Assassination attempt?

[Russell Letson]

Some thoughts on the economic issues that drive part of the current campaign debates.

It might help to note that there were plenty of people living paycheck to paycheck well before Covid hit--there are bunches of interesting stats about household savings, rates of pay, unemployment figures, cost of living, and so on that give a picture of who was doing OK and who wasn't and why. And as pandemic-inspired monetary interventions and relief programs wound down, many of those people found themselves back where they'd been in 2019. Though some improvements have persisted--higher minimum-wage levels, lower unemployment, increased union membership.

Then there are all the oversimple explanations for the causes of inflation, some of which are amenable to government intervention and some not. There's a lot of talk about government monetary policy and less about private-sector behavior (including opportunistic pricing), supply-chain issues, and other economic machineries. Then there's the fact that Covid-period inflation has been global*, not just US-domestic--and that we seem to have been recovering more quickly than other nations. (The Mises Institute, of course, sees the whole inflation issue differently: mises.org/power-market/price-inflation-not-global-phenomenon.)

We do not have a single, monolithic "economy" but a patchwork of local/regional/class-defined economic environments, and conditions in those environments do not change in absolute synch. Which is one reason I find myself picking apart parties' and candidates' program proposals, not so much for their effect on us (we're prepared for anything short of total global meltdown and in any case only have to plan out about fifteen years max) as for what it does for the economic environments we all have to live in. My neighbors' well-being matters to me, if only because desperate people frighten the horses.

*From the Pew site, 6/15/22:

Inflation in the United States was relatively low for so long that, for entire generations of Americans, rapid price hikes may have seemed like a relic of the distant past. Between the start of 1991 and the end of 2019, year-over-year inflation averaged about 2.3% a month, and exceeded 5.0% only four times. Today, Americans rate inflation as the nation’s top problem, and President Joe Biden has said addressing the problem is his top domestic priority.

But the U.S. is hardly the only place where people are experiencing inflationary whiplash. A Pew Research Center analysis of data from 44 advanced economies finds that, in nearly all of them, consumer prices have risen substantially since pre-pandemic times.

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/15/in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world-inflation-is-high-and-getting-higher/

[Cornflake]

I don't think anyone's going to persuade anyone else. But I'll take a moment to say that in my view, one argument against Harris doesn't stand up, i.e., that she's had four years to fix these things.

The president's subordinates don't get to make the policy choices. They have to support the policy choices made by the president. VPs have no more influence than a president decides to allow them to have. When VPs become president, they haven't been clones of their previous bosses. Ford wasn't Nixon. Nixon wasn't Eisenhower. Truman wasn't FDR. If Harris had been president she would have had her own advisers and would very likely have made decisions differently than Biden did. There's no way of knowing what she might have decided differently or whether it would have been better or worse.

I have my own mild qualms about Harris. She seems to have a patchwork approach that isn't informed by an overall vision of where she thinks the country should be going. But she's better than I expected and her opponent makes my choice easy.

[majorminor]

Sept 18, 2024 10:47:16 GMT -5 Cornflake said:

I don't think anyone's going to persuade anyone else. But I'll take a moment to say that in my view, one argument against Harris doesn't stand up, i.e., that she's had four years to fix these things.

I agree but that's the way the game is played. Especially when she doesn't get to say "the last four years sucked let's vote those guys out". It's also not unreasonable to assume though, that her positions and policies will fall pretty much in line with the Biden/Harris ticket of these last four year no?

[epaul]

Trump's "projected" head of Fed was interviewed on Firing Line (with Margaret Hoover). It was a great interview and he came across as fair, reasonable, non partisan, and interested in economics only. Concerning inflation, he didn't really lay a political blame for it. He just discussed events.

He listed the generally agreed upon "outside of our control" inflationary suspects: Covid, Ukraine, supply chain disruptions.

Then he addressed the "what we did" to cause inflation, the stimulus packages. He said he believed the first two packages were needed and necessary, and were bi-partisan and generally agreed upon (he was on board, himself). He then went to address the culprit, as it turned out, the third stimulus package, which he said was not needed and contributed to inflation.

What was interesting was why he said the third stimulus package was un-needed and contributed fuel to the inflation fire. He said at the time there was an argument for the third package, but the argument for it did not account for (mis-calculated) the dramatic effect the release of the Covid vaccines would prove to have on domestic economic activity and confidence (people's behavior and spending). The release of the third stimulus package coincided with the release of vaccines and, in effect, threw gasoline on a fire that didn't need it. He called the economic activity vaccine confidence unforeseen and unaccounted for in the calculations the third stimulus package was based on.

All in all, a calm reasonable fellow.

[Russell Letson]

Any "overall vision" is going to piss off some demographic or interest group, unless said vision is described in terms so general and abstract that only the most contrarian will bother to complain. It's as much a problem of rhetoric as of policy formation. So we get duelling "visions"--and it seems to me that the MAGA vision is of the nation in decline thanks to hordes of job-stealing immigrants, internal commie enemies, baby killers, childless women, and other imaginary threats.

I am intuitively skeptical of overall visions that easily turn into overall policies--the world does not easily yield to fully-articulated totalizing systems of practice. On the other hand, it does make sense to outline and prioritize policy areas--right now, I'd say that environmental/climate-change issues need to be addressed right smart quick, and that the public-institutional vulnerabilities that have been exposed by the rules-gaming of the right need to be patched up. (The left has its own rules-gaming but is nowhere near as persistent or effective as the long-game players represented by the culture that produced The 2025 Project.) And so on. If I were quizzing a candidate, I'd have a list of specific areas and some pretty specific questions about them, and I would not be distracted by appeals to either fear/resentment or sentimental feelgoodism. Politics is about keeping the lights on and the water running and the toilets flushing and the listeria out of the meat-processing plant.

[Cornflake]

"What was interesting was why he said the third stimulus package was un-needed and contributed fuel to the inflation fire. He said at the time there was an argument for the third package, but the argument for it did not account for (mis-calculated) the dramatic effect the release of the Covid vaccines would prove to have on domestic economic activity and confidence (people's behavior and spending). The release of the third stimulus package coincided with the release of vaccines and, in effect, threw gasoline on a fire that didn't need it. He called the economic activity vaccine confidence unforeseen and unaccounted for in the calculations the third stimulus package was based on."

If I'm reading that correctly, it's an exercise in hindsight. Hindsight has its place, but failing to foresee and account for what was unforeseen and unaccounted for isn't what I call a screw-up. We were in uncharted waters.

[TKennedy]

No surprise but the massive amount of fraud involved in obtaining pandemic funds is staggering. Add that to Medicare fraud etc. and you could fill Scrooge McDuck’s money bin ten times.

I wonder how many Republican lawmakers are kicking themselves for not impeaching after January 6. A Haley candidacy would be a slam dunk.

[epaul]

Trump's attempts to overturn the election, and all subsequent Trump behavior since, has taken policy off the table for me. I care, but bottom line, there is a line beyond policy and Trump has crossed it. By a mile, not an inch. By ten miles. A hundred.

But, if I were to care about policy, I would have some concerns about Harris and energy. But, I would have concerns about the energy policy of a 'Trump that wasn't Trump' as well. I find no comfort with "all Green all now". I find no comfort with "Climate change, what climate change?" I did find comfort with Joe Manchin, but he's retiring.

I can bring myself to believe that Kamala's flip on fracking may be based on something more than an attempt to win Pennsylvania. There is a difference, I hope, between (A) someone who has been in a progressive bubble running as a progressive for progressives and (B) someone who has spent four years getting briefings on non-political, nation-based economic and energy facts.

Four years of being vice-president and privy to the same information the president gets from advisors who are paid to present information (not political points) can make a difference in a person's viewpoint. It is one thing for a politician dependent upon progressive votes to oppose fracking. It is quite another thing for anyone exposed to the actual dirt in the ground energy facts this country depends upon to work to oppose fracking... because you can't; not with a working brain. Without fracking, this country would have devolved into an economic shambles and a social disaster.

If Kamala means what she says, that this country has to continue to work towards "green" energy sources that don't feed a warming planet, but that for the foreseeable future, until the need for fossil fuels goes away, they can't go away. Then it's bully for her, in my book. Pursue multiple paths, don't slam a door shut until you don't need what's on the other side.

Plug-in Prius-type things could cut the use of gasoline 70% within ten years. EVs in select use even more, maybe. And natural gas fueled energy plants can cut the amount of CO2 they release 80% or more with the implementation of available strategies. And if that happens, who cares if North Dakota gets to run on coal. A pimple on an elephant.

[Cornflake]

"Any "overall vision" is going to piss off some demographic or interest group, unless said vision is described in terms so general and abstract that only the most contrarian will bother to complain. It's as much a problem of rhetoric as of policy formation. So we get duelling "visions"--and it seems to me that the MAGA vision is of the nation in decline thanks to hordes of job-stealing immigrants, internal commie enemies, baby killers, childless women, and other imaginary threats.

"I am intuitively skeptical of overall visions that easily turn into overall policies--the world does not easily yield to fully-articulated totalizing systems of practice. On the other hand, it does make sense to outline and prioritize policy areas--right now, I'd say that environmental/climate-change issues need to be addressed right smart quick, and that the public-institutional vulnerabilities that have been exposed by the rules-gaming of the right need to be patched up. (The left has its own rules-gaming but is nowhere near as persistent or effective as the long-game players represented by the culture that produced The 2025 Project.) And so on. If I were quizzing a candidate, I'd have a list of specific areas and some pretty specific questions about them, and I would not be distracted by appeals to either fear/resentment or sentimental feelgoodism. Politics is about keeping the lights on and the water running and the toilets flushing and the listeria out of the meat-processing plant."

Russell, I don't disagree with any of that. But I think you have to have an idea of where you want to go before you can decide what steps to take and which ones have priority, as I think you acknowledge. It seems to me that she has a box of band-aids she wants to apply. I could be wrong and I hope I am.

[epaul]

Don, you read it pretty much like I heard it. He is a conservative economist, but he was talking events and economy, not politics or political advantage (which he wasn't interested in discussing). He was refreshing.

[Cornflake]

"If Kamala means what she says, that this country has to continue to work towards 'green' energy sources that don't feed a warming planet, but that for the foreseeable future, until the need for fossil fuels goes away, they can't go away. Then it's bully for her, in my book. Pursue multiple paths, don't slam a door shut until you don't need what's on the other side."

I have no reason to doubt that she means it. I don't know of anyone who seriously proposes that we immediately cease using all fossil fuels.

I'm afraid that our descendants will look back at us and say, "Why the **** didn't these people do more about climate change? They knew what the results would be and they just kicked the can down the road."

[aquaduct]

Sept 18, 2024 13:31:50 GMT -5 Cornflake said:

"If Kamala means what she says, that this country has to continue to work towards 'green' energy sources that don't feed a warming planet, but that for the foreseeable future, until the need for fossil fuels goes away, they can't go away. Then it's bully for her, in my book. Pursue multiple paths, don't slam a door shut until you don't need what's on the other side."

I have no reason to doubt that she means it. I don't know of anyone who seriously proposes that we immediately cease using all fossil fuels.

I'm afraid that our descendants will look back at us and say, "Why the **** didn't these people do more about climate change? They knew what the results would be and they just kicked the can down the road."

It's a shame that the collapse of the climate change fascism has already begun.

www.courthousenews.com/dc-circuit-overturns-epa-stricter-emission-standards-for-newer-industrial-boilers/

Loper is now on a path to possibly destroy the entirety of EPA's authority.

Good riddance.

[factorychef]

Now I'm going to lay awake at night worrying about boilers.

[papabill]

Sept 18, 2024 9:39:52 GMT -5 aquaduct said:

Sept 18, 2024 8:23:30 GMT -5 howard lee said:

He engineered that by appointing ultra-conservative judges to the US Supreme Court, a branch of the Federal government, who lied about their own plans to knock down Roe Vs. Wade.

Since you have indicated you feel strongly about equivalence, if his views on abortion are irrelevant, then so are Harris's views on hydro fracking, for example. As I see it.

The Supreme Court doesn't have "plans" to do anything. They rule on the cases that come before them.

And Harris' views on hydro fracking (and just about everything else) have been rendered irrelevant too with the fall of Chevron. The long era of rule by Executive fiat is dead. If she wants to kill fracking, Congress will have to pass a bill (almost unheard of since the mid-80s at least). And the bill will have to be legitimate legislation, not some tag on in a spending bill. That means it will require a super majority in the Senate. Good luck with that.

Face it, while liberals were crying and screaming, "Orange man bad" they missed the actual game.

And our Constitutional Republic is now back to its founding.

I'm still trying to understand how we're going to "lose our democracy," when we're not a democracy?