@realcaseyrollins Me neither, but I’m far from immunized.
the problem is Congress has ceased to serve the function of Congress so the other two branches fight over usurping the role.
people get so stressed about running out of thyme, but parsley, sage, and rosemary are enough.
“As for the problems with what is sometimes termed ‘regulation by enforcement,’ that’s exactly the incentive structure the right wing has set up by kneecapping agencies’ abilities to set rules.” @lopatto https://www.theverge.com/24280387/gary-gensler-sec-chair-presidential-election-2024
@LesterB99 Interest rate policy ultimately has to become subject to democratic bounds. I have mixed feelings! People perceive now as a “high-interest” period, but from my perspective, growing up in the 70s and 80s, interest rates seem normal to low. Regardless, we can have the central bank tweak within bounds as a component of inflation / macro stabilization, but relying on it solely is a bad idea, and I think we probably want to cabin it to a range, something like 4% ± 2%.
Speaking of Bernie, a very good profile by @Ddiamond in, um, the Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/25/bernie-sanders-2024-election-campaigning-efforts/
This election season feels like an active shooter drill.
he asked the genie for a grand estate. he died instantly, but his children became very rich.
@dedicto @sjshancoxli seems apt!
@dedicto @sjshancoxli it sure feels like a near-death experience to me.
@dedicto @sjshancoxli Yes. The foundation upon which we all stand must be stable and worth preserving, not a grudging consolation prize granted from humiliating pity.
@dedicto @sjshancoxli exactly. if they get another chance, i have hopes they may finally be learning something. Biden’s domestic policy already reflects a real break with we-love-Google Obamaism, and the very public betrayal of liberal ideals by Musk and Bezos are harder to overlook than the whole rogues gallery of Crows and Leos and Kochs. if Democrats win, i think they do understand they were at some risk, small but real, of ending up in the camps.
@dedicto @sjshancoxli most people are adaptive, i think. they can be nice liberals under one social order, cruel bigots under another. they’ll gravitate towards whichever order seems most plausible to protect them from unwanted change and threats both social and economic.
@dedicto @sjshancoxli yeah. the fascism is a step farther than safetyism. i think it’s organized effectively by the plutocrats, because safetyism alone invites calls for social insurance, so plutocrats construct threats, an “enemy within”, that is not them and that social insurance can’t address.
@dedicto @sjshancoxli i think it takes a whole lot of social insurance before any of us are comfortable with a really dynamic prosperity. it’s like how safety is a more basic element of Maslow’s hierarchy than “self-actualization”, growth. once safety is threatened, a bitter rentier stasis seems better than risking any alternative. some of us are more comfortable with risk and dynamism than others. but i think as a social generality this is very broadly true.
one perhaps salutary consequence of Donald Trump is he’s exposed just how pathetic plutocratic “masters of the universe” really are.
“The rentier economy is characterized by low growth and therefore less material prosperity for everyone, but more guaranteed relative position for those on top. And people, it turns out, really like relative position.” @sjshancoxli https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-plutocrat-populist-axis/
@LesterB99 the rich do pretty well independent of rates, high asset prices when rates are low, high cash flows when they are high. but the asset poor have to actually pay those high cash flows, they are the net payers, so find high interest rates more burdensome.
high interest rates are just taxes the poor pay to the rich.
what if prime is the new blue checkmark?