Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
📌
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
a “transaction” in the sense of there’s a “contract” on you.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Text: Progressive taxation is the single most important policy lever for reducing the power of the rich-not because it raises revenue that can be redistributed via public programs or directly to the poor, but because it imposes a de facto statutory maximum on income or wealth, eliminating the incentive to hoard the economy's resources. Unrestrained capital accumulation is the main reason for economic stagnation and the hollowing out of productive capacity. Conversely, as Piketty's research shows, economic growth is both faster and more equitably distributed—meaning pre-tax top income shares are low—in jurisdictions where effective tax rates at the top are highest. When elites face limits on how much they can take home, they use their dominant position to grab less, so there's more for everyone else.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
📌
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
observing that cash has not moved or that it has is an expression of ignorance? i find little value in thinking about how cash moves, more value in thinking about how shifts in preferences that imply a new aggregate portfolio composition mean non-cash asset prices must adjust.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
"Trump clearly doesn't want to be president in the sense that it's a job. He wants to be president in the sense that it's a status, and would prefer to be king." @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social www.meditationsinanemergency.com/how-the-stup...
How the Stupid Coup Is Going: Week Five
Link Preview: How the Stupid Coup Is Going: Week Five: The Executive Branch There are steely evil masterminds who marshal strategy and discipline to stage successful coups, but in the USA, insofar as we have any luck at all we have the luck that this cou...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
yes! i’ve sometimes put it that way. i think thinking in terms of the private sector’s desired portfolio composition (so federal debt can leave it sometimes overweight cash until the price of other assets gets bid up) is most fruitful. drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/03/20/a...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
elon musk & his schrödinger games. he's the head of DOGE when he wants to direct and fire everybody, he's a mere advisor to the president in the courtroom. it's a lottery swing-state registered voters can enter by signing a petition, except in court there was no lottery, we just hired spokespeople.
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
perhaps so. but here we are. better we do our best to tilt history in a good direction than sit back and let others tilt. there’s always the danger of paradox, that our work hurts rather than helps, we should think things through. but still.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
we don’t know anything. so let’s create something.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
“A price increase in the industry has been delayed 30 days” sounds very cartel-ish.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
people do make this mistake a lot. but more often, people use "data" as a tendentious source of authority, even when they know better.
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
no. but those of us who haven't are watching the undead emerge all around. or rhinoceroses. www.michaelrasbury.org/music/rhinoc...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
shame.
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
i first read about this here, i don't remember from whom, my apologies to whoever posted. it derives from a report in Greek media, which may ultimately prove inaccurate. but i feel like it is a proposal we should mobilize to put under sharp public scrutiny. defence-blog.com/trump-shuts-...
Trump shuts down US base in Greece
Link Preview: Trump shuts down US base in Greece: U.S. President Donald Trump has reportedly ordered the shutdown of the U.S. military base in Alexandroupoli, Greece, according to Greek newspaper Dimokratia. The decision marked a shift in U.S. milita...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
politics is downstream from culture is downstream from material circumstance but material circumstance is more than just the distribution of income and wealth. (although God knows the distribution of income and wealth is important!) 1/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
material circumstance also includes our built environment and our media, the ways they put us in contact with one another or fail to do so or worse turn our lives into a parasocial hub-and-spokes with platforms and corruptible influencers at the center. 2/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
there's nothing more political than the kind of work that eg @holz-bau.bsky.social does. /fin
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
yes! yes! yes! normalize impeaching the most lawless administration in american history. nothing should be more normal, like day follows night.
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
won't be long.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Text: I’m sorry, but there’s a certain irony in the ruse of billionaires consolidating their power under the pretense of “reducing deficits” when it’s exactly the massive deficits of recent years that have boosted their income, profits, and financial market “wealth.” There’s a certain irony to see foxes with mouths full of feathers claiming that they’re defending the henhouse; minding the store while their fingers are deep in the cookie jar of government contracts and foreign quid pro quo. They’re selling a house of cards, and everybody’s merrily picking out furniture.
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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
if you are intentionally making a gesture that resembles a Nazi salute because you know it resembles a Nazi salute, then you are making a Nazi salute. this movement bootstrapped itself on resentment of politically correct language but god forbid any plain-spoken characterizations of it. #pathetic
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