1. People need to understand issues of the economy. We are witnessing the most grotesque prevision of Keynesianism in history, with GOPrs pretending all is being driven by supply side economics. The reality: We are floating on air, and the landing is going to be horrific....
2...ive long known that the GOP is fiscally irresponsible, but never understood if it is because they are stupid or just willing to do anything for rich people. Truth is, given what they have done, it does not matter anymore.
A low, low lesson in Keynesianism: The government...
3...utilizes fiscal policy to deal with inevitable ebbs and flows in the economy. When an economy is struggling, the government is supposed to cut taxes and raise spending - increasing deficits to flood the economy with cash. That helps push transactions and has a multiplier...
4...wealth effect. (On monetary policy, the Fed is supposed to lower rates - if it is not stagflation - to decrease the cost of money.) Those lead to economic recovery.
On the flip side, when the economy is strong, government is supposed to offset the debt accumulated...
5...during the recovery by increasing taxes and lowering spending. If that starts to kick inflation up, then the fed comes in and raises rates.
This is simple, commonsense fiscal management: Borrow and spend when things are bad, recoup that debt when things are good.
The GOP..
6...has done the exact opposite. Everything we are seeing in this economy right now is just being bolstered up by the perversion of Keynesianism.
In a strong economy, we cut taxes and increased spending. It is like spraying the fire extinguisher into the pool. Yes, it will...
7...create more liquid, but it is all being wasted for current interests. But when the house is on fire - when the economy falls, as it must - there is nothing left in the extinguisher. Deficits will explode unlike anything we have ever seen. We cannot raise taxes/cut spending...
8...in a bad recession, because that will push us off the cliff and into depression. So our borrowings will have to go through the roof. Borrowers might panic - we will be filling up our annual budget with more and more interest on the debt, crowding out other expenditures -...
9...and we will have to convince them that yes, we will keep paying interest. If a democrat is in office then, the GOPrs will start saying "oh, what difference does it make if we default" just like they did last time.
To fully understand the recklessness of the GOP....
10...not only did they cut taxes and raise spending in a booming economy, BUT trump has been demanding that the fed also cut rates in a booming economy. They refused, thank god, but finally started cutting when they saw the recession peeking over the horizon....
11..the bottom line: This is not an economy - this is a market manipulation. We are living on borrowed money, feeling fat and happy when we should be using this moment to keep the deficit going down, as Obama did, and not explode it beyond comprehension....
12...we live on credit cards, thinking we're rich. When the bill comes due - when the bottom drops out of a economy manipulated through perverted Keynesianism - we'll learn the consequences of this profligacy.
And all the GOP will care about then is saying "it's the dems fault!"
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With us now learning that Redstone from Paramount is putting pressure on 60 Minutes to trim its journalistic sails to keep Trump happy and help her with a merger, time to tell a story of journalism from another era. This is a story about greatness at the @nytimes. I was....
...conducting a running investigation of the American Express Company, which was engaged in a lot of stuff it shouldn't have been. Some brutal stories upended major deals they were trying to make, etc. I won one of the monthly Publisher's Awards ($500) AO Sulzberger Jr. gave..
...winning for my American Express work. Three months after I finish, my boss comments how much he admired my faith in the paper. I had no idea what he was talking about. "Wait, you don't know?" he asked....
In just three months, Trump has: 1. Wrecked decades-long relationships with USA's best allies, who now have said that relationship is over. 2. Sent global stocks markets into a tailspin. 3. Sent bond markets into collapse. 4. Moved world against dollar as global currency.../1
...5. Lied to courts & refused to abide by rulings, in what could be the greatest breakdown in Constitutional government since founding. 6. Ignored due process before shipping someone to a torture prison. 7. Wistfully discussed his desire to send Americans to torture prisons.../2
...8. Demonstrated, once again, that he is too stupid to understand what tariffs are or how they work. 9. Threatened the independence of the federal reserve. 10. Demanded that the federal government get to determine what private colleges teach. 11. Crippled the FDA, CDC..../3
People looking only at the stock market are missing the full magnitude of Trump's economic incompetence. His "yes-no-maybe" idiocy with tariffs is leaving equity investors with no sense of which way to go. But worse is the bond market..../1
...the near-cliche of markets it that when investors sell stocks, they rush to US bonds. It's a rare time in our history that this standard response does not happen. But...now it's not. The largest holders of our debt are instead scooping up short-term t-bills and gold.../2
...this means that they are losing faith - or certainty - in the US long term economic future. The only way to deal with this is to increase interest rates - thus providing bond investors with higher rewards for taking what they perceive as higher risk..../3
As a German citizen (I hold dual citizenship) Im disgusted by the ignorance of @JDVance & @elonmusk in promoting AfD as if it's a normal party. Perhaps they aren't just ignorant & AfD actually reflects their viewpoints, but there is a reason its founders resigned, the German.../1
...courts have deemed them an extremist organization (which, if you creep 2 far in Germany, can get you banned), why there have been national protests against them, and why the German government's Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz classified Der Flügel, AfD's far-right faction.../2
whose growth of control of AfD is what led to the resignation of its founders, as "a right-wing extremist endeavor against the free democratic basic order" and as "not compatible with the Basic Law." AfD sued, but a court ruled "there were sufficient factual indications.../3
As someone who has been a journalist for almost 40 year, working as a senior writer at the New York Times, Newsweek, etc, the decision by @WilliamLewis, a Murdoch alum, to cripple the @washingtonpost by abandoning endorsements, is one of the most craven actions I've ever seen../1
...taken in the industry. Make no mistake, this wasn't just cowardice. It was @WilliamLewis and perhaps @JeffBezos dragging a now-once great paper into the sewer because of their own political beliefs. If Lewis et al wanted to abandon endorsements, fine. But you don't do it.../2
@WilliamLewis @JeffBezos ...days one of the most consequential elections in history. We have on one side a convicted felon, deemed an ignorant fascist by his own people, who half this country believes is, in fact, a fascist, and on the other side a woman half the country believes is a communist.../3
Make no mistake: The "Haitians are stealing your pets to eat them" lie is a variant of the blood libel that Jews have faced for centuries: In that, Jews are stealing Christian babies to use their blood bake food (Matzah).
Trump and Vance are lying about legal residents..../1
....accusing them of stealing beloved members of the family, and eating them. The point of the Haitian Blood Libel is the same as the original Blood Libel: To create an "other," to unify the hateful and ignorance against an imaginary enemy in their midst, all to seize power.../2
...so please, stop calling the attack on lawful American residents from Haiti as a "lie." Call it was it is: The #HaitianBloodLibel generated by Trump and Vance. A century ago they would have used Jews. And Fox News would have been the May 1934 volume of Der Stürmer.../3