Month: October 2021

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I predicted this would happen even before Biden took office.

Some left-leaning commentators argue that Biden should mint a trillion dollar coin, or rely on the Fourteenth Amendment, or follow the rule of the least unconstitutional act if Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling in a timely manner. And indeed, he will have to do one of those things if everything goes wrong. All of the approaches have legal merit, and should be sustained by the judiciary. The problem is that the markets know there are reactionary, chaos-loving potential plaintiffs out there, and that they can find a reactionary, chaos-loving Trumpist judge who will take their claims seriously. As a result, every payment of any kind by the federal government will carry a tinge of illegality, interest rates will rise, and serious damage will be done to the economy even if Biden ultimately wins the case.

In other words, just get rid of the filibuster on this ridiculous issue and be done with it.

Chuck Schumer’s plan, it seems, is to either compel GOP senators to vote for the debt ceiling increase or to expose them as hypocritical nihilists. This approach has been a disastrous failure, because they won’t vote for the increase, and everyone already knows that they are hypocritical nihilists. The GOP base actually gives them kudos for that.

On its face, Mitch McConnell’s plan is to force the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling on their own, and then to attack them as big spenders and socialists. That won’t work, either, because the voters don’t care much about the deficit, and because raising the debt ceiling only covers past spending decisions—including those made on a bipartisan basis while Trump was in office.

In reality, McConnell is hoping that the Democrats screw up, the debt ceiling is not raised, chaos ensues, and the Democrats get the blame. It is completely fair to describe this as vandalism at the highest level, but it might work.

Pressuring the GOP on this issue is hopeless. The best solution would be to eliminate debt ceiling filibusters, and vote on party lines for the increase. In the meantime, wake me up when it is over.

I’ve got those dirty, lowdown Covid-19 blues.

You have to be aware of it; it’s all over the news.

The right’s so irresponsible; for that, there’s no excuse.

We can go forward or back; the nation has to choose.

——

We just did what we were told; we took one for the team.

We drove over a hundred miles to get the damn vaccine.

For people to do otherwise, I think is just obscene.

It’s ok if they lose their jobs; you know just what I mean.

——

I’ve got the blues.

The pandemic blues.

Mandates are required here;

There’s no right to refuse.

They claim it’s about freedom

But they ignore the costs.

Their freedom’s just another word

For thousands of lives lost.

If Biden is looking for a good way to improve his economic record and lower the inflation rate, here’s an idea: get rid of the counterproductive tariffs, including the ones imposed on China. Yes, the GOP will howl that he is going soft on the Chinese, but the tariffs are a tax on Americans, not China, and do not provide us with any meaningful leverage. They serve no purpose other than to play to the right-wing peanut gallery. That wasn’t deemed to be a good enough reason to stay in Afghanistan; why should this be any different, particularly after showing toughness by making the submarine deal?

The combination of pandemic-driven wage pressures, supply chain issues, and occasional local government disapprovals has made life more difficult for dollar store owners. Should we celebrate?

Not really; dollar stores are a symptom, not the cause, of what I call the dollar store economy. The cause is the hollowing out of the middle class as the result of globalization, technological change, and tax and regulatory policies favoring capital over labor. If we succeed in rebuilding a prosperous middle class through the expansion of the welfare state, there will no longer be as much demand for dollar stores, and they will expire from natural causes. Until then, dollar stores thrive because they meet the needs of struggling American workers. They are, unfortunately, an essential safety valve in today’s economy.

Ross Douthat notes that the typically libertarian left supports vaccine and mask mandates, while the normally authoritarian right opposes them. He thinks this role reversal is deeply weird. Can it be explained?

Yes. The left supports mandates only because every less restrictive alternative has been tried, and has failed. Mandates are the only plausible remedy at this time, and they are working, as I had predicted. The right opposes mandates because they are, as I have noted many times, faux libertarians. They object to restraints imposed on them by what they perceive is a liberal establishment; abortion regulations, of course, are a different story. Freedom for me, but not for thee.

A quick glance at a map tells the story; if China gains control of Taiwan, it will have a foot on the throat of the Japanese. The Japanese presumably prefer not to become a Chinese vassal state, but any efforts to beef up their defensive capabilities will run afoul of both public opinion and their constitution. What, then can the Japanese government do?

Provide America with enhanced intelligence and cyberwarfare assets. They are relatively cheap, consistent with traditional Japanese areas of expertise, and easy to conceal from both the Chinese and the voting public. They would also be very helpful in the event of an attack on Taiwan.

The Chinese view the Australian submarine deal as proof that America’s strategic objective in Asia is containment. In a way, they are right. But what, exactly, does that mean?

America is not threatened by the expansion of the Chinese economy, or by the increasing wealth of the Chinese people. After all, we encouraged it, and benefit from it in a myriad of ways. What we object to is China’s attempts to impose its will on other countries, either through its economic clout or the growing power of its military. This would be an issue even if China were impeccably democratic; the creeping authoritarianism of its regime, and the fear it justifiably inspires, only makes things worse.

And so, we are bound to have a complex relationship with the Chinese. We will work with them whenever we can, but we will protect ourselves and our friends from their bullying when we must. That inevitably includes beefing up our military capabilities in Southeast Asia and the surrounding seas.

The left, which is always in favor of increased federal spending, presumably wants the bipartisan infrastructure bill to pass. They want the human capital bill to pass even more, however, so they are holding the infrastructure bill hostage. It is a very Trumpian tactic.

The threat to torpedo the infrastructure bill is simply not credible, unless you assume that the real objective of the left is to discredit the Democratic Party, prove that it is unfit for office, and put Trump and McConnell back in charge of the country. Furthermore, voting no will only cause the moderates to dig in even further on the human capital bill. A no vote is actually the opposite of the use of leverage.

If I’m Pelosi, I would bring the infrastructure bill to a vote ASAP and see just how suicidal the left really is. My guess is that they will cave after the time for loud posturing expires.

If you go to the Chinese Communist Party Museum in Shanghai, your first question should be, “Where’s the Communism?” You would expect to see plenty of exhibits describing the evils of a decadent, feudal society in late Qing China; instead, you see a parade of material attacking the predations of imperialist European powers. The greatness of the CCP, it is clear, is viewed as the restoration of China’s place in the world, not the creation of a state run by and for the proletariat.

Chinese nationalism historically has revolved around a complacent and self-satisfied belief in the superiority of Chinese culture, not militarism. However justified that was in the past, it is hard to make a case for it in today’s world. With the CCP constantly beating the nationalist drum, is the stage consequently being set for a military confrontation from which the Chinese government cannot afford to back down without jeopardizing its legitimacy in the eyes of the public? We had better hope not.