U.S. Politics: Phantom of the Emergency

[Jace, Extat]

5 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

To me it's more like ignoring a potentially large pool of fish. I don't expect someone to cater to me specifically, but I don't feel like I am alone and we're not truly comfortable under any umbrella. Mainly I think it might be an argument for a more robust party system where I can find my niche or have more choices when one becomes hateful to me.

How large a net do you think one party is capable of casting? Hard to cater to right-of-center self obsessed white people who think only of personal accumulation of capitol when you're ostensibly a social progressive coalition. 

Did you see the rabid hatred of Clinton from the people the party is supposed to most represent? How much further right do you think liberals will indulge the party before we... oh wait. We already saw what happened.

[Gertrude]

I don't think one or two parties IS capable of casting that wide a net, which is what I'm saying. I don't know if you think you're describing me in the above or not, but it's not hard to see why some people looking for a political home are still looking.

[lokisnow]

13 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

How large a net do you think one party is capable of casting? Hard to cater to right-of-center self obsessed white people who think only of personal accumulation of capitol when you're ostensibly a social progressive coalition. 

Did you see the rabid hatred of Clinton from the people the party is supposed to most represent? How much further right do you think liberals will indulge the party before we... oh wait. We already saw what happened.

It’s more like, most people perceive courtship as either zero sum (if they’re courting blacks they must not be courting me), or they reject the alliance for personal reasons (if I have to be on the side with -THEM- then I refuse, I will be on the other side, or as the NYT so aptly quoted a lot of typical middle class suburban whites choose republicans because they think republicans will directly HURT the THEM they refuse to ally with and loath so very much.

the genius of Obama is that he really managed the all in this together narrative very well, defusing the first at least and the second somewhat, and getting a really strong performance with them as a result. The problem is he didn’t follow through with the narrative and republicans continued to frame democrats as zero sum or the party of _THEM_. When democrats lost control of the narrative by not reinforcing that their policies helped everyone (not just THEM), they lost some of that demo—and it is totally worth pointing out that to people used to getting 90%, getting 50% feels like being cheated and or losing.

baseline, middle class whites are hardly self obsessed, but the things that would really matter to them are more banal than the fighting for their lives of those trapped in the poverty pit.  Middle class whites view their lives as a struggle and the drop off into poverty is so extreme that we have dumped trillions on those below them with no view of the hole even being close to filled, so when democrats propose more expert tested ideas of dumping money down the poverty pit but precisely chopping it so that middle class gets nothing it builds a lot of frustration and resentment, because they’re thinking, “when is anyone gonna Drop trillions on me and mine we could use some help too! We are struggling too!” All while ignoring that they are the recipient of a lot, but it’s so baked into the system that they don’t even know it’s there.

so get some policies that don’t fucking surgical precision exclude the middle class with the mother fucking caps and thrice fucked phase outs and you’ll start to get some buy in. Because for example, people in the suburbs want public preschool too, not just “universal” preschool but only for decaying urban schools as democrats will only push for. (And where it’s desperately needed, to be sure, but there’s a ton of middle class whites who break their backs to pay for preschool and would love if it were offered to them too)

 

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Eventually when "Not the fascists" isn't enough of a selling point, complaints about not being courted become entitlement.

That's a relevant point for the general election, not the primary. Every indiction is that the primary campaign is going to be a lot more than "Hey, I'm not Trump!" since every Democrat can say that. There's going to be a lot of campaigning about what each candidate proactively wants to accomplish (with no discussion of how most that agenda is going to be DOA unless Democrats take the senate and either get real creative with reconciliation or abolish the filibuster). And the different Democratic primary voter groups are going to be look for lots of different things in that agenda. There will be plenty of overlap, but also some contradictions, and sometimes simply a focus on different issue.

For instance, an issue that's important to me is abolishing the phase out of and the cap on the student loan interest tax deduction. For those that don't know, you can claim a tax deduction on your student loan interest payments, even without itemizing, it's really simple to do. However, there's a cap on it, you can't claim more than a $2,500 deduction and you can't claim it at all once you earn more than $85,000 per year. Any Democrat in the presidential primary who proposed addressing this would immediately have my attention. I'd never vote for a Republican in the general election over this, there's far too many worse things that they're terrible on. But in a Democratic primary, this is the kind of differentiating issue that matters to me.

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

Just so everyone's aware, Joe Lieberman is talking for some reason and says that with all due respect he hopes that AOC is not the future of the party. 

With all due respect (or maybe not really), I hope Joe Lieberman is not the future of the Democratic Party.

[Darth Richard II]

Lieberman can die in a fire.

[Zorral]

Lieberman was Gore's first big mistake that led to his overwhelming and humiliating loss of the election -- I mean his own gdded home state didn't even vote for Gore for POTUS.

In the meantime, I've been out of the country and off the grid until today.  Seems things have only gotten worse while offline and away.  And lordessa save us, the airports are trying very hard.  But the difference in TSA when I left on the 2nd and TSA today when I came back in -- travel is not fun and the TSA is really really depressed and desperate -- yah, they are talking while passengers put their packed lives back together after getting through the lines, and they are furious and don't care who hears that their number 1 priority is to get paid.

Also ... plane inspection is also deeply reduced by the shut down, as the oversight is federal . . . .

 

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, Gertrude said:

To me it's more like ignoring a potentially large pool of fish. I don't expect someone to cater to me specifically, but I don't feel like I am alone and we're not truly comfortable under any umbrella. Mainly I think it might be an argument for a more robust party system where I can find my niche or have more choices when one becomes hateful to me.

To be clear I'm not saying that y'all dont matter. Just that as far as the primary goes. In the general it's quite important (at least in some states), but the primary is largely decided by people who have a lot more skin in the game.

In general, people like you have not voted in primaries. 

[lokisnow]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

That's a relevant point for the general election, not the primary. Every indiction is that the primary campaign is going to be a lot more than "Hey, I'm not Trump!" since every Democrat can say that. There's going to be a lot of campaigning about what each candidate proactively wants to accomplish (with no discussion of how most that agenda is going to be DOA unless Democrats take the senate and either get real creative with reconciliation or abolish the filibuster). And the different Democratic primary voter groups are going to be look for lots of different things in that agenda. There will be plenty of overlap, but also some contradictions, and sometimes simply a focus on different issue.

For instance, an issue that's important to me is abolishing the phase out of and the cap on the student loan interest tax deduction. For those that don't know, you can claim a tax deduction on your student loan interest payments, even without itemizing, it's really simple to do. However, there's a cap on it, you can't claim more than a $2,500 deduction and you can't claim it at all once you earn more than $85,000 per year. Any Democrat in the presidential primary who proposed addressing this would immediately have my attention. I'd never vote for a Republican in the general election over this, there's far too many worse things that they're terrible on. But in a Democratic primary, this is the kind of differentiating issue that matters to me.

I remember when I found out about this (after getting married and filing married for the first time) I was so pissed off about this. My wife and I were just under the limit but in the phaseout. So on her $160,000 in student loans principle (which is a fuckton if interest), we got like $325 off our taxes, the next year we made a couple thousand more and got nothing.

Democrats can take the expert that came up with that bullshit and shove it up their fucking ass then lock them in prison for life.

This is the sort of take-a-shit-on the middle class policy that democrats are always eager to sign on to in some sort of responsible bipartisan jackassery because some fucking expert said that the cutoff was important in the fucking worthless pay go shit.

[DMC]

4 hours ago, Gertrude said:

I'm just saying this is one of the many reasons I hate politics.

As I said, I don't think I fit into these holes Silver is creating and that's because, while I am a democratic ally, I am not a democrat.

 

4 hours ago, Gertrude said:

To me it's more like ignoring a potentially large pool of fish.

Well yeah, I suppose this is a reason to "hate" the self-interested nature of politics.  The group Fez was talking about is basically the "never Trumpers" - there are plenty of suburban white voters that lean moderate but also consistently vote Dem, which again means they would be placed in the "party loyalist" camp (even if Silver's descriptors was overly broad and not based on data).  There is no indication that this group is going to vote in the primaries.  And if you're not a Democrat, and don't vote in Dem primaries, then why should the candidates be paying attention to in the Democratic primary? 

If it turns out this group actually is a large group of fish - which is entirely possible - then you bet Dem candidates will alter their campaign to cater to them more.  That's yet to be determined though, and is the job of campaign operatives to anticipate, not me nor Silver.  Plus, again to reiterate, this group of voters receive plenty of attention in the general - very clearly disproportionately so - by both parties.

[Rippounet]

This touches on the very nature of our representative democracies, doesn't it? Not everyone's interests end up being represented or defended in the legislature. Politicians do try to cast very wide nets, but even with the best of intentions it's simply not possible to cover issues from too many angles.

In the US, assuming an issue is politicized, it's likely to be covered from two opposite angles, with everyone having to choose one side over the other - even if they don't really want to. In multiple-party systems you get more parties representing more angles, but since only one will eventually gain power, you end up with even more malcontents...
At least in the US you have federalism that's supposed to deal with that, since issues can be seen differently in different states. Of course, the problem remains on the national level, especially for complex issues that can't be reduced to two opposite positions and yet end up being decided by Congress...

Perhaps it's a point for anti-federalism, uh? Sorry, just thinking aloud here, dunno if I'm making sense.

[Zorral]

45 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

This touches on the very nature of our representative democracies, doesn't it? Not everyone's interests end up being represented or defended in the legislature. Politicians do try to cast very wide nets, but even with the best of intentions it's simply not possible to cover issues from too many angles.

In the US, assuming an issue is politicized, it's likely to be covered from two opposite angles, with everyone having to choose one side over the other - even if they don't really want to. In multiple-party systems you get more parties representing more angles, but since only one will eventually gain power, you end up with even more malcontents...
At least in the US you have federalism that's supposed to deal with that, since issues can be seen differently in different states. Of course, the problem remains on the national level, especially for complex issues that can't be reduced to two opposite positions and yet end up being decided by Congress...

Perhaps it's a point for anti-federalism, uh? Sorry, just thinking aloud here, dunno if I'm making sense.

Last night at dinner the compañeros discussed whether or not we are in a constitutional crisis, whether we need a new constitutional convention.  There was no consensus on anything, but the majority leaned toward the need for a more than two party system as this one is gridlocked.  Everyone agreed that gerrymandering and corporate money needed to be removed from the process.  Spirited argument about small population states' representation in the electoral congress vs. that of the high population states.  IOW, quite like issues of the constitutional convention of 1787 -- except no one had any real idea of how to accomplish any of this, while recalling the southern slaveocracy got pretty much what it wanted, particularly in the issue of low population states' disproportional representation and power.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

6 hours ago, Triskele said:

Just so everyone's aware, Joe Lieberman is talking for some reason and says that with all due respect he hopes that AOC is not the future of the party.  Trying to think of another person technically once a Dem whose should have less of a say on stuff.

The only person I can think of is that guy Doug Schoen whose job it is to go on Fox and say Dems should be more like Repubs with the Fox News audience meant to take it as "And he's a Democrat!" 

Yeah, he drives me nuts. With AOC, I see a young, bright person who may make some missteps but wants to do good by people. With Lieberman? He supported the death penalty, he loved vouchers as a "solution" to public schools, oh, and of course, he seemed to think No Child Left Behind was just a wonderful idea. All of those things support the wealthy and hurt the poor. 

[Jace, Extat]

3 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Yeah, he drives me nuts. With AOC, I see a young, bright person who may make some missteps but wants to do good by people. With Lieberman? He supported the death penalty, he loved vouchers as a "solution" to public schools, oh, and of course, he seemed to think No Child Left Behind was just a wonderful idea. All of those things support the wealthy and hurt the poor. 

Why are you attacking him? You should be catering to him!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gertrude]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

There is no indication that this group is going to vote in the primaries.  And if you're not a Democrat, and don't vote in Dem primaries, then why should the candidates be paying attention to in the Democratic primary? 

 

Plus, again to reiterate, this group of voters receive plenty of attention in the general - very clearly disproportionately so - by both parties.

I do now understand that you guys are talking primary voters - when I first read the article that didn't sink in, but I got it. I also understand that I'm not a good target for getting a primary vote. I'll vote in either party primary and mostly it's been against someone rather than for someone because I believed in them.

I kind of disagree that this group of voters gets attention in the generals. The media loves to talk about it, but not sure how that translates into action. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I don't know what it's supposed to look like.

And if Jace wants to snark some more for me being too entitled or not enough whatever she wants me to be, then have at it. I'm mostly thinking out load at this point because that article really made me reflect on my place in the political landscape and why I don't want to lay claim to either party. 

 

[DMC]

23 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

I kind of disagree that this group of voters gets attention in the generals. The media loves to talk about it, but not sure how that translates into action. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I don't know what it's supposed to look like.

Why haven't the Dems adapted to a European style social democrat party, fully behind single payer and subsidized college for all?  Why hasn't the GOP, in spite of multiple opportunities to do so in the past twenty years, privatized the social safety net (and actually expanded it during Dubya)?  Sure, some of the latter can simply be ascribed to old voters, but the answer to both of those questions is what it looks like. 

The white suburban center still remains pretty much the status quo, or mainstream, of politics that each party revolves around.  When most of them finally accept gay marriage?  Boom, it happens within ten years of Karl Rove winning a presidential election by opposing gay marriage.  Why is weed getting legalized?  Cuz most of this group have changed their opinion on it.  White suburbia's constant influence on the national conversation is pretty damn manifest.

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, Triskele said:

It would absolutely never occur to me that a politician would cater to me in any way.  But that is not because I think of myself as some saint.  It's the concept of negative partisanship. 

Yeah negative partisanship goes makes it a lot easier for each nominee.  As to why any politician won't cater to you, it's because politicians have oppressed monkeys for years.  I mean, just look at former Senator Al Franken:

 

[Jace, Extat]

3 hours ago, Gertrude said:

 

And if Jace wants to snark some more for me being too entitled or not enough whatever she wants me to be, then have at it. I'm mostly thinking out load at this point because that article really made me reflect on my place in the political landscape and why I don't want to lay claim to either party. 

 

Well it's no fun when you short circuit it

Snark checked, it sounds to me like you need to pick a side. I get it, democrats are fucking revolting. But come on bruh, we are literally talking about a party of fascists now. 

I hate, hate, HATE! Basically every Democrat. Because I've yet to see one who seems to give a good goddamn about being a public servant. Even at the fucking local level. 

But even if it's just lip service and half measures towards genuine social programs and civil works ( maybe some goddamn road paving?) that is so preferable to continued enrichment of the few that I would happily eat a bowl of shit before casting my worthless vote if I had to. 

You laid out your personal reasons and gripes, they seem pretty reasonable to me. Even if I was fucking with you. 

But this isn't the party of Ronnie. Or even the recognizable bigotry of the party of Bush. 

These are fascists. Pure and simple. And reason's got nothing to do with them. 

If you want to argue numbers and facts and figures on policy, attach yourself to the party that isn't run by insane TV personalities that think science is the enemy.

There's the pitch, real as I can give it. If you're not swayed don't worry. It's about 25 years too late anyway. 

[OldGimletEye]

The reality and politics of debt and deficits:

Krugman:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/09/opinion/melting-snowballs-and-the-winter-of-debt.html

Quote

That’s the message I take from Olivier Blanchard’s presidential address to the American Economic Association. To be fair, Blanchard — one of the world’s leading macroeconomists, formerly the extremely influential chief economist of the I.M.F. — was cautious in his pronouncements, and certainly didn’t go all MMT and say that debt never matters. But his analysis nonetheless makes the Fix the Debt fixation (yes, they’re still out there) look even worse than before.

 

Quote

Blanchard starts with the commonplace observation that interest rates on government debt are quite low, which in itself means that worries about debt are overblown. But he makes a more specific point: the average interest rate on debt is less than the economy’s growth rate (“r<g”). Moreover, this isn’t a temporary aberration: interest rates less than growth are actually the norm, broken only for a relatively short stretch in the 1980s.

This has evidently held for most of the US's history.

Quote

Blanchard’s second point is subtler but still important. In general, debt scolds warn not just about threats to government solvency but about growth. The claim is that high public debt feeds current consumption at the expense of investment for the future. And high debt does indeed probably have that effect when the economy is near full employment (although in 2010-2011 more deficit spending would have led to more, not less, private investment).

Conservative sorts of people. The classic theory of the rate interest goes something like this: The investment schedule is a function of the interest rate I(r) and the savings schedule is a function of the interest rate and goes something like S(r). And then given the the equilibrium condition is I(r) = S(r), the rate of interest equlibrates the demand for invesment and the supply of savings. I'm sure conservative sorts of people you've seen a partial equilibrium diagram where the investment schedule slopes down and the savings schedule slopes up, the rate of interest is  on the ordinate and savings / investment on the absicca.

But this sort of reasoning is pretty dubious, as it assumes the flow of spending stays constant. This illustrates the danger of using partial equilibrium models, which are fine as an analytical tool, so long as the market under study is "small enough". In short rather than having I(r) and S(r), we instead have S(r,y) and I(r,y). Sure if you are willing to hold y, the flow of spending constant, then the rate of interest will equlibrate savings and investment.

But there is no reason to believe that y will not change if savings or investment increases. 
Here is the point: The I(r) = S(r), also known as "loanable funds" theory is a source of conservative errors and mistakes, like John Bonehead talking about "crowding out" back in 2010. It would be true in a world of complete financial markets and correct price expectations. But that is not the world we live in, where people seek to hold wealth in safe and liquid assets.

Sure if y is set at its full employment level, then crowding out can occur, but when its not, well no.

As far as what is a safe liquid asset, The idea of "informationally insenstive debt" is probably a good start. In other words, this is the kind of debt that people don't have to verify or spend to much time deciding that it's "good". And the private market, I think, doesn't really have the ability or it has limited ability to provide this kind of assets. Governments, however, can produce these kind of assets.

Quote

Notice, by the way, that I haven’t even talked about business-cycle-related reasons to stop obsessing over debt. An environment of persistently low interest rates raises concerns about secular stagnation — a tendency to suffer repeated intractable slumps, because the Fed doesn’t have enough ammunition to fight them. 

From Josh Barro:

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/modern-monetary-theory-doesnt-make-single-payer-any-easier.html

Quote

You may have heard of Modern Monetary Theory, an approach to economics that is increasingly popular on the left, and which is sometimes mischaracterized (by advocates and especially detractors) as holding that budget deficits are either unimportant or inherently good for the economy.

 

Quote

This week, freshman representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Business Insider that MMT needs to be “a larger part of our conversation.” You will often hear MMT cited in response to questions about how significant expansions of federal government spending, such as single-payer health care, would be financed. The idea is that MMT renders those financing questions much less important, because it counsels worrying less about the deficit.

 

Quote

That Ocasio-Cortez and some commentators on the left turn to MMT to argue for the feasibility of significant increases in government spending is odd given another talking point they use: that other countries have found ways to finance larger and more generous governments than the US does, providing benefits like free education and single-payer health care to their populations.

I pretty much agree with Barro's take on MMT. It's hardly a crackpot idea. But, focusing on it as the solution to the US's sorry ass healthcare system, is in my view misplaced. The real problem is the US healthcare system just cost too much. The that is where the focus needs to be.

I don't see MMT as replacing traditional Keynesian ideas. And I think having congress be responsible for inflation targeting is probably a very bad idea.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Although, this (probably) not a point of major interest here. But a small episode on the bigger picture of (presumably) temporary damage done to the US abroad.

Basically how one of the best people the orange one hired is managing to mess up one of the easier jobs, in a desperate attempt to get the boss attention.

I think I mentioned thatbell Grenell in either some old US politics thread or in the German thread briefly (in reference to Spahn), anyway, what I find amusing (but didn't really realize it until I read that article), is that when the political talkshow circuit is looking for an American expert, they usually turn to one of his predecessors. John Kornblum, who held this position during Clinton's second term. Needless to say, that I don't really agree with Kornblum either when I see him on screen, but then again, at least he doesn't hang out with fascists.