Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Not all heroes wear capes.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Let me file that under fuck it.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

You cannot shame the shameless.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Party Like It’s 1981

Reader Interactions

284Comments

  1. 1.

    Marmot

    You mean the Volker recession? I’ve only read about the technical details—trying hard not to be obtuse, but what did you have in mind? The mood of the country?

  3. 3.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    Yikes. However, last time this happened, the elderly incumbent President was overwhelmingly re-elected a couple years later. Here’s to a repeat!

  9. 9.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    From what I understand and read, the Fed doesn’t have much of a choice but to raise interest rates to fight inflation. It’s the “medicine” to cure high inflation. It’s painful, but so is high inflation. If you let inflation stay where it is or go even higher, a recession is guaranteed anyway, along with the potential for stagflation

  11. 11.

    Another Scott

    DeLong said that he thought moving by 0.75 points would be a mistake:

    The first question is easy: There is a high probability – 75% – that the Fed will follow its previous forward guidance and raise its target for the short-term safe nominal interest rates that it controls by 50 basis points, from 0.75–1% to 1.25–1.5%. By validating its previous statements, the Fed hopes to steer the economy in the desired direction by shaping expectations of future interest rates.

    Because this “jawboning” strategy is effective only insofar as the Fed’s forward guidance is trusted, building and maintaining that trust is a major policy objective in itself. The Fed should deviate from previous forward guidance only if there is substantial evidence that the economy is on the wrong track. Currently there is no such evidence. Bond-market expectations of the underlying long-run consumer price index inflation trend remain under 2.5% per year – which is lower than in the pre–2014 period, when no rational person had any reason to fear that CPI inflation would soon deviate upward from its target.

    (More at the link.)

    Agreed. The Fed’s power is credibility. They shouldn’t make moves that they haven’t talked about in advance.

    I continue to think that the Fed is taking a chainsaw to the wrong problem – the inflation now is temporary and not baked in. Raising interest rates aren’t going to fix the supply chains or crush the pandemic or defeat VVP in Ukraine, and throwing millions out of work to address temporary problems is too high a price. But too many are screaming for the Fed to fix inflation NOW NOW NOW, so that’s what they’re trying to do.

    Yes, when enough people think that inflation is baked in then it becomes baked in. I too remember the days of the late ’70s-early ’80s when all the grocery checkout magazines were talking about the wonders of buying stuff on credit now because inflation means that you’re paying with cheaper dollars, and besides, credit card interest is deductible, so win-win. But I also know, as should the Fed, that those days are long gone and the situation is very, very different now.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  12. 12.

    different-church-lady

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They should have been inching things back up long before now instead of lurching all at once. But this country is just as addicted to cheap money as it is oversized vehicles and racism.

    I’d say it’s going to get ugly, except for the fact that everything already is ugly.

  15. 15.

    different-church-lady

    @Another Scott:

    I too remember the days of the late ’70s-early ’80s when all the grocery checkout magazines were talking about the wonders of buying stuff on credit now because inflation means that you’re paying with cheaper dollars, and besides, credit card interest is deductible, so win-win.

    “I just want a box of goddamned Near East rice pilaf so I can have dinner tonight, for fuck’s sake…”

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Yup.

    Of course, the “Prime Rate” is just about meaningless now.

    BaltimoreSun (from 1994):

    The full brunt of 1994 rate increases, generally tied to the prime lending rate, will be felt Oct. 1 because many issuers boost rates quarterly, rather than monthly.

    Credit cards have always held the highest loan rates, but they are particularly high right now when compared with other rates. In 1980, the average credit card rate was 17.3 percent, the discount rate charged on loans by the Federal Reserve was 11.5 percent and the prime lending rate was 15 percent. This year, with card rates averaging 17.34 percent, the discount rate is 3.50 percent and the prime rate is 7.75 percent.

    There’s no federal limit on credit card interest rates now. There are cards out there that charge 36%, and of course payday and title loan companies can charge hundreds of percent.

    Things are very, very different now from the early 1980s.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    debbie

    There have been too many peaks and valleys for me to keep them straight, but here I am on the other side. What’s one more?

  18. 18.

    Ksmiami

    The Fed is not the right org to react to what truly is an oil shock. But living with negative interest rates has led to an insane housing market and worthless speculative markets like crypto //… runs back into hiding.

  19. 19.

    different-church-lady

    @Another Scott:

    Raising interest rates aren’t going to fix the supply chains or crush the pandemic or defeat VVP in Ukraine

    But it will fix interest rates being artificially low for too long.

  21. 21.

    different-church-lady

    @debbie: Everyone should just remember that no matter which direction interest rates go in, corporate America is going to figure out a way to squeeze us for everything they can.

  22. 22.

    Baud

    I’m so old I remember when low interest rates were considered a tool used by Wall Street to hurt working people.

  23. 23.

    sab

    @Marmot: Volker recession was year I graduated from law school. I never did get my life fully  back on track. I know and knew at the time that it needed to be done, but it really left some damage.

  26. 26.

    cmorenc

    Speaking of Reagan, in mid-1982, the continuation of bad economic issues and sharp polarization among the electorate made his prospects for re-election in 1984 appear equally questionable as Biden’s do at the same point in his Presidency, and the GOP lost 25 house seats in the 1982 mid-term election.

    So if the billionaires want Biden gone, they best not count their electoral chickens before they hatch.

  28. 28.

    Kristine

    @Baud:

    On December 9, 1980, the Fed Prime rate hit a record high of 21.5%. Today’s action raises the prime rate to 4.75%.

    When I bought my house in late 1987, my interest rate was 10.5%. I refinanced five years later, the rate was 5.25%. Rates go up, then rates go down.

    I think what bugs me the most about all this is that the smartest people in the room (/s) are running around with their hair on fire acting like none of this has ever happened before.

  30. 30.

    sab

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Interest rates have been ridiculously low for your whole adult lifetime. There used to be a point to putting money in a savings account, or in buying government bonds. Safe and secure and it actually produced a small income for savers.

  32. 32.

    different-church-lady

    @sab:

    There used to be a point to putting money in a savings account, or in buying government bonds.

    When money is this cheap the banks don’t need yours.

  35. 35.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: Some inflation is good for just about everything in the economy. For example, a steady inflation rate means your home equity rises even though your mortgage doesn’t. It drives wage increases (remember COLAs?) It was a super wealth assistant in the 60s. Which is why the Fed is supposed to seek annual inflation rates of 2%.

    But we have been at the zero bound in inflation for almost 15 years. If we had the normal inflation rate year to year, costs and wages would both be higher than they currently are. But it would have been unseen and unfelt because gradual and normal.

    I wonder if anyone has run the numbers of this?

  36. 36.

    sab

    @Kristine: Hope all these guys buying hugely expensive houses at ridiculously low mortgage rates don’t need to sell and move ever again, because they are going to be clobbered. People look at the affordability of houses by the monthly payment.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @sab: The Fed’s mistake was not raising rates last year instead of having to do so much now. Their forecastes for inflation for last year and the current one were way low, and now they are playing catch up.

  38. 38.

    different-church-lady

    @debbie: Can we? Can we buy cars from local manufacturers? Can we get insurance from mom-and-pop underwriters? Is there a smart phone equivalent of buying directly from an organic farmer?

  39. 39.

    different-church-lady

    @sab:

    Hope all these guys buying hugely expensive houses at ridiculously low mortgage rates don’t need to sell and move ever again

    I hope they do.

  41. 41.

    debbie

    @different-church-lady:

    It’s your call. If you only want the latest and greatest, then you will have to pay for it. So sorry, so sad. If not, you could probably dig around for a better deal.

    The sky is not falling.

  43. 43.

    azlib

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): 

    But another option would be to raise taxes (fiscal policy) , particularly on the wealthy. That has a similar effect to raising interest rates (monetary policy) . Either method pulls money out of the economy.

  44. 44.

    different-church-lady

    @debbie: The sky does not fall. The sky sinks slowly until it pushes down on your head enough to affect your breathing.

  45. 45.

    Immanentize

    @different-church-lady: My favorite guys are those with huge trucks that probably are rated gallons to the mile, rather than vice versa. My current game is to check to see if the huge Texas Edition Silverado with monster tires has any evidence that the gate was ever lowered or the bed ever sullied. 9/10 times, pristine and unused.

    And they are all boo-hooing about $100+ fill ups. Maroons

  46. 46.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Immanentize:  I’m sure they have but that report is getting the “Top men, Dr. Jones, top men”, Warehouse 13 treatment and will not see the light of day until an anthropomorphic cockroach pulls out of the Federal Reserve archives in a hundred or so years.

  48. 48.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I gather there a few difference

    The housing is insane,  one of the things contributing to the homelessness in the SF Bay Area is empty apartment complexes bough on speculation for resale. Just too much of a bother to rent them out if the complex is to be just sold the next year. That’s all caused by cheep money.

    The work force is aging out. The late 70s the Boomers were entering the workforce, so plenty of labor, now the boomers are exiting in mass. Nothing the Fed is going to do is going to fix that and it’s not impossible this could be a recession with low unemployment.

  50. 50.

    Soprano2

    Well fuck, I’m about 5 inches from saying “Fuck it” and getting on a plane to Maui to straighten this shit out. Our funeral director was told by the coroner on Maui that she’s not comfortable signing a death certificate without a “biological” identification. I feel like we’re being jerked around, and there is definitely stuff they aren’t telling us. They have pictures, a tattoo ID, and haven’t offered to send us a pic of his face. This all seems pretty bad to me.

  51. 51.

    sab

    When I bought my house in 1999 I paid a bit over the market because I liked the location and I loved the lot ( big with a creek in back). The house itself was kind of bland.

    Exact same houses in same development but on tiny lots with no creek are going for three times what I paid, when our local economy hasn’t ever boomed. Not enough houses and low imterest rates. It’s nuts.

  52. 52.

    different-church-lady

    @Immanentize: I think about this phenomenon a lot — all day today, in fact. And I think I’ve finally figured it out: the overall shittiness of our society is so pervasive at this point that people don’t even recognize it as shittiness anymore. Sure, the guys who roll coal know what they’re doing, but most of those assholes tailgating you with front grills a foot higher than your entire car aren’t even aware they’re being obnoxious, neither in their driving behavior or their purchase decisions. Mindless shittiness is just “what we do” now.

  53. 53.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    Good. Jimmy Carter is cherished now.

    But only among those who are already with us.

    Full disclosure: Carter was my first presidential vote, my first volunteer political activity, and the only president I’ve met. I am an irrational Carter stan.

  56. 56.

    Immanentize

    @Soprano2: I am so sorry for this hell.

    What is a biological I.D.? DNA?

    Is the body that degraded? Who made the ID?

    Did you ever get in touch with the prosecutor from the case your relative testified in? Does that DAs office have a witness/victim coordinator? That seemed like a very solid first step.

  57. 57.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Also, we were worried about this

     

    But as for Kevin Seefried .. who carried the Confederate flag …. GUILTY of top charge of obstruction Also guilty of other charges: disorderly, entering restricted building Among many other things, judge cites Seefried jabbing Confederate flag at Capitol officer.— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) June 15, 2022

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    Jeez, the poor guy can’t catch a break.

    June 15, 2022 at 2:47 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

    Dr. Anthony Facui tested positive for Covid-19 and has mild symptoms, Bloomberg reports.

    At least we know he’s vaccinated and will probably be fine. Still, the disease is fake and/or vaccines are fake and masks are the devil’s trickbag.

  61. 61.

    Soprano2

    @sab: The way I put it as a comment on one show’s FB page was that they’re all panicked at the thought of things going back to normal. The show’s host read my comment, and the guest said something like “Yes, that’s exactly right”. The fed funds rate has been at zero for way, way too long.

  63. 63.

    Ohio Mom

    @sab: Can I ask Anne Laurie for your email address? debbie (in Columbus) already said yes to being our location scout and I would like to start planning our long delayed all-Ohio meet-up while the Covid numbers remain low (I think I just jinxed us).

  67. 67.

    Immanentize

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Ibtook a COVID at home yesterday because I thought I might go see my Mom (now I can’t). Still negative after 2.6 years! But I am feeling a certain pressure of inevitability.

  69. 69.

    Soprano2

    @Immanentize: I didn’t do that after I talked to his best friend because he said the guy was convicted and would be in prison for a long time. I asked a couple of people who knew my stepson point blank if they thought that case could have anything to do with this, and they said no. It was in 2016; I would think if it had anything to do with that it would have happened sooner than this. I could still do it if I thought I needed to. One person there told me she heard a rumor that his face had chemical burns on it. That could explain a lot, but no one with the police dept. has ever mentioned that to us. It sounds to me like she wants DNA or dental records.

    ETA – the ID was made of a tattoo by his boss, who he has worked with five days a week for years.

  70. 70.

    Old School

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    GUILTY of top charge of obstruction Also guilty of other charges

    Was this the one where people were worried because it was a Trump appointed judge that tended to be lenient on Jan 6th defendants?  Or am I getting my cases confused?

  71. 71.

    sab

    @Immanentize: My stepson had a coworker like that. Living in his parents basement with a huge pickup truck he only used to commute to his machine shop job. My stepson commutes to the same hob in a Honda Civic.

  74. 74.

    The Moar You Know

    The billionaires have spoken. They want Biden gone.

    @Feathers:  Not that simple, although not wrong at the core. This should have been done immediately after the economy had recovered from the 2008 recession. As a result of that not happening, we have a stock market bubble and yet another enormous asset (read housing/real estate) bubble. This recession should have been Trump’s. The Fed’s disastrous lack of action made sure it wouldn’t be.

    It won’t be nearly as bad as 2008 but it should not have happened at all. America got really addicted to easy credit.

  75. 75.

    sab

    @Ohio Mom: Please do. But she has my non-commercial e-mail that I don’t check much because family knows to text or call me. So a heads up in BJ comments would remind me to look at my e-mail.

    ETA I would so much like a meetup. We mid-westerners don’t seem to be good at that.

  76. 76.

    Elizabelle

    So we didn’t get a scary “Supreme” Court decision today?  One that sent us back to 1971, or 1961 (guns, guns, guns).

  78. 78.

    Immanentize

    @Soprano2: I am not suggesting that the old case had anything to do with the current death. But, your relative did that office a solid just by testifying in a serious case. Hawaii is a small place. That office might be willing, to sort of return the favor, to either ask around or to at least point you in the direction of who you might get good info. from. And if you did call the person recommended, you might find out the DA on the old case just happened to give him or her a heads up you were going to call.

    It’s not about needing to get the old DA involved, it’s about working available networks.

  79. 79.

    mistermix

    Sorry, had to walk over to my dad’s and do a couple house repairs, so I missed the discussion.

    I picked 1981 because that was the year the Fed raised the prime rate to 21.5% and the funds rate to 20% – and my memories of the economy and general attitudes were that people were unhappy and farms and ranches were failing left and right.

  80. 80.

    azlib

    @Baud: 
    You can use higher taxes to pay down the debt for one thing. Or you can put it to productive use in supporting things which improve productivity or fight climate change.

    All that higher short term interest rates does is pull money into debt instruments which would otherwise go to investments with higher rates of return.

  82. 82.

    gvg

    FDA panel endorsed moderna for under 5 kids. Phizer vote later today. CDC tomorrow. Process estimated to be done by Tuesday. If Susana is around, she will be following this.

  84. 84.

    trollhattan

    Before jumping into the deep end of the It’s Just Like Reagan pool, consider:

    The recovery from the 1980 recession had only amarginal impact on the Nation’s unemployment rate,which never dipped below the 7.2-percent mark (season-ally adjusted) during 1981 . Despite an increase in totalemployment of 1 .8 million between the second quartersof 1980 and 1981, the growth was insufficient to have amarked improvement on joblessness, as the unemploy-ment rate only dropped from the 1980 high of 7.8 per-cent to 7.2 percent in July 1981 . As economic activitydeclined in the second half, the number of jobless per-sons jumped by nearly 2 million from July to Decem-ber, and the overall unemployment rate reached 8.8percent, very close to the post-World War II high of 9.0percent recorded in May 1975

    https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1982/03/art1full.pdf

    Having been laid off around that time I had a very different job search landscape than we have today.

  87. 87.

    Elizabelle

    @Soprano2:   It sounds like you might have to head to Maui.  And I would think we jackals could help defray your expenses, if needed.

    As usual, Immanetize gave you some great advice.  That previous DA might find this very interesting, or at least want to help in a time of tragedy.  And (s)he will have pull in getting your calls returned/questions answered.

  89. 89.

    debbie

    @trollhattan:

    I didn’t get laid off at that time, but about 1,000 of my co-workers did. I had to watch them file into the manager’s office one by one to receive the news.

  91. 91.

    Eunicecycle

    @debbie: and I was the one they were sent to after getting the layoff news, to find out about their benefits. That was not a fun job. There was only one I did get a tiny bit of pleasure from; a woman who had always treated me like crap had to come and see me. I was kind to her and professional, though!

  92. 92.

    Kent

    @Benw: 

    We refinanced 2 years ago at 2.625% which is pretty ridiculously low.

    It also means we ain’t moving anytime soon. Even downsizing to a smaller home would increase our mortgage payments due to the higher interest rate. Unless we had enough to pay in cash.

  93. 93.

    JaneE

    @different-church-lady: Just as inflation is finally approaching where we would be if the Fed had hit its inflation targets for the last decade or so. And wages at the bottom, and to a certain extent the other quintiles (except the top), are finally getting some of the productivity gains for the last few decades, still playing catch-up from where we would have been if the post-WWII years had been the norm.

    We need to start calling interest rates and inflation reversion to the mean, if only for the propaganda value.

  94. 94.

    trollhattan

    @debbie: Horrid.

    Vietnam was going when I was in junior high and still going when I hit college–seemed as though it would never end (thank gawd the draft did). Then in college I learned “stagflation” had little precedent in econ theory (the professor would teach us a model and then add a disclaimer that began “This is how the model works, but today…”) and graduated into deep stagflation that lingered the better part of a decade.

    That’s why I just can’t with the “okay boomer” stuff because only the early cohort of the boomers benefited from the postwar boom, which proved unsustainable and dissolved for mid and late boomers. Timing.

  97. 97.

    trollhattan

    @Kent: You know it. The spouse is writing home loans in the mid-sixes ATM. We last refi’d at something like 2.4.

  98. 98.

    sab

    Very OT: my pitbull has very long toenails and she hates to have them trimmed. I have been trimming them, one at a time, while she naps. This makes her napping uneasy.

    I just realized that this is exactly what my doctor dad did to us as small children when we got vaccines after we were safely asleep. He could have trotted us next door to the neighbors, who had a nurse wife. Or had Mom take us to the pediatrician. But no, instead sneaky nightime stabs.

  100. 100.

    Urza

    Atrios used to be an economist of some sort, and is usually pretty accurate.
    https://www.eschatonblog.com/2022/06/inflation.html

    Supply chains bottlenecks, energy price spikes, and various monopoly power pricing are not “inflation” as imagined by economists. If it isn’t essentially “too much money sloshing around” then “less money sloshing around” is not the solution.

  101. 101.

    Kent

    I graduated from HS in 1982.  I had several friends in my graduating class in Eugene OR leave school the middle of their senior year because their parents had gotten laid off and they either had to move because they lost their home or left the region for their parents to find work, or they dropped out at age 17 to work and help support the family.

    Eugene still had a timber-dependent economy back then despite being a college town and unemployment in that area was running north of 10%.  It was not good times.,

  102. 102.

    Kay

    Al Schmidt, ex-GOP city commissioner in Philadelphia: “After the president tweeted at me by name…the threats became much more specific, much more graphic, and included not just me by name but included members of family by name, their ages, our address.”

    He was one of my favorite witnesses because he was so clearly just pissed off. Still! As mad as the day it happened, maybe madder.

  104. 104.

    Soprano2

    @Immanentize: Ah, I understand. We’ll see if the coroner calls. If we can’t get some answers from her, then I’ll see what I can do, because we’re in serious “being jerked around” territory at this point

  105. 105.

    Kay

    @Kent:

    It’s frustrating because people will move from being mad about inflation to being mad about unemployment in a heart beat. Unemployment is terrible but they’ll have lower gas prices for the gas they don’t need to get to the job they won’t have. I’d still pick inflation over unemployment.

  107. 107.

    Soprano2

    @Elizabelle: Thanks, but if we have to go we can afford it – no need for any of that, please save it for someone who needs it. It’s just the PITA it would be – flying there, renting a car, finding a place to stay on short notice, then navigating the whole thing, and not knowing if that would even help anything!

  108. 108.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Urza: I have been saying for a while that there is core inflation, there are spot pricing issues due to supply chain, etc., and there is opportunistic gouging.  Each calls for a different response.

  109. 109.

    Elizabelle

    RE the Boebert rumors, which sound entirely too good to be true (confirmation bias on steroids): email caution from Noah Kim of from Mother Jones:

    … This brings me to last night, when a bunch of liberal influencers and politicians—from Nina Turner to Charlotte Clymer—began to repeat a series of unverified, salacious rumors about Lauren Boebert.

    Boebert has denied the rumors. And tracing them to their source, as some of the best misinformation reporters have already done, ends up emphasizing just how shaky they really are. The claims originated with the American Muckrakers PAC, the group that released an explicit video of Madison Cawthorn, which the congressman essentially confirmed to be real. The PAC’s claims about Boebert, however, are extremely unsubstantiated. As evidence, the group cites a series of text messages from a single anonymous source, who mixes the iffy allegations with at least one demonstrably false claim. As Will Sommer of the Daily Beast reported, the source shared a photo with the PAC, asserting that it was Boebert. But the photo actually depicts Melissa Carone, one of the many (dubious) voter fraud witnesses that Rudy Giuliani trotted out during his campaign to overturn the election.

    Many conspiracy theories on the right originate in similar ways. First, an anonymous source of dubious legitimacy makes an allegation that confirms people’s biases. Then influencers eager to own their political opponents credulously broadcast it to a wider public.

    That many journalists and politicians repeated these rumors—often with libel-evading qualifications along the lines of “If these allegations happen to be true”—is another sign of just how far misinformation has penetrated our politics. Liberals often like to consider conspiracy theories an exclusively right-wing problem. But actually, the reality is that nobody is immune to wild allegations that confirm their preexisting biases. All we can do is try our best to filter out the noise and acknowledge our fallibility when further investigation confirms our beliefs to be less well-founded than we thought.

    Boebert is a complete jackass and whiner. Not a serious person. Do not turn her into a “victim”, too, and give her something to fundraise off of.

  110. 110.

    ksmiami

    @The Moar You Know:  Honestly, the best thing we can do is help Ukraine definitively win and bring back their grain and oil and their economy online. Xi I think is starting to realize that Vlad is forcing his biggest customers into recession and that won’t help Xi’s position….

  111. 111.

    James E Powell

    Since we’re talking about negative news, I don’t like this:

    Republican Mayra Flores won a special election Tuesday night to represent a Rio Grande Valley congressional district, flipping the longtime Democratic stronghold and soon making her the first congresswoman born in Mexico.

    *     *     *

    Democrat Dan Sanchez, an attorney, came in second at 43.3 percent. Flores had massively outraised him, reporting $1.1 million in total receipts to Sanchez’s $146,000.

    “Too many factors were against us, including little to no support from the National Democratic Party and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,” Sanchez said.

    As for the lack of support, not good, if true. I’d certainly like an explanation, considering how hard the big shots went to keep Cuellar.

  112. 112.

    Will

    The solution was to let inflation run hot for a bit with low rates because this is inflation caused by supply side issues. The low rates would have spurred eventual investment to address bottlenecks.

    Instead the Fed is going to wreck the entire economy. Their wrecking ball is going to leave a giant hole for the GOP to drive through to seize full control.

  113. 113.

    Kent

    @Elizabelle:

    Probably just a legend. But there is a story from one of Lyndon Johnson’s congressional campaigns that his people spread a rumor that his opponent was a pig-fucker. When informed that it was not true Lyndon reportedly replied: “I know that, I just want to hear him deny it”

    The more times we hear Boebert denying that she was a hooker or that she had two abortions, the better.

  114. 114.

    sab

    @debbie: My first job out of law school was at a bankruptcy clinic. Client after client  in their forties and fifties who had built small businesses by conservative borrowing. And suddenly the interest rates were insane and their life’s work blew up in their faces.

    We have a family history about this from the nineteenth century in Ohio.

    My great-great grandfather moved here from Connecticut early in US Ohio history. Eventually he owned a glass company in Ravenna. A couple of decades late he lost it all in ome of the many 19th century economic panics before we had the Fed. One year when he needed to borrow it couldn’t be done.

    His son in law, who was successful as one of the many co-founders of Quaker Oats, said his father-in-law had done nothing different than he did. He just did it in different rougher times.

  115. 115.

    Xavier

    The usual people have been howling for years and months that rates are too low and must be raised. Now the reason given is inflation. If the inflation was demand driven, raising rates might help. Raising rates tends to get people thrown out of work, and unemployed people don’t contribute much to demand. It’s kind of a ghoulish way to manage the economy, but the usual people don’t care because it’s not them being thrown out of work. This inflation is caused primarily by supply problems, and higher rates are unlikely to help. But it will get higher returns for the usual people.

  116. 116.

    Gravenstone

    1981 was a memorable year for me. I wouldn’t mind revisiting it, although I was frankly too young to be adversely affected by most of the bullshit happening in the time. So call it a rose colored glasses perspective.

  117. 117.

    Soprano2

    @trollhattan: I was a few years after you – graduated HS in 1979 – but my experience was the exact same. I graduated college in 1983 into the worst recession in decades. Only 4 recruiters came to my college for my whole senior year. That’s why I’m a little impatient with people who say they can’t find a job because they’re waiting for the exact right position to come to them. To me those people are voluntarily unemployed.

  118. 118.

    pat

    @Soprano2: 
    So they haven’t asked for dental records yet? That seems strange. Maybe I just read too many mysteries, but that would seem to be the first thing they look at.

  119. 119.

    mistermix

    @Elizabelle: I read through the press release from that PAC and there are no facts in it.  The sex work and abortion accusations are all based on texts from one person.

    She and her husband are grifters who haven’t done shit for their district.  The rest is just noise.

  120. 120.

    Elizabelle

    @sab:   Good example.

    So much in life comes down to timing, and sometimes we/people don’t have much control over the conditions. Just how we adapt.

  121. 121.

    Immanentize

    @James E Powell: There are so many caveats about that win, I wouldn’t get too invested in a freak out. The most important one is that the district has been completely redrawn and both Rep and Dem will have to fight in different districts in November. IIRC, Sanchez will be in a new district which is D+ a lot. So, the special was not worth, frankly, sinking a ton of money into. Also SUPER low turnout,  because — see caveat number 1.

  122. 122.

    trollhattan

    @Elizabelle: Had not heard of it but googling brought me to Daily Beast and somebody named Will Sommer who scolds liberals for “rush[ing] to spread.”

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/liberals-rush-to-spread-bogus-lauren-boebert-escort-and-abortion-rumors?ref=wrap

    Message: STOP it you libs [stamps feet]. So uncivil.

    Boebert can’t be hurt by stuff like this anyway, she’s a Republican gun moll and they love them some gun molls and besides, nothing Trump did hurt him, also, too.

  123. 123.

    Elizabelle

    @trollhattan:   This rumor is so outlandish, and such an example of “don’t fall for confirmation bias!”, that makes one wonder if it was floated by someone as a distraction and trap, or to buy sympathy for Boebs.

  125. 125.

    sab

    @sab: Related. My hairdresser, who started his own business in the late 1970s, to this day only remodels one ceiling tile at a time. He says he will never again borrow to do anything.

  127. 127.

    Citizen Alan

    @Immanentize: 

    I finally got it at the end of May right as I got back to Mississippi. The only symptom I had that I do not attribute to being back in pollen country was a mild fever that went up to a 100ﾟ at the worst. I’m convinced that I would have been asymptomatic if I’d stayed in New York

  128. 128.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

    @trollhattan: ​
     

    I wouldn’t go as far to say Dump’s corruption and sex scandal means every other wingnut is immune.

    The Dumpy corruption and sex stuff did sink Nazi Cawthorn and before him, fake preacher and hate monger Jerry Falwell, Jr.. And the fundies loved them, they could do no wrong in their eyes, until they did.

  129. 129.

    sab

    @Kay: That’s what I keep saying. Prices are higher but at least you have a job. A year ago you didn’t. You were living on exteded unemployment, and they don’t have that any more.

  130. 130.

    Scout211

    I posted this downstairs but will repost here:

    The Seefried verdict is in:  one felony, four misdemeanors each. Source.
    So a bench trial is not a free ride.

     

    CNN — 
    The man who was captured parading through the US Capitol with a large Confederate flag during the January 6, 2021 riot, was – along with his son – found guilty by a federal judge on Wednesday of obstructing an official proceeding, a felony.

    Kevin Seefried, with his wife, son Hunter and son’s girlfriend, drove from Delaware to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally that day. Kevin and Hunter Seefried followed the crowd to the Capitol and helped storm the building, climbing in through a broken window and coming close to the Senate chambers while inside.

    The two men were found guilty by Judge Trevor McFadden on four misdemeanor charges as well, including entering and remaining in a restricted building and disorderly

  131. 131.

    artem1s

    @Another Scott: 

    Raising interest rates aren’t going to fix the supply chains or crush the pandemic or defeat VVP in Ukraine, and throwing millions out of work to address temporary problems is too high a price.

    there isn’t any indication yet that inflation or raising the fed rate will throw people out of work. the jobs numbers have so far exceeded expectations. The rates have been zero for the banks for too long. they need a curb on their lending for risky investments or we’ll be right back where we were in 2008 all over again. I’m also fine with people making more money and that means paying more for some things. I’m fine with fuel costing more because it means we think about getting out of fossil fuels. there are a lot of long term benefits to the economy when interest rates aren’t zero.

  133. 133.

    James E Powell

    @Immanentize:

    Thanks for the info. I won’t freak out, but I still don’t like it.

    Our newest congressional wing-nut said, “This historic win will bring back God to the halls of Congress!” Apparently, she alone will accomplish this. I can’t stand people who talk loud about how they are bringing “God” with them and especially those who say they are bringing “God” to the government.

  135. 135.

    James E Powell

    @artem1s:

    there isn’t any indication yet that inflation or raising the fed rate will throw people out of work. the jobs numbers have so far exceeded expectations.

    I am guessing that is one of the reasons the Fed felt like they could do 75 pts and not trigger a recession. Thing is, all of these measure are almost alchemy; so many factors that are not subject to anyone’s control.

  136. 136.

    Citizen Alan

    @sab:

    I am waiting to hear back about a career position in New Jersey, and I am about to apply for jobs in Albuquerque and Manhattan. By October 1st at the latest, I will be living in a blue state even if it means I have to scrub toilets instead of practice law.

  141. 141.

    sab

    @Citizen Alan: That’s the ticket! Good luck

    ETA I had a college intenship in Jackson Mississippi in 1972 that changed my life. Were you even born yet?

    I had always thought of Mississippi as dark and spooky and draped in Spanish moss. Surprised to learn it was hot and sunny like the rest of the South. Apparently I had read too much Faulkner.

  142. 142.

    Soprano2

    @pat: I was told by the funeral director that the coroner referenced waiting for dental records. They didn’t ask us for them, though, but we wouldn’t have them anyway if they even exist.

  145. 145.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

    Don’t worry.

    If interest rates go too high, Biden can distract the public by invading a tiny Caribbean island that did nothing to us.

  146. 146.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    Bitcoin – the one they say is not like those other ones – was up a bit this afternoon, but still down more than 50% YTD. I check it every so often because I have associates who assured me I was insane for not putting all my money into crypto.

  150. 150.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @different-church-lady:

    In retrospect, I think they should  have but tbf to them, it wasn’t obvious a year ago inflation would eventually run so high. A bunch of people assumed supply chain bottlenecks would work themselves out sooner

  151. 151.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

    Funny, when Reagan was running on “Morning in America” the fed rate was … (checks notes)… 11.5% and the fixed 30 year mortgage rate was 15.23%​
     

    Now that’s some morning.

  154. 154.

    sab

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Good for you. My RWNJ brother is a treasurer in a mutual fund and I cannot get him to manage my late mother’s investments. Worked his whole life at it but won’t commit. He trusts his boss who has a weird mind for this stuff, but bro won’t get near it with a ten foot pole.

    Goerge Soros’ kid doesn’t know how to invest. It takes a weird emotionally damaged numeric mind. Soros admits as much.

  155. 155.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch:

    On the flipside, back then money market funds and CDs were actually worthwhile investments that paid the equivalent of near annualized stock market returns.

    And CDs were FDIC insured, as safe as you could get as an investment

  156. 156.

    Ken

    @Baud: Jesus. How old are you?

    “In my day, we didn’t need five forces and a goddamn zoo of seventeen elementary particles. One particle, one force, easy to understand. But then the youngsters came along and broke the symmetry…”

  158. 158.

    pat

    @Soprano2:

    I see.  Sadly, your only possibility might be to go there and ask directly, face to face, what the heck is going on.  So sorry that you have to go through this.

  162. 162.

    Uncle Jeffy

    Of what I consider the four types of inflation (Aggregate Demand-side, Aggregate Supply-side, aka cost-push, expectation-driven, and market power [which you get from increasing concentration and increasing inequality), the Fed’s actions are only going to affect the first one. I’d love to see Biden advocate for examining markets where prices have virtually no link to conventional supply-demand analysis, like beef packing. And if you want to determine whether someone understands those markets, ask them to draw the supply curve for a monopoly industry.

  165. 165.

    Kay

    @sab:

    And there’s buyers and sellers. A lot of people made money selling their house. They’re not all rich people. To me the difference with inflation is you’re still (somewhat) in the driver’s seat. You can reduce driving (some) and you can economize on groceries etc but you still have income coming in. But if you can’t find a job you’re just wholly at the mercy of the Job Fairy.

  166. 166.

    Ruckus

    @Kristine:

    Running around with your hair on fire often ends poorly.

    Real or imagined fire often doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference.

  167. 167.

    CaseyL

    The 1982 Recession – I could not find a job – is what forced me to return to my Mom’s house in Florida for what I still call “The Exile in Miami.” Five years in that hellhole, crying when it rained because I was so homesick for Seattle. (And when I did finally return to Seattle in 1988, I literally got down on my hands and knees in SeaTac Airport and kissed the concourse carpet.)

  168. 168.

    sab

    OT Trimmed Ponyo the pitbull’s nails while she was sleeping. Well only two nails, because she woke up.

    Now she as at the foot of my bed, on the bed, sucking frantically on a quilt because she is so stressed. Trimming nails in sleepytime is not emotionally healthy for your adopted dog.

    Promise to dog: I will never do that again.

  170. 170.

    Immanentize

    @raven:  I truly wish I was new (or feeling new) anywhere.

    PS I was riding north of Boston near Essex, MA and saw a mailbox tricked out to look just like a deep water lure. Thought of you.

  171. 171.

    sab

    @Kay: The Job Fairy is magic, and you cannot always count on  her being there. She has blessed me a lot in the second half of my life, so I forgive her for the first half and hope if I pray to her my step-kids will be safe.

    ETA Don’t want to muddy things up by saying I am Christian and normally pray to God and not some fairy.

  172. 172.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @sab:

    All I really do is a target date fund to invest in, that invests in underlying total index funds, with international allocations for diversification. Some people want to do special stuff like SCV tilts and the like but it’s better to keep things simple

  173. 173.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    The problem with this tho is the effects on lower income and fixed income people. And you can eventually end up with stagflation

  174. 174.

    Immanentize

    @Marmot: I graduated law school on the go go mid-80s when big firms were hiring new lawyers like “web designers” were hired In the 90s. I of course became a public defender. Much to my father’s deep and expressed disappointment. Or not, depending on the stage of my career.

  176. 176.

    Immanentize

    @Kent: Very unlikely given the felony conviction. Probation is way outside the guidelines and certainly will not be recommended in his pre-sentence report.

  178. 178.

    sab

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It is much better to keep things simple. Glad you are investing. Later in life, with wife and kids and mortgage, investing is much harder. People think it will be easier when income goes up, but expenses explode.

  179. 179.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: As I explain to my son, we are “house rich.” But to get that sweet cash, I would have to sell my 100% value increased home and what? Go RVing for the rest of my days?

    Well, that doesn’t sound so awful.

  180. 180.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @sab: There is always the specter of Weimar-esque hyperinflation.  Of course that would solve the student loan issue.  Silver linings!

  181. 181.

    Ruckus

    @Urza:

    I think we have to remember that we had 4 yrs of an epic moron as president and then a world wide pandemic. The results might be similar to other financial times but the reasoning is not the same and the reply is likely to be different as well.

    It always amazes me that people think the world always has the same result for different problems or that things never change. I’m old enough to have seen a number of different times in the world, caused by man, by nature, by stupidity, by unknown causes at the time. Some of those reasons often cross streams and make standard answers less effective. Or more. It is the one main lesson of life, shit happens, sometimes we know why, sometimes there is no explanation. Like SFB, really, what can one explain about that?

  184. 184.

    gene108

    @mistermix:

    I figure if Boebert got an abortion, it would’ve been for her first kid, when she got knocked up in high school.

    Her husband is reported to make between $400k to $500k as an oil and gas contractor.

    It just doesn’t make sense she’d need or want to work as an escort in 2019 or whenever the rumor says she did this.

  185. 185.

    Kay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I’ll buy fixed income but I think lower income people benefitted from leverage in the job market. Employers take advantage when unemployment is high. You can’t design an economy around people on fixed income. You can’t just kill it to keep that steady. People not on fixed income, in different stages of life, need growth. They have X number of working years to get it.
    I just think all the same people who were hair on fire about inflation will be hair on fire when unemployment ticks up and housing sales cool off and all the concerns about “lower income people” will disappear. I’ve seen this before. They’re already doing panic-driven articles about real estate agents being laid off. WTF? How do they think this works? There’s some magical formula where it’s all gain and no pain?
    You watch. The concern for low income people and their budgets will magically disappear.

  186. 186.

    Immanentize

    @evodevo: I am sorry, but there was no such person as John Mellencamp in 1981. Please return to 2nd level 80’s music for reeducation.

  189. 189.

    sab

    95° here. Pitbull is inside but wants to go outside because we finally got air conditioning. Dog thinks it is 75° outside. She lives in many layers of wishful thinking. I will stop trimming her nails in her sleep.

  190. 190.

    Ruckus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Stock and bond markets are safer gambling.

    They get a lot safer if you know more about the products and those involved. Which is relatively difficult to know if you do anything else in the world, like actual working for a living.

    When I say safer, I mean safer than actual gambling – cards/craps/etc.

  192. 192.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    They’re already doing panic-driven articles about real estate agents being laid off.

     
    That’s because they’re getting arrested for sedition.

  193. 193.

    germy shoemangler

    Hearing ➡️ tomorrow at 1:00pm

    Witnesses:
    • Mr. Greg Jacob, Former Counsel to Vice President Mike Pence
    • The Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Retired judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and informal advisor to Mike Pence

    — January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 15, 2022

  194. 194.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    I got an unsolicited offer for my house at a funeral. That just doesn’t happen here. They were sweet – a young couple and (ridiculously, because this town is so small ) I had HEARD of her- she’s from South Dakota – but honestly inappropriate. They know where I live! Just come over after.

  196. 196.

    Baud

    As a rule, no matter how good the economy is, it’s bad for someone and that means the Dems have failed us.

  198. 198.

    Immanentize

    @germy shoemangler: Luttig was the scary super conservative judge on the 4th Circuit who I dreaded! feared! would be appointed to SCOTUS by W. The screw has turned, no?

  201. 201.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I intersect with them a lot and I like a lot of them, but I generally like salespeople. One of them, a young woman, told me sounding just exhausted “I haven’t seen my family for two years”. I felt honored that she could drop the sales bit for a second and sound like a harried human being. They’re even worse when they have nothing to sell, so expect more insurrectionists.

  202. 202.

    evodevo

    @Immanentize: ​
      Guess i should have said “why” he released it…many of our farmer friends and those throughout the Midwest were going broke because crop prices were too low to pay the sky-high mortgage and crop production loan interest rates – sorry…

  203. 203.

    Ruckus

    @David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch:

    Those following deranged asswipes always change deranged asswipes when the wiping goes wrong. They are followers, they couldn’t lead if their lives depended upon it. With our political system we have two parties, the asswipe followers and democrats. Asswipe followers want stuff they really can’t have so when one of their leaders fails, they switch to another deranged asswipe, and the fun continues. We are where we are because they found, a few years ago, a supremely deranged asswipe. They have gone down about as far as one can get, they are having a difficult time figuring out who/what might be a bigger, better deranged asswipe. Plus the wide range of possible candidates is distressing.

  205. 205.

    karen marie

    @Immanentize:  What good are higher wages if costs rise at the same rate?

    I suppose it beats costs rising and stagnant wages but not a whole hell of a lot.

  206. 206.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    They’re already doing panic-driven articles about real estate agents being laid off. WTF?

    WTF indeed. I thought a huge majority of real-estate agents are basically part-timers anyway. But maybe not in this overheated market.

  207. 207.

    sab

    OT Got my second Shingrex shingles shot today. Guessed wrong on insurance. Husband got his for free. Mine were $200   per shot ( x2). Young pharmacist asked if I was sure. I asked if he knew anyone who had had shingles. He agreed expensive shot was probably worth it.

  209. 209.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    I’ve read that many people’s wages have not kept up with this high inflation and on top of that if prices keep rising, then employees will demand ever higher wages, increasing inflation in turn, which will lead to a wage price spiral, like what happened in the late 60s and 70s. It might not be sustainabl

    Of course, wage growth has been slowing the last few months, so a spiral may not happen

  212. 212.

    gene108

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    The problem with this tho is the effects on lower income and fixed income people. And you can eventually end up with stagflation

    Low interest rates hurt people on fixed incomes more than inflation and higher interest rates.

    If a CD’s interest is about what the inflation rate is or higher, a person on a fixed income breaks even at worst.

    In the 1980’s, inflation wasn’t 20%, but a person on a fixed income could put money in a CD with a 20% interest rate.

    There are upsides to higher interest rates and higher inflation, which we’ve not had for a long time.

    People trying to live off interest rates on fixed deposits for the past 20 years struggled. CD’s that returned more than 1% on a deposit were hard to find.

    There were times money market accounts had negative interest rates, ie keeping money in money market accounts lost money.

    There are people on fixed incomes with savings, who would benefit from a rise in interest rates.

  215. 215.

    Anotherlurker

    @sab: Insurance covered my Shingrex shots.

    Even if it didn’t cover the vaccine, I would gladly pay out of pocket.

    I know that Shingles is physical Hell.  I delt with it for a year and a half.  There were moments during the illness where I was afraid I was going to die.  There were also moments where I was afraid I wasn’t going to die.

    Yup. It’s that horrible.

  218. 218.

    Steeplejack

    @sab:

    I need to schedule Shingrix shots. I put it off during the pandemic, but now that that’s over ( ) I need to get it done. Also a pneumonia vax. (I’m up to date on COVID and flu.)

  219. 219.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @sab:

    Here in Stone Mountain, GA, high today was 99°. Currently air temp of 95°, heat index of 106°. DO NOT WANT.

  221. 221.

    Geminid

     

     

    @gene108: Boebert’s husband only started making that big money after she was elected to Congress in November, 2020. Like, immediately after.

  222. 222.

    Another Scott

    @artem1s: Agreed on everything, except for the fact that the main tool the Fed has for fighting inflation is causing a recession which necessarily throws people out of work.

    A much, much better solution for the imbalances in the economy is higher taxes on the top N%.  There’s too much money out there doing nothing productive, and too many people and institutions are happy to have it sit around earning almost nothing (or even pay for the privilege of having it sit around (negative interest rates in the EU)) rather than investing in things that make the economy and life in the US better (training, new/upgraded plant and equipment, etc.).

    Yeah, too many economists have been predicting a recession for a year or more, and it wasn’t that long ago that companies were saying that they couldn’t raise their prices and were going to go out of business and woe is them, but now everything’s horrible because too many people on the bottom are actually earning some money for the first time in 40+ years and we can’t have that so the Fed must put them in their place again.  Or something.

    The 40-year-ago past is only so relevant these days, so we can’t go overboard in making comparisons.  The bits of Powell’s comments that I heard in the Q&A today sounds like he understands the risk and issues (he made the point that even if the Fed Funds Rate is 3.5% at the end of the year, it’s still very low and shouldn’t by itself cause a recession.  But the obvious question is then – if the Fed Funds rate matters so much to the economy, why wasn’t the economy on fire when rates were at ~ 0% for years on end?  And the answer is – there’s too much money out there not doing anything productive and the Fed is effectively pushing on a string. Only Congress can really fix it.).

    I still think DeLong’s point about credibility and expectations is what’s most important.  If the economy believes Powell and the Fed, then inflation will come down.  If they don’t, or if there are other shocks, then it won’t.  But his chainsaw approach to interest rates isn’t really addressing the problem of too much money not doing enough productive work, and that can best be fixed by higher taxes on those with the millions and billions that sitting around.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  223. 223.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ruckus:

    I vividly remember standing before the bathroom mirror watching the shingles creep up the entire right side of my face. It was like watching one of those nature films where a budding/blooming flower appears to open in a minute or two. Weirdest and freakiest thing I’ve ever seen.

  224. 224.

    sab

    @SiubhanDuinne: We only got AC about five years ago. Spent the previous fifteen arguing about when to shut the windows and when to open the shades. I grew up in the hot and unairconditioned South. Husband grew up in balmy NE Ohio. We had screaming matches about when to shut and open the windows. If it is hot and you guess wrong it is days before the house gets bearable again.

  228. 228.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @gene108:

    Relatedly, until fairly recently, bond funds provided quite a bit of income until interest rates started going up

  229. 229.

    Geminid

    @karen marie: Another Democratic President came back strong from a bad midterm election by running against a “do nothing” Republican Congress. That was Harry Truman in 1948.

    Truman won reelection that year even though Democratic defectors Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace running to his right and to his left.

  230. 230.

    sab

    @SiubhanDuinne: My fiftyish boss had shingles two years ago. This is common. I think the fifty cut-off has no medical reason except to get women out of child-bearing age.

  231. 231.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @sab:

    I’m well-aware. It just sucks this bout of inflation had to hit now. It feels like we’re lurching from one crisis to another anymore it seems. Oh well, only way out is through

  232. 232.

    Steeplejack

    @Geminid:

    I was wondering about that. The timing is super tight. Wikipedia says Boebert’s husband got $460,000 in 2019 and $478,000 in 2020 from “Terra Energy Productions,” so (presumably) almost all of it before her election in November 2020. Still shady as hell, obviously, especially since she didn’t disclose the income until August 2021.

  234. 234.

    Geminid

    @Steeplejack: Maybe Ted Cruz or some Koch put in a good word for the husband. Lauren Boebert was pretty much a sure thing once she knocked out incumbent Scott Tipton in the CO-3rd primary, but that wasn’t until June of 2020.

  235. 235.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @sab:

    Fair enough. Hopefully it will stay that way for most people in the next few years

  236. 236.

    Martin

    Reminder that the inflation rate in the US is about average for the G20. Everyone is seeing inflation.

    Also, I really like this energy.

    A portion of a Washington, DC, street will memorialize murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, with a sign in his honor unveiled Wednesday in front of the Saudi embassy in the city.

  237. 237.

    Spanky

    The party of personal responsibility.

    (CNN)The campaign of Herschel Walker publicly acknowledged this week that the Republican Senate candidate has a second son with a woman who was not his wife.

    The Georgia GOP nominee’s admission follows a Tuesday report in the Daily Beast that Walker fathered a son more than a decade ago. The Beast reported it had confirmed the identity of the boy and the mother, and that the mother had sued Walker in order to obtain a declaration of paternity and child support. According to the report, Walker was ordered to pay child support starting in 2014.

  241. 241.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Martin:

    It definitely could be worse. We could be Turkey right now with hyperinflation.

    And I love that news about Kashoggi. It’s a real stick in the eye of Mohammad Bone Saw

  242. 242.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

    @mistermix: ​
     

    I read through the press release from that PAC and there are no facts in it.

    Meh! There were no facts when LBJ said Goldwater was sheep fucker. As Johnson would say, “That’s not the point, make him deny it.”

  246. 246.

    Scout211

    Court documents released in Proud Boys case released today  lay out a 9-page plan for January 6th.

    WASHINGTON — A document, titled “1776 Returns,” which federal prosecutors said was used by the leader of the Proud Boys, lays out a plan to occupy Capitol buildings on Jan. 6, 2021, using covert operators to let “patriots” inside government offices in an apparent effort to force a new election.
    Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, and four other members were indicted on seditious conspiracy charges this month. Tarrio has twice been ordered detained until trial.
    The nine-page document, filed in federal court Wednesday, lays out a plan to fill buildings “with patriots and communicate our demands.” It’s stated goals include maintaining control “over a select few, but crucial buildings in the DC area for a set period of time” and getting as “many people as possible inside these buildings.”
    “These are OUR building, they are just renting space,” the document reads. “We must show our politicians We the People are in charge.”

    . . .

    The document lists eight targets: the Supreme Court, the Russell Senate Office Building, the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the Hart Senate Office Building, the Cannon House Office Building, the Longworth House Office Building, the Rayburn House Office Building, and CNN.

  248. 248.

    Ruckus

    @Anotherlurker:

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Mine started on a Saturday morning, also up the neck and right side of face. Couldn’t get to the doc until Monday morning for the pills to stop it. I have been hit literally head on by a truck and I wasn’t in a vehicle. That was less painful than shingles. Didn’t heal as fast but still, less painful. I have a ruptured meniscus L4/L5, and they never heal, it’s been almost 15 yrs, not even close to shingles pain.

    Take the damn shots, even if you think you enjoy pain, you won’t enjoy shingles. If you get it up the side of the face near an eye it can do damage to your eye. If you are over 60 it is more dangerous to your general health. From the Mayo Clinic -Depending on which nerves are affected, shingles can cause an inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), facial paralysis, or hearing, or hearing or balance problems. I’ve also had encephalitis which is a hoot and have Meniere’s disease which causes hearing loss on one side and balance issues. Take the damn shots.

  249. 249.

    sab

    Burgers in the yard tonight. Husband says ” No! It’s so hot! ” I say “That is the point. It’s not toasting up my kitchen.”

  252. 252.

    sab

    Dog not in bed tonight. Afraid of toenail trim. Sitting on bedroom floor with eyes rolling. Silly girl.

  253. 253.

    Ruckus

    @sab:

    50-52, I don’t remember the exact year. I remember the doctor I had so it had to be in that timeframe.

  254. 254.

    Kay

    The New York Times
    @nytimes
    ·6h
    The real estate brokerages Compass and Redfin are laying off employees as higher interest rates make mortgages more expensive. “We could be facing years, not months, of fewer home sales,” Redfin’s chief executive wrote to workers.

    Next it will be “durable goods” orders are down because no one is buying houses. Mid August for that article.

  257. 257.

    Anotherlurker

    Similar to what happened to me. Left cheek , eye, nostril and inside the left side of my mouth. I looked like a bad make-up test for a 1950’s science fiction movie.

    Stress was the Shingles trigger for me.

    @Ruckus:

  258. 258.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Crypto seems to be a classic pump and dump.  Doesn’t work without dumping.

    A former boss found a small stock that would regularly cycle between two limits (say $20 and $75).  He said he made quite a bit of money as a young person buying low and selling high.

    Plus, crypto makes absolutely no economic sense and is destroying the planet, so there’s that.

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  262. 262.

    Erieg

    @Immanentize: well here is the funny thing. I own a f-150 and most of my neighbors drive EVs and give me crap but every damn weekend one of them asks me to help them haul something home.

    This last weekend I told one of them to haul their damn tree in their Nilsson leaf.

  265. 265.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Kay: In case people are wondering about the reference FTFNYT published yet another (at least the fourth so far) moral panic hit piece on trans kids and trans healthcare for kids That’s Just Asking Questions.

    It’s currently getting eviscerated on Trans Twitter. The article bared quoted trans kids themselves (I believe only one), but instead give a platform to a parent who was overtly transphobic towards their kid, the same set of “conversion” therapists who always get quoted (and who they were warned about), and linked to an anti-trans group that publicly poses as moderate, but posts on their Substack that they’re the equivalent of the French Resistance battling Nazi (i.e. trans people). And there’s pretty anti-LGB as well.

    It’s large-scale concern trolling about a problem that doesn’t fucking exist — they couldn’t cite a single actual example of trans kids receiving necessary healthcare without an assessment. But they’d rather worry about imaginary cis kids than actual trans kids.

    We’re not trying to turn cis straight kids into trans queer kids, we’re trying to make sure our trans and/or queer kids don’t end up as dead kids.

    All this by a journalist who’s done good reporting elsewhere. But there’s something about trans people that causes cis people to lose their damn minds.

    Happy Pride….

  266. 266.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Erieg: There’s a wee bit of difference between a truck that is actually used as a truck, and the vanity trucks that never see a speck of dirt or work.

    I suspect yours is the former.

  267. 267.

    Ruckus

    @MagdaInBlack:

    There are many people who do use their trucks to haul stuff regularly. There are also many around here that never haul anything they couldn’t put in the trunk of any car. A lot of them are jacked up 8-12 inches with huge tires and loud exhaust. A 4×4 jacked up 10-12 inches has a rather high center of gravity and can roll over a lot easier in some situations.

    My last boss has a Ford pickup, an F250 but he hauls a trailer or a boat with it. His daily work truck is an almost 20 yr old Chevy S10 that gets used for delivery/pickup regularly. When I had my shop I had a pickup to deliver large machined tooling, the largest ever piece was about 3400 lbs. Truck was fully loaded. Fully. Loaded. Most loads were 500-1000 lbs.

  269. 269.

    different-church-lady

    @Ken: You had a force! We had nothing but entropy, and we had to push it ourselves. But it were force to us!

  270. 270.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay:

    They’re already doing panic-driven articles about real estate agents being laid off.

    WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE WHITE LUXURY SUV DRIVERS?!?

    How do they think this works? There’s some magical formula where it’s all gain and no pain?

    That’s a rhetorical question, yes?

  271. 271.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Ruckus: Every one of my upper-management corporate overlords drives a big ass chromed up leather seated fancy schmancy $70-80k truck that they trade every 2 years. Status symbols.

    I grew up were trucks were trucks.

    It just annoys hell out of me

  273. 273.

    Tony G

    @MagdaInBlack: Apparently the big trucks given them bigger dicks.  Or so I’ve been told.  Regarding the Federal Reserve … wouldn’t it be more cost-effective to just hire chimpanzees to randomly raise or lower interest rates?  I’m a simple farm boy, but it seems to me that the price increases are mostly due to screw-ups in the supply chain as a result of that pandemic that nobody wants to talk about any more.  Suppressing demand by raising interest rates will increase unemployment without solving the fundamental problem.  Give me a banana please!

  277. 277.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Tony G:

    Regarding the vanity trucks: giant rolling penis extensions

    Regarding the Fed: When your only tool is a hammer etc.

  278. 278.

    Tony G

    @Ruckus: I like the guys in my town who disable the mufflers on their cars to that you can hear them a mile way.  Apparently young women are turned on by that sort of thing.

  280. 280.

    Tony G

    @Another Scott: The other thing about crypto is that it apparently has value only among the cult members who buy and sell it to each other.  I’ve never heard on actual store/diner/restaurant that will accept crypto currency as payment.

  282. 282.

    different-church-lady

    Little late here, but Nexon over at LGM (he being one of the few over there who haven’t become cartoon characters) led me to an article about a concept I hadn’t known about, but which explains a lot of the intuition I’ve been having about things for a long time:

    Financialization refers to the process by which the financial sector—banks, private equity firms, hedge funds, stocks and derivatives exchanges, and other conduits through which money flows between those who have it and those who need it—takes up a larger and larger share of the U.S. economy, fails to allocate capital to its most productive uses, and increasingly results in the hoarding of economic, and thus political, power at the top of the income and wealth ladders.

    For years I’ve been using the joke, “In this economy you gotta spend money to spend money.” I guess it’s more true than I thought.

  283. 283.

    James E Powell

    @different-church-lady: 

    Finacialization began in the Reagan days, accelerated in the 90s, and more or less took over at the turn of the century. the Gordon Geckos of the world overwhelmed whoever was against it.

    As Frank Sobotka put it, “We used to make shit in this country. Build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy’s pocket.”

  284. 284.

    moops

    The number one inflated purchase everyone is making is gasoline, and the interest rate has absolutely no impact there.

     

    The oil execs want the Dems out of power, and cranking up the interest rates is stalling the rest of the economy.     The Dems won’t survive this double whammy, and the Jan 6 villains will be off the hook after November.

Comments are closed.