chooky
1d ago
Is this an attempt to mount an argument that speeding tickets in 5 years is a very good reason? There's no amount of lipstick you can put on this pig!
chooky
1d ago
Obergefell was in 2015 and occurred, in my estimation, probably five or so years before the median Republican primary voter had naturally shifted to favoring gay marriage. Resentment against Obergefell being legislation from the bench very much figured into Trump's 2016 win.
I don't think that the argument that Republicans who have previously campaigned or voted based on purported religious principles can now shift to not caring about marriage without abdicating their moral authority, including retroactively, holds water. These principles should be firm. There are probably many more Republican atheists today and the Pence wing of the Republican party is now some combination of homeless and rubes (a lot like the libertarian wing!), so the Republican party abandoning morality in its current campaigning is very logical - but that they have done so is precisely the point of the OP.
There used to be a very understandable alliance between the religious conservatives and Republicans/Trump on abortion, but that battle has now been won at a national level (and abortion is proving a losing issue for Republicans at a state level, so they are dmeemphasizing that outside of appeals to the base). The alliance between religious conservatives and Republicans is now regarding... trans kids playing in high school sports? This is incredibly weak tea to overlook the other implications of a staunchly religious position.
chooky
2d ago
It's not a particularly isolated demand for rigor in the context of Republicans' reaction to Clinton's affairs or the extent to which Republicans have courted the religious right via abortion (arguments about this being more consequential than polygamy are well taken) or gay marriage (not well taken here).
chooky
2d ago
I found that Musk's fixer is a Mormon to be one of the piece's more surprising details. Jokes about sisterwives aside, I thought that the ethical obstacles would be far too strong on that one.
chooky
2d ago
It was kind of a retreat, but look at financial markets - they are very clearly saying that the April 2 tariff annoucements and their negative impacts are largely still in place. April 9 changed the country, but it did not change the fundamental policy misconception by Trump.
chooky
2d ago
The standard of precision you expect in 2 and 3 makes them seem like they are just grasping for straws.
chooky
5d ago
Strong economy (which would mean back to trendline without strong inflation, NOT merely a return to positive growth), trade deficit narrowed by a lot (really doesn't matter since the thesis of tariff criticism is that they are bad for the economy so this is fully covered by that item, but the volatility, reputational loss and immediate financial pain needs to not all be for naught), peace in Ukraine with a Ukraine-favoring resolution would make me update my assessment.
US shipbuilding is very "who cares", and I'm not sure how to judge a successful policy since fixing it would take decades of reform. Certainly, having revenue from US gov purchases of ships go up would not count.
chooky
5d ago
Don't forget the 10% tariffs on everybody except Canada and Mexico still exist - these sounds manageable, but they are still a big drag on the US economy.
chooky
7d ago
Not waiting for someone to their day in court is own thing. Contravening a court order is quite another.
chooky
9d ago
What event are we reminding for exactly, though? If the China tariffs remain large and the stock market fully recovers despite this? My claim is pretty much just that financial markets think the tariffs are bad for the economy and that they are not pricing in the consequences of them staying long-term.
chooky
9d ago
While I would agree that the market does not find the China tariffs very plausible as a long-term policy, we're still well below inauguration asset price levels, so I would interpret the market as mostly saying that a) the 10% tariffs are a major impediment to growth and so are the China tariffs and b) he screwed the business climate up so badly already that there is no fixing it.
chooky
9d ago
Surely, it is clear now that the market cares only about the negative impact of the tariffs.
chooky
9d ago
But we are talking about a non-US country trying to manipulate its currency so that it is cheaper for them to buy more US stuff.
chooky
10d ago
Yesterday, the morning climb was from the fake news about a 90 day pause. Today, the temporary ascent was from reports of negotiations with various countries before the news of the additional 50% on China sent things back down. There have been numerous headlines on WSJ and Bloomberg. The market absolutely hates the tariffs and loves signs that they might stop.
chooky
10d ago
The way you would make your currency strong is by raising interest rates for your country, which would induce a recession. This is a really bad approach.
chooky
10d ago
What? The market did well at certain points over the past couple of days almost only because it saw a path to ending the tariffs.
chooky
12d ago
You have quite a bit of work to do to claim that the stagnation of manufacturing wages is due to globalization rather than technology, and also to claim that this is a US-specific issue. Lines like "Work that liberals secretly preferred" are just not good.
chooky
13d ago
We know that PCE includes purchases made on behalf of households (most importantly, health insurance) and charitable organizations. But these are not enough to bridge to the BLS numbers of about 80k. I would think that the bridge to income has a lot to do with savings drawdowns by retirees.
I am looking at the BEA vs BLS spending breakdowns right now, and I can tell you that BEA has $29k in 2023 for health vs only $6k for BLS. BEA also has drastically higher food services, "other", recreation, and durable household items.
chooky
13d ago
It's important game theory to punish defectors; here, the US is the defector. There is certainly a question about how long countries like China, already facing weak growth, can keep up the retaliation, but:
A) The US trade war may prompt a reduction of non-US tariffs globally, which will boost growth for all those countries, especially if it results in a wave of investment to avoid US-related supply chains.
B) It is very unclear how long the Trump tariffs can be sustained given that they do not really seem to have a good legal basis. It does not seem ro me like they would win a legal challenge, and I think that Congress will be forced to step in to end the tariffs if Trump does not cave.
C) The US, by engineering itself a recession for goals that are probably unachieveable, is greatly diluting its supposed leverage - access to the US market is less attractive when our economy sucks.
chooky
13d ago
This is what it is saying. PCE is 20 billion and change. The amount of households is around 132k. This works out to about155k per household.
America is richer than most people realize.
chooky
15d ago
Huh? The US has lots of tariffs and has been hypocritically protectionist for decades.
chooky
15d ago
I don't buy that the Dem establishment allows such a destructive policy. The most we should have expected is price gouging investigations into eggs or something. Maybe Harris tries to go for a wealth tax and probably does implement some annoying regulations, but a) Congress would definitely have to sign off on taxes first and b) much less bad than Trump's tariff approach.
Now if we had been talking Sanders vs Trump... I think all bets are off.
In my view, my reference to "Republicans who have campaigned or previously voted" was indeed me individualizing the standard.
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