Dark week for economic headlines.
@bloomberg.com @wsj.com @nytimes.com @financialtimes.com— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Enten: "Failure, failure, failure going into the midterm elections, because Donald Trump was elected to fix the economy, and people still believe lowering prices should be the top priority, and at this point 55% of people say the economy is getting worse."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 6, 2026 at 9:35 AM
Fox Business: A new poll from the Pew Research Center shows 72% of Americans feel the economy is in poor or only fair condition.
— The Lincoln Project (@lincolnproject.us) February 5, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Bitcoin's price continues its decline, dropping another 11% to $67,000. It has lost nearly half its value since hitting a record high in October.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) February 6, 2026 at 2:00 AM
The post-industrial period of a developed economy is characterized by three phases.
Until the 2010s, we were in a service economy. Now we are in a scam economy. And we are about to find out what phase comes next.
Fox: This a new poll shows 59% of voters disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy. That's his worst rating on the economy since he took office. I'm laughing because that's a terrible number.
— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 11:36 AM
TRUMP: “I’m starting to get great polls on the economy…”
NBC: “The polls on the economy are not great.”
TRUMP: “They SHOULD be great.”🙃— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) February 4, 2026 at 11:15 PM
We SHOULD still have Biden’s booming economy.
— 🇺🇸𝕀𝕟𝕕𝕪 ℝ𝕖𝕗𝕦𝕘𝕖𝕖🇺🇸 𝚍𝚋𝚊 𝙱𝚊𝚍 𝙱𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚢 (@indyrefugee.bsky.social) February 4, 2026 at 11:32 PM
The Trump economy. www.semafor.com/article/02/0…
— Jill Lawrence (@jilldlawrence.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 8:49 AM
Fox Business, Semafor, Axios — not exactly Dem-friendly outlets!
(AXIOS) – Top Republicans are increasingly worried about private polling that paints a dire picture of the midterms — and it's not just the House they're afraid of losing, it's also the Senate.
@axios.com
www.axios.com/2026/02/06/g…— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) February 6, 2026 at 7:10 AM
… Why it matters: President Trump has warned Republicans that losing their slim House majority could lead to a third impeachment. But a Democratic takeover of the Senate would be a political earthquake — and neuter his last two years in office.
Zoom in: For the first time, GOP strategists are telling Axios that losing the Senate — where Republicans have a 53-47 majority — is a distinct possibility, and that they’ll have to fight harder than expected to keep control.
– Operatives say they’ve reviewed polling that shows the GOP facing competitive Senate races not just in traditional battlegrounds such as Michigan, Maine and North Carolina, but also in conservative states like Alaska, Iowa and Ohio.
– Top GOP strategists acknowledge that immigration and the economy — the two issues that drove Trump’s win in 2024 — are now liabilities.
– “A year ago, I would have told you we were almost guaranteed to win the Senate,” one GOP operative who’s reviewed internal polling told Axios. “Today, I would have to tell you it’s far less certain.”…
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is taking a lot of darts from his own party these days. But Republicans privately concede he’s done a good job of recruiting Senate candidates in conservative states once seen as out of reach for Democrats…
This and That
Baud
Bitcoin going down is a good thing. About the only good thing though.
H.E.Wolf
Inch by inch, state by state, helps to make the Senate great.
(Where is SiubhanDuinne and her skill with poetry?)
satby
Lots of meaty links to read through, thanks Anne Laurie.
My personal economy is being rocked by watching my very small IRA account shrink slowly as the market repeatedly tanks. I’m seriously considering pulling most of the money out, leaving enough to hold it open before it goes lower than the property taxes I’ll owe this year that I pay out of it.
schrodingers_cat
T2.0 is replicating the policies that lead to the Great Depression. And is creating via RFKJr a climate that could bring on Black Death 2.0. So this is hardly surprising news.
But we know data and analysis makes people sad.
TS
Who or what is trump that he is still president after his ties to Epstein. I read about the British PM
British PM Sir Keir Starmer pressured to resign amid fallout of Peter Mandelson’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein
abc.net.au/news/2026-02-07/starmer-uk-pm-mandelson-epstein-files-calls-to-resign/106315470
Starmer is impacted by association, not by his own involvement, yet trump carries on regardless. There is something seriously despicable with those who still support trump.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Would love for its value to drop to $0.01, so it can replace the penny that they’re no longer minting. (Not that we really need a one-cent coin anymore, but just because.)
Baud
@TS:
Reposting from below. This statement is amazing.
satby
@Baud: she’s a train wreck. We should start a pool on when the crown prince divorces her.
TS
@Baud:
Thanks – & good morning from my world, I hadn’t seen that – Epstein is bringing down Princes, Prime Ministers and leaders of industry – and the US media is hiding reality about trump from the American people.
I am reminded of the days when the British press refused to print anything but praise in relation to their Monarchy (All of the US knew the King wanted to marry an American divorcee, the people of the UK had not a clue).
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: At least no one voted for these royals or Prince Andrew, unlike over 70 million Americans voting for you know who.
Baud
@TS:
@schrodingers_cat:
Agree. European voters hands are clean and I believe Trump will survive Epstein.
WaterGirl
What is 100 minus 72? Pretty damn close to 27!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: He might, but it is definitely weakening him.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes. We gotta do what we can, regardless of how it plays out.
Baud
Walz would have been cheered.
Baud
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yes, that’s what Krishna says in the Geeta.
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥ २-४७
We take action even though we are not guaranteed fruits of our actions
That’s karmayog.
Enhanced Voting Techninques
I am sure Trump posted that disgusting video of Obama and Micheal to try and distract from the economic numbers.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
कृष्णः बुद्धिमान् अस्ति
MattF
@Baud: Agree that Bitcoin tanking is good. Also, stock market value is over concentrated in a few AI stocks, making it hard to compose an index out of a diverse set of equities. Maybe cash is an answer right now.
Old Dan and Little Ann
“Dow Jones index shows historical milestone showing Trump’s policies are working.” Headline on red state earlier today.
Jackie
@lowtechcyclist: Hahaha – YES!
Enhanced Voting Techninques
@Baud: 2012 was after Epstein’s conviction in Florida for ” procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18″
Baud
Jackie
THAT’S gratifying to read! :-)
Baud
@Enhanced Voting Techninques:
Hey, I don’t do a criminal background check on you guys. Have some charity to Epstein’s real victims: European royalty.
Tony Jay
@TS:
While it’s true that our Prime Minion had no personal contact with Epstein or his operation, his current status on the endangered list is entirely his own fault.
I blathered on about it at some length here, but in essence, he’s in the shit because he and his scumbag Chief Vizier Morgan McSweeney appointed Mandelson to the post of Ambassador to the US knowing full well that he was up to his tighty whities in Epstein connections, and that Mandelson, twice disgraced and forced to resign from Labour Governments in the past, was a venal, money-grubbing snake that the Intelligence Services and Civil Service had huge concerns about.
They may be scrambling to deny it now, but they elevated Mandelson for the most cynical of reasons. 1) He’d needed rewarding for mentoring McSweeney and supporting his mission to destroy the previous Labour leadership, 2) Mandelson’s links to Epstein were a signal to Trump that the UK had no problem with his obscene criminality, and 3) It was an overt and base fuck you to the centre-left of the Labour Party who had despised Mandelson for decades.
Add to all that the fact that McSweeney himself is blamed for Labour’s deep unpopularity through his championing of right wing policies and deliberate rejection of the Party’s base voters, and you’ve got a perfect storm. Even if he ditches McSweeney, Starmer is a lame duck just waiting to have his neck snapped. The only question is when he resigns.
Baud
@Tony Jay:
Would his replacement be an upgrade?
TS
@Baud:
Can’t stop interfering in other countries elections – may the world react negatively to every thing he does.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud:
निश्चित
Matt McIrvin
Huh, the markets seem to have bounced back after the futures getting hammered in the morning, who knows what that’s about.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t get it. That translates to “fixed.”
Elizabelle
@Baud: the best part is, she is otherwise engaged with her own son’s rape trial, and there are multiple accusers. Epstein who?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
News says dip buying.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Definitely is what I meant.
Depending on the context can also mean fixed.
Steve in the ATL
@Old Dan and Little Ann: probably a typo. I’m sure they meant “millstone”.
sab
@TS: In parliamentary systems a vote of no confidence can tank a
presidentprime minister. Our guy is a president not a prime minister, and our president is not just a figurehead, he is the head of the executive branch.In USA’s weird system a president can only be removed if impeached by the House of Representatives (that’s kind of like a political version of indicted by a grand jury) and then tried in the Senate and ‘convicted’ by (I forget which) either two/thirds or 60% of the Senate. Which will not happen if enough of the president’s party are in the Senate and still loyal to or afraid of his base.
Currently it is not an optimal way to run a government but that is how we do it.
ETA I posted this then drastically rewrote because the edit period is too short to drastically rewrite.
Major breach of internet traditions. Apologies to all.
TS
@Tony Jay:
I have no doubt that all you say is true – but I still see Starmer as a step away from the level of trump’s involvement. That Starmer has left the labour movement seems to be the plan for most political parties supporting “labor” around the world. Our Labor party (Australia) is implementing way to many policies devised by their opposition, entirely forgetting what they were elected to do.
If this can bring down the UK PM and a “prince of the realm” then with the right move by the US congress and the 4th estate it should be able to bring down trump. That it does not is a scam to behold.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
It depends on who the replacement is. McSweeney would prefer the vapid Wes Streeting, would be able to live with the vile Shabana Mahmood, and would burn the Party and the Government to the ground rather than let former Deputy Leader Angela Rayner get the job.
If Rayner does stick two fingers up to the right wing Press that hounded her into resigning as Deputy by standing for and winning the leadership, I would be at severe risk of laughing my spleen up. McSweeney spent a ton of political capital just last month ensuring that Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham wouldn’t be in a position to replace Starmer by blocking him from entering a by election campaign to stand as an MP, fearing his rising status as the candidate of the Party’s beleaguered centre-left. Burnham is hardly a Lefty, he’s an old-school Blairite who has simply been punched in the face by reality enough to see the danger Starmer and McSweeney pose to the Labour Party’s survival as an electable option. Compared to him, Rayner is a Che booody Guevara
Tony Jay
@TS:
Oh I get it, and you’re quite right. The Epstein toxin is so virulent that it burns right through the usual obfuscations. The fact that the US Media are pretending not to notice that there’s a Trump-shaped hole in their coverage of the story tells you all you need to know about how guilty he is.
different-church-lady
Dow topped 50k today.
Further proof there is no one “economy”.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: I get “Ascertained” in Hindi
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I guess people don’t think we’re heading into a prolonged bear market, or they’re shorter-term traders than that. I just tried to diversify a bit.
cain
@Tony Jay:
If the other publications start focusing on it they’ll have to focus on it as well or lose all the click revenue.
The GOP is in trouble because they all fall in line and can’t stop the madman from gutting everything. Completely helpless because they spent the 90s and upward falling in line.
This is going to end badly for them. Guaranteed. They will have to go full dictator and stop the constitution to retain power.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: It wasn’t *that* spectacularly up a day; 50,000 is just an arbitrary number. But it had been looking like a rout in the morning.
TS
@sab:
I am just amazed – as I was with the previous trump impeachments, that the republican party has got to a place where inciting a riot, supporting those who would physically attack the congress and completely ignoring massive child abuse – is overridden by their desire to rule and hate upon their political opponents and those they consider are not “real americans”.
Even if Starmer keeps his job, the media and the country have seen what he has done – as per Tony Jay’s description – much of the US has no clue of any of the issues against trump – and even if they do, believe them to be lies and political hate.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@schrodingers_cat: @Baud:
This is BJ. Makes perfect sense to me 😁
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Predicting the market is a fool’s errand.
Baud
Baud
sab
@Tony Jay: USA here. You aren’t here watching our media. Cable news that isn’t Fox is obsessed with Epstein. But Congress (controlled in both houses by Republicans) pretends it doesn’t care, even though the voters seem to care a lot. My own personal opinion is because so many of the richest Republican donors are apparently pedophiles or implicated as being tolerant of teen rape. I also think a lot of the Religious Right thinks that raping/seducing post-pubescent girls isn’t pedophilia.
sab
@TS: I share your amazement.
Eyeroller
@Matt McIrvin: The market seems detached from reality currently. Retail traders have been taught to “buy the dip” for years.
An interesting fact about the stock market is that it’s rather like the weather. For the majority of the time, you can predict what it’s going to do in the future by saying it will do the same thing it did today. But when you do that, you miss huge changes. For the stock market there can be little warning for when it has a large change.
There is a somewhat apocryphal quote “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” That is very accurate.
Lyrebird
@Tony Jay: I didn’t sign up for an account to see this Telegraph article but it sounds like Rayner is doing something? That would trigger an election?
Whether it’s happening or hypothetical, thanks for sharing your take!
sab
@TS: I share your amazement. I know rape victims’ fathers who voted for Trump’s second term and were shocked when their daughters cut them off.
Just look at that parking lot
Bob Marley was born today in 1945. Would have been 81. I never was a big reggae fan, but I can be if situation calls for me to. Bob Marley & the Wailers song Could You Be Loved, is one of the greatest dance songs there is, especially if your outside by the beach.With a big moon overhead.
It’s also the birthday of some guy named Ronald Reagan. In 1911. I was wondering who would I want to burn one with, Bob or Ron. At first it seems like an easy question, but I was thinking, getting high with Uncle Ronnie might be something different. Invite Nancy and it could be a real hoot. Throw in that chimpanzee, Bonzo, and a Super 8mm camera and who knows where it could all lead to. Whatever, just some thoughts on this Friday evening.
sab
@Eyeroller: They have to invest somewhere.
Tony Jay
@cain:
I agree. It’s the inevitable end result of the GOP’s Long March to the extreme Right. Once you get there, it’s rule or ruin, and everyone who isn’t on board with reversing the result of the last Civil War is left with no choice but to bend the knee or punch a Nazi.
Eolirin
@sab: A lot of the religious right doesn’t believe you can rape a post-pubescent girl. That it’ll always be the girl’s fault for tempting the man into sin.
Baud
Republicans are free speech warriors, don’t you know?
Doc Sardonic
@Just look at that parking lot: Rumor has it that Nancy had a particular skill set……
Lyrebird
@Tony Jay:
@cain
I was thinking about how signs of that (ending badly for MAGA) are showing even in Texas! Would Taylor Rehmet have won, if Trump and his abetters hadn’t gone full Nazi on Minnesota? No I am not saying any of this makes Good’s and Pretti’s deaths, or the deaths of others killed by ICE, “worth it”. But the fascists are making a bed that is gonna keep shrinking the Republican Party for sure.
sab
@Eolirin: I agree with your point. And some girls get their first period at ten years old, and most by twelve or thirteen. Children by anyone’s view except sicko creeps.
Boys aren’t men until 18 or 21 and still we are supposed to cut them some slack because males mature later ( I do belive that). But 12 year old girls are responsible for what happens to them?
Deputinize America
Me watching the Winter Olympics (who can barely ice skate or ski for shit without busting my ass): “Look, he’s out of sync! That’ll really impact their score!”
Tony Jay
@Lyrebird:
It’s the Torygraph, which has gone from august and musty broadsheet of the conservative right to frothing mad tabloidesque nuttery over the last decade, so no, it’s rubbish.
Basically they’re quoting McSweeney’s allies in trying to paint Rayner possibly standing to succeed Starmer as an illegitimate ‘coup’ that would somehow remove the Labour Party’s legitimacy and force the outgoing Starmer or an NEC appointed interim PM to call a fresh Election, which given the current polling, would probably cost a LOT of Labour MPs their jobs.
It’s just bullshit. A desperate attempt by the Labour Right to scare angry MPs into silence. Keep your mouths shut or we blow it all up. Given the current mood in Parliament it’s probably just going to intensify the PLP’s animosity towards McSweeney and his cabal of thugs.
Enhanced Voting Techninques
These same people have also been conditioned to believe there is a huge pedophilia conspiracy going for decades that God wants them to oppose.
Some brains are going to explode because of the contradictions
columbusqueen
Are Ohio jackels interested in another May/June meet-up, either in Columbus again or elsewhere? Am thinking planning one would be a tonic for our winter of discontent.
Jackie
Saw clips of our Olympic athletes being interviewed and asked about their feelings about ICE and other atrocities FFOTUS’s Administration is doing re immigrants. Basically their responses were “we love our country, but…”
I fear for their safety when FFOTUS focuses on their implied criticisms and retaliates. Because he WILL.
ColoradoGuy
I sometimes wonder what the larger effect of the on-again, off-again tariffs really are. To a first order, they are inflationary because prices go up, not just directly, but as added input costs to millions of manufacturers. But in terms of money supply, they are deflationary because part of the money supply is withdrawn from circulation and withheld by the government.
In any event, it reduces economic activity by adding friction to the system, and pulling money directly out of the system, similar to a nationwide VAT tax (which are similarly regressive). The largest effect is most likely depressing small manufacturing in the USA, making it less competitive with other nations.
Also curious about the S&P 500 (not the Dow), spot gold, and crypto. Crypto, obviously, is completely worthless except to facilitate criminal activity worldwide. Which admittedly is a substantial fraction of the real economy.
Gold is traditionally a hedge against market instability, and has speculative aspects, but also used by central banks as a partial reserve. Gold tends to reflect a “flight to safety” sentiment when markets are seen as untrustworthy. The S&P 500 is the broadest US market index, and seems to be fairly stable for now, notwithstanding the headwinds in the real economy. The overall market sentiment appears to be nervousness, which is entirely rational given the stakes in the US and Europe.
Citizen Alan
So can people smarter and more finance savvy than me offer a prediction as to what all this bullshit is going to do to mortgage interest rates over the next 4-6 months?
topclimber
@Tony Jay: “Starmer is a lame duck just waiting to have his neck snapped.” Pithy as usual, sir.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
If you’re looking for a prediction, you should be looking for dumber people, not smarter ones.
Baud
I did see that the US flag bearer was a black woman.
Between that and the blowback on the racist Trump post, Stephen Miller is having a bad day.
sab
@columbusqueen: Please please please please YES!
The last one was so much fun. Hopefully this year my husband’s baby sister won’t spring a surprise birthday party for herself on us the day you scheduled the event.
We had to leave early on short notice to an evening we couldn’t afford, cutting short our time in Columbus which I had been looking forward for for months. . I am still extreme angry. Being passive I haven’t told her but my husband knows she burned a big bridge. It wasn’t even a hallmark birthday. Just another birthday. Epically selfish.
ETA While I vent about how angry I was, so many Jackals I always wondered about, and there they were, so friendly and charming in meatspace.
Tony Jay
@topclimber:
Seriously, I’m Schadenfreude Positive over here. These bastards have been huffing their own farts for years, so smug and certain that they’d broken the will of ‘their’ Party and ensured unchallenged power for their entryist faction. They were told it was only a matter of time before their ‘friends’ in the Media stopped covering for them and finally start reporting on their scandals, but they wouldn’t listen.
Yes, I am loving these apples.
TS
@Tony Jay: The entire reason why trump is using every means he can to get the GOP congress to pass new voting rules for the November election.
cnbc.com/2026/02/06/save-act-trump-congress-elections-voting.html
So many questions – Can this be passed? Will the GOP get rid of the filibuster in the Senate to do this – as trump wants them to? Can this law override the States right to run elections?
Matt McIrvin
@Eyeroller: You can see the business cycle much more clearly looking at unemployment rates. They spike up rapidly whenever there’s a recession. Big stock market crashes may or may not coincide. Sometimes the recession is associated with a bear market, but sometimes it really isn’t.
The COVID recession was the biggest spike in unemployment since the Great Depression and we just squashed it flat through government action. That’s still amazing to me. I see conservatives calling Biden an idiot for goosing the economy and causing inflation, but what they’re really saying is that they wanted that to be a prolonged and agonizing recession just like the 2008 one. (And it must be said, the goosing of the economy started under Trump I and had bipartisan support at the time.)
Professor Bigfoot
@columbusqueen: Waves, “I am!”
TS
@Citizen Alan:
Interest rates just went up in Australia – because of higher inflation. Trump’s new appointee may well obey trump & attempt to keep them lower in the US – Whether he can or will do this is for the fortune tellers.
The theory is fairly standard – if inflation continues to rise, rates should increase – this may be tempered by falling unemployment – and moreso by the US president demanding his own economic policy
Edit – and I agree with baud!
@Baud:
Shalimar
If the economy stays where it is now, people will be less upset in November and Republicans will do better in the mid-terms than projected at the moment. Luckily for democracy, it looks like the next 9 months will be awful and we will all be suffering even more.
Bupalos
@Baud: If you mean physically survive, I guess I agree. Epstein has already mortally wounded him politically. He can’t survive in that sense if he’s perceived as an “insider,” which was already something he was going to have to fight tooth and nail with his weirdo stunts like massive random tariffs and annexing Canada and attacking Venezuela and whatnot. Things like ice “going too far” he can survive, because it’s doing something radical, it’s trying something. Epstein not so much I don’t think, because it’s not what he did, it’s what he didn’t do, which is loudly dismantle the shadowy cabal of super/subhuman elites that were responsible for everything bad.
I actually think that each person that does get burnt will help Trump somewhat, but so far it’s basically just prince Andrew getting mostly cancelled. They clearly don’t understand the expectation.
columbusqueen
@sab: Plank’s was great but very noisy. If everyone wants Columbus, I can find a quieter place. If you want another location, I’m happy to pass the organizing baton.
IF-a big if-i can get my house whipped into shape, I would be willing to host a potluck, but that’s a bit of a long shot, given how messy I’ve let things get. But I do keep a very nice bar in my basement, & can supply good beer as well.
FelonyGovt
@Baud: The US flag bearer Erin Jackson is a former roller derby star. My daughter, who was a roller derby official, and rest of the small but rabid US roller derby world is thrilled for her!
Shalimar
No idea about the first two questions. I never underestimate Republicans’ ability to kiss leader ass. This one is obvious. If it passes, Trump will use threats and troops to enforce it and the Supreme Court will choose not to rule on whether it is constitutional (it clearly wouldn’t be) until after the midterms are over.
mrmoshpotato
@Deputinize America: Hehe! Sounds like me watching gymnastics.
Matt McIrvin
@Shalimar: Unemployment has been creeping up, with worse numbers in some sectors like tech, since a bottom in 2023, and it feels like a resumption of the pre-COVID trajectory building to another recession–but whenever that really hits, nobody knows.
Regular folks are still not feeling good about the economy, which surprises me a little, since I expected the Trumpier half of the population to flip back to insisting it was great like they did in 2017.
Old School
@Baud:
The Norwegian Royal Family must have realized that wasn’t playing well.
This will work better:
Baud
@Old School:
Hahahaha. Oh lordy.
Baud
Republicans are the party of the working class
Eolirin
@Matt McIrvin: I think they would have if the tariffs hadn’t done what they were obviously going to do. Also a lot of those people didn’t just want inflation to stop they wanted a return to 2019 prices, which no president could bring them without a massive and prolonged period of very high unemployment. Which, I guess we might get after all, but I don’t think any of those people actually wants that trade off.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Yes, the nightly news is all agog that the market went of 50,000 for the first time, with analysts saying it’s due to record corporate “earnings”.
The nightly news then very carefully doesn’t tell us the basis for those earnings…
MattF
Here’s Elle Cordova, pretty much my favorite YouTuber, on Trump.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
Public debt financed tax cuts?
mrmoshpotato
@Chief Oshkosh: Record corporate tax cuts?
Baud
Good job, Bay area.
Fair Economist
@Enhanced Voting Techninques:
That’s the truth! The current President and the world’s richest man, along with a slew of other billionaires and high-level politicians, have all been involved. And any decent God would want you to oppose it.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@MattF: oh yes, she is great.
Socolofi
@satby: don’t pull the money out, huge tax penalty.
But you CAN sell and invest in other things. For example, VTE, which is non-US index fund. There are also various bonds, especially for countries that are a lot more stable than say the US (Canada, Germany, Japan for example) which don’t have a great return but have great stability. You can also ride MAGA hype and do things like ETFs that are commodity-backed like GLD – gets you the market price of gold without having to actually buy the gold.
Nukular Biskits
Good evenin’, y’all.
Just a fly-by. Long week, lotsa shit happenin’ (personally, professionally and plus all the Trumpian crap).
Decompressing by having a few Yuenglings and watching “cats are assholes” videos.
Y’all be sweet.
WTFGhost
@Baud: Harris would have attended, while Sleepy Don von Shitsinpantz couldn’t interrupt his nap.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Deputinize America: Armchair judging thing you could never in a million years of practice do nearly as well is half the fun.
Baud
Looking forward to the US summer Olympics when the use the Constitution to light the Olympic flame.
Chetan R Murthy
@Socolofi: VTE ? I searched for that, and didn’t find anything that looked likely. Do you have a link to a page describing it?
lowtechcyclist
@Eolirin:
Yeah, us guys are such spiritual weaklings like that.
Of course, that bit of unofficial doctrine is a built-in excuse when we give in to temptation, even when it’s consensual. But it’s weird that on the one hand, the fundagelicals believe we’re such weaklings in that way, and they believe that men should be in charge of everything, especially all the spiritual stuff – that their spiritual leaders should be the people who are most easily susceptible to being led astray. Go figure.
sab
@columbusqueen: Wasn’t the problem was that it was porch sale weekend?. I don’t know what you call it but one of our suburbs has couch swap weekend. It has a better name but that’s what the locals call it.
Everyone from All Over Columbus and suburbs was there because of of a civic holiday we had never heard of. Planks would probably great on a different weekend. I really liked it but I couldn’t hear much. Also I was stressed and rushed because of sister-in-laws birthday which you had no idea of because she sprung it on me at the last minute. Grrrr.
Matt McIrvin
@Eolirin: Bear in mind, unemployment got SO low right before COVID hit, and after the COVID recession was squashed, that the levels it’s been creeping up to would have been considered phenomenally good in previous business cycles.
(E.g. the lowest unemployment ever got during the “prosperous” Reagan-Poppy Bush years was a little above 5%, worse than now. When Reagan’s reelection ads said it was morning in America, unemployment was at 7.5%, worse than it ever got during the early-2000s recession and almost as bad as the peak of the early-1990s recession! This is not how people remember it.)
But there are interesting things going on under the surface now, for instance, the premium from having a college degree seems to be eroding.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Men in charge of everything because they are so strong, yet they cannot resist a twelve year old girl who has no idea what is happening.
sab
@Matt McIrvin: Premium for a college degree should erode. There are lots of lucrative working class jobs out there and affordable trade schools, but we are pushing everyone to college as if that degree would tell them how to earn a living.
Jackie
@sab:
Felt the need to emphasize this.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud:
@mrmoshpotato:
Yes, yes, and layoffs. Lots of layoffs. Nothing gives the stock market a boner like laying off those mooching workers.
kalakal
@TS: Humbert Wolfe described the media in 1930 and now superbly*
*No longer applies to just British journalists
columbusqueen
@sab: I understand. Am piping up in February so one & all can think about what they want to do. Majority vote will decide, of course. The only time that doesn’t work for me is mid-June, since I go to Origins Game Fair here.
Chetan R Murthy
@Jackie: a long time ago I saw a news article about a wahhabi Cleric in Saudi Arabia who issued a fatwa saying that women must wear one-eyed nijabs. Because their eyes, they’re just too compelling men are helpless in the thrall of those eyes, they see them and they just go wild, sexually crazy. So women need to cover up one of them.
I thought to myself: if it’s the men that have the problem because they see the eyes, isn’t the solution to Blind all men?
Jackie
@Chetan R Murthy:
Why didn’t this occur to the “wise ones?”
Maybe because they were men?🤷🏼♀️
SFAW
@Chetan R Murthy:
Inter caecos regnat luscus?
And they’re thinking they’ll be the one-eyed ones?
ETA: My thanks to Phil Farmer, of course.
Timill
@SFAW:
Not Mike Flynn?
chemiclord
A fundamental problem is that one of the only ways to actually reduce prices is one thing that an overwhelming majority of Americans abjectly refuse to do…
… curb the ability of the wealthy to hoard wealth.
Kristine
@Professor Bigfoot: @Baud: Duck Duck Go translate gave me “certain.”
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Timill: zOMG!!1! That !cover!
SFAW
@Timill:
No, Phil* predated that book by about 40 years. The saying itself is much older, of course. Like, 400-plus years, I think.
*Although you probably already know this, in case you don’t — I got it from Riders of the Purple Wage, a great story/novella, by Philip Jose Farmer..
Kristine
@MattF: I love her font reels.
Timill
@SFAW: Ta – must be at least 50 years since I’ve read that…
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Kristine: Fonts Hanging Out is how I first found her
SFAW
@Timill:
About the same for me.
I don’t remember if I first learned about Sir Richard Francis Burton from Farmer, but learned more about Burton as a result. [Not that I recall much, other than he spoke (or could communicate) in something like 100 languages. And that his wife burned all his works/diaries after he died, because she was a religious nutcase.]
dnfree
@SFAW: RIVERWORLD! The interminable wait for the next book!
RandomMonster
Let’s hope it has the expected effect.
Miss Bianca
@satby: My modest stock of investments have been gaining steadily all this past year, dropped a bit last month, then rebounded again. Not sure what’s going on. My next round with my financial advisor, tho, I’m going to continue to look for global stocks and funds.