Friday, July 31, 2020

More of Various

The Republican party, including Mitch McConnell, are cancers on America, without empathy, without caring, without basic decency. 

McConnell says a third of Republican senators just don't give a shit. Instead of people, they're pretending to care about the deficit. How convenient. 

Of course they never care about the deficit or debt when they give giant tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations. There's always lots of money for that.

We do need a revolution -- that's the only thing that will fix all this. No election will -- the two parties have rigged it so no one else can get in power. Maybe we need a revolution with no quarter given, a la Tom Cotton's plan for protesters. 

Revolutions happen periodically. They have before, and they will again. It's difficult to know the form of those in the future, with so much changing so fast, but they will happen.

But watch -- those who really need the help, in middle America, in the south, will again (and again) vote for Republicans. Because they don't mind being kicked in the teeth again (and again). Doesn't bother them, because they have so very few teeth left.

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A co-founder of The Federalist, which I do believe we've heard a thing or two about here on this blog before, says Trump should be impeached for suggesting election day should be postponed.

It has always been set in steel.

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After all, the Presidential oath of office says the president "...will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Trump just willingly failed to do that. He clearly violated his oath.

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Fauci said today we would most likely have a safe vaccine ready by the end of 2020 or early 2021. Seems hard to believe, when you include rigorous testing. But as the book said, "been down so long it looks like up to me."

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Recently I started reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, where the narrator is a pedophile. Two things have surprised me so far, 1/3rd of the way in: (1) it's set in New Hampshire, and (2) it's actually quite funny.

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Last week I finished The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem. It's old school sci-fi (pub 1967), though nothing by Lem is ever really pulp. (Earlier I read Lem's His Master's Voice (pub 1968), which wasn't easy, and which I'll need to read again.) The Invincible is about a human spaceship that lands on a planet in search of an earlier human spaceship that never returned, and the mysteries behind the reasons. They involve self-assembling and self-replicating nanotechology, and the humans' struggle to not defeat the quasi-lifeforms, but merely to escape them. And, ultimately, to let them "live" -- exist --  alone, an enlightened view for a book published in the 1960s, though perhaps not by a scifi writer like Lem.

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Here's what I've been reading over the last decade. (Sorry, I'm a spreadsheet junkie.)

23 comments:

David in Cal said...

Changing the date of the election would be a terrible idea. However, there's nothing unconstitutional about the President suggesting that the date be changed. Neither is it any kind of "high crime or misdemeanor."

Congress has power to change the election date. The President has the power and the duty to recommend legislation.

Furthermore the President has the same Freedom of Speech as any other American.

Cheers

Layzej said...

McConnel is right to worry about the deficit. Trump drove the US deficit from 2.5 percent of GDP under Obama to 4.6% GDP in 2019. 2020 will look much much worse. At some point, deficits do matter.

David in Cal said...

The NY Times is so biased. The Dems and Reps had different bills. Neither would agree to the other side's bill. The Times blames only the Reps for this standoff.

Furthermore, the Reps proposed extending benefits temporarily while the negotiation was going on. The Dems rejected this measure. IMHO the Dems felt free to let the benefits end, because they knew that the biased media would blame the Reps for the standoff.

Cheers

Layzej said...

DiC: The Dems and Reps had different bills. Neither would agree to the other side's bill.

According to Mitch McConnel, there are 15-20 GOP senators that will not vote for any coronavirus deal.

David Appell said...

David, this isn't about what Trump is technically allowed to do or say, it's about his leadership of the country as determined by the Constitutional. It's about the dignity of the government and of his office.

It's about law and order.

David Appell said...

And a president can be impeached for any reason.

David Appell said...

David, the House passed a bill *10 Weeks Ago* extending the $600/wk unemployment benefit (+regular unemployment payments). The Senate and White House did nothing all this time.

Now the White House initially proposed just a one-week extension of UI benefits (not enhanced, I believe) at $600/wk. Then they proposed a 4 months of EUI benefits at $400/wk (also not enhanced). Democrats don't think that's enough.

David Appell said...

Layzej, you're exactly right about the deficit as a pct of GDP. Here's a graph, up to 2019:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSGDA188S

David in Cal said...

Yes, the deficit is a big potential problem, as is the National Debt. Here are 3 worrisome scenarios

1. As the National Debt increases, interest on the National Debt eats up more and more of the budget, leaving less money for other things

2. Interest rates have been unusually low for a number of years. If prevailing interest rates start to increase, there could be rapid growth in Interest on the National Debt. Most of our debt is in fairly short term bonds, so the entire debt turns over in a small number of years.

3. At some unknown point, the international banking community could decide that the US dollar will not be a reliable, stable currency. They might stop lending to the US in US dollars. They might demand higher interest rates. International investors might stop buying securities denominated in US dollars. That would cause the stock market to crash.

Unfortunately, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans nor the media are concerned about the debt and the deficit. They're concerned enough to blame the other party, but they're not concerned enough to seriously cut spending.

Cheers

David in Cal said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David in Cal said...

David - Here's a BBC article that relates to a prior discussion.

The number of deaths from coronavirus in Iran is nearly triple what Iran's government claims, a BBC Persian service investigation has found.

The government's own records appear to show almost 42,000 people died with Covid-19 symptoms up to 20 July, versus 14,405 reported by its health ministry.

The number of people known to be infected is also almost double official figures: 451,024 as opposed to 278,827....

A level of undercounting, largely due to testing capacity, is seen across the world, but the information leaked to the BBC reveals Iranian authorities have reported significantly lower daily numbers despite having a record of all deaths - suggesting they were deliberately suppressed....

Doctors with direct knowledge of the matter have told the BBC that the Iranian health ministry has been under pressure from security and intelligence bodies inside Iran.

Dr Pouladi (not their real name) told the BBC that the ministry "was in denial".

"Initially they did not have testing kits and when they got them, they weren't used widely enough. The position of the security services was not to admit to the existence of coronavirus in Iran," Dr Pouladi said.


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53598965

Entropic man said...

For Iran, read Florida.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/29/884551391/florida-scientist-says-she-was-fired-for-not-manipulating-covid-19-data

David in Cal said...

Thanks, EM. On worldometer the 7-day average new cases has been trending down for about a week. The 7-day average deaths are trending up. The difference might be because deaths lag new cases by a couple of weeks. Or, it might be because new cases are being under-reported, while deaths are reported accurately. We will have a better idea in a week or so. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Cheers

Layzej said...

It's the former. Hit rate is getting better every day. Case count is going down. Death count will follow in a couple weeks.

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote
"1. As the National Debt increases, interest on the National Debt eats up more and more of the budget, leaving less money for other things"

We've been through this before. This is not happening; interest on the US federal debt has been at a very affordable 1.5% of GDP for two decades:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
"3. At some unknown point, the international banking community could decide that the US dollar will not be a reliable, stable currency. They might stop lending to the US in US dollars."

The international banking community isn't lending money to the US. The US deficit is funded by (1) US and foreign investors buying US treasury bonds, and (2) the Federal Reserve creating more money in their computers.

"Foreign governments hold about a third of the public debt, while the rest is owned by U.S. banks and investors, the Federal Reserve, state and local governments, mutual funds, and pensions funds, insurance companies, and savings bonds."

https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
"2. Interest rates have been unusually low for a number of years. If prevailing interest rates start to increase, there could be rapid growth in Interest on the National Debt. Most of our debt is in fairly short term bonds, so the entire debt turns over in a small number of years."

The Federal Reserve has the interest rate well under control. We've been fools not to borrow money at such low rates to build not infrastructure, among other things. Instead Republicans keep adding to the debt by giving tax breaks to the wealthy.

David in Cal said...

David - the Federal Reserve cannot control the interest rates at which foreign entities will lend money to the US.

"Adding to the debt" IS "borrowing money". We have indeed taken advantage of the low rates to borrow huge amounts of money.

Despite Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy (and all other tax payers), taxes collected went up. That's because Trump's policies produced an economic boom. And, spending went WAY up. As you say, the higher spending wasn't used to fix our infrastructure. It should have been.

Cheers

David Appell said...

"David - the Federal Reserve cannot control the interest rates at which foreign entities will lend money to the US."

Foreign entities don't lend money to the US. We don't need it, because we can print our own money.

David Appell said...

David in Cal wrote:
"Despite Trump's tax breaks for the wealthy (and all other tax payers), taxes collected went up. That's because Trump's policies produced an economic boom."

No, they hardly went up at all -- nothing like they went up under every president in the past (except during recessions).

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=eU9s

Trump's tax breaks were a dud.

David Appell said...

>> "Adding to the debt" IS "borrowing money".

You originally wrote we're borrowing money from foreign governments. We're not. We're selling bonds etc to mostly US bond buyers, some foreign bond holders.

David in Cal said...

David - yes US investors hold a bit more than foreign investors 32.5%. 29.3%

https://www.google.com/search?q=who+holds+us+national+debt?&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&sxsrf=ALeKk01SpA_Y-nqNlC-M8rLv8a1Fi-UP-w:1596502221845&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=AwLcXm14rusdzM%252C-g6Lu7ZJsW13kM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kS4UeMl530XrdyUxBfPD8AYnWn1RA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiposOeqoDrAhWMsp4KHYKRCO8Q_h0wAHoECAoQBA&biw=1024&bih=462#imgrc=AwLcXm14rusdzM

A nice aspect of these discussions is that I learn things I hadn't known. Thank you for expanding my knowledge base

Cheers

David Appell said...

David, except your numbers don't add up to 100%.

This page breaks the numbers down in all kind of ways:

https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124