US Politics: #Musky DeSaster

[Corvinus85]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

She's such an empty person. MTG is too, but at least she has some sand. Boebert has nothing. 

So MTG is a golem? Fully agree.

[DMC]

28 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

BUT YOU MUST RUN A GOVERNMENT LIKE YOU WOULD YOUR HOUSE!

I mean, government is really dirty, granted.  But not THAT dirty.

[Tywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

So MTG is a golem? Fully agree.

Idk about that. I'd say she's more like the Black Night from Monty Python. But that would be too demeaning to him. 

[The Anti-Targ]

5 hours ago, Secretary of Eumenes said:

So it's smarter to run a deficit, thereby paying extra on each dollar spent (because it's borrowed) simply because government checks don't bounce? That's a terrible argument. 

I think a government shouldn't run a forever-deficit because it's just not good money management. 

I ain't over here saying we need to go back to the gold standard. I just value smarter spending. 

If we HAD a surplus it might be easier to push for improvements to entitlements and public services when a need arises. 

We will never know.

The US federal govt could run a long term average annual $10bn budget deficit indefinitely with not one negative consequence. And when the need arises it could run the occasional several hundred $bn budget deficit in times of crisis or emergency, and also there would not be any significant negative consequence to doing that.

Keynesians are wrong or to put it charitably only partly right. In good times govts should [only need to] run small deficits, in bad times govts should run large deficits.

To have people in poverty and in lack of the basic necessities of life is a moral decision by govts not a fiscal decision, budget deficits and surpluses have nothing to do with it. Similarly with essential infrastructure, keeping the light son and making sure the trains run on time.

To be sure these things are only viable where the govt has sovereignty over its own currency. So it doesn't work for state and municipal govts. It also doesn't work for countries that adopt the currency of another, adopt crypto-currency or peg their exchange rate to the USD/Euro. It's also problematic if you have a supra-national currency like the Euro. It also requires a low corruption environment.

The mistake people make is in thinking of national govt debt and budget deficits as being like personal or corporate debt. They are nothing alike.

[horangi]

46 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The US federal govt could run a long term average annual $10bn budget deficit indefinitely with not one negative consequence. And when the need arises it could run the occasional several hundred $bn budget deficit in times of crisis or emergency, and also there would not be any significant negative consequence to doing that.

Did you really mean 'bn' there?  I doubt even the dyed in the wool non-politician deficit hawks would be outraged with 10bn in good times or 100 billion in bad.  The US debt would be actually shrinking price parity at that rate due to even normal inflation rates. 

ETA: A little back of the envelope math would suggest that even our current higher deficits of 1.5tn wouldn't counteract the loss in ppt value of the outstanding 30ish tn debt do to the higher inflation rate. 

Edited June 1, 2023 by horangi
typos

[DMC]

31 minutes ago, horangi said:

ETA: A little back of the envelope math would suggest that even our current higher deficits of 1.5tn wouldn't counteract the loss in ppt value of the outstanding 30ish tn debt do to the higher inflation rate. 

On that note, I would encourage readers to simply refer to wikipedia on the US' debt commitments.  When measured as a percentage of GDP, the US actually ranks 44th in the world.  Most European countries have a higher external national debt than the US.  Just, ya know, FYI on the scale we're talking about irt the largest economy in the world.

Edited June 1, 2023 by DMC

[Gaston de Foix]

29 minutes ago, Secretary of Eumenes said:

So it's smarter to run a deficit, thereby paying extra on each dollar spent (because it's borrowed) simply because government checks don't bounce? That's a terrible argument. 

I think a government shouldn't run a forever-deficit because it's just not good money management. 

I ain't over here saying we need to go back to the gold standard. I just value smarter spending. 

If we HAD a surplus it might be easier to push for improvements to entitlements and public services when a need arises. 

We will never know.

I think there is a pretty solid economic argument for lowering the national debt (which would entail reversing our perennial deficit spending year-on-year), particularly in the world of higher interest rates. 

The question is whether the political incentives exist for divided government (or unified government) to do anything about it. 

We've had two successive governments in 2016-8 and 2020-2022 with one party in control of the political branches.  In both instances, the political party in question pushed through its top-most political priority (tax cuts, infrastructure and climate change spending) rather than focussing on reducing the deficit per se.  The major difference is that the Dem legislation was at least paid-for, while the Republican tax cuts were not. 

Obama tried to pursue a grand bargain with Boehner and it fell apart because of Republican intransigence on the right.  That was well-meant and bad politics.  Trump never bothered to pursue a grand bargain because cutting entitlements before the 2020 election was bad politics.  When he was president, it was said by the fiscally conservative Republicans that divided government was ideal to spread the political risk.  You could take that argument further and say, a 2nd term president with divided government is needed before it happens.  Or you could just acknowledge that we get the government (and politicians) we deserve, and we will never do anything serious about the deficit. 

The point of my OP was about the hypocrisy of the Republican's (collective) position.  

[DMC]

4 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Obama tried to pursue a grand bargain with Boehner and it fell apart because of Republican intransigence on the right.  That was well-meant and bad politics.  Trump never bothered to pursue a grand bargain because cutting entitlements before the 2020 election was bad politics.  When he was president, it was said by the fiscally conservative Republicans that divided government was ideal to spread the political risk.  You could take that argument further and say, a 2nd term president with divided government is needed before it happens.  Or you could just acknowledge that we get the government (and politicians) we deserve, and we will never do anything serious about the deficit. 

This seems to operate under the assumption that a balanced budget is inherently "good," in an empirical sense.  Oftentimes it's not, in spite of Jace's objections.  Indeed, I'd argue Biden has done a surprisingly great job extending federal spending - as it should be regardless of the economic environment - considering the political circumstances.

Not saying I knew this would happen at all.  I was certainly in the camp that was thoroughly unenthused with Biden as the nominee.  But it's very hard to argue with the results.  Biden, or at least the Biden administration, has already been more successful than Obama and certainly Clinton irt navigating the legislative arena.  Some of that is of course because of how much political capital Obama had to expend to pass the ACA, but still..  

Credit should be given when it is due.  And Biden has done a better job than any of us could possibly muster in spite of all the whining and consternation.  There are of course compromises - some marginal, some more than that - but bottomline is his administration has delivered from a policy perspective time and time again in spite of very difficult circumstances for the most part.  

Ironic thing is, his reelection is still gonna be a slog at best.  If he was ten years younger, I think he'd be in a very advantageous position.  More so than Obama in 2012 and Clinton in 1996 - without "triangulating," otherwise known as capitulating, as much as Clinton did.  It's really just the age thing that's holding him back.

[Ran]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

And Biden has done a better job than any of us could possibly muster

Ahem.

The fact that the above is mostly true for this forum does say rather a lot about the fact that the forum swings left of mainstream Dem voters.

I always thought most around here seriously underrated his deal-making instincts and experience, and the fact that this continues now with people wanting to downplay or even deny his administration's many achievements just goes to show that there's a certain locked-in belief about what "should" happen, regardless if other ways of going about things are putting real wins on the board.

[Corvinus85]

Trump for president. Bread and circuses everyone!!!

https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2023/05/trumps-latest-policy-pitch-a-massive-birthday-party-for-the-nation-00099440

Quote

The former president is proposing a yearlong bash to commemorate 250 years of independence.

In 2026, the U.S. will celebrate the semiquincentennial: the quarter millennial since its declaration of independence. To commemorate the anniversary, Trump is proposing a blowout, 12-month-long “Salute to America 250” celebration. In a new policy video, Trump calls for a “Great American State Fair,” featuring pavilions from all 50 states, nationwide high school sporting contests, and the building of Trump’s “National Garden of American Heroes” with statues of important figures in American history like Frederick Douglass and Amelia Earhart.

 

[Phylum of Alexandria]

46 minutes ago, Ran said:

Ahem.

The fact that the above is mostly true for this forum does say rather a lot about the fact that the forum swings left of mainstream Dem voters.

I always thought most around here seriously underrated his deal-making instincts and experience, and the fact that this continues now with people wanting to downplay or even deny his administration's many achievements just goes to show that there's a certain locked-in belief about what "should" happen, regardless if other ways of going about things are putting real wins on the board.

Yeah, similarly, I thought all the focus on how awful Joe Manchin was was ultimately pointless. He's a frustrating guy to deal with, and I hate about 70% of his words and actions. But he's the best we're going to get coming from MAGA-infested West Virginia, and his having leverage as a crucial deciding vote is the reality for now. Rather than pine for what we don't have, why not focus on the situation at hand, and play the cards that we're dealt?

For the most part, I think Congress itself has been quite good in this respect, it's just the commentary elsewhere that often went hard on the "if only" agonizing. I totally understand the frustration, but that type of thinking doesn't get us anywhere except for cynicism and apathy.

[Wilbur]

13 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The US federal govt could run a long term average annual $10bn budget deficit indefinitely with not one negative consequence. And when the need arises it could run the occasional several hundred $bn budget deficit in times of crisis or emergency, and also there would not be any significant negative consequence to doing that.

Keynesians are wrong or to put it charitably only partly right. In good times govts should [only need to] run small deficits, in bad times govts should run large deficits.

To have people in poverty and in lack of the basic necessities of life is a moral decision by govts not a fiscal decision, budget deficits and surpluses have nothing to do with it. Similarly with essential infrastructure, keeping the light son and making sure the trains run on time.

To be sure these things are only viable where the govt has sovereignty over its own currency. So it doesn't work for state and municipal govts. It also doesn't work for countries that adopt the currency of another, adopt crypto-currency or peg their exchange rate to the USD/Euro. It's also problematic if you have a supra-national currency like the Euro. It also requires a low corruption environment.

The mistake people make is in thinking of national govt debt and budget deficits as being like personal or corporate debt. They are nothing alike.

This single forum post contains all the sensible content necessary to summarize 3/4ths of an entire semester's worth of an undergraduate Macroeconomics class.

[Kalbear]

8 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

I think there is a pretty solid economic argument for lowering the national debt (which would entail reversing our perennial deficit spending year-on-year), particularly in the world of higher interest rates. 

The question is whether the political incentives exist for divided government (or unified government) to do anything about it. 

 

There is not, actually, a very solid argument for lowering the national debt. There might be one for lowering the deficit, but lowering the debt would entail reduction of spending by the government at a massive scale and would result in a purposeful recession that would likely impact the entire world. 

While interest rates are higher, they are absolutely no where near where they'd need to be to make deficit spending significantly worse and/or an actual problem. Right now the returns on investment on this deficit spending are still much higher than the cost of spending. While I'm not totally convinced about the idea of Modern Monetary theory there's a lot more to it that rings true. Before there were fears that this level of spending would cause out of control inflation and a death spiral of increasing debt to pay down interest, but this has proven to be more and more wrong for over 30 years now. 

Kudos to @The Anti-Targ and @DMC for explaining this in more depth. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

14 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

So MTG is a golem? Fully agree.

That backs the question for Ty.

Can a Space Laser destroy a Golem?

Before you start, yes, I am asking you because you are Jewish. And since both Space Lasers (at least according to Margie) and the Golem are part of the arsenal of mythical Jewish weapons, you are the most reliable source I know. 

I mean, the space laser is high tech, but the golem is magic. You get to decide the eternal battle between technic and magic. 

[Zorral]

An interesting story because it's about something that few if any of us have noticed or thought of (at least I haven't!) New Car Dealers -- and how much political influence they have bee wielding for over a hundred years.

Want to Stare Into the Republican Soul in 2023?
At a party filled with booze and grievance, some of the party’s richest patrons looked to the future. Not everyone liked what they saw.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/rich-republicans-party-car-dealers-2024-desantis.html

Quote

 

.... Now car dealers are one of the most important secular forces in American conservatism, having taken a huge swath of the political system hostage. They spent a record $7 million on federal lobbying in 2022, far more than the National Rifle Association, and $25 million in 2020 just on federal elections, mostly to Republicans. The NADA PAC kicked in another $5 million. That’s a small percentage of the operation: Dealers mainline money to state- and local-level GOPs as well. They often play an outsize role in communities, buying up local ad space, sponsoring local sports teams, and strengthening a social network that can be very useful to political campaigns. “There’s a dealer in every district, which is why their power is so diffuse. They’re not concentrated in any one place; they’re spread out everywhere, all over the country,” Crane said. Although dealers are maligned as parasites, their relationship to the GOP is pure symbiosis: Republicans need their money and networks, and dealers need politicians to protect them from repealing the laws that keep the money coming in.

The first lesson of NADA? Don’t mention Tesla.

The dealers need that protection now more than ever. Recent legislation from the Biden administration, namely the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act, has directly and indirectly thrown many billions of dollars at incentivizing people to buy electric cars. And the White House is counting on that to propel its climate strategy. The EV revolution could be ushered in, potentially at a handsome premium, by the dealers themselves. This was, in fact, the weekend’s theme: “NADA is all in on EVs,” read the event’s promo material. “Getting all charged up” read the programming packet tucked into my complimentary NADA-branded backpack. ....

 

 

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

The fact that the above is mostly true for this forum does say rather a lot about the fact that the forum swings left of mainstream Dem voters.

I always thought most around here seriously underrated his deal-making instincts and experience, and the fact that this continues now with people wanting to downplay or even deny his administration's many achievements just goes to show that there's a certain locked-in belief about what "should" happen, regardless if other ways of going about things are putting real wins on the board.

While I certainly agree with this in terms of this board, I don't regret preferring many or most of the other primary candidates over Biden at the time.  And it's not a leftist v mainstream thing.  Perhaps none of the other candidates could have navigated the legislative arena as well as he has, but he also continues to be a very weak reelection candidate. 

Inflation would bog down any president, sure, but not to the extent we've seen.  It's almost amusing how Biden's approval has remarkably tracked with Trump's over the past 16 months or so.  Trump's approval never moved in spite of the fact he kept on fucking up.  Biden's approval still doesn't move in spite of the fact he keeps winning. 

And it's hard not to chalk that up to the age thing, which was always my problem.  The primary boiling down to Biden and Sanders - two guys who are too old to even be boomers - was and remains severely depressing.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

You refused to run. 

You couldn't have done worse than Tulsi, who would've been a younger candidate, but she was too crazy for you (or most people).

[DMC]

1 minute ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

You couldn't have done worse than Tulsi, who would've been a younger candidate

Hey!  I know this is not what you meant but just to clarify, Tulsi Gabbard is four years older than me!  And a thousand years crazier.

Anyway, Steny Hoyer endorsed PG County Executive Angela Alsobrooks today for Ben Cardin's seat in the Senate.  This is kinda an under the radar thing right now, but if she can get out of the primary, between her and Lisa Blunt Rochester replacing Carper in Delaware, the Dems may elect a whole two black women to the Senate next November.

[SpaceChampion]

Quote

Ken Paxton went on fellow indicted fraudster Steve Bannon's show and bragged about how he stopped 2.5 million Texas voters from receiving mail in ballots. Thus denying their right to vote. The reason he admitted this theft of votes on a YouTube channel? He wants the Texas Senate to keep him in office so he can do it again. Paxton admitted Trump would have lost Texas if he had allowed the Harris County voters to all vote. He also said Beto O'Rourke would be Governor without his election ballot interference. This was voter fraud on a massive level. Republicans are always talking about voter fraud in the 2020 election. Here it is. Right in front of their very eyes. 63 Texas Republicans voted to impeach Ken Paxton Saturday. Now we need the Senate to do the same and rid Texas of Ken Paxton and his many crimes once and for all.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

38 minutes ago, Madame deVenoge said:

Considering that most of this forum thinks I’m a Republican, when I’ve voted solidly Democratic for 30 years, says quite a bit.

 

Is this about you wanting Ty's eyes as spare - (i don't think you'll get an etenral mangekyo that way, but what do I know?).