2:00PM Water Cooler 6/18/2018

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199 comments

1. cynician June 18, 2018 at 2:10 pm

   >>”But Federal taxes don’t fund Federal spending:”

   Fine – they don’t. But the real issue is why the bill has no co-sponsors. If all of Congress woke up tomorrow with crystal-clear recognition of MMT, most of them still won’t fund free college, and still won’t want to tax financial transactions – because that will go against the interests of their donors.

   Bernie is right on this one – right to pitch the choice of what to finance in this way.
   1. Roger Smith June 18, 2018 at 2:20 pm

      But Federal taxes don’t fund Federal spending:

      To add on here, I have always been confused by this as no one seems to supply to complete mechanics. Recently I saw, I believe Lambert, saying that currency could just be created to fund these programs. What does the entire picture look like? Where do the taxes collected go? And if currency is minted, is the potential downside on that end devaluation of the standard unit (if too much is created)?
      1. fibble June 18, 2018 at 2:47 pm

         The money doesn’t go anywhere when the Fed collects taxes. It’s just numbers in a computer. Money is effectively “destroyed” when the government collects taxes.

         For a fuller picture of the mechanics as you say, the Government creates money when it spends, and destroys money when it collects taxes. To avoid “devaluing” the currency, the Government must take care to maintain a proper balance between the creation and destruction of money (Spending and Taxing).
      2. voteforno6 June 18, 2018 at 2:51 pm

         The taxes don’t “go” anywhere. Taxation simply takes money out of circulation. It’s the flip side of spending, which puts money into circulation.

         Sure, inflation is a problem. That’s one of the reasons why taxes are needed.

         *Of course, this all only applies to governments which issue their own currencies.
      3. Chris June 18, 2018 at 3:14 pm

         Where do the taxes collected go.

         They just go. A government collecting taxes destroys units of its fiat currency. On the other side of the ledger, government spending creates new money.

         The purpose of taxation is threefold:
         1) the level of taxation, balanced against spending, controls the amount of money in circulation;
         2) the targeting of taxation serves to redistribute wealth within society; and
         3) the necessity of paying tax creates a demand for the currency.

         A government issuing its own fiat currency can spend as much as it likes without the need to collect taxes first. Unfortunately, the current US government chooses to spend on welfare for oligarchs and baubles for the military rather than on concrete material benefits for the many (such as guaranteed jobs, universal healthcare and free tertiary education).
         1. Oregoncharles June 19, 2018 at 12:24 am

            Caveat: it isn’t destroyed if the taxes are payed in actual currency. That’s unusual, these days, but certainly possible. Fees frequently are.

            However, that has no effect on the logic of the situation. It simply spares the Mint the trouble of printing new bills to spend. In that case, we would talk about “in circulation” vs. “out of circulation.” (To be clear: this is a clarification, not an objection.)
      4. todde June 18, 2018 at 3:57 pm

         Accounting Entries for Tax Payments:

         Bank’s Books:
         Debit Customer checking (bank liability)
         Credit Federal Reserve (bank asset)

         Federal Reserve Books:
         Debit Bank Reserves (FED liability)
         Credit Treasury Account (FED Liability)
         1. Procopius June 20, 2018 at 6:20 am

            Excuse me, it’s been so many decades that maybe I’ve gotten confused, but shouldn’t it be the other way around? For a private company asset values are debits and liabilities are credits. I never took the course on government accounting. /pedant
      5. Roger Smith June 18, 2018 at 4:42 pm

         Thanks for the replies/info everyone!
         1. Detroit Dan June 18, 2018 at 6:01 pm

            Here’s something of a dummies guide to the national “debt” which looks at this topic from another perspective: The Socrates Show, with guest Pete Peterson
      6. Adam Eran June 18, 2018 at 6:08 pm

         Good questions, Roger. First of all, if taxes fund government programs, where do taxpayers get dollars to pay taxes if government doesn’t spend them out into the economy first?

         The real world is “spend, then tax,” not “tax and spend.”

         What’s the common name for the dollars left in the economy, after tax is collected? Answer: “National Debt.”

         That “Debt” is not like household debt, it’s like bank debt. If you have a checking account, that’s your asset, but the bank’s liability (i.e. “debt”). And when you write a check, you assign a portion of the bank’s debt to you to the payee. Currency is just checks made out to cash in fixed amounts. It appears on the books of the Fed as a liability too. You might take a look at Randall Wray’s monetary history article for some insight into what happens when we ignore this, too.

         Where do taxes go? Warren Mosler says if you went to the Treasury building in D.C. and paid your tax with physical currency, after having marked your bill “paid,” they would shred the money. The dollars go to the same bit bucket the withdrawals from checking accounts go. They are a social construct, not a commodity. They go to the same place scorekeepers keep the points for the scoreboard…[poof!]

         Taxes are necessary, however, to make the money valuable. Here’s Warren Mosler ‘splaining it.

         You can also see a pictorial representation of the flows in J.D. Alt’s Diagrams & Dollars article.

         This is good stuff, and you’re asking the right questions. Stick to it, and you’ll get that satori moment…?
         1. Roger Smith June 19, 2018 at 7:59 am

            Would it be correct to say then that the National Debt, being the government’s liability, is largely based on the wealth and assets of the uber rich who squat on it instead of return it to its final resting place?

            Then going back to the “balance the budget” nonsense, spending MORE on those with no currency power will stimulate the economy, so long as the amount given doesn’t short available resources/goods?

            Thanks!
            1. el_tel June 19, 2018 at 8:13 am

               I think you’ve identified something that certain MMT experts say in the attempt to “reframe the debate” – namely that the national debt is also the accumulated savings of the non – governmental sector. (I may not have this exactly right but I believe that’s the gist of it). Eliminate the debt and you eliminate the bonds that underpin the guaranteed income of pensioners. (You can of course pay pensioners directly from govt without the bonds that enable the City to take its cut but as a stepping stone the above argument can be used.)
      7. John k June 18, 2018 at 6:27 pm

         Gov can spend essentially without limit until a shortage of real goods. This could be food, fuel, or labor… gov did do this during Vietnam war by drafting engineers for cannon fodder while simultaneously hiring hordes of them for the moon program, sharply boosting engineer salaries (to my benefit)
         Today vast quantities of unused labor of all types exist, also rebar and concrete… could be harnessed in needed infra. Little inflation would result, though fed would be alarmed at the thought of any wage rise, even though wages have lagged profits.
      8. Synoia June 18, 2018 at 6:32 pm

         Look it’s simple:

         Taxation is SOCIAL POLICY.
         1. paul June 19, 2018 at 6:32 pm

            I try to explain taxation as a balancing function to my pals, it sits nicely with peoples’ desire for order and sense.
      9. John Zelnicker June 18, 2018 at 7:23 pm

         @Roger Smith
         June 18, 2018 at 2:20 pm
         ——
         “And if currency is minted, is the potential downside on that end devaluation of the standard unit (if too much is created)?”

         This is a common question based on a misconception.

         We are taught that an increase in the supply of a commodity or product without a similar increase in demand will cause the price of the commodity or product to decrease. This is basic supply and demand dynamics. However, currency is not a commodity or product, so its value does not depend on the quantity issued or the demand for it. In fact, as long as an economy falls short of full employment, there will be continuing demand for additional money in that economy.

         Printed currency and minted coins are produced to allow people to convert their dollar bank holdings into a physical representation to be used for transactions or to stuff in a mattress. They are not created by government spending, but rather they are distributed to banks to provide that physical form in exchange for the bits and bytes representing the customer’s dollar bank balance.
   2. Pat June 18, 2018 at 3:04 pm

      It will also appeal to folks like me who think that many taxes are designed to encourage or discourage certain situations, and not just sin taxes. See, a financial transaction tax will by its very nature discourage a certain amount of computer run trading designed to make very small profits off of large volume transactions. Discourage in this case meaning make unprofitable.

      But I’m wild and crazy that way.
      1. Spring Texan June 18, 2018 at 3:23 pm

         Yep, FTT is a win-win because of discouraging speculation, it’s a fantastic bonus!
      2. JohnnySacks June 19, 2018 at 8:58 am

         Glad I read farther into the comments because I was going to basically say the same. Anyone who thinks rapid trading somehow is beneficial to the stock market is seriously delusional, unless of course a tsunami of profits is flowing into their account due to it. Then to hell with the rest of the world – burn it down as long as I’m rich because, after all, it’s all about me.
         Not sure why taxation can’t be sold as a way to encourage or discourage specific behaviors, it seems to work with tobacco.
         1. paul June 19, 2018 at 6:46 pm

            Thats an interesting example.
            Combustible tobacco use has plummeted to a base of about 10-20% in most sophisticated countries, but the eu has set its face against the long term evidence found in sweden, which seems to have the lowest rate of smoking in the area, that providing a product (“SNUS”) which can replace combustible tobacco works even better than onerous and punitive taxation.
   3. Big River Bandido June 18, 2018 at 3:26 pm

      The entire outstanding student loan debt in this country is less than the cost of a single, defective F-35.

      Even though MMT tells us that Federal taxes don’t fund Federal spending, I still like the comparison of costs.
      Budgets are moral documents — nowhere will you find a clearer statement of priorities than how a person or an institution spends its money. Framing issues in this comparative way can illustrate a sense of warped priorities, and that has value in political discourse.
      1. FluffytheObeseCat June 18, 2018 at 5:37 pm

         NO. A single F-35 does not cost $1.5 trillion.
         1. WobblyTelomeres June 18, 2018 at 6:25 pm

            Just the FIRST one.
            1. Synoia June 18, 2018 at 6:35 pm

               Yes, and in the 1.5 billion, we have created an aircraft OS, an operating system. Think of it as Windows for the aircraft.

               And when it becomes available to Boeing, and not Airbus, watch the “UN-subsidized” Boeing win repeatedly.
               1. WobblyTelomeres June 18, 2018 at 6:46 pm

                  Windows for the aircraft.

                  *shudders*
   4. Summer June 18, 2018 at 4:53 pm

      “If all of Congress woke up tomorrow with crystal-clear recognition of MMT, most of them still won’t fund free college, and still won’t want to tax financial transactions – because that will go against the interests of their donors.”

      Bingo. It’s not a numbers, currency, or financial theory problem, it’s a belief system/ideology problem.
      1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:13 pm

         True. But we can clear a lot of the nonsense away.
   5. Elizabeth Burton June 18, 2018 at 6:27 pm

      Bernie is right on this one – right to pitch the choice of what to finance in this way.

      Agree. It’s fine for those of us who understand the reality to complain about what is essentially a gesture, but that’s just it—it’s a necessary gesture because the majority of the population believes taxes do fund the government. Ignoring that fact is intellectual elitism, and condemning something like this proposed tax as irrelevant doesn’t help the progressive movement progress.

      We have 70 years of “balance the budget” propaganda to overcome. We also have a situation where Bernie Sanders needs to get his name attached to as much legislation as he can manage, because one of the clubs used to bludgeon him last time was that he never did anything for all his years in government. Because all of the many things he did accomplish were done by adding to other people’s legislation.

      He knows as well as anyone this tax isn’t going anywhere, at least not until after next January. He also knows he needs to shore up his resumé if he’s going to be effective two years from now.
      1. ChrisPacific June 18, 2018 at 7:02 pm

         I think it’s fine to present it as offsetting and non-inflationary. I don’t like implying a direct dependency, because if it succeeded it would make Wall Street speculators the sugar daddies of free higher education, and become a huge new barrier to meaningful regulation. Think of the poor students being denied an education, and all that.

         If a framing is needed, how about treating it as an investment in the workforce of the nation, and debt financing it? People finance investment with debt all the time if they think they can generate a positive net return. Why is it only bad when the government does it?
      2. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:15 pm

         > We have 70 years of “balance the budget” propaganda to overcome

         So we’d better start now, then!

         I’m really not saying that Gunnels should go full MMT. But he doesn’t have to make the (false) revenue raising idea the central selling point. What’s wrong with a straightforward assault on Wall Street speculation?
         1. kgw June 18, 2018 at 8:49 pm

            John Kenneth Galbraith put this “spend and tax” very well in his little book “The Culture of Contentment.” He was speaking against the monetarists, the interest rate perverts, who had “forgotten” about it.
         2. NotTimothyGeithner June 18, 2018 at 9:07 pm

            My sense is there is sufficient belief in wasteful spending such as aircraft carriers that “cost” of programs such as Medicare For All won’t bother anyone who wasn’t opposed to the idea of universal healthcare.

            Noted budget hawk and supporter of pay as you go, Nancy Pelosi, has never batted an eye at government spending. She couldn’t get her caucus united to oppose “Putin’s puppet” latest requests for more MIC waste.
      3. Procopius June 20, 2018 at 6:38 am

         Minor quibble — it’s a lot more than 70 years. FDR ran on balancing the budget in 1932. It was a major political plank throughout the ’20s for both parties. In the 19th Century it was presented as the only solution to the “panics” that the gold standard produced regularly.
2. pathman June 18, 2018 at 2:11 pm

   Antidote looks like the lovely milkweed plant. Tasty things to be made from those!
   1. Stephen V. June 18, 2018 at 10:18 pm

      Indeed it is. Just learned about the food potential : research is ongoing. Love the fact they propagate on rhizomes!
3. foghorn longhorn June 18, 2018 at 2:16 pm

   https://www.salon.com/amp/heres-whats-buried-beneath-that-fbi-report-how-rogue-agents-sabotaged-the-clinton-campaign

   This popped up in scroogle news earlier.
   It is all Rudy’s fault.
   1. Oregoncharles June 19, 2018 at 12:33 am

      Salon is dishonest, and so is Digby, in particular.

      I quit going there after I caught them censoring the comments to promote the Russia! fearmongering, then couldn’t get an answer out of them.
      1. Procopius June 20, 2018 at 6:41 am

         Yes, I used to adore digby, but since she became a fanatic Russia hater much (most) of what she writes is unreliable. Or perhaps I should phrase that as, “… much of what she writes is counter to the information I trust.”
4. Scott June 18, 2018 at 2:18 pm

   A couple of energy links for today.

   The first is about NextEra, the largest producers of solar and wind power in the world. One thing that this article serves to emphasis is to focus on what companies actually do rather than what their marketing/branding says they do. The company’s decisions were largely based on economics rather than policy or the CEO’s ego.

   http://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/TDJNDN_201806184000/how-a-florida-utility-became-the-global-king-of-green-power.html

   The second is from the EIA and suggests that the use of autonomous vehicles is likely to increase miles traveled. I don’t see anything good about this possibility as increase vehicle use is additional wear on roads, more traffic and more energy consumption (even if it is renewable).

   https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36492
5. John June 18, 2018 at 2:20 pm

   You must like Monarch butterflies and an incredibly sweet fragrance if you like today’s plant.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepias
   The Monarchs really need help.
   1. roxan June 18, 2018 at 6:30 pm

      I’ve had a hard time getting milkweeds to grow. I planted milkweed seed about two years ago, with no result. Suddenly, this summer–they came up! But…they seem to have some kind of disease that curls the leaves. The largest died. I recall milkweed being large and hardy perennials. What’s the problem?
      1. Stephen V. June 18, 2018 at 10:22 pm

         Yes! Same here with the suddenly part. But so many came up I didn’t worry about the few that died… I can’t say our usual hard clay is that great so am not sure what the problem is. Some are 5 ft high and I would say they are well worth a try.
   2. Oregoncharles June 19, 2018 at 12:37 am

      It’s a different species here, but I’ve had little luck with them, and that’s putting in plants. But then, I’ve never seen a Monarch here. The only large butterflies we get are swallowtails – one fluttered by today.
6. NotTimothyGeithner June 18, 2018 at 2:22 pm

   The Hillary Clinton graduation speaking engagement is hysterical. I particularly enjoyed the part about the Secret Service removing seating so former candidate Adlai….I mean HRC could appear. I wonder if she will go to a public school… it could be one in a rich area.
   1. Carolinian June 18, 2018 at 3:04 pm

      Perhaps the real question is did she get paid $300,000 and did the school have to pay for her private jet?
      1. polecat June 18, 2018 at 7:18 pm

         Were the kids required to wear purple ribbons before entering scholastic version of the seventh circle of Hell ?
   2. pretzelattack June 18, 2018 at 4:22 pm

      how many bankers’ kids, or silicon valley ceo kids, go to that school?
   3. ambrit June 18, 2018 at 5:21 pm

      How many school custodial workers had to be sold for medical parts to pay her speaking fee?
      1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:16 pm

         > How many school custodial workers had to be sold for medical parts to pay her speaking fee?

         Enough to do the job!
   4. anonymous June 18, 2018 at 8:59 pm

      Hillary Clinton gave a speech at UCLA a couple of years ago to the tune of $300,000

      https://www.cbsnews.com/news/behind-the-scenes-of-hillary-clintons-300000-speech-at-ucla/

      Separately, Hillary is tweeting up a storm about the #FamiliesBelongTogether crisis.

      Why doesn’t she offer to house one of these families?

      She and Dems are using this via ActBlue to fund-raise, *ostensibly* for the immigrant families….

      As I understand the situation: the children are being separated from their parents so that the kids are not in the same holding areas as large numbers of adults, including strangers. Would the cost be prohibitive to keep families together when detained?
7. roxy June 18, 2018 at 2:26 pm

   “EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton speaks at 8th grade graduation in San Francisco” [ABC 7 News] “Around 9:45 a.m. agents stopped all cars and foot traffic for the block and then Clinton and her entourage arrived.” Graduation from 8th grade. How long until her royal highness shows up at a kindergarten “graduation”?
   1. NotTimothyGeithner June 18, 2018 at 2:45 pm

      I don’t think the appearance is at issue as much as the asking price for tuition (unless Hillary, a leader of the Democratic Party makes regular appearances at less endowed schools) and reducing the seating for Adlai’s arrival.
      1. Elizabeth June 18, 2018 at 3:22 pm

         I’m wondering if Hillary got paid for this appearance? It’s not like her to give unpaid speeches.
         1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 3:51 pm

            Perhaps she’s learned…good publicity is money too.

            Or perhaps her lesson has been ‘don’t ask for cash-on-delivery.’

            “You can pay later, after I’ve achieved my goal.”

            That was how commerce progressed in the past.
            1. ambrit June 18, 2018 at 5:23 pm

               Maybe this is a downpayment for the grandkids’ tuition.
         2. NotTimothyGeithner June 18, 2018 at 7:27 pm

            The Clinton Foundation operated on a shoe string budget until after November 2, 2004 when the money started to flow in. Its weird how that works. This is just a return to the norm. Bill was working as a wing man for that Epstein pig.

            She may have to work on her marketability, only making appearances at kid events held at the Hyatt to drive up her asking price which I imagine is not $200K anymore.
   2. jo6pac June 18, 2018 at 2:58 pm

      You pay her enough and she’ll be there.

      https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/hamlin-school-graduation-sf-middle-school-hillary-12998287.php
8. dcblogger June 18, 2018 at 2:27 pm

   So here we are, 140 days before the election, and we’re relying on squillionaires like Steyer and Covington and Burling sleaze merchants like Eric Holder to handle what should be a core party function: Voter registration

   this reflects upon Politico as much as the Democrats. The real muscle in this election has been working since 2017. My friends in Minnesota and Wisconsin tell me that door knocking began in January. But Politico does not talk to the sort of people who organize door knocking.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 2:46 pm

      That’s good. Voter registration is still not a core party function. In a functional party, it would be.
      1. voteforno6 June 18, 2018 at 2:54 pm

         If I based my opinion of the Democratic Party solely on my interactions with them, my impression of them would be that one of its core party functions is to get money from me. Actually, that might be their only party function.
         1. Big River Bandido June 18, 2018 at 3:18 pm

            The Democrats are a political party in name only. In actuality, they’re nothing but a small network of consultants and con artists, who serve to enrich each other.
            1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 3:28 pm

               They do throw in virtue-signalling for free…likely they do for the love of it.

               In doing so, they cheapen virtue, and make non-virtue banal.
               1. Synoia June 18, 2018 at 6:37 pm

                  Give the grifters a break, they have to have some form of “hook” for the mopes.
            2. Whoa Molly! June 18, 2018 at 8:03 pm

               Re: “In actuality, they’re (Dems) nothing but a small network of consultants and con artists,”

               That would explain very nicely why no voter registration, or policy—but plenty of identity politics and “Russia, Russia”!
         2. Amfortas the Hippie June 19, 2018 at 9:10 am

            if i base MY opinion of teh demparty solely on my interactions with them, I would think that they don’t exist.
            In texas, this is the biggest difference between the party of today, and the party of 20-30 years ago.
            hell, a landline and an answering machine with a minimum message of support(“you’re not alone”) would be cheap.
            but in my county, and the 5 surrounding counties, this minor effort is apparently a bridge too far….at least since 08.
            A caveat: I know about and pay attention to the rural texas hill country. i have no idea what goes on in the city, as far as demparty visibility/existence.
      2. drumlin woodchuckles June 18, 2018 at 7:19 pm

         Patient and persistent voter registration could be a core movement function in the meantime. With enough Real Democrats performing enough Core Functions long enough and effectively enough, there might emerge enough Real Democrat Movements and cadre formations to where they could all start linking up and conquering pieces of the Democratic Party within their reach . . . and then start purging and expelling all the Catfood Clintonites from those pieces of the Party.

         ” Can the Catfood. Make the Party democratic again.”
      3. polecat June 18, 2018 at 7:34 pm

         What is ‘core’ to the DemoNCrats .. besides of course, magaphoning false virtues to the chumps .. while sucking $$$ any which way they can into their cynically merciless .. and forever toxic, blackhearted maws ? /r
      4. Stillfeelinthebern June 19, 2018 at 12:34 am

         I’ve been active in this effort with the Democratic Party in Wisconsin. We’ve asked over and over for a voter registration component. It has not happened. Lambert is absolutely correct. They (DPW) do not care about voter registration.
   2. Left in Wisconsin June 18, 2018 at 6:07 pm

      I hope you are right. In my deep blue next of the woods, the election has been a non-issue until now, which seems kind of strange as you would imagine a lot of excitement.

      Separately, the D gov primary is one election that could really use ranked choice voting. There isn’t a lot separating the 10 candidates, but there is some. My guess is that the primary winner will get less than 30% of the vote – very possibly less than 25% or even 20% – and will still have high unknowns or no opinions going into the general.
      1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:18 pm

         > the D gov primary is one election that could really use ranked choice voting

         If RCV increases turnout, as it did in Maine, then every election could really use it.
9. Wukchumni June 18, 2018 at 2:40 pm

   YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — John Muir, the naturalist who was most at home sleeping outdoors on a bed of pine needles in the Sierra Nevada, called giant sequoias the “noblest of God’s trees.”

   For three years, some of the most striking examples of these towering marvels were off limits to visitors in Yosemite National Park. After a $40 million renovation — the largest restoration project in the park’s history — the Mariposa Grove, a collection of around 500 mature giant sequoias, reopened last week.

   https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/us/yosemite-sequoia-mariposa-grove.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   That’s a lot of money to ‘renovate’ a grove in the land of the giants, most of which aren’t close to any asphalt, thus not in need of our financial ‘help’.

   Come south to Sequoia NP if you really want to see thick groves of the giants, here where one might contain 3,000 to 5,000 of the red pillared columns, and if you go just a little off the beaten path, you might have a grove to your lonesome.

   We spent the past few days @ Redwood NP, and the stands of Sequoia Semperverins here are magnificent, but not really approachable all that much, as are their sidekicks in the Sierra.

   Thick rainforest understory in the coastal groves, versus ‘gangs’ of giants that crowd out anything from growing pretty much, in an odd turf war.
   1. drumlin woodchuckles June 18, 2018 at 7:22 pm

      Perhaps the relevant parts of the Park Service would say what the renovation money was spent for. Perhaps it was for bio-remediation or bio-combat against eco-threats and dangers to the trees.
      1. Oregoncharles June 19, 2018 at 12:51 am

         It may have been for paving the trails, so foot traffic won’t kill the roots, as it can.
10. diptherio June 18, 2018 at 2:56 pm

    Re: Walkie Talkies

    One of the factors that walkie talkies have over cell phones is their lower frequencies, <500 Mhz, which creates much less/no health risks compared to cell phone frequencies in the Ghz range. Also, they can be used in rural areas without adequate cell service. And unlike cell phones, the service is distributed and not dependent on corporate service providers, and is so more robust, especially in emergency situations. So they've got their advantages…but yeah, they can be obnoxious.
    1. Code Name D June 18, 2018 at 7:17 pm

       And just what kind of health risks from cellphones are you referring too?
       1. drumlin woodchuckles June 18, 2018 at 7:24 pm

          Cancer. Cell phones cause cancer.

          Believe it now or believe it in twenty years. But eventually people will believe it. Years of exposure to steady doses of hand-held ” tobacco” held right upside the head.
          1. bob June 18, 2018 at 8:12 pm

             https://youtu.be/089FXiadgXY?t=2m19s

             “Believe it now or believe it in twenty years. But eventually people will believe it”
          2. Code Name D June 18, 2018 at 10:12 pm

             And the past 20 years dont count because…
11. Carolinian June 18, 2018 at 2:59 pm

    Howl with the wolf? Oh brother. Is Sunstein still hooked up with Samantha Power? Cause they are made for each other.

    And don’t think the Cooler has mentioned the great Leslie Cockburn who, with her husband Andrew, scripted the Clooney/Kidman The Peacemaker and who gave birth to actress Olivia Wilde. I think she may also have some political views. She’s running as a Dem for Virginia 5th district.
12. a different chris June 18, 2018 at 3:07 pm

    >Messrs. Wogsland and Naggs identified more than $7 million in misstated accounts and then left them on Roadrunner’s books until early 2017 in order to boost the company’s financial performance.

    Could be an interesting story. I know *nothing* about this, just saw the post and went and read the link. But what if these guys were only trying to keep the ship afloat? Their jobs, their co-worker’s jobs? The story didn’t show or even imply in any way that they were lining their pockets doing this. How could they, it was debt?

    Probably will just turn out to be your normal a-holes, but hey wouldn’t it be an interesting ray of light in the world of wage-slaves?
13. JTMcPhee June 18, 2018 at 3:12 pm

    FBI report and “no legal line may have been crossed:”

    Remember, folks, that “legal lines” are the product of that thing called “legislation.” Which in the real world, and it’s ever more true, is the product of a kind of gerrymandering. So lobbyists (and some Solons, on their own initiative) arrange the enactment and repeal of legislation, to suit the preferences and advantages of their real paying constituency. And beyond that, of course, there’s the enforcement mechanisms, which in case people have not been attending, no longer bother with even those violations of law that are still “criminal,” and “exercise prosecutorial discretion” to not prosecute criminally, or even seek penalties that count and the injunctive relief that might jail or bar the malefactors who might, were there some threat of retribution, or even real significant regulation, pursue other courses in their looting behaviors.

    So let us not dumb ourselves down into accepting that “no legal lines have been crossed.” Because that should scarcely be the standard that power elites need to be held to, if the mopes are to have any chance of even surviving over the long haul — let alone the seriously damage planet we need, our children need, to survive.
    1. Summer June 18, 2018 at 5:59 pm

       “So let us not dumb ourselves down into accepting that “no legal lines have been crossed.” Because that should scarcely be the standard that power elites need to be held to…”

       About 500 to 1000 years too late, but better late than never (for holding elites accountable).
       Look at how long people put up with monarchies. Oh, wait…
    2. Procopius June 20, 2018 at 6:54 am

       Well, that was why President Obama could say (had to say), “A lot of what they did was not illegal.” I always feel angry that he ignored the implication, which was that “some of what they did was illegal but the Justice Department decided that juries were too dumb to understand the cases so decided prosecuting would be too much hard work.”
14. Big River Bandido June 18, 2018 at 3:14 pm

    In Iowa, Republicans and Democrats fight for elusive independent voters, whoever they are” [WaPo]. “They are … expected to decide this fall’s midterm elections in the state.”

    Typically for the Washington Post, this article covers all the “cultural” angles (“mostly white”, “a dozen Catholic churches”, “a sprawling John Deere” works), employs all the usual neoliberal tropes (“the area’s recent move to the right”), and of course the inevitable horse race aspects (“I think they can be won back over,” said some non-candidate).

    Also typically for the Post, this article fails to ask a single policy question.

    The only glancing allusion to policy came with Rod Blum’s boilerplate Republican nonsense about taxes, and Abby Finkenauer’s vague list:

    making health care more affordable, increasing the number of higher-paying jobs, rebuilding the state’s infrastructure and expanding job-training programs

    Making health care more affordable? Expanding job training? Really? This is nothing but Catfood Democrat Horsefeathers. I think the left can write off this race — you can’t displace a two-term incumbent with nothing, and neoliberal crap like this isn’t going to appeal enough to draw “whoever they are” voters to the polls in an off-year election.
    1. Spring Texan June 18, 2018 at 3:25 pm

       Yep, disgusting. “Job training” is a bullshit way to help contractors.
       1. Arizona Slim June 18, 2018 at 5:19 pm

          Job training? For actual jobs? Or for the ones that job fairy might bring?
          1. Summer June 18, 2018 at 5:34 pm

             The kind of “training” that will be bonanza for cost cutting middle men skimming of the top…you know, like the rest of the economy. They stick a middle man between the source and the would be beneficiaries and call that “capitalism.”
       2. polecat June 18, 2018 at 7:40 pm

          Job ‘miming’ …
          .. as in mirage ..
    2. ewmayer June 18, 2018 at 6:08 pm

       ‘making health care more affordable’

       Lemme guess – some kind of federally bccked ‘health care loans’ program, which will help ‘make health care more affordable’ the same way student loans ‘helped make college more affordable’ and govt tax breaks for homeowners, fed-backed mortgage programs and ultralow interest rates ‘helped make housing more affordable’.
       1. Summer June 18, 2018 at 7:25 pm

          Whenever the duopoly politicians speak of health “care”:
          1) They are talking about insurance, not care
          2) They are talking about affordable for the govt budget so that more can go down the MIC drain – not affordable for you and me. Business will get plenty of leeway to dump more costs on the pleebs as well. (When are we getting out of that BS, archaic, having your employer all in your healthcare business. I’m really getting a f work attitude anyway. Feels good, but you have to hide it.)

          Student loans went down the building development and administration drain.

          “Helped make housing more affordable” – I can’t even…
15. Deschain June 18, 2018 at 3:29 pm

    I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty that the video game industry will not grow 50% this year. Double-digits, likely, but 50% is pure fantasy.
    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 3:56 pm

       Had addictive video games been available cheaply in Russia circa 1917, would history have been different?

       “Bread is not so available here in St. Petersberg, but circuses are good.”
    2. Jonathan Holland Becnel June 18, 2018 at 4:55 pm

       2 words: Fortnite

       err.._one word?
    3. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:22 pm

       Thank you. I’m trying to get a handle on “games” (as opposed to gaming). The last one I played was a version of Pong on my 512KE Mac. I spent like two days playing it. Then I removed it, and never put a game on my computer ever again. Other people’s views differ, and I grant I am totally out of step, especially with the bright young things of today.
16. Rob Urie June 18, 2018 at 3:30 pm

    Here (link) is Hillary Clinton advocating the deportation of thousands of Honduran orphans whose parents were killed in the coup she supported.

    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/09/bernie-s/sanders-said-clinton-backed-return-undocumented-ki/
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:19 pm

       Who could have known?
17. Big River Bandido June 18, 2018 at 4:08 pm

    UPDATE NY-14 “The Queens Machine That Turns Foreclosures Into Cash” [Village Voice].

    I live in this district, and this article strikes me as indeed a smoking gun of sorts. One of the side perks that Crowley has used as his political enforcement tool is his position as chairman of the Queens Democrat Party (a position he accepted even though he lives in Virginia, not Queens). Among the powers of the chairman are to appoint people to the places where they can cash in — probate and foreclosure courts.

    This is central to two of Ocasio-Cortez’ charges — that Crowley doesn’t even live in the district, much less represent its people. Even more damaging is the claim that he “profits off foreclosure”, which the article seems to support. The point isn’t whether Crowley receives financial gain from all this (although, with pay-to-play, who knows?) The point is that he controls the system and doles out the profits to his political supporters.
    1. JTMcPhee June 18, 2018 at 5:39 pm

       Just like Richard J. Daley did in Chicago… Smart enough not to live high on the hog and thus enable that venality criticism, but he directed all the city’s insurance business to a tiny little agency of which one of his sons was a principal, directed contracts for massive construction projects to the Crown family’s operations, used his control over city services to punish any adversaries, and generally ran the city and Cook County, and the “Democratic Machine” regime that owned the city, from his position as chair of the said Democratic Party. And brought us the Red Squad, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1049.html, the police riot at the ‘68 “Democratic” Convention. And the use of “urban renewal” to accomplish, like his tutee Obama, the demolition of Black neighborhoods to benefit the few, and facilitate concentrating them in crap housing where they could be arm-twisted to vote straight ticket Dem. And the Summerdale police scandal, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-07-07/news/ct-per-flash-summerdale-0707-20130707_1_squad-cars-richard-morrison-chicago-cops, where cops used police vehicles to haul away the loot from businesses they burgled and strong-armed in broad daylight. And a host of other large and small bits of abuse and corruption. And lived out his life comfortably, and died “beloved” and cared for by family, and a plurality of Chicagoans, God help us. Beloved among other things for his Malapropisms and neologisms, like the Dme Convention “The police are not here to create disorder, they are here to preserve disorder.”

       Straight Machine politics —
       1. Big River Bandido June 18, 2018 at 6:53 pm

          Straight Machine Politics. Exactly.
    2. freedomny June 18, 2018 at 8:15 pm

       Hi BRB – I live outside NY 14 but in Queens. I’m curious – do you think her campaign has been successful/effective? What do you see as the challenges in that district?
    3. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:23 pm

       So Crowley is running the Queens Democrat machine from Virginia. That’s nice.
18. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 4:17 pm

    From above:

    “Expect more fallout this week from President Donald Trump’s announcement Friday that $50 billion in goods from China will face new 25 percent tariffs” [Politico]. “A senior administration official told told reporters that the tariffs were aimed at pressuring China to make structural changes to its policies that facilitate theft of U.S. technology and undermine U.S. access to the Chinese market, ‘regardless of how you feel about the trade balance.’ That implies that a deal satisfying the United States wouldn’t necessarily entail a direct and immediate reduction in the trade deficit. But given Trump’s laser-like focus on the trade balance, all bets are off. Also note that the first tranche of tariffs, on $34 billion in goods, is scheduled to take effect July 6, which isn’t nearly enough time for China to make bureaucracy-shaking changes to prevent the tariffs from happening.”

    That compares with this NBC News story:

    Trump approves tariffs on a potential $50 billion worth of China goods …
    https://www.nbcnews.com/…/trump-approves-plan-impose-tariffs-potential-50-billion-…
    4 days ago – The Chinese have threatened to counterpunch with retaliatory tariffs and … American farmers in Trump-voting states may get hit hardest by a .

    If China is responding by targeting especially hard Trump voting states, if proven (which can be hard to prove such intent), would that be election meddling?

    Would that be political (contrasting with physical) ‘termination with extreme prejudice’ on a leader of another country (USA) by China, when Trump is working on pressure China to make policy changes, and is not trying to specifically take out Xi physically or politically.
19. Summer June 18, 2018 at 4:23 pm

    Too bad the MSM media won’t do as much coordinated (with the politicos) and concentrated and bombastic reporting on the affordable housing situation, after all, where will all the immigrants live?
20. 4corners June 18, 2018 at 4:24 pm

    Good grief. Any other NC readers weary of the immigration echo chambers? How many times do we have to suffer through the hackneyed comparisons to Nazis?

    Immigrants have been polarized to “hard working families” or “bad hombre animals”. Motives are either compassionate or mean. On this site, at least, I’d expect to see a more nuanced discussion of the issue.

    When I first noticed local chambers of commerce shed (crocodile) tears on behalf of migrants, I knew we were in murky waters. I credit NC for opening my eyes to the ravages of globalism and neoliberalism. But closer to home, I’m simply not convinced that recent high levels of immigration have not adversely affected labor in this country. I used to frame houses with my uncles, who made a decent living as carpenters. But thank heavens they’re retired now and don’t have to bid against immigrant labor. And no one cares to consider the externalities of so many low-skilled, low-wage families on social services.

    I believe we should be thoughtful about our immigration policies, and enforcement is a necessary part of that. This is not to excuse the practice of separating children from parents, which it seems the vast majority opposes, including myself. But I have yet to hear a cogent response from the “left” about who, how many, and why concerning immigration.

    I understand this is an emotional issue for many people, but I also think we should call a spade a spade. (Now, before I’m railed against in this comment section, please keep in my that 2:00 PM Water Cooler is my happy place, if not safe space.)
    1. Arizona Slim June 18, 2018 at 5:26 pm

       Here in southern Arizona, immigrant labor has displaced labor like the labor that 4corners’ uncles provided. House framers, roofers, the guys who pour concrete slabs.

       However, the skilled labor is still provided by Americans. Master electricians, plumbers, finish carpenters, HVAC technicians, and so forth.

       In many instances, the skilled laborers are Americans of Mexican descent, but they aren’t the immigrants. Their parents or grandparents were.
       1. ambrit June 18, 2018 at 5:39 pm

          Sorry to lluvar a su desfile Arizona Slim but, here on the Gulf Coast, skilled tradesmen from Mexico and points South are working on commercial jobs. The last bastion of nativist labour seems to be the Electricians Unions. All else have been reduced to ‘deplorablisme.’
       2. anonymous June 18, 2018 at 10:18 pm

          In the Los Angeles area, illegal immigrants have displaced African American labor in many non-skilled trades that once paid decent wages. Janitorial work is one example.

          “Among its findings, the Commission notes that the illegal workers are estimated to account for as much as one-third of total immigrants in the United States, and that illegal immigration has tended to increase the supply of low-skilled, low-wage labor available. The Commission found also that about six in 10 adult black males have a high school diploma or less, and are disproportionately employed in the low-skilled labor market in likely competition with immigrants. Evidence for negative effects of such competition ranged from modest to significant, according to the experts who testified, but even those experts who viewed the effects as modest overall found significant effects in occupations such as meatpacking and construction”

          https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1756&context=key_workplace
    2. ambrit June 18, 2018 at 5:31 pm

       Well, as one who immigrated from Western Europe as a child and is a naturalized American citizen, I say, round all the ‘illegals’ up, and, if they are really political refugees, which assertion I can accept, train them, arm the s— out of them and transport them back home to take back control of their natal countries. Reverse regime change.
       If the Wobblies could do something similar during the Contra Diaz war in Mexico, we can do the same today.
       1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:24 pm

          > If the Wobblies could do something similar during the Contra Diaz war in Mexico, we can do the same today.

          They did?
    3. dcblogger June 18, 2018 at 6:55 pm

       Listen to Children Who’ve Just Been Separated From Their Parents at the Border
       ProPublica has obtained audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children can be heard wailing as an agent jokes, “We have an orchestra here.”
       https://www.propublica.org/article/children-separated-from-parents-border-patrol-cbp-trump-immigration-policy
    4. marym June 18, 2018 at 7:10 pm

       One would think – if good jobs for US citizens were the goal, or even an expected outcome, of their actual and intended harsh policies against illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and naturalized citizens – that Trump/Sessions/Miller would mention that.

       Yet they speak only of justifications for using state force and violence. They portray immigrants as violent criminals, invaders, and freeloaders of public benefits, not as workers or people who have anything to contribute. They disparage the diversity lottery with lies about how it works. They haven’t put forward any analysis of where and what jobs would open up, and which citizens and communities would benefit from that. Trump’s demagoguery promotes the idea to his following that exclusion, cruelty, and state violence directed at people not like them is of value in itself.

       This is a very dangerous time and white supremacy for its own sake, which is an explicit feature of the Trump/Session/Miller approach to policy, is a very dangerous ideology.
       1. Fiery Hunt June 18, 2018 at 8:01 pm

          “White supremacy” is doing a lot of work there, as Lambert is wont to say….

          As I don’t see much difference from the Obama Administration on immigration, was Obama and Holder also pushing the “white supremacy” agenda???
          1. bob June 18, 2018 at 8:03 pm

             It’s fine and OK as long as the people doing it are the right color
          2. marym June 18, 2018 at 9:22 pm

             Obama had many policies that were terrible for a number of reasons. I probably don’t disagree with any criticisms of them from the left as corporatist, militarist, or authoritarian; and it’s often people of color, domestic and foreign, that pay the highest price of policies that favor elite interests.

             However, I don’t see that he had an agenda to promote white supremacy. Trump, Sessions, Miller, Bannon when he was officially advising, have a history of words and actions on matters of race, religion, snd ethnicity. It’s not a secret history.

             Wth the exception of the domestic impact of tariffs (which I don’t understand enough to have an opinion) their major domestic policy initiatives have been banning, incarceration, harsh policing, deportation, disenfranchisement, and fear-mongering of the Other, largely directed to what end? As I said, it doesn’t seem to be some rational plan for jobs, or healthcare, or housing, for whoever of the non-rich who expect to survive those policies.
             1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 9:39 pm

                So when Obama does harsh policing and deportation, it’s OK, because he has the right motives?
                1. dcblogger June 18, 2018 at 10:10 pm

                   Wth the exception of the domestic impact of tariffs (which I don’t understand enough to have an opinion) their major domestic policy initiatives have been banning, incarceration, harsh policing, deportation, disenfranchisement, and fear-mongering of the Other, largely directed to what end? As I said, it doesn’t seem to be some rational plan for jobs, or healthcare, or housing, for whoever of the non-rich who expect to survive those policies.

                   The only thing Trump cares about is attacking minorities.
                   1. Freethinker June 19, 2018 at 12:13 am

                      Also, considering unions and federal emploees, yes, Trump attacks minorities. And, considering that a significant number of individuals in those groups are minorities, yes again, proof that Trump attacks minorities. However, in Trump’s evisceration of the EPA, the CFPB, and other federal agencies, his, taxation preferences, his lack of stewardship for the common welfare, etc. well, that evidence shows he attacks the majority, the working class.
                   2. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 19, 2018 at 1:09 am

                      > The only thing Trump cares about is attacking minorities.

                      This is silly, since it takes no account of foreign policy.
                2. marym June 18, 2018 at 10:43 pm

                   His policies were not OK. I never said they were at the time or since.
                   1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 11:42 pm

                      Would you say Obama also attacked minorities, here and abroad?
                      1. marym June 19, 2018 at 12:17 am

                         I said his policies harmed people of color. It was in answer to whether I thought he had a white supremacist agenda, as I think Trumpians do.

                         I think Obama’s policies were evil for plenty of other reasons, some of which I named, but I don’t think the reason he thought it was ok to bomb, or deport, or incarcerate people was because he wanted to eliminate Islam or whiten the US population.

                         I do think it’s important to recognize white supremacy as a factor if it is one, just as it’s important to recognize militarism, corporatism, authoritarianism, misogyny, etc. when those are factors. Know your enemy.
                         1. Carolinian June 19, 2018 at 9:07 am

                            Are you a mind reader? How do you know what his “agenda” is? Politicians often say lots of things just to get votes.

                            This thread is an interesting discussion and my two cents would be actions, not words, are the only things that matter. If the Obama policy on the ground was the same as the Trump policy then it quacks like a duck.

                            The problem with “agenda” is that it can also be used to mask all kinds of horrible policies on the so-called left side of the political divide. Syria is destroyed with hundreds of thousands dead? Sure, but we meant well so don’t blame us. Mistakes were made.
                            1. marym June 19, 2018 at 10:30 am

                               You don’t think there can be more than one ideology/agenda/vision…whatever driving a particular policy? Or that to address that policy one needs to know something about that “whatever-we-call-it” in order to develop tactics and allies to support or oppose a policy?

                               As I said above, the Trump/Sessions/Miller history on racial issues isn’t a secret. The notion that their domestic policy prescriptions are somehow about jobs or security is as questionable as saying the same about Obama’s neoliberal economic policy or authoritarian surveillance and suppression of dissent.

                               If it’s possible to discern a neoliberal rentier [agenda] or a hegemonic militaristic [agenda], or an evangelical/dominionist [agenda], or some combination, behind any given policy, then it should be plausible to discern a white supremacist [agenda].
       2. dcblogger June 18, 2018 at 9:59 pm

          marym +1000
       3. Procopius June 20, 2018 at 8:45 am

          One would also think that if the people whose children are being placed in camps entered the country at points other than regular ports of entry they would be talking about that. I saw Kirjsten Nielson say it in passing in an interview, but why didn’t she repeat the point, pound on it, say over and over these are not people following procedures to apply for asylum. She didn’t, so I believe that must not be the case. I believe they are detaining people at ports of entry who are properly applying for asylum. If anybody knows otherwise I would love to hear some evidence.
    5. drumlin woodchuckles June 18, 2018 at 7:35 pm

       This is why I reject the concept of “abolishing ICE”. If we don’t have a way to find and expel all the illegal aliens who are already IN this country ( millions and millions and millions), we will never be able to create the labor shortage needed to torture the employER class into hiring citizens again at “citizen” wages.

       Would a “kinder gentler ICE” which would remove all the illegal aliens in a kinder gentler way be nicer? Yes, it would, as long as it still got all the illegal aliens removed and a torturous labor shortage created.

       That said, the spiteful nastiness of family separation and legalized kidnapping can be exploited as a club, a wedge and a tire iron to beat the teeth out of Trump’s mouth with. If Trump’s teeth can be broken out of his mouth fast and hard and painfully enough, this particular little policy soupcon may be stopped in isolation, and illegal or asylum-seeking families can all be interned together in “family togetherness” holding camps.
       1. Isotope_C14 June 19, 2018 at 5:14 am

          I think the Native Americans on “reservations” should run ICE.
21. Summer June 18, 2018 at 4:36 pm

    “Democrats intensify fight for immigrant children — and bludgeon Trump and Republicans ahead of midterms” [WaPo].

    “(2) consider how U.S. support for murderous regimes, the DEA’s “War on Drugs,” and the destruction of Mexican agriculture fuel immigration (and asylum), for starters; the parallel to the mayhem and chaos our wars have induced in the Middle East, leading to emigration to the EU, is exact…”

    Indeed. The world has a foreign policy problem more than immigration problems.

    Also, as for the USA, concentrated and bombastic coverage of the affordable housing crisis is needed in this context. The MSM can’t seem to get it up for that. After all, where are all the immigrants going to live?
    Maybe they would care enough about lack of affordable housing if it was put in terms of affecting immigrants.
    1. Fiery Hunt June 18, 2018 at 8:08 pm

       Summer’s on a Monday roll! :)
22. dcblogger June 18, 2018 at 4:42 pm

    Sessions and Kirstjen Nielsen need to be impeached and sent to the ICCt
23. Summer June 18, 2018 at 4:50 pm

    “Blow makes a strong argument for amnesty for the entrepreneurs who built the marijuana market and were sent to jail for decades during the war on drugs, thereby being separated from their families.”

    That would be too much like actual justice. Can’t have that here…
24. dcblogger June 18, 2018 at 4:53 pm

    lookee, lookee, who takes campaign contributions from Correction Corporation of America
    https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cmte=C00366468&cycle=2018
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:27 pm

       2008 is more interesting, since it shows the lost opportunity. Democrats gestured toward scaling back private prisons, but only by 2016, which was, of course, far too late.
25. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 4:55 pm

    There’s 1 bill in the Senate to tax Wall Street speculators (a financial transactions tax). It’s S.805, the Inclusive Prosperity Act introduced by Sen. Sanders. It would raise enough revenue to make public colleges & universities tuition free. So far, it doesn’t have a co-sponsor

    It’s a good idea, but a better one is to use that money to house the homeless and make potable water free, first, and maybe subsidies for (or free) air ambulances and free college after them.
26. Olga June 18, 2018 at 4:55 pm

    “With our system of checks and balances, full-blown authoritarianism is unlikely to happen here, but it would be foolish to ignore the risks that Trump and his administration pose to established norms and institutions, which help preserve both order and liberty. Those risks will grow if opposition to violations of long-standing norms is limited to Democrats, and if Republicans laugh, applaud, agree with, or make excuses for Trump—if they howl with the wolf.”
    Wow, Cass, do I have news for you… Not even sure where to begin. First of all, what checks and balances? Second, Trump is a symptom, not the cause… Third, what is your definition of FB authoritarianism? Might it include having your every step watched and/or listened to? Having your car license monitored? And that’s just white folks… let’s not get started with minorities (like being killed if you so much as disobey… remember Sandra B?). Oh, pueeze Cass, get some real-life experience first, before spouting nonsense.
    1. blennylips June 18, 2018 at 5:28 pm

       Thanks Olga, for finding a way to begin, Grin Grin, Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge, Say No More
27. Summer June 18, 2018 at 5:05 pm

    Concentration: “Maybe the Big Four Auditing Firms Do Need to Be Broken Up”

    Imagine the cliff the economy will have to fall off before the alleged representatives enforce anti-trust laws.
    Not pretty. But it will take complete disaster for the greed to get a clue.
28. Jeff W June 18, 2018 at 5:18 pm

    I really like Thomas Frank—a lot of what he says about the Democratic Party, the Clintons and President Obama is illuminating and, to me, spot on. (And he gets the absurdity of much of the policy-making that goes on.)

    My only problem with Frank is that he has, in my view, this curious blind spot—he talks about Barack Obama being a “disappointment,” how the Republicans “played him,” and all that, which is a variation on the Obama-is-weak/incompetent trope. He says elsewhere “I don’t really have the final explanation for why things didn’t work out the way I thought they should or hoped that they would.” Somehow it’s all too mystifying for him.

    For all his considerable perspicuity, Frank doesn’t seem to get that Obama was and is, as Adolph Reed, Jr. called him over two decades ago, a neoliberal; that he is, as New Yorker writer Larissa MacFarquhar described him in 2007, “deeply conservative.”
    1. NotTimothyGeithner June 18, 2018 at 6:41 pm

       I agree with your assessment of Obama, but I don’t believe Obama’s personal character is as important as the structure and class make up of the Democratic Party.

       Weak or a crummy guy aside, Obama did show he was capable of being moved. Take for example DADT’s repeal. The problem was not Obama but the liberal, bourgeois class who protected him. When they were removed or sided on the right side, he jumped. Obama himself is a reflection of that professional class versus being an independent entity.

       853rd dimensional chess and “no drama, Obama” were powerful narratives used to stifle dissent and wrap the “I’ve got mine” crowd in a form of protection and allowed them to remain ignorant of that administration. I see an element of celebrity culture/worship being at play. I saw Glen Greenwald defending Peter Daou’s tweets the other day taking on the Democratic Party and its rot. Daou who worships Hillary, the epitome of that rot, can make excellent points and diagnose the state of the party of the country succinctly (I think he only needed 140 characters and verification to do it), but his relative comfort means he is free to revel in celebrity worship.

       Look how far a guy like Bernie came despite no establishment support. Where would we be if Sanders could have pulled 10% of that early on. I have loathed Obama since 2006 when he was stumping for Lieberman in the primary and didn’t think much of his DNC speech or whiny books, but the problem isn’t Obama. Washington is still Hollywood for ugly people, and that professional class provides the accolades and crowds politicians crave. How do those people react if they started losing the Peter Daous on a grand scale? Daou’s recent tweets are simply better than anything the greatest orator in the history of ever has ever said. His comfort keeps him from pointing out the problem about his imaginary friend (HRC) in this case.

       Reed did note Obama or an unnamed candidate who has to be Obama because he provided enough details, but Reed also brought up that he represented a new class of candidates, peddling to (this is me) to bourgeois liberals or at least Republicans who wish the GOP wouldn’t cage children in such a public manner.
    2. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:36 pm

       Frank was a believer in 2008, sadly. Expanding on the passage you quote:

       No, you’re going to be surprised, but I say that because I lived in his state Senate district back in Chicago, so I voted for him when he ran against Bobby Rush. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time. Yes, I am, of course, disappointed with how things have worked out. I don’t really have the final explanation for why things didn’t work out the way I thought they should or hoped that they would. I think that’s going to be up to Obama himself one day writing his memoirs.

       Or his third and fourth autobiographies [rimshot. laughter].

       Why on earth would anybody trust what Obama writes?

       I’m sure Frank isn’t a Kool-Aid drinker, but I think it takes a long time for complete self-awareness to surface (and who among us…). But at least he doesn’t deploy the Obama apologist tropes and his view of Obama’s failure — or success, right — in the Crash is appropriately caustic. When you say you expected the guy to be the second FDR and then say he muffed the greatest political opportunity to do good in generations, that’s not a mere love tap.
       1. freedomny June 18, 2018 at 10:42 pm

          BTW for all you Thomas Frank fans – he will be interviewed by Katie Halper on June 30 at Caviat in NYC – I think the tickets are $10….
29. clarky90 June 18, 2018 at 5:21 pm

    Re; “Liberal Democracy Is Under Attack”

    Undercover at the world’s most secretive society: Mail reporter infiltrates shadowy Bilderberg summit where the West’s power brokers set the world to rights

    “For the first time in its 66-year history a journalist penetrated security to go undercover at the hotel”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5850053/Undercover-worlds-elitist-secret-society.html

    These rarely reported Bilderberg conferences call, to my mind, the secret conferences between the Nazis and the Bolsheviks in Brest, Poland, September 1939.

    They even had a celebratory, Nazis and Communists, military parade!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_military_parade_in_Brest-Litovsk

    The Bilderbergers are deluded halfwits imo. Are they dreaming of an Artificial Intelligence Neo-God?
    1. Synoia June 18, 2018 at 6:42 pm

       The Bilderbergers live on a diet of peasant.
       1. john k June 18, 2018 at 8:34 pm

          love it.
          We peasants love being on the headline.
30. ewmayer June 18, 2018 at 5:33 pm

    Next Mortgage Default Tsunami Isn’t Going to Drown Big Banks but “Shadow Banks” | Wolf Street

    Wolf repeats the loanable funds fallacy w.r.to traditional bank lending, but it’s not important to his argument here, which is to point out that at the the same time regular banks are pulling back from mortgage issuance in a big way, shadow lenders like LoanDepot and United Wholesale Mortgage are soaring. And by way of a reminder from 10 years ago, he notes:

    ‘Non-bank lenders do not take deposits, and thus have to fund their lending in other ways, including by borrowing from big banks and issuing bonds. They’re not regulated by bank regulators, and their capital cushions are minimal. During the last mortgage crisis, the non-bank mortgage lenders were the first to collapse – and none were bailed out.’

    The corollary question, “But if it’s true that the shadow banks borrow money from real banks, besides issuing bonds, wouldn’t that put the real banks at some risk?” is astutely asked by one reader in the comments section, and answered by another.
    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 9:22 pm

       Real banks are big. Big banks are never at risk.

       Little people will be at risk of being reminded that they are little people when the government bails out big banks…again.
31. Peter Falk June 18, 2018 at 5:40 pm

    It is about a shortage of cheap labor that the Democrats big business supporters need. They are willing to exploit children so that the borders will open with cheap labor for their REIT, etc. The issue of the children could be discussed like adults if that was the real issue. The Democrats owe their big supporters a return which is a free flow of exploited workers.
    1. danpaco June 18, 2018 at 6:26 pm

       The exact opposite is in fact happening. Stricter immigration law or increased enforcement of existing laws drives those that are illegal further underground and therefore more exploitable to unscrupulous employers.
       If the borders were “opened” as you say, labour rates would actually increase. Day labour rates in Toronto from illegal immigrants is on par with citizens (anecdotal evidence only) due to the fact that Canada doesn’t have such a draconian enforcement mechanism as the US.
       1. David June 18, 2018 at 7:13 pm

          due to the fact that Canada doesn’t have such a draconian enforcement mechanism as the US.

          Canada warns immigrants in U.S. about heading north of the border

          In what has become an increasingly regular mission, Canadian representatives visited the U.S this week to warn immigrants fearful over President Trump’s immigration crackdown that they can’t simply rush north of the border to find safe haven…

          In August, Royal Canadian Mounted Police caught more than 5,500 people trying to illegally cross from the U.S…

          Only about 8% of their asylum application have been approved, however, meaning the vast majority have been turned down and are being deported straight back to their home countries…

          “People seem to think that if they cross the border there’s this land of milk and honey on the other side,” Boissonnault [Randy Boissonnault, liberal member of Parliament] said from the Canadian consulate in Miami on Thursday…

          …The country [Canada] has been increasing the total number of immigrants it admits each year. It’s on pace to accept 310,000 permanent residents this year, with a goal of increasing the annual total to 340,000 by 2020.

          In 2016, 1,183,505 persons obtained lawful permanent resident status in the United States (source).
       2. drumlin woodchuckles June 18, 2018 at 7:42 pm

          No, its due to the fact that there is a thousand mile deep layer of United States between Canada and Mexico. If America were to facilitate the injection of several million illegal immigrants through America into Canada to work under the system you describe, it would be an interesting experiment of where wages in Canada would go.

          And since Canada’s Mulroney was an active co-equal co-conspirator with America’s Reagan in crafting NAFTA to begin with, it is only fair that several million NAFTAstinian Refugees be sent from America into Canada so the pain can be shared proportionally with the blame for NAFTA.
          1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 9:29 pm

             That would be cynical for Trump to offer safe passage straight from the south border to the north.

             I think some European countries did that…waving people through to their preferred destinations.
32. ewmayer June 18, 2018 at 5:45 pm

    o UPDATE “It Can Happen Here” [Cass Sunstein, New York Review of Books] … “but it would be foolish to ignore the risks that Trump and his administration pose to established norms and institutions…”

    As Lambert might say, Sunstein’s invocation of the norms fairy is a huge tell here.
33. ewmayer June 18, 2018 at 5:56 pm

    o The Bezzle: “Tesla Short Sellers Sitting on $14 Billion Bomb That’s Ready to ‘Explode’” [247 Wall Street]. “As of the end of May, short sellers held nearly 31% of the outstanding float of Tesla Inc., a total of just over 39 million shares. That is a virtual tie with the highest level of short interest in Tesla in the prior 12 months….

    Probably explains why Musk has been furiously buying back shares on his own dime, causing the price to soar from its recent lows back to within a few % of its ATH. Maybe another good shorting oppo coming up?
    1. The Rev Kev June 18, 2018 at 7:08 pm

       Bringing together this story and others that have appeared recently, wouldn’t it be funny if Musk’s Tesla company became the target of private equity firms in a hostile takeover. Actually, when I think about that, perhaps Musk ‘poisoned-pilled’ Tesla with all that debt to stop that possibility happening.
       1. drumlin woodchuckles June 18, 2018 at 7:47 pm

          Wouldn’t it be even more interestinger if somebody could take over Tesla despite all the poison pills and rescue it from its mental bondage to the Electric Car Fairy? And redirect its efforts to Plug-In/ engine-chargeable Hybrid Electric cars? Why has the hybrid electric concept become so unfashionable lately? Isn’t it still the most efficient energy-extractor from a given bunch of fuel? And you wouldn’t need mega firebomb batteries in a HYbrid electric because you would have an onboard engine to recharge the normal non-lithium batteries as needed on the road and on the go.
          1. Octopii June 18, 2018 at 11:24 pm

             The P100D range is over three hundred miles. Why add an extra fairly complicated noisy maintenance-intensive subsystem that’s unnecessary at this point?
          2. SimonGirty June 19, 2018 at 7:55 am

             Someone do kinda seem invested in ramping up debate, online? https://medium.com/@briankent/gas-versus-electric-the-final-showdown-209c2117dbe3
    2. John k June 19, 2018 at 12:25 am

       Shares up 1/3 recently.
       He spent 25 mil, bought maybe 80k shares.
       39 mil shares short, which is 1/3 of float, a huge amount,
       So he bought 1/4% of short shares, and moved the market up 1/3?
       Outstanding!
       Or another view, his timing was excellent, and his 25 mil is now about 33. More than I made this year.
       Either way, those on the hook for the borrowed shares are not crowing. Maybe tomorrow.
       I continue to think he’s moving the reduced-fossil needle in a good direction. The necessary energy revolution will have both winners and losers along the way, I’m not much concerned about the rich backers of horses that fade.
       We will see… he might flame out, in which case the rich shorters will celebrate. Or vice versa. Disclosure… im not backing any horse, having already lost big on a failed solar startup.
34. JohnnyGL June 18, 2018 at 6:07 pm

    http://www.espn.com/soccer/united-states/story/3531891/landon-donovan-clarifies-supporting-mexico-in-world-cup-ad-campaign

    Dropping this in here because of who’s saying it and where he’s saying it. Taylor Twellman calls out Landon Donovan for doing ads with Wells Fargo and specifically cites the fake accounts rip off scandal. Twellman’s mostly mad about the Mexican team endorsement, but still, he criticized a corporate sponsor. Brave thing to do.

    I’d like to see more celebs/athletes criticize the endorsement deals of other celebs/athletes. Companies deserve more shame for their misdeeds.
    1. petal June 18, 2018 at 7:27 pm

       At the gym earlier tonight I was watching Highly Questionable on ESPN, and those guys also called him out for the Wells Fargo thing and mentioned “billion dollar mortgage fraud committed by WF”. To say I was shocked is an understatement. It was great.
35. The Voting Method and the Public Will June 18, 2018 at 6:22 pm

    For those interested in ranked choice issues

    https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783540600640
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 8:38 pm

       Could you summarize a bit? I fount the abstract a little opaque.
       1. el_tel June 19, 2018 at 4:10 am

          Whilst I don’t have access to that book, there are severe statistical and practical concerns with ranked voting. As shown by Yatchew & Griliches (1985: Review of Economics and Statistics; pp pp134-139) for any outcome data that is discrete (choose one from two/more – thus including FPTP, ranking systems of voting etc), correct aggregation – in the sense of correctly weighting each person’s “true strength of preference” – requires you to measure and if necessary “net out” different degrees of inconsistency. This inconsistency is (statistically) heteroscedasticity. For those who hate stats, the easiest (but not only) way to think of this is a person’s degree of certainty in their responses. It has been known for years from fields such as applied economics and marketing that people routinely demonstrate this phenomenon in rankings – in short, they’re good at top and bottom ranks but pay progressively less attention as they move from the ends towards the middle. This is one reason countries which use (even a modified version like Australia) such systems are finding increasing annoyance in the population as strange parties/candidates get into the Senate – candidates are not, in actuality, getting the same weight applied to their votes.

          Under FPTP when there is broadly only one underlying dimension – think of the Keynesian era in Western democracies – this problem was not severe. However, when people begin to vote on the basis of multiple dimensions (e.g. economics, identity politics, Europe etc), predictions break down and cross-party candidates (populists) who identify certain popular dimensions among likely voters get in. One proposed solution requires (arguably) the smallest tweak to FPTP whilst having the biggest impact in giving “wasted” votes a voice once again: most-minus-least voting (proposed by a former colleague of mine). People vote for most favoured candidate (as in FPTP), but they get a second vote, their LEAST favoured candidate. At the counting stage the most total is as now. BUT the least total for each candidate is subtracted from this. (You must use both your most and least vote for it not to be considered spoilt.) The winner is the candidate with the highest net most-minus-least vote. It would, for instance, have electrified the Republican Primary before 2016 – most of the large field of candidates would have encouraged their voters to put Trump as “least” whilst Trump simply couldn’t have eliminated all the “Bush-types” of this world. I doubt he’d have ended up as the candidate. The Democrat result is harder to call, given the superdelegates and much smaller field (three IIRC in the first Primary). Anyway the system discourages candidates from picking on minorities (provided they’re not TOO small).

          Interestingly, whilst it may look like a cut-down version of ranked voting, it isn’t – heteroscedasticity is much less of a problem (since people tend to exhibit closer degrees of certainty in what they love vs hate compared to love/hate vs somewhere in the middle). The remaining issue, for the statistical eggheads like me, is that the assumption must hold within people – thus to test it properly you would ideally need (say) 10 parallel universes holding the election to measure “consistency” properly (!!!) But there are other ways to get a handle on this – indeed in the UK 2017 GE YouGov’s “alternative” model was on the right lines (and got the result right) as was my model (which got me money at the bookies as I knew May’s majority was toast). Anthony A J Marley was my collaborator who is a math psych genius and has written a lot on voting, dealing with the issues that this book seems to discuss. A lot of his work is as technical as that book is (unfortunately) but he’s also written readable stuff. TL;DR: Ranking systems are not all they are made out to be – ask the average Australian voter.
          1. PlutoniumKun June 19, 2018 at 7:15 am

             Nice to see you back posting here el-tel.

             Thats an interesting contribution – I do think ranked preference is better than most systems, but as you say, it does have its faults. The German system of insisting on a minimum 5% national vote in order to have a candidate elected I think has a lot of merit in removing fringe parties and candidates from governement.

             In Ireland, there is a sort of default version of the ‘minus’ vote. As most large parties have more than one candidate in any election, this gives people the opportunity to vote tactically against the candidate from the party they dislike most. This does have the effect of disadvantaging those candidates who have a very strong level of support from his own supporters, but is actively disliked by opponents – he will see lower level preferences going to his less dislikeable running mate(s). Its a minor effect, but can be significant in tight elections. Its one reason its often said that the Irish parliament may not be very competent, but nearly everyone is very sociable.
             1. el_tel June 19, 2018 at 7:29 am

                Thanks. For various reasons my contributions are likely to be rarer but this time I’ll try to stay rigidly on topic. One comment that always sticks in my mind from a more experienced colleague is that these systems can be great in theory… But mess up the moment those annoying humans are added to the mix!

                Yes given my background I find the Irish system interesting… I only wonder if its undoubted benefits can be achieved via a simpler system. People learn to game any system remarkably quickly…. The issue becomes “what system most encourages them to express their true preferences” (incentive compatibility in economics speak). Ranking doesn’t do well on that score. Most-least does better but no system (of course) is ideal.
          2. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 19, 2018 at 1:33 pm

             Thanks for the tl;dr. We’ll see how it works out in Maine.
36. Summer June 18, 2018 at 6:49 pm

    https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trump-directs-pentagon-to-create-space-force/

    (Face Palm)

    Think there will be affordable housing in f’in space????
    1. WobblyTelomeres June 18, 2018 at 6:53 pm

       He’s prolly been talking to Gingrich again.
    2. RUKidding June 18, 2018 at 7:11 pm

       Unsure why this appeals to Trump, albeit he seems to tweet about it when there’s need for a distraction of some sort. Certainly gets people talking about THAT, rather than, uh, other things…
    3. ewmayer June 18, 2018 at 7:49 pm

       OTOH, this sort of thing *is* rather along the lines of the kind of TV show I imagine Trump watching when he’s not watching the ‘news’ in search of ego-boosting mentions of his name and potential targets for tweet-trolling:

       https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129398

       The Japanese have a popular SciFi ‘space force’ sub-genre, too.
37. none June 18, 2018 at 7:05 pm

    > “So who won 2 of Maine’s Democratic primary contests? Scanning, scanning …It’s a time-consuming process

    I’m confused: what is causing the delay here? If they are optical-scan ballots then computers should be able to spit out the answer right away. Hand verification without a computer would take longer, but usually that’s only done in the event of a contested election, or if hand counting a small random sample doesn’t give a good indication of the overall outcome.
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 9:31 pm

       Apparently they are consolidating all the ballots for counting at a single location.
38. bob June 18, 2018 at 7:11 pm

    This is hilarious-

    https://twitter.com/schwarz/status/1008698457589256192

    “Howard Dean is a senior advisor at Dentons, a gigantic legal/lobbying firm. “After this is over,” people who worked for Trump will have offices down the hall from him.”

    The whole thread is a good pile on-

    https://twitter.com/gthanku/status/1008767277783662592

    “Howard Dean sells himself to the highest bidder, one of which is Saudi-funded MEK, the militant terror cult that Bolton & Giuliani want to install in Iran post regime change. Here’s a pic of Howard Dean doing this in Paris, next to Giuliani.”

    https://twitter.com/vogon/status/1008748402480332800

    “hell, newt gingrich worked there until two months ago”
    1. RUKidding June 18, 2018 at 7:14 pm

       Thanks.

       It’s truly a shame how rapidly Howard Dean sold himself out completely.

       I think one problem is that a lot of these politicians have no clue how to do, uh, actual real work, plus they’re just too lazy to try. All they know is one form of prostitution or another (with apologies to sex workers the world over).
39. The Rev Kev June 18, 2018 at 7:16 pm

    “Maine Voters Overrule Their Leaders”

    I think that Maine’s leaders have forgotten how good leadership works. It’s not very hard. You just see in which direction people are headed and then you just get yourself in front of that particular parade.
40. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL June 18, 2018 at 7:24 pm

    I’ll wait for Rachel Maddow to come up with a reason this is pure evil, and bad for Africa:
    http://nilepost.co.ug/2018/03/27/russia-cancels-all-debts-of-african-countries-in-excess-of-20-billion/
    1. NotTimothyGeithner June 18, 2018 at 7:48 pm

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXVE01oOTAM

       Preview from tonight’s breaking news on the Maddow hour of power!
41. bob June 18, 2018 at 7:36 pm

    UPDATE NY “Trial of former SUNY official Alain Kaloyeros to begin Monday

    The whole mess of trials around cuomo’s bagmen are being very badly reported on. Most of the corruption is centered geographically in CENTRAL NY. Near Syracuse/Utica.

    The biggest gasps and finger waging during the first trial were around a small subset of bezzle in the westchester area.

    It’s a shame the local newspapers in syracuse don’t put much effort into reporting on this stuff. The center of Advance media, and the Newhouse school, are both in Syracuse. Why the silence?

    Could the silence have anything to do with the $500 million NYS was going to give Syracuse University to build a new athletic stadium?

    COR was mentioned as the builder of that stadium before plans were even released. The deal fell apart after the first hints of investigation into the current trials were ongoing.

    Also mentioning that COR has sued to get paid for the work that they bribed Cuomo to get. Twice.

    https://www.syracuse.com/state/index.ssf/2018/03/cor_sues_ny_for_567000_the_state_wont_pay_because_of_pending_criminal_case.html

    They won.
    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 8:17 pm

       For being a farm of the NFL, they get $500 million?

       That could have funded many more homeless shelters in New York.
       1. bob June 18, 2018 at 9:02 pm

          Not even a farm team anymore. For NFL. NBA, maybe.

          $500 million to a private school. No word on where that money ended up.
    2. Lambert Strether Post authorJune 18, 2018 at 9:36 pm

       Thank you, Bob. I was hoping you’d weigh in.
42. JTMcPhee June 18, 2018 at 8:13 pm

    Lambert kindly reports information on the “housing market” every weekday, from the usual sources. Here’s just a little anecdote about housing and markets, from my neighborhood:

    Houses in my neighborhood sold down at the bottom of “the market” for $50-$60k. The price runup saw a high-price sale of about $250K, most houses in the $150-$200k. Now the houses on either side of mine are on the market. In both cases the ask was around $200K. Both houses went under contract within a couple of weeks. And in both cases, the buyers defaulted within two days of the closing. In both cases, my neighbors relate, the prospective buyers said they could simply not afford the “house of their dreams.”

    As I say, just an anecdote. Who really knows what was in the details? Or what the real current state of Real Estate ™ is? Bulls and bears, heavy on the bull…

    And another little bit: a Realtor! ™ involved in the sale of a friend’s house, from the firm that brokered the sale of one of my neighbor’s houses, apparently pulled a fast one on on the friend — talked her into signing blank documents (particularly bits about who pays closing costs, sticking her with $8500, a multiple of what it should have been), pushed her to closing without providing a settlement statement that would have disclosed the friend was obligated to pay TWO commissions totaling 12% of the sale price, and a bunch of other stuff like pushing papers through that the friend never saw and did not sign. So now the friend has to get a lawyer and try to undo the damage. And she is a nurse with disabled grandkid and disfunctional kids to deal with, who now gets to live in a trailer house.

    People need shelter. Though of course there are too many people, too much growth, too much paving over everything. And we are supposed to receive the news that the curves of price and sales and “development” are bending up, if they are, because that denotes that “the economy” is “growing” and thus “the boats are rising with the tide?” Or something. Because after all, Real Estate ™ is one of the legs of the three-legged stool that props up the Bubble Economy? And gee, why is ther no “council housing” here? And why is the norm, the ideal, the HGTV “want,” the ‘single family residence’?
    1. anonymous June 18, 2018 at 9:53 pm

       I think “Crabgrass Frontier” discusses the historical emergence of the single family home as an ideal.

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crabgrass_Frontier
43. The Rev Kev June 18, 2018 at 8:50 pm

    “I can’t understand why (Thomas Frank) doesn’t have a forum here, in this country…”

    Oh, I think that we all have a pretty good why he has been shut out of the political discourse.
44. BobWhite June 18, 2018 at 8:59 pm

    “Child Separation and History: the Canadian Residental Schools” [The Incidental Economist]. “There is a closer historical parallel than Nazi Germany: the treatment of indigenous children in Canada…. The system lasted well into the 20th century.

    Along similar lines in Australia was the “Aborigines Protection Act” (from 1905 to 1971), government officials would “remove any Indigenous child at any time and for any reason.” Of course, it was not a protection of Aboriginal people, but a way to eliminate them. Read more here: http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/defining_moments/featured/aborigines_protection_act

    Also, a good film on the subject:
    Rabbit-Proof Fence

    The treatment of Native Americans in the US has always been (and still is) atrocious…
    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 9:55 pm

       Natives in countries south of the US are still being evicted, even now, from their homes and driven north to the neoliberal cage of broken families, with malnourished kids, ever more homeless without shelter, and debt serfs who don’t have more than $400 to deal with any emergency in life.
    2. Octopii June 18, 2018 at 11:18 pm

       Also similar to the American Indian Schools out west.
45. Rohan June 18, 2018 at 9:01 pm

    Thomas Frank’s video was very enlightening. It helped explain the Democratic party’s puzzling current disposition (I’m not well versed in US political history). Thank you Lambert.
46. bradley fuller June 18, 2018 at 10:05 pm

    lets look at our history in 1789 congress passed and president Adams signed the alien act which gave the president power to arrest hold and deport any foreigner The law was a reaction to the increasing influence of the French of which our govt at the time equated that with the possibility that we (Americans) would be controlled by the Vatican (most French are Catholics) “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” attributed to Mark Twain
    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef June 18, 2018 at 11:55 pm

       Depending on the situation, it can be a necessary option to avoid been regime changed, in many places around the world.
47. Octopii June 18, 2018 at 11:16 pm

    The quiet car of the Acela 9:50 WAS-NYP the other day was most rudely disturbed by an extremely overweight gentleman napping (or perhaps slowly suffocating to death). There was a great deal of snorting, wheeling, blubbering, honking, and slurping from the seat ahead. Felt bad for the poor guy. But dear god was it annoying.
48. VietnamVet June 18, 2018 at 11:43 pm

    “Liberal Democracy is under Attack” points out the rise of autocrats; i.e. Putin, Xi, Erdogan….; but, omits all discussion of the death of social democracy in the West, let alone, the intentional neoliberal shock crises that facilitate the rise of inequality. The one sure effect of climate change and forever wars is increased uncontrollable migration. Pulling children out of mothers’ arms won’t change that. Only, ending the wars and coups and providing employment will stop the mass movement of people. It is insane to build thousands of miles of walls on the Northern and Southern U.S. borders. The Pacific and Atlantic Ocean are effective borders if patrolled by the Coast Guard and Navy. But, only if the Middle Class is restored throughout North America.
    1. JTMcPhee June 19, 2018 at 9:07 am

       I guess you don’t recall the borderlands like Florida and Texas and Louisiana, where the navy and Coast Guard were singularly ineffective in “interdicting” the influx of every kind of recreational and self-destructive drug, all through the ‘60s and ‘70s, and still these are porous borders just due to geography and landforms and water access. http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-04-05/news/fl-drug-smuggling-routes-20140404_1_central-florida-south-florida-cocaine-shipments I believe the cartels are still running ever more sophisticated submarines from various “drug ports” to the US “market.” http://cimsec.org/narco-submarines-drug-cartels-innovative-technology/12314 And there of course has been and will be all kinds of corruption-assisted blind-eye or in-on-it actions by the supposed Forces Of Borderland Protection. http://drugwarfacts.org/chapter/corruption

       Interesting that a lot of the articles on the subject of the “drug trade” grudgingly applaud the business acumen and reach of the various drug cartels. And note how they converge in their modus operandi with the other massive supranational business entities, like Monsanto and Lockheed-Martin and Bayer and the rest…

       “Hey, it’s just business!” And Trade…
49. Oregoncharles June 19, 2018 at 12:07 am

    “a handful of men — and only men ”
    So Merkel and May don’t count? Very strange thing to say.
    1. JTMcPhee June 19, 2018 at 9:28 am

       Yes, they should be given full female credit for their part in the way things are. As of course should Thatcher. Credit where credit is due. Much more gender-neutral. And all that. Props to the women for getting into the game as front line players, instead of just working behind the scenes… In the meantime, the concentration of wealth and looting of the planet, the game that’s afoot, accelerate…
    2. Mark Anderlik June 19, 2018 at 11:18 am

       It seems to me that the combination of political democracy and economic oligarchy – hence “liberal democracy” – is failing primarily because of its internal contradictions. The ideals of democracy in our political life clash with the dictatorship of the boss in our economic life. Putin is an example of someone who accurately observes the dying of liberal democracy and sets himself as an example of what to replace it with – a kind of strongman oligarcic capitalism. In other words remove the democracy in “liberal democracy.” Variants of neoliberalism promise the same, as does variants of state capitalism like China and Vietnam. It remains that the antidote to these age-old variants of rule by the rich and powerful is people power wielded in both the political and economic realms. Democratic socialism remains the counter to both neoliberalism and state capitalism.
50. flora June 19, 2018 at 1:11 am

    Great links and comment in the “2018” category.

    Corruption and money laundering, the resurrection of a modern Tammany Hall. Thanks to SCOTUS, (Supreme Court Of The United States), for Citizens United and other like rulings. imo.
51. Liberal Mole June 19, 2018 at 8:42 am

    I belong to a large Etsy Team. The team itself is great and incredibly helpful. We greeted the new charges and offers with shrugs and dismay. Etsy has continually crappified their service and listings over the years. Pretty much all of us have to go off site to promote our shops already, and we have our own websites as well. So many of us will just reduce our listings to the required five needed to be a team member. As one member said, this is to serve their shareholders, and we makers are the meal.

Comments are closed.