Category: Uncategorized

Per the NYT, climate change is exacerbating severe water management issues in West Virginia, but the residents would rather live with floods than give up their forlorn dreams of a return of the coal industry. What should be done with these people?

As with vaccine and mask mandates, in a perfect world, the punishment would fit the crime. Parents who refuse to let their kids wear masks in school should be required to educate them privately at their own expense. Employees with minimal contact with the public should lose their health insurance; workers with more public exposure should be fired. And as to climate change deniers who style themselves rugged individuals, they should be left without any public assistance when the disaster arrives. That’s justice.

It won’t happen, of course, but it should. Abortion opponents should pay higher taxes to deal with the myriad of social problems arising from the births of millions of unwanted children, too.

The great would-be emperor Xi

Wants to put Taiwan under his knee.

It’s a glittering prize,

So don’t be surprised

If there’s war in the South China Sea.

Paul Krugman is appalled by the thought that an industry which represents a tiny percentage of GDP, even in West Virginia, has enough clout to prevent meaningful action on climate change. He’s right, of course. Why is this happening?

I saw this during last year’s Kentucky Senate campaign. To millions of voters, coal mining doesn’t mean black lung, fires, and more powerful hurricanes; it means traditional values, male camaraderie, strength, self-reliance, and prosperity. Even without climate change regulation, coal mining is effectively dead in West Virginia, but the happy aftertaste lingers, and is politically potent.

Persuading the public that hanging on to the glorious past is going to be a long and difficult task. Unfortunately, it is time we don’t have. Manchin and McConnell will have plenty to answer for in the not-so-distant future.

It’s time to discuss climate change.

What the right has to say is deranged.

But the voters will say

We should live for today

So maybe it isn’t so strange.

Given the constraints imposed by our political system, there are two reasonably plausible alternatives to the dollar store economy. The right-wing populist alternative would consist of steep tariffs, subsidies for dying industries, erratic regulation allegedly in the public interest, and tax cuts focused more on workers than capitalists. The left-wing alternative is the one that Biden is pursuing today. It features more regulations, higher taxes for business, plenty of support from the Fed, legal assistance to labor in its battles with capital, and a significantly expanded welfare state. The idea is to increase the size of the middle class, to push up demand, and to accommodate large wage increases in our existing economy.

The right-wing alternative has been tried in many countries in the past. It is a proven loser, because it sacrifices cutting edge industries and jobs for the industries of the past, makes your economy less competitive on a global basis, and hurts domestic consumers. The Biden alternative has never been tried under anything like the current conditions. Most of the Democratic Party supports it, but Manchin and Sinema are, at best, lukewarm. Their objective appears to be to keep the dollar store economy, but to sand down some of its rough edges. Who will win this tug of war? I make no predictions on that one.

The biggest loser in the dollar store economy unquestionably has been the blue collar worker. With few assets to his name, he has to rely on his wages, which have been held down by technological change, the availability of cheap overseas labor, and capital-friendly legislation and regulations. Male workers using physical strength and skills in particular have lost money and status in the evolving knowledge-based economy. The only silver lining in this dismal picture has been low prices, which give the worker a safety valve of sorts; hence, the popularity of dollar stores and the title of this series.

Given their numbers and struggles, blue collar workers are the principal battlefield in American elections. The Democrats promise more power and higher wages; the GOP offers culture wars, scapegoats, and nostalgia. Neither side has won a complete victory at this point. The outcome of the 2024 election will probably ride on Biden’s ability to improve the lives of workers, and to persuade them to give him the credit.

To the reactionary right, the enemy isn’t the one percent, which consists of scrappy, hard-working businessmen who create wealth and try only to keep as much of their just desserts for themselves. No, the primary driver of rising inequality in America is the ten percent: professionals who look down on the less educated, marry each other, live in gated communities, and seek unfair advantages for their kids. They’re the self-seeking, undeserving establishment that must be overthrown. They’re the big winners from the dollar store economy.

It’s a popular narrative, but the facts—at least in monetary terms—do not bear it out. The numbers show that professionals have managed to break even over the last forty years—nothing more. Their earnings have remained fairly stagnant, and while their investments have done well, they have far fewer assets than the one percent, so the benefits they have received from hefty corporate profits and low interest rates have been fairly limited. In addition, the internet is a threat to their traditional business practices; it provides consumers with low-cost alternatives to their services, but does not increase revenues.

In short, professionals are not, in fact, the primary beneficiaries of the dollar store economy—capitalists are.

To a CD, a fetus (even a fertilized egg) is a human being with a soul, and to kill it is murder. To a Reactionary, abortion facilitates the sexual freedom of women, which is an affront to God and a mortal threat to the traditional male-dominated social order. To a liberal, abortion is tied to both freedom and equality for women. They aspire to a kind of secular, tolerant, multi-cultural democracy that is reviled by the right.

Abortion is such a divisive issue because the ideological stakes for each of these factions could not be higher; they tread on ground that is not negotiable. The other message here is that Justice Ginsburg’s critique of the legal reasoning behind Roe has a lot of merit, because her argument that the decision should have been based on equal protection instead of a vague right to privacy has a basis in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and reflects the real sociopolitical objectives of the left, as described above.

The dollar store economy, for the most part, has very, very good for business. Globalization has opened up new markets and increased revenues, while the internet, the availability of cheap overseas labor, and capital-friendly GOP tax and regulatory policies have kept costs down. Profits and share prices have soared. Life is good.

And yet, as the saying goes, there are storm clouds on the horizon. Globalization is in reverse, as the result of tensions between the US and China. The poorly paid workers that business so prizes can’t afford to buy their products. Worse, they are angry and restless; the pandemic is causing them to quit their jobs, so wages are increasing. Finally, business is losing control of the political agenda. The left is in power, and wants to increase taxes and regulations; the Trumpist right, on the other hand, favors a less profitable Fortress America, with lots of arbitrary intrusions into business operations.

Business, like the EU, desperately wants to cling to the status quo, and to avoid having to choose between two less attractive alternatives. It wants the dollar store economy with higher domestic demand. It won’t happen. Something, in the end, will have to give. The good old days ended in 2020.

We’re deferring the debt ceiling war.

We’ve pushed it back seven weeks more.

We’re kicking the can,

Unlike Afghanistan.

It’s a practice we ought to deplore.

The lead story on the local TV news a few days ago was the Covid-related deaths of two police officers. The memorial service for one of them basically preceded a parade in his honor. There was no discussion of his vaccination status, but it is reasonable to assume he was an anti-vaxxer.

None of the other Covid-related deaths in the viewing area received any mention. In other pertinent news, the NYT reported that the vaccination rate for cops on a national level was relatively low, and that police unions were fighting vaccine mandates ferociously.

Here is what you should take from these facts:

1. Anyone who gets paid by the public to put on a blue uniform is apparently viewed as a hero, whether he actually does anything heroic or not. Blue lives don’t just matter; they matter more than yours and mine.
2. A frightening percentage of cops are reactionaries. They don’t care about the public health and welfare as much as enforcing their view of law and order on the rest of us. In their eyes, they have the right to spread the virus among us—our bodies, their choice, because they’re in charge.
3. If we ever get into a serious street battle between supporters of a duly-elected leftist government and right-wing insurgents, do you really think we can count on these people to enforce the law, as opposed to their own prejudices? Do you think it is a coincidence that so many of the January 6 rioters were military and law enforcement types?

If you’re an extremely talented and artistic young person with a flair for self-promotion, the dollar store economy is for you; the internet has made it possible for you to reach millions of people around the globe directly, and without serving any kind of apprenticeship. Everyone else in your cohort, however, is just screwed. The combination of low wages and high asset prices—especially for housing—that is so helpful to retirees is toxic for you.

To make matters even worse, many millennials are trained for fulfilling, creative jobs that do not exist. They would be better off as plumbers or electricians, but working with your hands is for old people and immigrants.

On balance, the dollar store economy is a nightmare for millennials, which is why so many of them are Sanders supporters. But cheer up, guys; you will inherit lots of money along with the damaged planet, so help is on the way.

Jake Sullivan has come to the Oval Office to talk about Pakistan. Harris is off trying to improve her image, which could use some help.

S: We need to discuss our relations with Pakistan, Mr. President.

B: What, the malarkey capital of the world?

S: What do you mean by that?

B: Probably the only thing you could get Bush, Barack, and Trump to agree on is how tired they were of dealing with those people and their lies. They lied to me, too. The best thing about being out of Afghanistan is that I don’t have to deal with them anymore.

S: But they’re still there, they still have nuclear weapons, and they’re still being threatened by Islamic terrorists. As much as we might want to ignore them, we can’t.

B: Watch me. Let the Chinese deal with them. If they want to run that part of the world, let them find out how easy it is.

S: But the terrorists, and the nuclear threat.

B: They don’t have any way to deliver their nukes to the United States. They’re less of a threat than North Korea. Anyway, the Pakistani government will lean so heavily in their direction, there won’t be any real difference between the government and the terrorists. That’s the way these things work in the end.

S: They want to make nice with us now that the war is over. They don’t want to be a Chinese client state.

B: So they want to sell themselves to the highest bidder. I don’t have any interest in playing that game. We’re all in with India. The Chinese can have them.

S: Aren’t you worried about the impact of a war over Kashmir?

B: Instead of taking all of the responsibility for preventing a war, we can do a deal with the Chinese. Xi doesn’t want a Kashmir war any more than we do.

S: What do you want me to tell the Pakistanis?

B: That liars never prosper, and that Americans have long memories. (Sullivan leaves.)

Here is where the factions stand on Social Security and Medicare:

1. CLs: Entitlement programs, regardless of the identity of their beneficiaries, are an assault on freedom and a drag on the economy. They lead to socialism and drive the lazy and unworthy into the hammock of dependency. They should be cut to the maximum extent possible.
2. CDs: There is no market mechanism which insures that the elderly will have a decent standard of living and adequate health care. Social Security and Medicare must be protected, and even expanded, if possible, because the value of human life is not dictates by economic productivity.
3. PBPs: Entitlement programs drive up our costs. Cut them if it is politically possible, which may not be the case. Don’t expand them under any circumstances.
4. Reactionaries: Get your government hands off my Medicare! As a hard working white Christian, I am entitled to that money. Don’t even think about cutting programs for which I paid all my working life and which primarily help real Americans!

When the PBPs drove the GOP bus, entitlement cuts were party orthodoxy. Trump and his Reactionary supporters changed all that. A day of reckoning is approaching; the trust funds are running out of money, and something—either tax increases or benefit cuts—will have to be done. Which faction will prevail? We’ll see in a few years.

Retirees, by definition, are not dependent on wages. Most of them (at least the ones who are politically influential) live on a combination of Social Security and investment income. The former is fixed by law; the latter is driven by the performance of the markets, which in turn reflects costs, including employee compensation and levels of corporate taxation. Retirees also fear inflation, as it erodes the value of their savings.

You can see from this analysis that retirees are among the chief beneficiaries of the dollar store economy, which offers them low inflation and high asset prices. The status quo isn’t just for business owners. Is it any wonder that the elderly are reliable voters for the GOP?