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Imagine that you are Xi Jinping. What is your dream for China in, say, 2030?

Here’s a reasonable guess:

1. China is prosperous, and more self-sufficient than it is today. Its supply lines for vital resources are completely secure.
2. The military is, at the very least, a match for the Americans.
3. China has gained complete control over the area in which it claims sovereignty. This includes areas of the South China Sea and possibly even Taiwan.
4. The Communist Party’s authority within China is unchallenged. There is no meaningful dissent anywhere in the country. Minorities have been totally assimilated.
5. The area immediately outside of Chinese sovereign territory consists of vassal states. This includes, at a minimum, Japan, Vietnam, and both parts of Korea.
6. The rest of the world has learned the hard way not to say anything negative about Chinese political and economic practices.

What is missing here is at least as important as what is included. China does not aspire to dominate the world with its military, or to turn the US and Europe into mirror image authoritarian states. Its ideology is Chinese exceptionalism, not communism. You can stop worrying about being sent to labor on a collective farm. The imposition of sanctions for criticism of China, however, is another story.

What would it mean to be a Chinese vassal state? I will address this in a post tomorrow.

So what can Biden do to address the concerns of the white Christians that the left plans to send them to concentration camps for re-education? Here are some suggestions:

1. ENGAGE DIRECTLY ON THE SUBJECT: In the past, the left has refused to take the right’s cultural concerns seriously. That’s a mistake. The issue should be addressed clearly and specifically; otherwise, the right will continue to assume the worst, and the wounds will fester.
2. DON’T POKE THE BEAR: Gratuitous attempts to score culture war points for the blue team don’t go over well in red America. Do your best to avoid them; that’s what “unity” is all about.
3. DON’T SET UP CONCENTRATION CAMPS: Well, duh.

The irony here is that the GOP did unexpectedly well with Hispanics in the election–even with some Mexican-Americans around the Texas border. That gives Republicans some incentive to downplay the racism in the future, which would help a bit. The more the GOP enjoys a vested interest in the system as it is supposed to exist, the less likely we will see a reprise of January 6.

Shortly before Trump took office in January, 2017, I predicted that he would jam a regressive tax cut through Congress, that the deficit would explode as a result, that the Fed would raise interest rates to respond to an overheated economy, and that we would fall into a recession. I was right on the first two points. But on the third, the Fed pulled back after the “taper tantrum,” without any apparently negative results. With no interest rate increase, we had the Trump pre-pandemic economy, with real wages increasing substantially, even for people with minimal skills. The electorate’s memory of that Brigadoon is the reason the election was as close as it was, even with Trump’s uncaring and inept response to the pandemic.

Trump sold his tax cut as a supply side measure that would vastly increase investment. On that point, it was (predictably) a miserable failure. Instead, the unintended consequence was something like Abenomics in America. What does Japan’s experience tell us about what we can expect if Biden continues on his present course?

There are actually four questions here:

1. Are America and Japan essentially similar?
2. Did Abenomics work?
3. What are the actual risks involved in supercharging the economy with spending increases and tax cuts?
4. Are they worth it?

The answer to #1 is mixed; like Japan, America is aging and becoming somewhat stagnant, but to a lesser degree, due to higher levels of immigration and a less regulated economy. Japan’s debt, as a percentage of GDP, is much higher, but so is its domestic savings rate. On #2, we also have a mixed bag; the government didn’t succeed in raising the country from its comfortable torpor, but it at least managed to keep things from getting worse.

Paul Krugman and the administration argue that the benefits of a huge stimulus, as opposed to targeted relief, outweigh the risks; based on the Trump era experience and that of Japan, the likelihood of inflation and an increase in interest rates is low, and if it should happen, the Fed can just take care of it by slamming on the brakes. It is possible, of course, that inflation expectations are so low today that inflation and interest rates will not increase much, in which case they will be proved right. But the raw materials for inflation–supply chain bottlenecks, huge piles of savings, a trade war with China, and enormous suppressed demand for entertainment and services–also exist, and a Democratic administration is going to be cut less slack by investors and the Fed than Trump was.

If inflation increases and interest rates follow, both the stock market and the bond market will be crushed; as I noted in a previous post, America is now hooked on low interest rates. We will have another “taper tantrum,” except on a much larger scale, and with no subsequent relief from the Fed and the markets. What happens then? The wealthy and the modestly affluent respond to their loss of wealth by cutting back their spending, and recession follows. Politically, this is a disaster. It’s what I predicted for Trump, only a few years later, with the GOP responding with demands for huge cuts in spending on the safety net.

So, are the benefits worth the risks? It’s a much closer call than Krugman would suggest. I would say no. We’re probably about to find out.

You might well wonder how, in the eyes of the right, does the land of the free devolve into the home of the Christian concentration camps? It’s the numbers, baby!

America is likely to become a minority majority country in the next few decades. The right is painfully aware of this. Add to it, in their view, the fact that the younger generations are being brainwashed by the liberal MSM, the universities, and Hollywood, and you have a huge problem. The cherry on top is immigration. Of course the Democrats want to create millions of new citizens out of illegal immigrants and refugees. They’ll all be Democrats! Then what do you think happens? How can real America survive a tsunami of people who can’t be assimilated, and who reject our culture? And how can the GOP possibly compete with that?

With an increasingly intolerant generation in charge, the numbers on their side, and the liberal intelligentsia rooting them on, anything is possible. Even with the advantages of federalism and the Electoral College, real America is doomed. At that point, the best they can hope for is to be treated as second-class citizens; more likely, the concentration camps loom. Better to take action now and change the system by stealth or violence than to face re-education or even extermination later. The left’s cultural power can only be checked by a monopoly of political power.

What can reasonable people do to combat these facially ridiculous fears? I will address that in my last post on the subject.

It is generally accepted by the center-left that the 2009 stimulus package was too small for the occasion. There were two good reasons for that: political resistance to a larger package; and the lack of accurate information about the magnitude of the recession in real time.

Most of the Obama veterans don’t want to make the same mistake twice; they are holding out for an extremely large bill that far exceeds the output gap this time around. The circumstances are different, however. Regardless of the current slowdown in job creation, most of the economy is operating more or less at full speed; in addition, asset prices and savings have gone up substantially over the past year, providing a pool of money for a large economic expansion after the pandemic has been overcome. The problems are limited to a few specific industries and to state and local governments. They need relief immediately, but on a temporary basis; the rest of us are doing fine, and do not require any assistance.

We seem to be headed towards a form of Abenomics with American characteristics, inspired by the performance of the Trump economy prior to the pandemic. Paul Krugman insists the benefits of this exceed the risks. Is he right? I will comment on that tomorrow.

I am happy to report that 144 eminent constitutional lawyers agree with me; the First Amendment standards established by case law for criminal cases do not apply to impeachment proceedings. Not that it will matter to the 45 GOP senators who are determined to acquit.

Donald Trump is thrown off Twitter. Josh Hawley loses a book deal. Bakers are required to provide services for gay couples. Celebrities are attacked for statements that are not politically correct on social media. Confederate statues are toppled. The 1619 Project says America is an evil empire. Lincoln’s name is removed from a school in San Francisco.

What do all of these events have in common? To the GOP, they are manifestations of “cancel culture,” of course. A large portion of the right sees them as the beginning of the end of America as they know it. What starts with a city removing Lincoln’s name from a school ends in concentration camps for Christians. That’s the reason, other than their glorious legacy, that Christian nationalists are entitled to bend or even shatter the rules of our political system in order to maintain a monopoly of power. If you were facing extermination, wouldn’t you put on a fur robe and a Viking hat and go storm the Capitol, too?

Of course, you have probably noted that the actions described in the first paragraph of this post are not attributable to the federal government, and that neither Joe Biden nor anyone in the Democratic Party has ever supported concentration camps for Christians. Biden, unlike Trump, is actually a practicing Christian himself. What people like Tucker Carlson are suggesting is way, way beyond anything proposed by anyone on the left–even the Twitter activists, who matter far less than they think.

So how does America’s end actually happen, in the eyes of furry Vikings? More on that in my next post.

The point of the Lincoln Project was to get into Trump’s head and cause him to behave even more provocatively than usual. It succeeded admirably, and entertained the rest of us in the process. Does the group have a future now that the man on golf cart is in exile?

Actually, yes. The ultimate objective would be to return the GOP to some semblance of sanity. There’s much work to be done there, mostly by reminding the leadership that the electoral cost of embracing extremism is greater than the cost of rejecting it.

On the GOP senator Graham.

It’s the Democrats he loves to slam.

Did Trump cause the riot?

He just doesn’t buy it.

In fact, he just won’t give a damn.

To the surprise of nobody, Trump’s attorneys are arguing that his statements at the rally preceding the riot do not meet the “incitement” exception in First Amendment jurisprudence, and so he cannot be convicted on the impeachment article. Let’s leave the premise aside, for now; is the conclusion correct? Is the legal standard for impeachment identical to the one which prohibits criminal prosecution for words short of “incitement,” as that term has been defined in case law?

It’s not a ridiculous argument, but I don’t think so. The balance of private rights and public harms in impeachment is different than in a criminal prosecution. The liberty interest deprivation (loss of office versus the loss of physical freedom) is less compelling, and the public interest in the protection of the constitutional order is greater when a rogue president is involved, rather than an average citizen. Congress is consequently free to adopt a lower standard for impeachment proceedings if it chooses to do so.

I would imagine Trump would contend that leaving the usual First Amendment standard creates a slippery slope that will ultimately lead to instability and disaster. The truth is, however, that the combination of partisan politics and the two-thirds conviction requirement provides more than enough protection for future presidents from frivolous impeachment proceedings. Impeachment has already been shown to be a weak reed; the impending Trump acquittal will only make that more clear.

No liberal democratic system can be truly stable and productive without a reasonable, forward-looking, and responsible center-right party. The GOP hasn’t met that standard since, to be generous, 2009; today, many of its leaders can’t even bring themselves to denounce deranged extremists. Can the Democrats do anything to nudge them back to respectability?

Yes, by:

1. Winning elections, preferably by large margins, thereby convincing the leadership and the donor class that “no enemies to the right” has a dismal future;
2. Governing successfully, and thus proving the GOP theory that only the private sector can get things right is a lie; and
3. Prosecuting right-wing extremists who violate the law and threaten the political system to the fullest extent possible. Otherwise, today’s rabble may turn into tomorrow’s IRA or ETA.

Technically, “reconciliation” is a procedural mechanism which permits the majority party in the Senate to avoid the filibuster on some issues relative to the budget. In a more common sense, “reconciliation” refers to efforts by two adverse parties to resolve differences and move on together.

In the current context, the two meanings are at odds. Which is more important? The Democrats should do their best to harmonize the two by avoiding the use of the reconciliation process and reaching bipartisan agreements where reasonably possible, but the issues facing the nation are too pressing to avoid it altogether. On some looming budgetary matters, such as permanent welfare state expansions and green investments, there is no plausible alternative.

The left’s reaction to the counterproposal made by the ten GOP senators has been withering, to say the least. Is that fair?

Let’s break it down:

1. INDIVIDUAL PAYMENTS: The proposal for the $1,400 checks only makes sense as a device to get enough votes for the rest of the package. Some members of the left appear to have lost sight of this, and are seeing the checks as an end in themselves. The GOP proposal to reduce the payments and target them more directly to the less affluent should be accepted, even if the people making the offer have a record of supporting tax cuts that would not meet their current standard.
2. UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE: The 10 are willing to extend the payments through June, instead of March, at the weekly rate approved in December. It is highly unlikely that the hospitality industry will be running at full bore by the beginning of summer. I would use the proposal as the basis for negotiation, but require the extension until September.
3. MONEY FOR VACCINATIONS: There is a huge difference between the Democratic and GOP numbers. Frankly, I don’t have enough information to evaluate this one.
4. STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT RELIEF: The absence of any state and local government payments in a “unity” bill is shameful. The GOP just has a blind spot on this point. The need is immediate, and should be addressed in the first bill. This point is not negotiable.
5. MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE: The GOP was never going to approve it, in any form. That should be taken as a given.

The bottom line is that I consider the offer serious, with the exception of the absence of state and local government relief. If the 10 won’t agree to that, the relief bill should be adopted by reconciliation ASAP.

According to the self-interested right-wing purveyors of hate, the end of the world is at hand. The left will use its power to drive all decent American citizens into re-education camps. Christianity will be outlawed and will disappear, along with our guns, in the name of political correctness. Socialism will ravage the land. If we don’t fight back, it’s 1984.

If you think this sounds like the world’s largest and most dangerous crazy religious cult, you’re right. What will these people say when their predictions fall flat? Probably that Biden stood in the way, and that AOC and the next generation are made of sterner stuff. After all, that’s what a cult would do–keep the lie alive.

Today’s tech titans are often compared to the robber barons of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. How do they stack up?

Not well. Both groups consisted of innovators who did everything in their power to crush the competition. The robber barons, however, succeeded in bringing new products and services to the masses that improved their lives, and were thus inescapable; in the case of Facebook, on the other hand, Mark Zuckerberg just created a platform that uses information generated by third parties to sell advertisements. The social utility of that service does not remotely compare to a railroad or a steel or petroleum product.

Of course, if you have a monopoly on a product or service some portion of the public absolutely has to have, as in the case of farmers and the railroads in the late nineteenth century, you can pretty well charge whatever you want for it regardless of the damage you inflict on your consumers in the absence of effective regulations. In that respect, today’s robber barons present less of a problem than their predecessors. I can easily choose not to buy Apple products or to be on Facebook, and I do.

In the long run, I think Zuckerberg will be remembered more for his (profoundly negative) impact on political systems than the economy. The tech titan who reminds me most of the earlier gang is Bezos. For better or worse–and there is plenty of both-he is making massive, irrevocable changes to our real economy, not just a virtual one.