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Steve Roth @asymptosis
, 10 tweets, 8 min read Read on Twitter
1/ Thread. I deeply disagree with Samuel Hammond's (@hamandcheese @NiskanenCenter) article in @NRO about paid family leave and Rubio's proposal that people use their Social Security accounts to pay for leave. bit.ly/2M7p7AX
@hamandcheese @NiskanenCenter @NRO 2/ Premise: Individual freedom and liberty are not just about "choice." They're about having good alternative choices, choice sets, available.
@hamandcheese @NiskanenCenter @NRO 3/ While an individual can improve their future choice sets through actions today, in the big economic picture nobody chooses their choice sets; we "choose" those collectively. To a huge extent we're just born into them or they're imposed upon us in the course of our lives.
@hamandcheese @NiskanenCenter @NRO 4/ That's what public policy is. This Rubio plan offers a lousy choice set: pillage your retirement fund, or don't stay home with your kids. You could argue that the current choice is only "don't stay home with your kids" (so sadly true and sadly singular compared to other…
@hamandcheese @NiskanenCenter @NRO 5/ …countries), but the relevant counterfactual is a different policy change: employer- and government-paid family leave like we see in all other advanced countries.
@hamandcheese @NiskanenCenter @NRO 6/ SS-paid leave is exactly the opposite of paying premiums to "insure against [future] ... income and productivity shocks. ... income volatility." It's spending DOWN the lifetime-capped payout, now — like paying less premiums now and having less insurance for the future.
@hamandcheese @NiskanenCenter @NRO 7/ Or just...spending your wealth. And that at prime working age when (lifetime income hypothesis) people should be building their wealth.
@hamandcheese @NiskanenCenter @NRO 8/ Not (FDR) giving "some measure of protection to the average citizen," but requiring them to sacrifice their SS protection if they want to stay home with their newborn today. It's the very opposite of "conservative" financial planning.
@hamandcheese @NiskanenCenter @NRO 9/ Sam's right that this is a typically "conservative spin on social-insurance" — offering a shitty set of choices while pretending to offer "choice." If we believe in policies that deliver true individual freedom, liberty, and "family values," our choice here is clear.
@hamandcheese @NiskanenCenter @NRO 10/ Making free with Sam's pronouns: "This take isn't just wrong — it's exactly backwards."
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So many wrong things in this @mileskimball
article. Let me count…

• When you spend down your balance-sheet assets, the money vanishes. Like you consumed it.

• When you don’t spend down your wealth, you are "making resources available," so we have more assets to "invest." 1/
@mileskimball • Less consumption spending, slower wealth turnover, means we have more stuff.

• Spending is “appropriating resources for yourself,” rather than causing production of new stuff.

• Reducing C in C+I…magically increases I! /2
@mileskimball • $125T in highly concentrated wealth results in more investment than $125T in widely distributed wealth. #GotIntermediation?

• Philanthropy has ever in history, will ever, come even vaguely close to “taking care of the poor,” distributing "resources" "efficiently." /3
Read 6 tweets
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1/ @PatriciaNPino Matt’s right that “surplus” is super problematic in MMT-speak. I struggled with it for a decade+. It’s not an accounting term, and its usage is slippery, befuddles many conversations.
2/ Eliezer Yudkowsky’s great solution to these tangles: remove the word from the conversation, replace it with more precise terms.

If the gov uses magic money-tree money to buy existing private-sector-held assets, gov balance sheet expands: +Ls, +As. No change in NW.
3/ If gov instead taxes-then-purchases assets, it’s +As and NW of course but only Because it Taxed (then swapped). Ls unchanged. So PS: -As and -NW cuz tax.
Read 6 tweets
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@Noahpinion 1/ FDR facing serious inflation in WWII.

Proposed tax increases to drain demand.

Conservative congress critters HATED that idea. (Taxes BAD.)

So he proposed wage/price controls.
@Noahpinion 2/ Conservatives luvved them some wage controls. Passed 'em. (So much for the sanctity of "free markets.")

Employers started competing for workers with benefits, notably health insurance.

1950s, congress made premiums tax deductible, but ONLY FOR FIRMS. Not individuals.
@Noahpinion 3/ No sensible employers/employees would compensate with taxable wages (w/ individuals buying insurance) when they can use tax-free insurance premiums instead.

This locked us into the insane employer-based health insurance: get sick, lose your job, lose your insurance.
Read 5 tweets

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#Thread In 2016, @farmaajo run on a campaign of change and reform; and made a case for a fight against corruption & cronyism which has crippled governance in Somalia. Since his win, a myth of change and reform has been created despite an overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Rather than fight against the entrenched the status quo @M_Farmaajo has in fact helped in deeply entrenching Somalia’s unsustainable rent-seeking elite.
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Twitter may not be the most effective place to solicit for this, but if you (or, more likely, your parents, grandparents, great grandparents) did forced labor during WW2 for ghettos under German control, please read this. #Thread
Back in 1997 there was a landmark case in Germany that determined that people who'd labored in the Lodz Ghetto would get credit toward German Social Security for that work.
In 2002, Germany codified it and said that forced laborers in any ghetto under German control were eligible. At the time (2000-2005), my full time job was as a case manager to Holocaust survivors and Nazi Victims. I did stuff like take them to the doctor, pluck their chin
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This is a #thread regarding Jonathan/Jessica Yaniv, the person who is currently claiming to be a trans woman and suing beauticians who have been refusing to wax their male genitals. I have decided to make this thread with neutral pronouns regarding Jonathan/Jessica because from
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very much still an open wound and traumatised me in ways I'm not sure I even fully comprehend. I appreciate RTs to get the word out, and I also am open to answering questions but please do not expect me to answer everything, this is very overwhelming. The only reason I am willing
Read 51 tweets
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This is the best thing on Twitter this morning. I see too many security products trying to *replace* human-to-human interaction - there’s a good chunk of security and privacy that’s about *people*.

Let’s make more products which help people STOP, collaborate, and listen 😝
Forgetting about the “people” part of security is why we’ve heard “GRC is dead” for the last 10 years. We’re on “GRC 4.0” now and it *still* sucks.

GRC tools like Archer are designed for Process and Technology but forget about the poor People who have to use that dumpster fire.
We still have new vendors trying to design single-pane-of-glass “CISO dashboards”, meanwhile *very* few security companies are truly focused on people (not just security people) inside of organizations.

@duosec is one of the few companies who has focused on people. @habitu8 too
Read 10 tweets
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THREAD: Most misconceptions held by the Right end up cemented when they're repeated ad nauseam by either Fox News or the WH. So, I thought I'd put together some facts that I feel don't get repeated enough to help cut through the noise, and counter the disinformation.
"Why don't these refugees seeking asylum just come legally?" is a question often heard from conservatives. First of all, asylum has always been legal and capped. Second of all, the pathways to legal immigration are much more complicated than ppl think (as seen in the 1st graph).
"In 136 metro areas, almost 70 percent of those studied, the immigrant population increased between 1980 and 2016 while crime stayed stable or fell. The 10 places with the largest increases in immigrants all had lower levels of crime in 2016 than in 1980"

themarshallproject.org/2018/03/30/the…
Read 12 tweets
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Thread: I’m doing an article on what exactly the New Breed of Conservatism is and I need y’alls help. I’ve noticed that the younger more modern conservatives don’t generally identify with our parents generation of conservatives and/or the GOP today.
Below will be a bunch of questions and the answers will be attached to an age range and whether or not you agree or disagree. Please read through the whole thread before you ask questions because I’ll break up topics into pieces but if you need clarification then ask!
I’m choosing the ages 30 and below and the “new” generation of conservatives. That’s where I see a significant difference. Some of these questions might be an “ummm duh” but I’m just going off of stereotypes liberals make about conservatives.
Read 34 tweets

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