https://www.idrlabs.com/morality/6/test.php

Your scores:
Care 86%
Loyalty 47%
Fairness 75%
Authority 53%
Purity 67%
Liberty 89%
Your strongest moral foundation is Liberty.

Your morality is closest to that of a Left-Liberal.

No surprise to score highest on this:

Liberty: This foundation is related to the individual's need to be his own master and to avoid the dominant social mores imposed by the group. It underlies the virtues of independence and autonomy. It is tied to emotions such as self-sufficiency and defiance. Libertarians typically score the highest on this dimension, conservatives the second-highest, and left-liberals the lowest.

So basically I have left-liberal values for the other ones, but have this one in particular that is highly non-associated with left-liberal. That's kinda interesting...