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James A. Robichaux Profile picture
James A. Robichaux
@JamesRobichaux
working to kill monetarism and taxpayerism so that they stop killing people
Marie Janicke Profile picture 1 subscribed
Jun 29, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
I see Democrats habitually attacking "trickle-down economics", but are Republicans even arguing for that mythology anymore?

No, I don't mean them using the TERM "trickle-down economics".

I'm saying that they don't seem to even be arguing for it *not* by name anymore.

🧵 Biden gave a big speech this week against "trickle-down economics", but who is arguing FOR it anymore even not by name?

I have some questions!!!

I have some questions FOR YOU!

Please read the thread.
Jun 19, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Hey, remember my admonitions that it's a terrible idea to defend Social Security and Medicare based on "we paid into it" and, especially, "we earned that" and "it's OUR money"? how that approach UNDERMINES efforts at achieving universal healthcare?

commondreams.org/opinion/saving… This brief essay explains that same dynamic but from the perspective of veterans' benefits and, particularly, the habit of some veterans not wanting benefits expanded to non-veterans.

This is what I mean.

commondreams.org/opinion/saving…
Jun 16, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
See what I mean when I say that "taxpayer" identity is central to the Conservative Movement's recruiting efforts and mythology? Image The most common way in which Democrats would respond to the post that you see here would involve VALIDATING the horrible, disgusting, dishonest, nativist, fascist "US taxpayers" premise - and THAT is why we don't ever get anywhere good. Image
Jun 16, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I think that I just figured out a little bit more about why the phrase and characterization "money is not real" is so bothersome and problematic.

The phrase *adds to* the harmful confusion of thinking that something being a social construct means that it's "not real."

🧵 A common difficulty in discussing matters of justice, like race, gender, or our driving societal mythologies is that people interpret us saying that something is a social construct as us claiming that the thing is "not real."

May 28, 2023 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
I'm going to have to return to this later, but something just hit me as I looked at this tweet.

It reminded me of something that Rick Perlstein said about how it's counterproductive to point to numerous mass shootings as a way to get people to want more gun restrictions.

🧵 PUBLIC CITIZEN, Robert Reich, and others have gotten into this habit of spelling out the entire number of some gigantic expenditure.

That combined with treating currency as if it is the cost, as if it is a consumable external commodity, has a bad effect.

May 27, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
"You know, I was okay with people DYING due to lack healthcare, and I was okay with people being coerced into employment relationships due to healthcare, but when I found out that universal healthcare would 'save money,' I became in favor of it," said or thought no one ever. 🙄 "You know, I wasn't going to vote for Democrats, since what Republicans do with power doesn't really bother me, but when I saw that Democrats reduce the 'deficit' while Republicans raise the 'deficit,' I decided to vote for Democrats," said or thought no one ever.
May 26, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
"The American people have preferred ways to reduce the deficit" is exactly the problem.

We should not be trying to "reduce the deficit."

Who is it that makes the American people think that we should?

One answer: Democrats.

Why are DEMOCRATS promoting "deficit reduction"?

🧵 "Deficit" reduction is nothing more than an austerity framework, and Democrats' fealty to it is horribly destructive - and ENABLES Republicans - as described in this essay:
jamesarobichaux.substack.com/p/democrats-st…
May 25, 2023 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
Given the way that some advocates of universal healthcare talk, if I replaced my automobile with something that is more fuel efficient, using less gasoline, I would "save gallons."

As we will soon see, this framing presents some potentially serious problems! 🙂

🧵 If I tried to use these "saved gallons" to wash my dishes, take a shower, satiate the plants' thirst, or satiate my own thirst, I'd be in big trouble!

😬 😬 😬
May 24, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
So, Warren Gunnels is telling the world that he agrees that there is a "problem with the deficit."

In doing so, he is only helping to keep the targets *on* the kid who relies on food stamps.

This "deficit" mythology KILLS. "Any deficit reduction plan must include"...

No! The proper progressive/socialist position here should be that THERE SHOULD NOT BE any "deficit reduction plan."

May 22, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
such a stupid and counterproductive thing to say 😡🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ The gist of what Brian Tyler Cohen is saying *to Kevin McCarthy* here is "we agree with your premise that the 'deficit' - i.e., government spending - is inherently bad."

That's the relevant message from Cohen's tweet. Image
May 12, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This is just so silly 🤦‍♂️ and counterproductive.

It validates the notion that the national debt is a problem, and it displaces all actually politically good reasons to tax the rich (and all dumb reasons to tax the rich) into some depoliticized goal of "balancing the budget." The proper approach here is something like . . .

the national debt is not a problem, we don't need to reduce it, there should not be billionaires, corporations are not people, we should limit their power, and we don't need "other people's money" to do what is good and just.
May 9, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
The "cost of universal healthcare" is the decrease in exclusivity that the privileged have over both the services of healthcare workers and the bodies of the unprivileged participants in the labor market.

That's it.

That's the whole thing. It's not "another way to look at it."

It's the whole thing.

There is no other (correct) way to look at it.

What's the cost of women's suffrage?

What's the cost of racial integration?

What's the cost of the abolition of chattel slavery?

That's how to look at it.
May 7, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
This is so dumb, so exasperatingly dumb. 🤦‍♂️

Republicans don't care about the so-called "deficit." Why do you? Republicans want to cut Medicare and Medicaid because THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN Medicare and Medicaid.

They want an atomized, insecure, and desperate society, and they want to hoard healthcare resources for themselves.
Feb 26, 2023 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
One reason that we tend to confuse money and money tokens, that we tend to think of money as an object or a commodity rather than as a claim, is that the kind of token from past periods that most easily survived to be preserved were metal coins.

🧵

bbc.com/news/business-… But tally sticks, which were currency in the British Isles for many centuries before enough coins were manufactured for everyday trade about 200 years ago, give us a better indication of what money is - and what currency is.

bbc.com/news/business-…
Feb 25, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I have long been in favor of this for plenty of reasons.

People DO want to work, but they don't want to devote most of their waking hours to one paid job.

🧵

npr.org/2023/02/21/115… One benefit for the entire economy is that it creates slack for firms to use should there be a sudden spike in demand. It takes time to hire and train new people, or the sudden spike in demand may be temporary.
Feb 24, 2023 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
There is something important to point out here.

The NTSB chair said, "I don't understand why this has gotten so political."

That leads to a very important question!

🧵

abcnews.go.com/US/us-investig… Although I don't talk about it much here, I have paid close attention to railroad matters for all of my life and have forgotten about more derailments than most of you will ever know,
Aug 14, 2022 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
This is a mostly good article, but it repeats a dangerous fallacy that also undermines one of the points of the article: the idea that money fundamentally is an object.

I mean, just look at the graphic art that is attached to the article! It's BAD.

🧵

grist.org/economics/what… This is the second sentence of the article:

"Last year, floods, wildfires, and other weather-related disasters cost the United States an eye-popping $400 million per day on average."

Do better, @Grist. This framing is counterproductive for the environmental movement.
Jun 25, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
To prepare for what could be coming as early as Monday, please read this brief summer-2019 piece on something that could be far more consequential - at least in the aggregate - than the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

newyorker.com/news/our-colum… This could be a disaster.

The Environmental Protection Agency could become a shell of its current self, let alone what it could and should be, and the same could happen to various other agencies that should serve the public good.
Jun 25, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
One underappreciated reason that supply chains are so strained is that, over the last decade or so, US railroad companies - or the "activist shareholders" who have taken over them - have used their rentier power to engage in legal forms of asset stripping.
trains.com/trn/news-revie… Or, it's a legal form of corporate raiding, and this is part of a broader trend of neoliberalism.

This is just a long-delayed effect of the deregulation of the railroad industry four decades ago, but any new regulation should take a different form than the pre-1980s regulation.
May 16, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Lately, I have been thinking about how Luke Mixon's candidacy is exemplary of the Ratchet Effect at work.

He has said that Kennedy voting to overturn the election is what inspired him to run.

That raises the question, what if Kennedy had not voted to overturn the election? What would Luke Mixon be doing right now had Kennedy not voted to overturn the election?

In other words, does he even think that he would have a reason for running for Senate at all?

Because Mixon mentions this OFTEN, at the expense of other issues.