…all right…some things definitely leave a mark…I won’t bother with gabbard’s attempt to make out that it’s the democratic party that’s unrecognizable to her & not…so much as basic logic…or the brexit-like promised land in which private citizen bone-spurs was in charge & “somehow” that would translate into there being not-a-war in ukraine & the middle east because it “wouldn’t have happened”…because that just begs a whole bunch of questions about other stuff he claims wouldn’t have happened…often because he says the woman wasn’t nice-looking enough…&…well…that’s not a pleasant train of thought…because he’s not a pleasant man…but…since unfortunately it does apparently take all sorts…some people find it appealing…possibly…people who also don’t like to actually think about it…or him…or…much of anything if they can help it…they prefer to “tell it like it is”…I’m told

MAGA has a high floor and a low ceiling. The ferocity and group solidarity of MAGA means that it’s hard to ever see Trump polling below his 2016 vote share. His support is baked in and unshakable. At the same time, the same characteristics that bind MAGA together repel much of the rest of the country.

…& it’s not a secret that in what you might call a popularity contest harris would run away with the majority preference by a convincing margin

Harris’s coalition, which ranges from Liz Cheney to the Squad of congressional progressives, has a lower floor and a higher ceiling. Harris doesn’t enjoy the cult following of Trump, but there are more Trump opponents than Trump supporters, and if she can extend a welcoming hand to as many people and factions as possible — without alienating other people and factions — then she’ll probably win.

…just like it’s not a secret but possibly the most over-indulged feature-not-a-bug that what a lot of the world…often based on domestic examples…would think of as being methods of interfering with the election…like excluding people less likely to vote your way from the polls…either with crazy lines on maps…or crazy armed “observers”…or heatstroke when you’re not allowed to keep your place in line while you nip & get a drink & nobody can give you one…or purging voter rolls…or trying to pull a mini-me version of the way eastman & donnie-donnie-how’s-he-free? say jan 6th should have played…or…so many ors it continues to be a terrifying uncertainty instead of a comprehensively forgone conclusion based on being an absolute no-brainer

Coalition-building depends on a meeting of the minds. Each faction within Harris’s tent has to be content with the realization that it’s not going to get everything it wants from a Harris presidency. The factions even have to accept that they’ll sometimes have to outright oppose different Harris policies. And they have to agree to sacrifice for a larger goal.
[…]
Make no mistake, everyone is giving up something to join the Harris coalition. Her supporters on the left are forgiving her for backing away from many of the positions she took in 2019. Her supporters on the right aren’t demanding that she conform to their orthodoxy, either. The tacit agreement is clear — defeat Trump first, fight over policy later.

…remember when fighting over policy meant…two sets of actual policy trying to pick holes in one another to prove they were the better one?

…not, really? …yeah…but…also nah? …like…you can’t claim the iron lady didn’t handbag her way to achieving some lasting impact at a policy level…not really…whether you think that was for good or ill…& the same goes for he-do-ron-ron…as that spitting image song had it

Max Boot’s new biography of Ronald Reagan deals candidly with aspects of the 40th president’s politics that Reagan’s worshipers prefer to not see. It is indisputably true, for example, that Reagan ran for office seeking the support of segregationists who had embraced the notoriously racist Alabama governor George Wallace. Reagan’s pursuit of the bigoted vote went virally public in the fall of 1980, when he declared himself a supporter of “states’ rights” while campaigning in Mississippi.

…I made some flippant remark about T-is-for-tangerine “Rex” wanting the states “everyone wanted” womens’ bodily autonomy to be in thrall to like it always should have been before roe v. wade fucked it up for everyone…so they can be fiefdoms that pledge fealty to him…only more like how it works in goodfellas…but…he’s not the first piper to play that tune

The “states’ rights” pronouncement implied sympathy for the segregationist cause and contempt for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, which together represented the foundation of Black citizenship in the South. The slogan echoed white supremacists who had argued for generations that the former Confederacy had the right to terrorize and disenfranchise Black people without interference from the federal government.

…when you get down to the sheet music though

The story of how Reagan transformed the Justice Department into an instrument of “civil wrongs” was widely documented at the time. Less well known is the tale of how the president tried and failed to eliminate federal civil rights enforcement in public schools by abolishing the newly established Department of Education.

…the track got laid down long ago

That story is recorded in the largely forgotten writings of Terrel H. Bell, Reagan’s first secretary of education, who believed that federal oversight was necessary to improve public schooling and to ensure equal access to education. Bell halfheartedly carried the White House’s water in negotiations with Congress, but the proposal for abolishing his department met resistance from Republicans who viewed it as either extreme or premature.

Eventually Bell planted a bomb at the heart of the abolition idea when he persuaded the president to establish a national commission that would be charged with assessing the strength of the nation’s schools and determining whether the states could carry the educational load alone.

The answer, as described in the monumental 1983 report “A Nation at Risk,” was clearly no. The document, which warned of a rising tide of educational mediocrity, sparked a reform impulse that is still reverberating through the country. Instead of talking about killing the Department of Education, Reagan took on education as an issue — at least rhetorically — and spread the news of “A Nation at Risk” by participating in town halls.

…if…as a rule…being willing to get smarter is inimical to support for something…well…you’re smart…I don’t need to explain to you how that works…& if you need me to explain it to you I can’t help assuming that you’d find reading any of these witterings so “triggering” you’d probably forget when you come around from the sedation…& I can only waste so much time in a day…but let’s note…call it “for extra credit”…that the ones that need the most cash just to produce schools that teach bullshit like evolution-isn’t-a-thing-&-neither-is-that-climate-stuff-or-racism-if-you’re-white…couldn’t even do that without federal funding that comes from states that aren’t essentially bankrupt…or at least operating at a loss the way it’s not legal to if you claim to be a “going concern”…oh, & if you feel sympathy for the idea that it’d be neat if the people with the means in society re-invested those to provide for those whose needs outweigh their own means…& that maybe in big picture terms we could do better at making it less ugly for more folks than not…you should know you’re the problem…& god hates you…& you love the devil…& you’re evil…because that’s communism…which is like antimatter to all true americans…it’s science, you see

Boot writes that some administration conservatives labeled the education secretary “comrade Bell” because he maintained that the government had a responsibility to defend the civil rights of schoolchildren. By Bell’s accounting, he was besieged by far-right extremists, some of whom argued that public education itself was unnecessary and that there was no justification for government involving itself in the schooling of its citizens.

…can’t help noticing that little bullshit two-step wouldn’t work so good if schools worked better…but I’m sure that’s just a random coincidence

These sentiments are reincarnated in education proposals offered by the Trump-aligned far-right group that put together the 2025 Project, which also calls for dismantling the department, along with programs like Head Start. Radical changes like these are unlikely to gain legislative support — even if Donald Trump returns to the White House. But true believers who wish to subvert education policy can do a great deal of damage through conventional bureaucratic channels.

…it’s all easier said than done

Now that many women live in states where it is no longer possible to get an abortion, the White House has begun to push to make it easier for Americans to get contraception. More than one-third of women who take birth control pills have missed them because they weren’t able to get their next supply, according to a survey from KFF, a nonprofit health research group. Opill, the first over-the-counter daily birth control pill, which entered stores this year, was supposed to expand access, but its price — $19.99 a month, which is not generally covered by insurance — is too high. (Only 16 percent of women said they would be willing to pay more than $20 a month for an over-the-counter pill).

The White House’s idea is a good one. But in America, good ideas too often get mired in the complexity and byzantine administrative burdens of our privatized health care behemoth.

Remember when the Biden administration mandated that insurance companies cover the cost of rapid Covid tests? I celebrated that news, only to realize that it wasn’t so simple. Some insurers made you pay upfront and then submit a claim. This hurdle felt like the world’s most annoying homework assignment. It meant digging up receipts from the bottom of shopping bags, remembering passwords to the insurance portals and navigating poorly designed websites, only to have to wait to be reimbursed. Ultimately, a policy that was meant to revolutionize our approach to Covid was muted by convoluted bureaucracy.

Making birth control over-the-counter should make it much easier to obtain, but depending on how the White House’s proposed rule is put into practice, it may not be that simple, Alina Salganicoff, a senior vice president at KFF, told me. Instead of checking out at the front of the store, you may need to wait in line at the pharmacy. And what if the pharmacy isn’t in-network? What if you go to Walgreens but your health plan covers only CVS?

Beyond that, The Washington Post has reported that officials have not ruled out the possibility that some consumers will need to buy the product upfront and then seek reimbursement from their health plan, replicating the same problem that plagued Covid tests.

…but…c’mon…there’s a difference

The White House has promoted its plan as “the most significant expansion of contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act” in more than a decade. To deliver on that promise, the administration must reduce as many bureaucratic burdens as possible. In an ideal world, getting many types of birth control should be as simple as it is for many college students to grab a handful of condoms from the student health center. But to get there, our government must realize that red tape is often the biggest obstacle between us and the health care we need.

…a thing that would be a good idea…or if you prefer a bare-minimum band-aid on a sucking chest wound…if not implemented the way a state does when it doesn’t want people to claim what they’er entitled to…then…it can be easier said than done but that doesn’t make it dumb to say…or try to do

Donald Trump’s endless use of intimidation and flattery to get his way is profoundly offensive, but it has also proven to be quite effective. By dangling dreams of big-time executive power, he won the support of the outsize egos of Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And by threatening to denounce any Republican who did not pay him obeisance, he has forced most of the Republican Party to its knees.

…if a thing is not so much easier said than done as technically sayable if truth is not a requirement but anywhere between incoherent & fundamentally impossible to achieve…then it’s dumb…& I don’t want to hear about how it’s smart™ on account of how many willfully-credulous fellow-travellers you can manipulate into acting in your interests over their own…because if you see the world working in a way where that seems smart to you…starting off by looking up “smart” in a real dictionary might be a good place to start…but either way you’re gonna stay dumb right up until you overhaul your understanding of some fundamental concepts…maybe try the principles of compound interest…there’s a thing with rice-grains & a chess board…that’s easier said than done, too…have fun with that…& maybe once you’re warmed up you can look at cause & effect & fluid mechanics in enclosed spaces…don’t worry…you’ll see why…& all it takes is for you to “do your own research”…ok…it takes understanding what “research” means first…& that’s gonna be a problem if you break out in psychosomatic hives anytime you get told you “need to do the work”…hell…some folks are doing pretty fine & just want to be left to go to work without being targets of opportunity

Dimon has told associates he’s afraid that if Trump wins the election, he will retaliate against any person or company who criticized him. And so he’s staying mum, keeping his checkbook shut and even making public statements about possibly endorsing Trump.

Dimon’s fear is certainly legitimate; Trump has openly mused about using the military and the power of the executive branch against his enemies. But that’s all the more reason someone of Dimon’s stature should stand up to Trump’s public bullying. No doubt Dimon is concerned about his employees and his stockholders, but he would do them a better service by doing everything possible to prevent Trump’s election.

…brah…bro…boyo…boychick…bitch…say it with me…”this is america”…& in america…voting for criminal insanity while claiming you’re gonna teach the system a lesson about it being broken…that’s just a thing it’s irresponsible not to incorporate in your analysis, you see

So much of the excitement around her candidacy comes from the strong network of Black sororities and fraternities that make up the city’s social scene — in other words, college-educated folks. For instance, Harris’s own sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, has rolled out a “take 4 or more in ’24” campaign, getting people to commit to bringing four friends or relatives out to vote.

But blue-collar Black voters seem to express more skepticism about Harris, if not outright support for Trump. I called one of my cousins in the Detroit area — a member of Sigma Gamma Rho, who has thrown herself into campaigning for Harris — and asked if she had the same impression.

She mentioned the people she knew who were voting for Trump — a hairdresser, a landscaper, a former flight attendant — and told me that yes, there did seem to be a class divide going on. She’s been giving out Harris pins and wristbands. “I’ve had people give it back to me,” she told me. She surmised that Trump’s blue-collar appeal might be related to the celebrities that he surrounds himself with. At a rally in Detroit last week, Trump brought the rapper Trick Trick and the former boxer Thomas Hearns onstage.

…you see…it’s about race…only mad dogs & englishmen think it’s a matter of class

But another reason comes to mind. Many blue-collar residents of Detroit went to prison at some point in their lives, instead of college. In the aftermath of mass incarceration, there are more than 100,000 adults in Detroit who have been convicted of a felony, and some 19 million around the country. That’s a lot of people, in a state that Trump won by less than 11,000 votes in 2016.

…checks notes

https://www.usvotefoundation.org/voting-rights-restoration/michigan

…huh

https://www.michigan.gov/sos/resources/news/2023/04/17/report-michigans-youth-turnout-in-the-2022-election-was-best-in-the-nation

…that’s…odd…they were just making it sound like those folks would want to vote for the guy who ought to be in jail so they can get back to not having a vote…I must be…confused

Last year Michigan became the first state in the nation to pass a law that automatically registers people who emerge from prison to vote, and a fair amount of grass-roots effort goes on in Detroit to make sure they do. These former inmates — who often struggle to get jobs and housing because of long-ago convictions — don’t love the idea of electing a prosecutor. Every time Harris calls Trump a felon, that’s a “a reminder of what she thinks of us,” one man who is trying to rebuild his life after a prison sentence told me.

The Michigan Republican Party is leaning into this and even enlisted former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who served time in federal prison for corruption, to speak for Trump as a man who gives second chances. Trump commuted Kilpatrick’s 28-year prison sentence in 2021.

…oh…my bad…you were doing that…uh…ok…so…”those people”…they’re gonna favor the guy who knows how to play favorites & understands the importance of pardoning potential star-witnesses-for-the-prosection…it’s…a cultural thing…definitely not racist…& nothing to do with no foreign nonsense about class…sure, buddy…you’re a class act, my man…felony convictions are a humdrum ten-a-penny fact of everyday life for “blue-collar city dwellers”…uh-huh…oh, look…a sports metaphor…wow…I totally didn’t see that coming…at all…it’s so unexpected it might have sounded a little bit like I…sniggered…but that would be disrespectful so it can’t have been that

This season was the most fun I’ve ever had as a sports fan. For the first two months of the season, the team was thoroughly bad and demoralized. The next five months, though, were a string of walk-off home runs, miraculous comebacks, clutch pitching and joyous celebrations. When somebody does something tremendous in my workplace, we don’t dog-pile on one another like children and pour sports drinks on people’s heads. Thanks to the Mets, over the past few months, I got to vicariously experience dozens of those celebrations.

Two things are great about being a sports fan. First, the miraculous win. We humans love a story of triumph over the odds. I’ve forgotten whole years of my life, but I can still tell you all about the astounding Mets comeback win in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Years hence, I will be able to tell you about this year’s Francisco Lindor home run that launched the Mets over the Braves or the Pete Alonso home run that took them past the Brewers.

But there is something even better in sports than the comeback. It’s anticipation. It’s hope. It’s the sensation that some great talent has appeared on the scene who will bring you joy for years to come. It’s the rookie who gets off to a sensational start and carries with him bursts of possibility. It’s the free-agent signing that will bring future stardom to your roster. Dreaming about triumphs to come is sometimes more fun than the triumphs themselves.

…is it too early for a stiff drink? …asking for a friend

Give Elon Musk credit for recognizing the absurd reality of how American presidential elections work and for putting his money where his mouth is. The problem is that he is breaking the law while doing it.

Musk, Donald Trump’s richest backer, started out offering $47 to any registered voter in Pennsylvania or other swing state who referred another registered voter to sign his super PAC’s petition supporting the Constitution. ($47 — get it? There are few public figures whose belief in their own cleverness diverges as sharply from reality as Musk’s.)

That raised eyebrows among election-law scholars because it trod close to the line of paying people to register to vote, which is a federal crime. Musk then increased the payout to $100 and offered it to both the referrer and the signer of the petition (not as clever as $47 but easier for his accountants). Now Musk says he is handing out $1 million every day until Election Day — not a typo — to a random registered Pennsylvania voter who signs the petition.

…fuck it…apparently being off-your-fucking-face is considered an electoral asset…so maybe I should start by having some of what musk’s huffing…my vote is we all start by intravenously administering unconscionable wealth & see where we get to once the dizzying effect wears off…who’s game?

And that’s where his gimmick crosses the line into clear illegality, according to Rick Hasen, a U.C.L.A. law professor who is one of the nation’s top election-law scholars.

“There’s no problem with having a lottery, at least from the point of view of election law, to pay people to sign a petition,” Hasen told MSNBC on Monday. “The problem is to sign the petition, you have to be, if you go to their website of his PAC, you have to be a registered voter in a swing state.”

Hasen first covered the issue on his blog last Saturday, where he cited 52 U.S.C. 10307(c), the federal law that prohibits paying someone or accepting payment “either for registration to vote or for voting.” The penalty is $10,000 or up to five years in prison or both. There are a few minor exceptions to the law, including driving people to the polls and giving employees paid leave to vote. In its manual, the Justice Department distinguishes acts like these because they are done with the intent of making it easier for someone to vote rather than inducing them to register or vote in the first place.

Musk’s giveaway looks a lot more like inducing than making easier. In a lottery-addled nation like ours, it’s not hard to imagine hordes of unregistered Pennsylvanians rushing to the D.M.V. in the hope of a million-dollar payday. No word yet from the election-integrity hawks who praised Georgia for its 2021 law barring volunteers from giving water and food to voters waiting in hourslong lines.

Musk appears to be spending at least $18 million for no clear benefit. That may not be a surprise coming from the man who shelled out north of $40 billion to satisfy a personal grudge against the social media site formerly known as Twitter, but its apparent fecklessness is not an excuse for federal prosecutors to ignore it.

…<a-hem>…look, buddy…chief…don’t let’s be getting me started on what bang those bucks are getting from who over at used-to-be-twitter…none of us have time for that

Mintt, a company that tracks direct mail, says that it has collected 14,000 different mail cards — currently about 1,000 new ones a day — that have gone to millions of households in nine swing states. Through September, about 96 percent of them were pro-Donald Trump or anti-Kamala Harris. Democrats have started to catch up, but four out of five mailers still come from Republicans, and many of them are going to Democratic neighborhoods.
[…]
Judging by some of the mail showing up in largely Black neighborhoods in southwestern Philadelphia, which I’ve been collecting, it’s also very easy to lie with little consequence.

Many of the mail cards directed to those neighborhoods are all about fear of crime. Just as Trump and his party allies have spent months trying to falsely persuade Americans that they are in grave danger of being shot in the street, the mail fliers make that threat explicit. “Crime is rising, Pennsylvanians are less safe,” said one mailer sent out by Securing American Greatness, a dark-money group (meaning that contributions don’t have to be disclosed) run by Taylor Budowich, a former spokesman and former senior adviser to Trump. It includes claims that Pennsylvania crime is up by double digits and that the state has one of the country’s most dangerous cities, according to the F.B.I.

…must be more ways to flood a zone than skin a cat…even when you’vepainted yourself into a white-supremacist corner marked here-be-fascists until you haven’t room to swing one

Of course, it doesn’t mention that in Philadelphia, where the mailers were sent, violent crimes in 2023 were at their lowest level in a decade. The city is not particularly dangerous compared with other big cities, ranking well below Baltimore, Cleveland, Washington and Detroit in per capita homicides. Even statewide, the violent crime rate in Pennsylvania has declined significantly.
[…]
A typical family of four got a $2,000 tax cut under Trump, it says. Follow the tiny footnote to that claim and it leads not to an independent source but to a Trump White House news release, which says that’s how much a family making $75,000 received. In fact, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan authority, a family in that economic range received an average of $930 in tax cuts. The mailer never mentions that white Americans got 80 percent of the benefits from that tax law while Black Americans got about 5 percent.

Some truths are too big to put on a postcard. That’s why so many mailboxes are filling up with quiet little lies.

…wait…there’s still quiet parts out there?

As Americans vote in the coming days, I hope they’ll remember the ordinariness with which women in this country have been stripped of their rights, including the right to life, in just two years. I hope they’ll remember that medical complications with pregnancies occur regularly in the states that have banned abortion, forcing women [unwillingly] into life-threatening situations.
[…]
Trump’s closing strategy is to make people afraid of a Harris presidency, by maligning her personally or portraying the country as near collapse. He and his allies are bent on making Harris unacceptable to voters.
[…]
He knows what he’s doing by sowing anxiety. Harris can’t afford this to be a fear vs. more-of-the-same election.

…what about the signs…&…I dunno…portents?

But she invited nine of her friends over to talk politics with me, including three Republicans who planned to vote for Kamala Harris. They felt just as passionately as my aunt did, but many said they didn’t want to put up signs. One said she and her husband had moved there recently and didn’t want to rock the boat with their neighbors. Another expressed fear of “weird militias.”

“People are very nervous what’s going to happen,” Becky Loftus, a Puerto Rican woman who married a coal miner’s son from the area, told the group. If Harris wins, there will be violence, she said, and if Trump wins, there will be violence. “It’s a no-win situation.”

They were not unlike Democrats in other places. They hated Trump — his lies, his policies, his character, his hair. They had all gone through the same emotions as every other Democrat I knew: depression after Trump’s debate with President Biden, skepticism that Harris could lead and then absolute elation when she made it a race again after Biden dropped out. Now they were experiencing a new emotion: political dread of Election Day, when, after all that we as a nation have been through, it will still not be over.

But it felt good anyway, they said, to gather in the same room and be reminded that they weren’t alone. Records show that there are almost the same number of registered Democrats (87,314) as Republicans in the county (87,724) and there are 22,456 unaffiliated with either party.

There is no doubt that Trump has deep support here. But perhaps not as deep as one would think from counting signs along these old country roads. Let’s remember that yard signs don’t vote. People do.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/22/opinion/thepoint

…really, NYT…*the* point…that’s what you call that kind of rambling switchback from reagan to reasons-for-regicide…where have all the dictionaries gone, anyway…it’s supposed to be the definite article…why these people always have to abuse it into places the indefinite one is for is…eh…why do I even bother…it’s like hume claiming that maybe the sun won’t rise tomorrow

What Washing Machines Can Tell Us About America’s Economic Future [NYT]

…okay…now you fuckers are just trolling me…I swear

Here at Times Opinion, we thought we would try to fill the void. What follows is a back-and-forth between two top experts on the center left and two on the center right, discussing topics including housing, taxes, debt and, at one point, washing machines. Representing the left are the University of Michigan economics professors Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers. And on the right, Jay Clayton, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission under Donald Trump, and Gary Cohn, former president of Goldman Sachs and head of the National Economic Council in the Trump White House. This conversation has been edited.

…eh…you shouldn’t have

Our tax code is a Rube Goldberg machine built by an army of lobbyists. The next president should eliminate loopholes that stack the deck in favor of the have-plenty. (Hint: Start with the “carried interest” loophole.) Fund an Internal Revenue Service that ensures everyone plays by the rules. Congress largely ignores the nearly $2 trillion given away every year through breaks, loopholes and inefficiencies in the tax code. That’s where the unfairness and bloat live. Get rid of those and you can make progress on the deficit.

Public anger reflects the challenges that people face paying for essentials such as food, gas, health care, housing and child care. Politicians talk a lot about food and gas. The others are bigger challenges, and the federal government can fix them. Health care prices make no sense. NIMBY politics make it hard to build new houses. Kids don’t vote, so it’s no surprise that child care is underfunded, even though research shows that investment pays off in spades.

…who cares…we’re just here for the washing machines

The great middle of the country is, and should be, angry about the economy. Inflation has eroded their purchasing power. Housing, higher education and health care are at or near their lows in affordability. To the next president: You won because Americans believe you know how to improve their lives. This belief is powerful. It should ground your policies and can drive progress.

…so…uh…they mad because they can’t buy a washing machine?

Technological advancement has similar broad effects — driving down costs and increasing choices for consumers. Think about the shelves of Walmart and Costco. Consumers have lower prices and more choice than we dreamed possible. Smartphones have shifted power to consumers. Continuing to win the global technology race will benefit every American in ways we know and ones we cannot imagine. Falling behind — as Europe has — will disproportionately harm our middle class.

…washing machines got cheaper? …smarter? …what about the damn washing machines, man…we were promised washing machines

On the runaway costs of housing, higher education and health care, level with the American people. Poor government — in both policy and practice — is the problem. We subsidize housing demand at the federal level but restrict supply at the local level through zoning, permitting and a host of other restrictions. We do the same in higher education, particularly at our elite universities. In health care, like higher education, there is no transparency and no market discipline. The American people are smart. They understand the high costs of poor policy choices. Show you’re going to fight for them in these areas critical to opportunity.

…if they’re so smart how come one of the choices you can’t tell they won’t make is so fucking dumb? …riddle me that…& get to the washing machines, already

As an immediate step, we propose any new federal subsidies be available only in municipalities that have agreed to increase the supply of single- and multifamily homes by more than 10 percent over 10 years. Municipalities that meet those goals would receive a ​meaningful federal grant. As a complement, federal regulators would speed the resolution of environmental and other regulatory hurdles. Next, the heads of key federal agencies would present recommendations for addressing restrictions on housing supply. Our suggestion on energy generation and distribution also would increase the affordability of housing, through lower costs of materials and construction.

…I mean…FFS…you gotta have somewhere to put that washing machine, amirite?

Compare an upper-middle-class family deducting interest on the first $750,000 they pay for a home and a middle-class family with a $150,000 mortgage. Assuming some basic facts about their taxes, the wealthier family could get a benefit of $15,000 a year, compared with $900 per year for the less well-off homeowners. Lower income families get even less. If you thought about who needs a housing subsidy, you might do the exact opposite!

…some washing machines need a better quality of “lifestyle choices”, you see

And let’s go a step further: We’ve inherited a housing stock that reflects decades of subsidies to build bigger houses. We can redress this imbalance by expanding the low-income-housing tax credit and providing down-payment assistance to middle-income families, as Kamala Harris has proposed. A good housing policy would increase and reshape supply. On both fronts, the United States is getting it wrong.

…it’s because of duvets…those mean people want bigger washing machines…it all stands to reason

The biggest lie about tariffs is that they’re a tax on other countries. When Home Depot imports a washing machine, it’s Home Depot that writes a check to the U.S. government. That doesn’t necessarily mean Home Depot ends up paying, because it might pass along the cost to consumers or ask its overseas suppliers for a better deal. Economists have studied who bears the burden. Spoiler: It’s often American consumers.

…oh…that…it’s not the spin cycle…this is where the washing machines start rocking

The most closely studied tariffs of the Trump era are the washing machines tariffs applied in early 2018. Whirlpool complained it couldn’t compete against rivals that enjoyed government subsidies. Whirlpool’s lobbyists met a receptive Trump administration, which raised the average tariff on washers by roughly nine percentage points. Within a couple of months, the price Americans paid for washing machines rose by — you guessed it — roughly the same amount. Tariffs fed through into higher prices for American consumers, roughly dollar for dollar.

If the point of these tariffs was to make domestic producers more competitive, they failed. A study published in The American Economic Review shows that Whirlpool simply raised prices in lock step with its rivals. Even worse, major brands also took advantage of the confusion to raise the price of dryers — where there was no tariff increase! The price of other appliances remained roughly unchanged.

Donald Trump has said he will use tariff revenue to fund the federal government. That’s going to be hard. With the washing-machine tariffs, American consumers paid about $1.5 billion more per year and the federal government collected a measly $82 million in revenue. Tariffs are a costly way to raise revenue. They also hit lower-income people harder.

In one way, the tariffs sort of worked. The major laundry manufacturers report they helped create around 1,800 jobs. A quick bit of division reveals these gains came at a cost of about $800,000 per job. We have better ways to support American workers.

…that’s nothing…$1million a day just on one not-quite-random-enough-to-seem-legal voter is the going rate in the dying days of this white whale…see…better ways…or…something

The story of tariffs on washing machines is a good one. But the realities of our markets, including their intersections with social policy and foreign relations, are more complex.

In this environment, tariffs, subsidies, taxes and regulations play an increasing role in guiding the economy. And tariffs can be powerful. They can be instituted quickly on a targeted or broad basis. What’s more, the size of the American economy and the power of the American consumer make U.S.-imposed tariffs more powerful than tariffs imposed by others. Every president should be ready to impose, modify or remove them.

The United States competes with countries where manufacturers are owned by the government and there are few regulations to protect workers. As a result, the cost of capital is close to zero and labor is not much higher. Even where the United States has a substantial technology or skills advantage, our competitors can produce products well below what it would cost here. Tariffs can level the playing field.

Some cases, such as national security, are obvious. The United States cannot be reliant on foreign manufacturers for military equipment, hospital supplies, communications technology and data processing, including artificial intelligence.

With the rise of China and India, and increased support by our trading partners for domestic champions, there are more cases where tariffs make sense. Take electric cars. Since 2015, the average price of electric cars has risen in Europe and the United States while it has more than halved in China. We must not allow highly subsidized Chinese manufacturing to displace private American production in an industry of the future, particularly one that supports high-skill, high-paying jobs. Tariffs on Chinese EVs are a no-brainer. Our next president should examine all major industries to determine where tariffs (or the threat of tariffs) are in the best interests of U.S. workers and consumers, understanding that the optimal mix of tariffs, subsidies, taxes and regulation is changing faster than ever.
[…]
Yes, our total national debt, which is approximately $35 trillion, or about 124 percent of gross domestic product, and our annual deficit, now nearly $2 trillion, or 7 percent of G.D.P., are problems. They are, by a wide margin, nearly the largest of our lifetime as a percentage of G.D.P. — the most relevant measure. Interest payments on the debt of approximately $1 trillion this year amounts to more than 12 percent of federal spending, up from under 8 percent in 2017.

…I think some people need a lie-down even more than I do

So, how do we improve? Not through higher tax rates on corporations or capital investment. A significant increase in tax rates in those areas will lower federal tax revenues over time. U.S. businesses will be less competitive, employment will suffer, investment will move abroad and asset values will be constrained. To increase revenue, we need to expand our economy while keeping inflation in check, and the most effective way to do this is through productivity gains. As we mentioned earlier, we should drive productivity principally by embracing technology, low-cost energy, capital investment and human talent. We need to bring down the costs of financing our debt as well as the costs of making good on our Medicare and Social Security obligations.

…they’re clearly in the grips of a dizzy spell & have come over all peculiar…how else to explain it?

Then there is Medicare and Social Security, which represent 14 percent and 21 percent of federal spending. It’s time to get beyond the kneejerk “you can’t touch entitlements” reaction, which means good ideas and people fall prey to those who trade on fear and envy. Costs can be reduced without touching benefits for anyone over 25. And those 25 and under, if we act now, will get a better deal.

…ok…so…before they’re born & after they’re 25…that’s when kids are people the state can spend money on for medical purposes…maybe they just need a ride in a really nice washing machine?

The last time Congress adjusted Social Security eligibility was 41 years ago, when the full retirement age was gradually raised to 67 from 65. Life expectancy has increased nearly four years since then to 78. That is great news, and also means we must address this issue again. For those born in 2000, who are turning 24 years old, we should move the full retirement age to 69. For each birth year after 2000, we should increase the full retirement age by one month a year, to a maximum of 72, which will effect only people born in 2036 and later.

…& they won’t have a vote for fucking years…win-win, see?

If we borrow $1 today and it gets us $10 in 20 years (roughly the estimated return of spending on early childhood education), that is a good deal. The U.S. government is uniquely able to borrow at a low cost, so the case against government debt is weaker than the case against personal debt. We’ve used this throughout our history to fund investments in human and physical capital that have fueled rising national prosperity.

…remind me again who wants you to need to cough up $10 to cover the tariff component of your dollar-store purchase?

Instead, we need to worry about the fiscal equivalent of a weekend in Vegas. For generations, Republicans have lowered tax rates and gutted government revenue by promising the cuts would pay for themselves, arguing that the wealthy would use the extra money to make great investments. From the Reagan through Trump administrations, Republican presidents have largely busted the budget with tax cuts that didn’t pay for themselves, leaving their Democratic successors to clean up the mess.

If you know what comes next, we get it. Mr. Trump is running on a grab bag of tax cuts accompanied by evidence-free claims that they’ll stimulate enough growth to pay for themselves. (Independent scorekeepers estimate that his program might, yet again, double the deficit.)

This pattern — of Republicans creating fiscal chaos for their successors to deal with — is not a coincidence. It’s a strategy. For generations, Republicans have spent freely while shrinking the tax base. They’ve promised voters they can have the goods and services but without paying for them. This program of fiscal vandalism ignores one of Milton Friedman’s key insights: To spend is to tax. A program such as Mr. Trump’s that increases spending while cutting revenue simply shifts the tax burden to your old age, or to the next generation.

…he’ll be dead by then so what does he care…& more importantly…it pays him not to…that’s just…smart™

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: This isn’t an ordinary election, and Mr. Trump isn’t an ordinary candidate. He refuses to commit to accepting the outcome of the race and refuses to accept the results of the last election. Jan. 6 wasn’t “a loving crowd,” as he put it — it was an attempted coup. If Mr. Trump and his enablers had succeeded, they would have overturned the popular will and ended our more than 200-year experiment in democracy.

This isn’t just a moral, legal or political issue. The economic consequences dwarf any other issue we’ve debated.

Let’s back up to provide some context. Most economic commentary focuses on the short-term changes in metrics such as unemployment or inflation. Read closely and you’ll realize that even the most spirited debates involve relatively small stakes.

Look across countries, and you’ll see the true risks. Consider Argentina, once a stable conservative democracy — like the United States — and also one of the world’s richest nations. Over the past century, the United States stuck with democracy, the rule of law and a stable economic system, while Argentina’s democracy broke down, its economic institutions failed, it cut off imports and racked up unsustainable deficits. The consequences were huge: Today, the average American enjoys an annual income that is roughly 200 percent greater than the average Argentine’s.

This isn’t just the story of Argentina. The richest one-fifth of all countries are around 30 times richer than the poorest fifth. When economists ask why, they’ve found that stories about geography, culture or natural resources aren’t sufficient. What matters is the quality of institutions. Last week the Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to three American immigrants for showing just that. Countries with “inclusive institutions” — rules that ensure everyone has the opportunity and incentive to help to grow the pie — enjoyed tremendous growth in incomes. Those with “extractive institutions” — that allow a small group to enrich themselves at the expense of the broader population — have stagnated.

Let’s bring this back to the election. The United States isn’t Argentina, but a few decades ago, Argentina wasn’t, either. These are the stakes. Any possibility that this election makes us a bit more like Argentina is, in quantitative terms, the most important economic issue.

…not for nothing

And so America’s voters face a striking asymmetry. If we stick with our economic fundamentals — democracy, the rule of law and inclusive institutions — we can expect our prosperity to continue. Threatening these pillars risks our economic future. This asymmetry highlights the wisdom of the sort of small-c conservatism that historically animated the Republican Party. That earlier generation cherished the economic and political institutions that yielded peace, stability and prosperity. Our economic structure is imperfect, to be sure — and this is why people are angry — but it has also generated the highest material standard of living of any large country at any time in human history.

…believe it or not

America and the European Union are comparable in population, education and access to resources. So why between 2010 and 2023 did the cumulative growth rate of G.D.P. reach 34 percent in the United States, compared with 21 percent for the E.U.? Over the same period, American labor productivity grew at 22 percent, while it was an anemic 5 percent in Europe.

…so…21% growth for a 5% incremental improvement in productivity…even if you include france where you can go to jail for emailing staff out of hours…#Isawitonfacebookitstrueenoughforapresidentialdebate

…isn’t that…more impressive than 34 for 22?

…nevermind

The Ukraine war further revealed how fortunate we are — and, more acutely, how lucky the Europeans are — that America resisted the European temptation to protect the public from technology-driven progress. European environmental policy turned a blind eye to the importance of energy to their security. Today, American natural-gas exports are helping keep the European economy afloat, and American satellite and drone technology has helped Ukrainians hold Russian forces at bay.

…for real?

…thank fuck for climate denial or vlad would have had it all his own way…are you fucking hearing yourselves?

Across the government, success is often measured by inputs, usually money spent or fines levied. But we should care more about outcomes. In primary education, we debate spending per student and de-emphasize proficiency scores in reading and mathematics. Similarly, the cost of a college education has skyrocketed, but data on resulting employment and wages is insufficient. This has saddled a large group of our citizenry with poor employment prospects and debilitating debts.

…which…by the way…it’s terrible that biden has been forgiving or reducing or otherwise messing with that “debilitating” part

Here is where Europe risks becoming Argentina and where we risk becoming Europe. Too many government jobs, including those proposed 85,000 I.R.S. employees, are dependent on performing inefficient and obsolete functions. Every American should be asking whether our failures here go beyond negligence and bureaucratic ineptitude. Is there a corrosive political bargain? Are 85,000 new I.R.S. employees in fact 85,000 more voters for big, inefficient, incumbent government?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/opinion/economy-trump-harris-america-president.html

…acting like you previously sustained a severe cranial trauma with debilitating effects for rhetorical effect…or do you really think that’s a real question & not a leading remark…because if you can’t tell those apart…inferences may be drawn?

Man Charged in Attempted Trump Assassination Seeks Judge’s Recusal [NYT]

…I mean that’s just objectively funny, for one…there was all this other stuff I meant to get around to today, too

Is It Fascism? A Leading Historian Changes His Mind. [NYT]

…admittedly…not all of it was funny…arguably next to none of it, even

Chinese influence operation targets US down-ballot races, Microsoft says [Reuters]

Iranian hacker group aims at US election websites and media before vote, Microsoft says [Reuters]

…hell…some of it is even pointedly not-about-america

Vladimir Putin has opened the expanded Brics summit by issuing a call for an alternative international payments system that could prevent the US using the dollar as a political weapon.

But the summit communique indicated that little progress had been made on an alternative payment system.

Speaking at the summit in the Russian city of Kazan, Putin said: “The dollar is being used as a weapon. We really see that this is so. I think that this is a big mistake by those who do this.” He said that nearly 95% of trade between Russia and China is now conducted in rubles and yuan.

The move to de-dollarize the world economy unnerves some Brics members – notably Brazil and India – that do not want their rapidly expanding club to become solely pro-Chinese and anti-western.

Russia is working on creating a settlement and payment infrastructure that would bypass the Swift payment system based in Belgium.

The de-dollarization initiative is probably the most concrete proposal likely to emerge from the summit that has been remarkable for giving Putin his biggest international platform since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2023. The summit has been attended by the nine Brics members including the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, the Chinese premier and the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa.
[…]
The final summit communique will contain a single reference to a joint Brazil-China peace plan for Ukraine, saving its strongest language for a condemnation of Israel in Gaza. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has already rejected the Brazilian alternative to Ukraine’s own peace plan saying its “half-hearted settlement plans, so-called sets of principles” would only give Moscow the political space to continue the war.

Modi was probably the most direct of world leaders saying he wanted peace in Ukraine, whilst Xi discussed the war in a private session with Putin. Putin has said that Moscow will not hand back the four regions of eastern Ukraine that it says are now part of Russia.
[…]
The future purpose and size of the Brics summit – now in its 16th year – also proved controversial, with Putin saying it would be wrong to ignore the unprecedented interest in global south countries wishing to join the organisation, and keeping the organisation effective.

Brazil in alliance with India has been trying to prevent Brics, already expanded from five to nine members at last year’s Brics summit in South Africa, being reshaped simply into an anti-western alliance that acts as a cheerleader for Russia and China.

Speaking by video link the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said: “Many insist on dividing the world into friends and enemies. But the most vulnerable are not interested in simplistic dichotomies; what they want is plenty of food, decent work and quality universally accessible public schools and hospitals.”

…well, sure…when you put it like that it seems like they would…bet your bottom dollar?

The future purpose and size of the Brics summit – now in its 16th year – also proved controversial, with Putin saying it would be wrong to ignore the unprecedented interest in global south countries wishing to join the organisation, and keeping the organisation effective.

Brazil in alliance with India has been trying to prevent Brics, already expanded from five to nine members at last year’s Brics summit in South Africa, being reshaped simply into an anti-western alliance that acts as a cheerleader for Russia and China.

Speaking by video link the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said: “Many insist on dividing the world into friends and enemies. But the most vulnerable are not interested in simplistic dichotomies; what they want is plenty of food, decent work and quality universally accessible public schools and hospitals.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/23/putin-world-economy-bloc-brics-summit

…but…it’s not as simple as it sounds

There are only two asset classes: ownership and debt [FT]

…but…contrary to popular acclaim…we don’t make the weather

Storm forecasts have never been more accurate. Meteorologists say they’ve never faced so much pushback. [NBC]

…although some do try to make it worse

Russia and Iran may try to incite postelection violence, intelligence officials warn [NBC]

…&…some people can’t spot the difference

Misinformation is everywhere this election. Can you tell what’s real? [WaPo]

…no offense

America: Land of the free, home of the jerks [WaPo]

…but…some americans…are jerks

Elon Musk is suffering from know-it-all syndrome [WaPo]

…you can’t really argue otherwise

Voters prefer Harris’s agenda to Trump’s — they just don’t realize it. Take our quiz. [WaPo]

…& why do you suppose that is?