U.S. Politics: By Gawd King, That's Joe Biden's Music!!!!

[Darryk]

The narcissism of this guy knows no bounds. He keeps trying to downplay coronavirus cause he's worried it will make him look bad by affecting the markets. He has the the temprament of a 12 year old.

It looks like Biden is gonna be the candidate and 10 years ago I would have had faith in his ability to beat Trump, but his quirky gaffes are starting to look like rather concerning signs of dementia.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 hours ago, Rippounet said:

All meaningful changes start with public awareness that the status quo is unacceptable and that the terms of the discussion have to be changed. In other words, "pragmatism" is the original enemy of societal progress because it entails accepting, condoning, or defending the status quo ; one needs to recognize that public perceptions are part of the problem in order to be part of a serious discussion on the means to achieve change.

In this case, if you view Piketty's work as "utopian" there's nothing I can say to change that. To be clear, the purpose of his entire work (which is bloody impressive) is precisely to make credible proposals based on solid data and analyses for people to stop thinking that "nothing can be done."
If you view all that as utopian it means you're operating under a belief system that is incompatible with any kind of meaningful change to begin with.

My point is and has always been that there has never been a Tax structure that worked (theocratic tithing is something different and has frequently been backed by the power of the State) on a purely voluntary basis.  Unless sovereign Nation-States are willing to cede enforcement powers to an international body or are willing, individually, to take on enforcing a world “wealth tax” Piketty’s idea is unworkable.  

I speak of pragmatism because without a realistic look at what is proposed it will not work.  How to you propose to make it work when individual Nation-states have every incentive to undercut each other and push to have wealth located within their sovereignty?  There are few options to prevent that.

Would you advocate waging war against Nation-States who allow “wealth sheltering”?

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Has a sitting president ever declared bankruptcy?

We're talking moral bankruptcy, right?

[Maithanet]

This 538 article is looking at state level polling and the calendar, and it's conclusion is that based on the demographic appeals of each candidate, Sanders best opportunity to get some state wins and momentum is tomorrow.  The seven contests tomorrow include the four best for him (Democrats Abroad, Washington, Idaho and North Dakota).  The problem is that not much has happened this week to truly shake up the race since Super Tuesday, and Biden was well ahead last week. 

In addition, even if Sanders does overperform slightly, it might not be enough.  Let's say he wins WA, ID, ND and DA, barely loses Michigan and Biden wins MS and MO fairly convincingly.  Given that ID, ND and DA have very few delegates, Biden probably wins the delegate count for the night even in that "pretty good" scenario. 

IMO the "narrative" of this tuesday's races is Michigan.  If Sanders makes another comeback in Michigan, it will revitalize his campaign.  Then if he could turn in a good debate vs Biden on March 15, he could perform better in the March 17 contests in IL and OH.  That would really help Sanders, since it would boost his electability appeals since he'd be the candidate doing better in the Midwest and West, while Biden is doing better in the South and Northeast. 

But there's a lot of IFs in that scenario.  It all relies on Sanders winning Michigan tomorrow, a state that had two polls released in the past two days which had Biden +21 and +24.  Even knowing that Michigan is hard to poll and Sanders overachieved there 4 years ago, that's not great. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

12 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Ok, 5 minutes in the first circuit breaker has tripped : the S&P 500 just hit -7% so there is a 15 minute halt in trading. After trading starts again, the circuit breaker trips at 13% down. Then there’s another halt, and the next circuit breaker is 20%. If that level is hit, the stock market shuts down for the day.

These levels have never been hit. Back in 1987 the old curbs were tripped once or twice, using different measures.

Today is going to be rough. I should add that algorithmic trading is going to amplify the various effects.  Today is likely to be a huge sell off, with some recovery tomorrow or Weds, and, probably a steady slide into Bear territory by Friday.  Also, REALLY glad my firm has a very strong restructuring practice and that I know my way around a Chapter 11.  Buckle up Texas, Delaware, and New York: filings are coming to a courtroom near you.

[mormont]

Scot, the point that taxation comes from the barrel of a gun is a great soundbite but it's totally banal. It's true but only because all law, including but not by any means limited to tax, comes from the authority of the state, and the state has enforcement mechanisms which involve, well, force. If you want to argue that all adherence to law - and arguably therefore all civilisation - comes from the barrel of a gun, well, that's a consistent but totally inadequate explanation of society. So let's call that point done and move along, maybe?

As for Biden, I seem to recall people proclaiming with utter confidence in 2016 that Trump was in the advanced stages of dementia. He's lasted four years as President just the same. 

[Fragile Bird]

6 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Today is going to be rough. I should add that algorithmic trading is going to amplify the various effects.  Today is likely to be a huge sell off, with some recovery tomorrow or Weds, and, probably a steady slide into Bear territory by Friday.  Also, REALLY glad my firm has a very strong restructuring practice and that I know my way around a Chapter 11.  Buckle up Texas, Delaware, and New York: filings are coming to a courtroom near you.

Yes indeed. And as I was saying previously, the bond market was flashing red warning lights and ringing the danger bells.

Look, this is not bad, it’s a long needed correction! We are only at January, 2019 levels. The Dow is at 24,400 - last May in that drop I expected it to go to 23,500, and it didn’t. Maybe it will do it this week.

But there will be bankruptcies in the oil sector.

Also last week I mentioned that all $120 B in the repo market was snapped up. This week the Treasury has made $250 B available.

The circuit breakers have done their job and the markets have slowed down. Oh wait, they are picking up again, and they won’t shut down until the drop hits 13%.
 

And speaking of bankruptcies, the EU did not recapitalize national banks. Italy may go bankrupt and default on it’s debt, and that’s a whole other can of worms that’s going to be opened.

[Ormond]

9 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Because it hasn't been just one election, it has been several, and we saw it in this election for a number of candidates. Harris, Klobuchar, Warren - are all easily more qualified and better candidates than Sanders or Biden. Especially Warren. 

And the flip side to that person losing with so much baggage is who they lost to - Trump is an incredibly weak candidate by most measures too. 

Mostly, what we're seeing with Biden vs. Sanders is really the nail in the coffin here. Sanders won over a lot of moderates in 2016 because they simply didn't like voting for a woman. Those people are now flocking to Biden in the same places that Sanders won in 2016 by large margins. 

But yes, 2020's voters looked at a big selection of candidates across the board and shot down every single woman for lots of fairly minor reasons, and settled on two old white dudes. 

I really think you are just wrong in the above, especially in the third paragraph. I do not think that "moderates don't like voting for a woman." I think Democratic voters this cycle are the victims of a self-fulfilling prophecy where they think "I of course would vote for a woman in the general election but all of those other people won't". Or what DMC said:

Quote

Because yes, a Democratic woman will never be elected president until the Democratic electorate stops thinking a woman can't be elected president.  So maybe Democrats should stop perpetuating such a self-defeating mindset.  The argument really boils down to that.

 

[Ormond]

37 minutes ago, Darryk said:

The narcissism of this guy knows no bounds. He keeps trying to downplay coronavirus cause he's worried it will make him look bad by affecting the markets. He has the the temprament of a 12 year old.

 

Why are you insulting 12 year olds? I think Trump's temperament is more like a child of 2, not 12.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

5 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Yes indeed. And as I was saying previously, the bond market was flashing red warning lights and ringing the danger bells.

Look, this is not bad, it’s a long needed correction! We are only at January, 2019 levels. The Dow is at 24,400 - last May in that drop I expected it to go to 23,500, and it didn’t. Maybe it will do it this week.

But there will be bankruptcies in the oil sector.

Also last week I mentioned that all $120 B in the repo market was snapped up. This week the Treasury has made $250 B available.

The circuit breakers have done their job and the markets have slowed down. Oh wait, they are picking up again, and they won’t shut down until the drop hits 13%.
 

And speaking of bankruptcies, the EU did not recapitalize national banks. Italy may go bankrupt and default on it’s debt, and that’s a whole other can of worms that’s going to be opened.

I have been predicting a recession now for 18 months, so totally agree, and even just a few weeks ago those ridiculous "maybe this time the bull market is different and will last forever" articles were coming out, which is always a telltale sign.

The energy sector was already hurting.  I think upstream natural gas producers will actually go first, but the upstream companies in general will be hurting.  Gas, at least in the US, tends to be smaller, domestic-only, with less hedging and less concentrated, and the companies have already been hammered.  That will have an immediate knock-on effect on mid-stream pipeline companies.  Downstream is likely to be mixed.  Regulated utilities will likely be fine unless they have an extraneous stress (e.g., PG&E).  The rest will probably hurt a lot.

[argonak]

56 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Yes indeed. And as I was saying previously, the bond market was flashing red warning lights and ringing the danger bells.

Look, this is not bad, it’s a long needed correction! We are only at January, 2019 levels. The Dow is at 24,400 - last May in that drop I expected it to go to 23,500, and it didn’t. Maybe it will do it this week.

But there will be bankruptcies in the oil sector.

Also last week I mentioned that all $120 B in the repo market was snapped up. This week the Treasury has made $250 B available.

The circuit breakers have done their job and the markets have slowed down. Oh wait, they are picking up again, and they won’t shut down until the drop hits 13%.
 

And speaking of bankruptcies, the EU did not recapitalize national banks. Italy may go bankrupt and default on it’s debt, and that’s a whole other can of worms that’s going to be opened.

Its a needed correction but a bunch of near sighted monkeys are driving the bus, so I expect it to turn into a recession at least.  

[Fragile Bird]

I hope everybody with outstanding loans of any kind is working furiously to refinance!

[Kalbear]

So Bloomberg did almost immediately start helping register voters with his money:

 

[Maithanet]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

Some Monday morning primary polling has dropped; and, if it's accurate (and it's across multiple pollsters, so its not a single outfit's potential bias) this thing is over..

National: Biden +16 over Sanders

Michigan: Biden +24 over Sanders

Michigan: Biden +21 over Sanders

Missouri: Biden +30 over Sanders

Mississippi: Biden +55 over Sanders

Arizona: Biden +28 over Sanders (and this was a poll with Warren and Bloomberg still in it).

More have come out today with the same story.

Florida:  Biden +26

Michigan: Biden +30

Illinois: Biden +29

Michigan: Biden +41

 

All signs are this is a repeat of 2004.  Democrats are desperate to beat the sitting President, and aren't interested in a protracted Democratic campaign.  There isn't much interest in a prolongued Biden-Sanders fight, they want to get this over with so they can start attacking Trump.

I don't know about the wisdom of ignoring Biden's many flaws (I'm fairly sure it's foolish), but I'm glad it looks like Democrats are coming together.  If that happens, I wish him luck bringing Sanders and his supporters on board. 

[DMC]

9 hours ago, Kalbear said:

So probably not 50 years, but chances are good not for at least another 20. 

As to a Latino? Probably similar barriers. Maybe even worse ones in the US now, given the hatred of immigrants and different languages and the like. No, I don't see that changing any time soon. 

Well, that's charitable to cut it down from 50 to 20.  Look, this is getting preposterous and my main qualm is first with your language - that a Democratic woman "can't" win, or at least "almost certainly" can't - when nobody in the world has anywhere close to that type of certainty.  And, as I've said repeatedly, it's just depressingly self-defeating to continually bemoan and (more importantly) propagate this - especially when you pass it off as fact - when you don't really know what you're talking about.

Second, these time frames you're putting on it aren't empirical analysis in the slightest.  It's taking well-founded empirical results and data showing that women, yes, have a much harder time getting elected than men - particularly when it comes to achieving the highest office of a chief executive - and then using those findings as an excuse to pull numbers out of your ass.

Is a woman - or a black or hispanic or asian male - going to probably need favorable conditions in order to attain the presidency?  Sure!  Just like almost literally every successful challenger running against the incumbent president's party in the modern era.  Let's see, we have 1952; 1960; 1968; 1976; 1980; 1992; 2008; and 2016.  Only exception to this would be 2000, and the nominee there had, uh, extra help - as well as the unique circumstance of his VP opponent running away from his own popular sitting president.  Anyway, doing the math there, those elections appear to happen far more frequently than once every 50 years.  Or even once every 20.  Looks like they come about once a decade.

8 hours ago, karaddin said:

Oh my concern wasn't about the impact on his debate performance against Trump, it was about depressing turn out if it becomes more obvious to his needed voters and most important his job performance if he manages to win

Eh, I don't see any reason to worry yet that it'll depress turnout.  Concern about his job performance, sure, that's always a worry.

7 hours ago, Ran said:

I think it's fairly obvious that she's not going to be running for the presidency in 2024. She'd sooner be eyeing a run at Schumer's seat in the Senate in 2022 than she'd be considering trying to be president.

So in a sociology course I TA'd for last semester my boss (the instructor) had me play the below video for the students during recitations.  It's AOC's "message from the future" explaining how the green new deal can change the world.  At the end, she mentions "Ileana," who wins AOC's seat in the first cycle of publicly funded campaigns in 2028:

After I showed the video I would tongue-in-cheek ask the students "so what do you think AOC will be doing in 2028 then?  Running for Senate?  President?  Does she go into Hollywood?"  I didn't get many laughs or responses.  Maybe because young people don't like making fun of AOC, maybe because most of them didn't care, or probably just because I wasn't funny even though I had four consecutive sections to work on my delivery.

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

IMO the "narrative" of this tuesday's races is Michigan.  If Sanders makes another comeback in Michigan, it will revitalize his campaign.  Then if he could turn in a good debate vs Biden on March 15, he could perform better in the March 17 contests in IL and OH.  That would really help Sanders, since it would boost his electability appeals since he'd be the candidate doing better in the Midwest and West, while Biden is doing better in the South and Northeast. 

But there's a lot of IFs in that scenario.  It all relies on Sanders winning Michigan tomorrow, a state that had two polls released in the past two days which had Biden +21 and +24.  Even knowing that Michigan is hard to poll and Sanders overachieved there 4 years ago, that's not great. 

It's pretty funny that it looks like we'll be in basically the same exact situation as exactly four years ago after all that.  The establishment candidate will have likely an insurmountable delegate lead a week after Super Tuesday, but maybe Sanders inches out a narrow victory in Michigan to change the "narrative" and excuse his prolonging of the campaign until all the contests are over.  I mean, it's not "funny haha."  More "funny I wanna ball up in the fetal position and cry."

[Fragile Bird]

28 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

So Bloomberg did almost immediately start helping register voters with his money:

 

I read somewhere that he gave money to 21 women candidates in 2016, helping 20 get elected. 

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

It's pretty funny that it looks like we'll be in basically the same exact situation as exactly four years ago after all that.  The establishment candidate will have likely an insurmountable delegate lead a week after Super Tuesday, but maybe Sanders inches out a narrow victory in Michigan to change the "narrative" and excuse his prolonging of the campaign until all the contests are over.  I mean, it's not "funny haha."  More "funny I wanna ball up in the fetal position and cry."

That is the possibility that Sanders is hoping for.  But polling from Michigan and nationally has been almost unbelievably positive for Biden in the past three days.  The last four Michigan polls show Biden +21, +24, +30 and +41.  Sanders outperformed his polls in Michigan in 2016, which obviously shows it is possible, but by far the more likely outcome is that Biden wins comfortably. 

[Rippounet]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Unless sovereign Nation-States are willing to cede enforcement powers to an international body or are willing, individually, to take on enforcing a world “wealth tax” Piketty’s idea is unworkable. 

Piketty's point has always been that States should do more to enforce taxes, and that international collaboration is paramount to achieve that.

In other words, Piketty's "global wealth tax" is meant precisely to prevent the States from competing with one another. I'm tempted to say you'd know that if you'd read his books.

For instance, him and others have been pushing for a "global financial registry." That's hardly "utopian." Quite the contrary, it's a very pragmatic proposition that is perfectly achievable, and a first step toward collaboration instead of competition. If you think such ideas are not grounded in realism you'll have to give us more than soundbites to demonstrate that.

Also, you seem to be underestimating the power of the State to tax wealth, especially when we're focusing on the US of all nations. I would have thought that the 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) had demonstrated that the US has far-reaching powers to enforce a wealth tax if it wants to.

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How to you propose to make it work when individual Nation-states have every incentive to undercut each other and push to have wealth located within their sovereignty?  There are few options to prevent that.

Well, first, "every incentive" is rather debatable. Having wealth located within one's sovereignty is pointless if that wealth is not generating (or barely generating) revenue for the State or jobs for the local community.
Let's be clear that wealth and investment are two different things. And contrary to what one might think it's not that difficult to find and tax wealth if there is political will.

Because even if one was to assume that States are competing to attract wealth for solid reasons... It's still possible for public opinion to put pressure on their State to tax wealth. It's not easy to get politicians on board, but it's not impossible either. That's where changing the terms of the discussion comes in. People don't realize that there is nothing utopian about enforcing wealth taxes. Even without the US's far-reaching powers, tax controls and exit taxes go a long way toward preventing tax evasion. Not only is it much easier to prevent than people generally assume, but even the super-wealthy aren't all opposed to paying a fair share of taxes anyway.

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

My point is and has always been that there has never been a Tax structure that worked (theocratic tithing is something different and has frequently been backed by the power of the State) on a purely voluntary basis.

That's a different discussion. But even there I think your position is not as strong as you think it is. People make voluntary contributions to their community or society all the time. Most people are fine with the idea of everyone paying their fair share. In fact, I'd say it has taken an insane amount of propaganda to convince people that taxes are bad to begin with. And while propaganda is scaringly efficient, it's possible to deconstruct and reject it.
If you want to, that is.

Like this idea that we only pay taxes because of enforcement powers coming "from the barrel of a gun." That's serious hogwash. At a glance there's some truth to it, but in fact it's just libertarian bullcrap. Humans accept constraints that they deem fair. It's only when States stop providing quality public services that taxes become truly unpopular. In fact, that's right-wing strategy 101: you destroy (underfund) public services first to convince people that taxes are evil and all services must be privatized. You convince them that government is bloated, inefficient, and corrupted, that humans are incapable of sustaining public management of resources, that civil servants are lazy, greedy, or dumb... etc. But it's all bullshit. Corruption can be fought, and most humans have an innate sense of the common good.

In fact, this is where the moral angle comes in. There's been an insidious ideological trend to demonize taxes in the US, to present them as immoral, as theft... etc. The opposite of that is not voluntary contribution but simple acceptance of the necessity and morality of taxation. I think all it would take to change the discussion is to make everything transparent. How much does quality healthcare cost? How much does the military cost? How much does infrastructure cost? Etc... We're in 2020 goddamn it, you could have that kind of data on a smartphone app. Just show people the cost of civilization... And the cost of tax evasion, tax cuts, or regressive taxation. Include the effects of climate change and inaction on that front while we're at it. Modelize the shit out of it all and let the people decide what kind of society they want to live in. And if people still want to have super-billionaires after that then I'll accept it. Or at least, I'll accept that humans are shitty. But as long as this discussion is based on misinformation I'll assume that there's hope for humanity.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

Scot, the point that taxation comes from the barrel of a gun is a great soundbite but it's totally banal. It's true but only because all law, including but not by any means limited to tax, comes from the authority of the state, and the state has enforcement mechanisms which involve, well, force. If you want to argue that all adherence to law - and arguably therefore all civilisation - comes from the barrel of a gun, well, that's a consistent but totally inadequate explanation of society. So let's call that point done and move along, maybe?

As for Biden, I seem to recall people proclaiming with utter confidence in 2016 that Trump was in the advanced stages of dementia. He's lasted four years as President just the same. 

The proposed tax has no such enforcement mechanism.  What I’m arguing against is the notion that such a tax would work on a voluntary basis.

[DMC]

17 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

by far the more likely outcome is that Biden wins comfortably. 

Yep.  Hopefully he can end it this time.