I'm extremely not an economist, but I will put this prediction on record: within a few years, it will become clear that inflation was temporary, most things most people said about it were bullshit, & the whole thing was used, deliberately, to block the Dems' agenda.
This conclusion comes not from any particular economic theory or model, but from a simple heuristic: for the last 40 years or so, inflation fears have a) been used as a cudgel by the "we can't have nice things" crew, & b) turned out to be bullshit. The pattern will probably hold!
Because I'm no longer an Official Journalist, just a Dude With a Newsletter, I don't have to approach these situations with baby mind: "Maybe the oligarchs' concerns about deficits & inflation are sincere this time & they're just looking out for us! No way to know!"
Note: one of two recalcitrant Dem senators is waving "inflation" around to cut back spending, but the other one is *cutting back corporate taxes that would pay for the spending*. It's the corrupt oligarch two-step. The conclusion is always "we can't have nice things."
Final note, here's a more substantive argument for the same thing: nymag.com/intelligencer/…
Does this sound like a reason to substantially slash a ten-year public investment plan? theweek.com/business/10063…

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More from @drvolts

26 Oct
I guess from within my climate policy bubble I had concluded that the case against coal is airtight & universally accepted. Apparently not.

But y'all, as I used to say back in the 2000s: coal is the enemy of the human race. There is no viable scenario wherein it lives on.
In the (IMO) unlikely event that CCS tech is developed & scaled up enough to be meaningful, it will still be hella expensive. We're going to put it on industrial facilities (for things we don't know how to decarbonize) & biomass power plants (for negative emissions).
There is NO scenario in which it makes any sense to attach it to coal plants. The parasitic load immediately eats a third of the power, rendering the remaining power expensive AF (& coal is already expensive). Plus you still live with the environmental & health ravages ...
Read 7 tweets
25 Oct
That's it -- the last remaining policy in the BBB Act that actually restrained fossil fuels. Now the bill is exactly what Manchin wanted: a bunch of subsidies for new stuff; zero punitive policies to wind down old stuff.
Sure enough, it's another body blow to the emission reductions in the bill:
Worth saying: there is NO path to the US hitting its climate targets that does not involve rapidly shutting down all coal power plants & sharply reducing methane leaks. None. This isn't a subject of reasonable debate. Manchin is rendering Biden's stated target unreachable.
Read 7 tweets
25 Oct
We (left-leaning nerds) are also in collective denial about how people experience harm/benefits. It has almost nothing to do w/ objective reality, ie, the actual # of deaths. Everything is mediated & experienced through a filter of culture.
There is a fact -- 40,000 Americans die in car wrecks each year -- but in & of itself, the fact doesn't *mean* anything. Is that a high number or low? Are those deaths avoidable or inevitable? Are they the drivers' fault or policymakers' fault? Is it a crisis or a nuisance?
Libs love saying they care about "facts." They love saying shit like, "the science says we have to do X." There's so much naive realism out there. The thing is, the facts ("science") don't tell us *anything*. They don't speak for themselves. Our entire experience of them...
Read 6 tweets
23 Oct
Finally got around to reading @RottenInDenmark's piece on the "cancel culture" moral panic & it's every bit as good as I expected. Its lessons extend well beyond this particular phenomenon to shitty journalism generally. michaelhobbes.substack.com/p/moral-panic-…
Cannot tell you how many times I've asked this question: "Why are readers of national publications constantly being told that they should worry about the left potentially, sometime in the future, becoming *as bad as Republicans are now*?"
The fact that this moral panic is taking place *while Republicans are actively trying to ban books, dictate curriculum, & deprive their opponents of the right to vote* is just so surreal. Your country is literally crumbling & *this* is what you're writing about?
Read 6 tweets
22 Oct
Whenever these torturous intra-Dem strategy debates break out, I like to remind people that, if the question is how to operate a decent modern society when 1 of 2 parties has become lawless illiberal authoritarians, the answer very well could be: there is no way!
Ultimately, democracy depends on a base level of social trust & fealty to a set of principles that transcend party. If half the political system abandons that, the other half may not be able to drag them along, no matter how clever its tactics.
We've settled into this fucked-up equilibrium in recent decades: the right has tantrums, violates norms, breaks laws, destroys public agencies, starves the public sector, erodes democracy ... & Dems come along to clean it up & patch it together again. That can't go on forever.
Read 4 tweets
20 Oct
Whoa: a wireless charging network that you connect to like a LAN. It wirelessly charges your electronic devices, even when they're in motion. nature.com/articles/s4159…
For years I've been jazzed about wireless charging. I really think when it breaks a few key tech/cost barriers it's going to Change Everything. Here's the startup using the wireless charging network: wi-gl.com
Here's an old piece on wireless charging for EVs: vox.com/2016/5/24/1167…
Read 5 tweets

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