“The reality we're seeing unfold is policy that's likely to hurt…workers while primarily benefiting those with enough money to weather the storm and capitalize on distressed assets afterward.“ @kylascan https://kyla.substack.com/p/an-orchestrated-recession-trumps
@realcaseyrollins i’m sure the question is academic because you have better taste than that.
if you don’t want to be shunned for your cybertruck, just write FUCK ELON in maximal block letters on its rump hood and gigantic backside.
from @jbouie https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/05/opinion/trump-revenge-american-people.html?unlocked_article_code=1.1k4.tMFy.S4Y0L8lOygBN&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare ht @rickywlmsbong
Text: Under the cover of an audit, he has empowered Elon Musk, his de facto co-president, to take an ax to any and every program that helps ordinary Americans. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency has stripped funds or personnel or both from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Park Service, the National Weather Service, FEMA, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration, among others. It has degraded the federal government's ability to deliver critical services to tens of millions of Americans and is endangering direct payments to millions more. There is no apparent rhyme or reason to these cuts, only a nihilistic drive to cause as much damage and to make it as irreparable as possible.
@GuerillaOntologist if they ever showed you a graph of supply and demand shaded with producer and consumer surplus, they were making welfare claims and defying their so-called positive-not-normative stance.
i agree that econ professors have typically been more snowed than cynical in their ideological blind spots.
@GuerillaOntologist you can be charitable and describe them as blinded by epistemological caution, or be more accurate and describe them as handmaidens for the ideology that conferred prestige upon their discipline.
@GuerillaOntologist only growth is not an answer to that critique. not in the least. it’s a non sequitur, a diversion.
@GuerillaOntologist ( there is no answer without positing a social welfare function, that is without copping to a set of normative views. please read my thousands-words five-part series on the subject! https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/5149.html )
fascists are learning that women are unreliable appointees to the Supreme Court even if they have impeccable pedigree from a Federalist Society whose core intent is to prevent deprogramming. https://hls.harvard.edu/bibliography/the-drifters-why-supreme-court-justices-drift-left/
“popularists” describe the median voter as a kind of idiot whose prejudices must be catered to.
real voters are not that, are capable of detecting the condescension in the strategy, and flee those motherfuckers every chance they can.
“economists” falsely presume a quantitative resource constraint rather than undesirable patterns of deployment and remuneration. under poor deployment and inequitable remuneration, greater public share can be welfare increasing, even when much must be spent on unconsumable war preparedness.
denialists are predictably popular, until they aren’t.
do the tariffs in their current form survive the morrow?
under Trump, you announce everything.
what you actually do… well that's not so important. as long as he can take credit for your announcement.
the point of fentanyl as a pretext is it has nothing at all to do with the tariffs so there's complete liberty in slapping them on or off, making them stronger or weaker, as a response to actions that may be invented or merely symbolic.
touch the stove for the pleasure of withdrawing your finger. it’s a kink!
@curtosis right! i’m wondering whether annulment in this case could be by simple majority.
if you set wealth and income taxes too low, a kind of very powerful but misaligned AGI emerges.
what bank would have the balls to make a collateral call to Musk as the value of the Tesla shares he pledged falls?
@curtosis the Supreme Court placed determination of eligibility under 14AS3 with Congress in Trump v Anderson. it wouldn’t be legislation, just a finding of Congress. i don’t think it would be subject to a Presidential veto.
of course that would litigated, and if this court is known for consistency its perhaps consistency in achieving certain outcomes rather than consistent deployment of logic and the law.
from #BethMole https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/rfk-jr-shuts-americans-out-of-health-decisions-despite-vow-for-transparency/ ht @Doug_Bostrom
Text: On Monday, Kennedy published the new policy in the Federal Register, which specifically revoked a transparency rule adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 1971. The rule—called the Richardson Waiver, after then-Health Secretary Elliot Richardson—required HHS to have public notice-and-comment periods for proposed rules and policies regarding certain matters, namely public property, loans, grants, benefits, or contracts. These five categories would otherwise have been exempt from public notice-and-comment requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA also says that public notice-and-comment periods can be waived for "good cause."