David Letterman Interviewed Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. The President became a guest on ‘My Next Guest Needs No Introduction’: https://t.co/bo0IoBJy9P@netflix pic.twitter.com/iFSf0Vbqzn
— UkraineWorld (@ukraine_world) November 3, 2022
… Letterman’s interview with Zelenskyy will premiere later this year.
35 weeks of my 3 day war. I've restored Soviet Union. Economy is ruined, everyone is trying to get out of the country & were losing a catastrophic war we blame on USA.
I remain a master strategist
— Darth Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) October 27, 2022
This is one of the great deceptions of the anti-Ukraine-aid coalition
US GDP is around $25 trillion. US budget is around $5T. US natsec budget is around $1T
So UKR aid is minuscule
This argument, instead,is to help RU win by cutting off aid by implying it’s a lot when it’s not https://t.co/6MY1y5n0Ml
— Robert E Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly) October 29, 2022
Russian swearing is some of the funniest swearing, but these guys really are screwed. https://t.co/KO3XyKibAK
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 31, 2022
A guide to Russian swearing. ?????? is among my faves.https://t.co/hLckhp6e6V
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 31, 2022
Russia 2021: fuck yeah, the strong do as they will and the weak suffer what they must
Russia 2022: not fair! The strong do as they will and the weak suffer what they must! https://t.co/cPJELM6j2W
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) October 27, 2022
A telling event here was the sanctioning of pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk in February, seizure of his oil pipeline and other businesses and banning of his three TV stations. Russia invaded 5 days later. 2/ https://t.co/wipPVT05I5
— Matt Steinglass 🇺🇸 🇳🇱 Боже милий, знову лихо (@mattsteinglass) October 27, 2022
Europe correspondent at the Economist:
The corruption frame isn’t the only way to think of what Russia was trying to accomplish by invading Ukraine. But it’s a very helpful paradigm, and in my view the only one that clearly makes sense on its own terms. 3/
A good way to think about it is to imagine Putin as Tony Soprano. He has a racket that extracts wealth from a lot of businesses in the region he controls through a combination of longstanding relationships and the threat of force. 4/
This is the way Putin’s regime operates inside Russia: it seizes or threatens all the country’s major businesses, especially in the energy sector, and awards them to trusted cronies, while skimming off a huge amount of vigorish.* 5/
(*Interestingly “vigorish” comes from the Russian “vygrish” or “winnings”, it seems to have been an Odessa mafia term.) 6/
For a long time this was how Russia’s control of Ukraine worked too. Kleptocratic Russia-friendly networks headed by oligarchs ensured that the gains from corruption in Ukraine flowed to Russia or to people Russia was happy with. 7/
But then Maidan happened, and Ukraine started to turn away. It shifted from the kleptocratic Russian model and towards the rule-of-law-governed EU. 8/
In the Sopranos analogy, a business, let’s say a chain of groceries, at the edge of his territory decided they were going to stop paying protection and start trusting the police. 9/
Tony Soprano obviously cannot tolerate this. It’s not just the loss of revenue: it’s that letting it go unpunished tells everybody else who’s paying him protection money that they can leave, too. 10/
So Tony decides to hit the groceries, take out the owner and ensure a more pliable one is installed, to send a message to anybody else who might get ideas. 11/
Unfortunately it turns out the grocery clerks are packing shotguns and Tony’s soldiers, who were overconfident, get shot up and retreat. Now Tony has worse problems: he’s lost the grocery chain and he looks weak. 12/
Yet he may have inflicted enough damage that his other businesses hesitate to leave; who needs the trouble? Similarly, Ukraine’s economy has shrunk by a third. 13/
Anyway, the point is that if you think about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an old-fashioned attempt at territorial conquest, it makes no sense. States don’t gain power by conquering territory anymore, this isn’t the 18th or 19th century. 13/
But if you think of it as a mob hit to intimidate states from exiting the protection racket that delivers corrupt rent streams to Russia’s ruling kleptocrats, then it at least made sense–until Ukraine fought back. 14/14
Apologies, I got the timeline claim made by anti-corruption folks confused. The point was that the first deployment in Putin's building in February 2021 came 2 days after the sanctioning of Medvedchuk: https://t.co/cKpX3e6ezn
— Matt Steinglass 🇺🇸 🇳🇱 Боже милий, знову лихо (@mattsteinglass) October 28, 2022
Combination of reasons: proximate and underlying
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 28, 2022
Russian recruiters: it's okay we don't need you to raid houses or jump out of helicopters or other stuff you were trained for. Just man the trenches and do the job our corrupt, incompetent conventional army won't against a foe determined to expel foreigners.
Afghan commandos: https://t.co/6pyIoPmehl pic.twitter.com/X1CqPQbIBH
— zeddy (@Zeddary) October 28, 2022
maybe they just pretended they did https://t.co/6G2CfSUDiY
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) October 26, 2022
Alison Rose
Looking forward to that interview! And re: that last tweet, this made me chuckle earlier.
Mike in NC
Per WSJ, 48% of Republicans think we are doing too much to help Ukraine.
lollipopguild
@Mike in NC: 48% of republicans want putin to come over and run our country for us.
Amir Khalid
@Mike in NC:
No doubt many of that 48% also believe the US should be helping the other side in the war — after all, that’s the side that’s losing.
Citizen Alan
@Mike in NC: The GOP is already the party of rape, incest, and seditious treason. Is it so shocking that they aspire to be the party that facilitates genocide in Ukraine, presumably as punishment for not giving in to Shitgibbon’s blackmail in 2020.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Did any of you hear about what happened with Kyrie Irving?
Jay
Major Major Major Major
They laid of 10% of the company at work today. I am fine but man is that jarring!
Relatively low %, by tech standards right now, lol.
Jay
Steeplejack
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
He got suspended without pay.
RaflW
Tr**p was lousy at it, but he was the harbinger of the GOP embracing core Russian ideology. Yeah, not communism. Kleptocracy.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): every time I see that name I assume it’s a woman pop star.
Steeplejack
Gym Jordan apparently planning a November surprise for Friday.
I hope this blows up in his face.
Steeplejack
Steeplejack
@Major Major Major Major:
Whew! What was the reason?
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
Anti-semitism.
ian
@Steeplejack: Rank anti-Semitism.
ESP
beaten to the punch… :)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Amir Khalid:
@ian:
Steeplejack isn’t asking about Irving, he’s asking why M^4’s company laid off 10% of employees
patrick II
The Ukranian challenge to the Kharkiv treaty leasing the port of Sevastapol to the Russian Navy as unconstitutional also played a significant part in Russia’s decision to invade.
Major Major Major Major
@Steeplejack: they’ve been shaking up product vision a lot lately and I guess some people fell out.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): yeah I doubt this was anti-semitism lol.
My team lost our most-junior engineer which is a real shame because he’s great. Better than somebody 1.5 notches higher who’s out on parental leave. That sub-team also lost their PM, leaving them with one engineer… I’m guessing their product is getting the axe. Good riddance if so, frankly, it’s kinda bad! Honestly I might’ve had to quit if they’d assigned me to that side of things when our team split in June.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid, @ian:
Whut?
Redshift
@Major Major Major Major:
I do, too. Kylie Minogue, perhaps?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Steeplejack:
I read that too. I doubt he’s going to change his mind. I remember reading around a year ago that weird beliefs like black people created white people in a lab thousands of years ago, are/were disturbingly common enough to make it into rap/hip-hop songs in the 1990s.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Steeplejack:
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s funny how two people made that mistake in a row lol
Anyway, I guess It’s not so bad then, in that case?
different-church-lady
My god everything feels irredeemably horrible tonight.
Steeplejack
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
gene108
@Major Major Major Major:
That sucks.
How’s the job market in tech?
I’ll trade low unemployment for inflation any day of the week.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@gene108:
What good is low unemployment if everything is becoming too expensive? High inflation will eventually lead to recession, and worse, stagflation, anyway
gene108
@RaflW:
Republicans have very much embraced communist ideology. Not with regards to economic philosophy, but with the desire for a one party state where there is no longer organized political opposition to them.
Benw
@Major Major Major Major: Holy cow! I’m glad you’re fine and I hope it stays that way!
different-church-lady
@gene108: And with plenty of Stalinist disinformation tactics underpinning the whole thing.
gene108
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’ve just experienced a long period (about 20 months) of unemployment. Partly because I needed a break after getting laid off in January 2021, and partly because of health issues.
Businesses are hiring, but they’re still able to be selective. Interviewing became a grind, and I don’t want to go through that again so soon.
Major Major Major Major
@gene108: job market was amazing until the last few weeks but now the axe is falling lots of places.
@Benw: I’m supposed to be getting a raise next week so I won’t be on the chopping block for a while.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@gene108:
Understandable
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Powell was saying the job market is still “out of balance” so maybe this means they’ll let up soon. I really hope inflation starts to moderate soon so they can let up a bit. I mean, I do think what the Fed is doing is sadly necessary, but this is beginning to worry me
gene108
@different-church-lady:
They honestly remind me more of Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution. Very little that Bolsheviks did or stood for was actually popular, if they were honest. But they weren’t. A large enough group of people, though far from a majority, were pissed off the the nascent democratic government that they followed what Lenin was selling.
Lenin really really honed in on getting the sailors and soldiers in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) on his side and the Bolsheviks eventually had enough military people and factory workers to storm the capital building and take over.
Aussie Sheila
@Mike in NC: I am curious about these surveys. Do they mean ‘registered republicans’ or do they mean people likely to vote republican?
I would have thought there is quite a difference in numbers. In the absence of further information, I remain unconvinced. Not that right wingers and the tankie left aren’t terrible on the issue, rather that I don’t think it represents the broad electorate.
gene108
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
This means less hiring and probably higher unemployment, so wage pressure, from the bottom rungs that got an actual increase in wages the last two years, gets reduced, ie workers won’t be paid as well and have to accept what management pushes.
A recession will cause a significant drop in inflation. I doubt Powell and the Fed can toe the line between curbing inflation by raising interest rates and not triggering a recession.
Part of the inflationary pressure is from the global economy still recovering from COVID shutdowns and supply chain disruptions.
Interest rates have been very low, as has inflation, for most of the 21st century in the U.S.
Some slightly higher inflation from wage growth has been needed, and the higher interest rates that go with trying to curb inflation.
I fear we won’t have a soft landing, especially if Republicans get control of one house of Congress this year.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): it would be nice if congress or the president were on board so the fed didn’t feel the need to hammer the one tool they have so hard.
Urza
@gene108: More than 50% of inflation is showing up as increased profits on the balance sheets of a select few companies. Until that portion is addressed it won’t go away. And prices have spiked so much now that without increased wages most workers can’t afford to take low wage jobs so pressure for higher wages will continue for some time, which is likely to annoy the Fed.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Jesus fucking christ, Goku. You bang on about this every time, and you don’t actually know anything about it. I mean, *nothing*. Maybe go look into the rising margins that corps are inflicting on all of us. And rising concentration in every segment of the economy and … on and on and on.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
How do you explain inflation spreading into many sectors of the economy and becoming entrenched, then?
How do you explain this Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study?:
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): three points seems a bit much, I think the last well-recommended paper I read said one. Last I heard, inflation is minority demand-side, though the drop in oil prices may have changed that. Unfortunately core inflation is mostly demand side and growing as a portion of the total picture.
I recommend Jason Furman’s twitter feed for inflation news… chair of Obama’a council of economic advisors.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): https://jabberwocking.com/inflation-will-soon-be-under-control-and-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-the-fed/
YY_Sima Qian
@Major Major Major Major: Going through that here, too.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): “but this is beginning to worry me”
Look at it this way… you would only find something else to worry about if it wasn’t for this. So at least you can stop worrying about other things and worry this worry for a while.
Don’t worry too much though, I’m sure that you will find something else to worry about once this worry goes away!
Aussie Sheila
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Inflation is running around 8% In Australia!
We have had a wretched Tory govt for over a decade until May this year. It is world wide. Wages have flatlined here and in the UK, and until very recently in the US. Anyone blaming wage and salary earners for this is either a corporate shill, or stupid.
Which are you?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
A lot the comments to that post are critical of Drum’s analysis
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes, and ? I mean, I pointed you at Katie Porter’s analysis last time around. There are lots of qualiified econ folks who point out that the inflation is working itself out of our economy, but corps have taken advantage of a supply constraint to jack up margins into the sky.
I mean, look, dude: maybe you even know that there are two ways to attack inflation: tax the rich, or give it to everyone else in the neck. Maybe you even know this. But clearly, if you know this, then you’ve chosen a side.
You. Have. Chosen. A. Side.
Think about that. And think about the fact that the side you’ve chosen is the one that’s going to make you a whole fuckton poorer, unless you get really, really, really lucky.
I mean WTF dude, don’t you recognize the aphorism “America is a land filled with temporarily-embarrassed millionaires” ?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
What about Paul Krugman’s op-ed that was mentioned?
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Do you understand the difference between transient inflation and persistent inflation?
Eolirin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Energy and food prices are the hardest hit, and both are more affected by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine than US policy.
Aussie Sheila
@Chetan Murthy: Heh!
I am constantly surprised, although I shouldn’t be by now, about how little usians know about the state of the rest of the world, even about English speaking countries where it shouldn’t be so hard to keep up.
Honestly, inflation is tipped to come down by the end of this year, beginning of next year here down under. Is it a nuisance? Yes. But much easier to deal with than a recession. I am old enough to remember interest rates in Oz of 15% (1989-1990) the last time there was a burst of inflation. It came down after that pretty quick. And no, Goku, wage and salary rises weren’t the cause of that either, in case you were wondering.
Why don’t people ever look to see what is happening across comparable economies and draw some logical conclusions?
Eolirin
@Chetan Murthy: Is there evidence that taxing the rich actually works in a genuine wage price spiral, or for hyperinflation?
I know we’re under somewhat different circumstances currently, and windfall taxes or other methods to avoid price gouging would help with the opportunistic price hikes. But that’s not everything that’s going on either
Chetan Murthy
@Eolirin: Milton Friedman: “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”
On that basis, yes, taxation works, b/c it decreases the quantity of money in circulation. Unless of course you believe (with Mellon) that what’s needed is “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. Purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. … enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
Here’s a few of the responses to Drum’s post:
I mean, I don’t if these people are right or not about Drum’s analysis. I do know that since last year a lot of folks insisted inflation was going to be transitory and that didn’t seem to pan out, so I don’t know what to think at this point
Chetan Murthy
@Eolirin:
Increased prices in particular sectors are not the same as “inflation”. “Inflation” is a general increase in the price level. And you don’t combat the latter with windfall taxes, but by decreasing the money supply overall. The reason raising interest rates works, is that it reduces the amount of money in circulation in the form of loans, right? The reason raising the overall level of taxation works, is the same: it reduces the amount of money in circulation.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): again: I’ve given you a bunch of references these last days. Not just Drum. And btw, those commenters: who are they? What are their qualifications? Do you know? Can you assess them? B/c y’know, you can assess Katie Porter’s qualifications. Ditto Reich.
Aussie Sheila
@Eolirin: I think it is pretty obvious what is going on.
Corporate profit gouging? Sure. But mainly war and post Covid and war related supply chain snafus. Anyone here read about post WW2 inflation? In Oz there was a huge spike in inflation just after the Korean War. Honestly, the memory holes about the past are simply depressing. Truly, people here should not be repeating conservative talking points and conservative economic dogma as if it were a real good faith argument. It isn’t. It never is.
There is nothing worse than a severe recession for working and middle class people. Nothing. Inflation is not good, but it’s treatable, and therefore preferable.
piratedan
I guess we’re all kind of weary about how bumper sticker issues presented by these dipshits and echoed by the media grab hold and are seen as some kind of credible discourse…
two main transgressors are the economy and crime (and its subset immigration) and how we get the endless rinse of repeat that Dems are happy to make you pay more for social programs that do not include you and while doing so, immigrants are coming to kill you in your homes because they’ve defunded the police and opened the borders.
All of that shit are lies, the media knows that they are lies and yet the GOP gets to relentlessly pound away with 30 second sound bytes that hammer these themes endlessly during election season behind the endless supply of dark money that gets to stay anonymous.
That these are problems and they are complicated and many of the solutions to them are of little interest to the GOP as they have no intention of ever solving them so they can continue to be used as a cudgel to endlessly scare low information voters with and soothe their base. I mean look at something like immigration. Biden lets those people camped across the border into the US after many of them have crossed the length of Central America and Mexico to get here and Trump violated not just existing US Immigration law but international laws regarding asylum seekers and stops the illegal separation of family members and the underground human trafficking that took place of children, all of which we’re trying to do humanely, yet obviously not perfectly. After all of that, we have stats showing that crime committed by illegal immigrants is even lower than those by US citizens, yet… Caravans, immigrants get Willie Hortoned, and Sanctuary Cities are seen as a collective evil and hotbed for crime.
What is the GOP program? it’s the separation of families, screw international law and we’ll build a fucking wall that can be defeated by ladders and tunnels and just puts money in the hands of their cronies and at the same time fucks over the environment and those tribal treaties that we’re supposed to be honoring. None of that shit fits on a bumper sticker and none of it ever comes up for any kind of rational discussion because its complicated and the GOP doesn’t do complicated and we’ve trained the last few generations to eschew analysis based on how the MSM delivery of news has devolved.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: And again, let me point out that you’ve chosen a side, and it is the side that wants to give it to you in the neck (unless you’re a trust fund kid and we didn’t know). To give it to you personally in the neck.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
I know that similar inflationary episodes have happened before after huge disruptions, like WW2.
To be clear, I don’t actually think the bulk of this inflation is due to stimulus. I apologize if I gave that impression. It’s just that nobody else is stepping up to the plate to deal with inflation, it seems aside from central banks
All of the wrong predictions of transitory inflation from the past year have dismayed me
Major Major Major Major
@Chetan Murthy: dude, listen to yourself.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Eolirin:
You’re correct on that
livewyre
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): To unroll this a bit, how much comment space needs to be dedicated to the equivalent of worrying that conservatism (or neoliberal economics) might secretly be right? It seems counter to the whole solidarity thing.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Re: WWII, read about “financial repression”. Again: it isn’t a foregone conclusion that workers must suffer, in order for inflation to be tamed.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
And I agree with you on increased taxes lowering the money supply and therefore inflation
Aussie Sheila
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): once again, we had an 11 year conservative government until May 2022. We have inflation as well.
The Tories fiscal policy was shoddy because it baked in fiscal imbalances, not because it was particularly loose. Wages have been depressed for a decade as a policy preference.
Again, for those hard of hearing, why is inflation an issue across the world? Are all governments fiscally careless? Have all central banks been asleep at the wheel?
I don’t think so, and the Biden administration has done a stellar job in my view regarding domestic spending, and encouraging a better bargaining environment for workers in the absolutely brutal US terrain.
Creditors hate inflation. Debtors, not so much. Remember inflation helps eat away private debt. Now that’s something I would be telling people who owe mortgages and the like. Once again, mild to moderate inflation is not nearly as damaging for ordinary workers as recession, and anyone who says otherwise is either a creditor, or a liar or both.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Aussie Sheila: I often feel that for many of my fellow-Americans, the rest of the world is a confusing CGI experience event at a theme park. It constantly diverges from their expectations, doesn’t respond to their efforts to alter the programming, and too often is not in a language they understand, even in the places where English is the principal language. Also, too often it puts other characters besides them center stage.
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Are you familiar with the phrase “negotiating with yourself” ? It refers to the idea that in a negotiation with a counterparty, if you first rule out all the things that you think the other guy won’t agree to, you’ve limited yourself *already* — b/c he won’t be doing that (if he’s got a brain), and hence you’ll get a worse deal than if you started off with everything on the table.
It’s important to remember that there are other ways to tame inflation, other ways to pay the national debt, than sticking it to *workers* — workers like *you*, let’s remember.
Eolirin
@Chetan Murthy: Friedman’s preferred solution was interest rate hikes, no?
Also I don’t think taxation on just rich people is something that automatically follows, so I was looking for an example of it working in practice.
Because rich people have a lower propensity to spend, taxing them more, while reducing the money supply, doesn’t necessarily impact the overall economy for goods as much as reducing or keeping static wages would; if a company is facing a windfall profit tax and decides to avoid it by increasing worker pay it would be counter productive even, no? The taxation doesn’t remove as much from the money supply and the velocity goes up?
Lowering the velocity by convincing everyone to save more, matters more than actual quantity, no? If it’s not being spent it may as well not exist, right? You’re not going to get inflation if everyone sticks all their money in their mattresses.
So increasing taxation should matter for keeping an economy from overheating, for sure, as it does lower the money supply, but it’s not clear to me that you can just pull money out of the top and have everything sort itself. There are asymmetries in the macro picture and the specifics matter as well as the overall numbers.
Major Major Major Major
@Aussie Sheila:
I mean, yes? Did we all really need near-zero interest rates in 2017?
Major Major Major Major
@Eolirin: if I were emperor I’d have just plopped down a big sales tax hike for five months or whatever, back in, June maybe. Blunt but quick and easy and effective immediately, and not obviously worse than rate hikes. Plus it raises revenue which is always good.
Aussie Sheila
@Major Major Major Major: No, I don’t think they have been. Occams razor here. What is the constant across the advanced economies? Post Covid supply chain snafus, increased fuel prices as a result of the war against Ukraine, and increased food and fertiliser prices, again, as a result of the war. It will get better, but if the US Reserve lifts interest rates much more, there is a risk of a recession across the globe. And that my friend is something no one, especially a supporter of the Dems should wish at all.
If I was politically active in the US I would be urging the Dems to pressure the US reserve to lighten up with constant monetary tightening, and see how it goes. A recession is very bad. Ask Obama and the Dems that lost their seats in Congress in 2010 as a result of the crappy and inadequate fiscal stimulus at the time. It probably also cratered Clinton in 2016. Biden is a much better manager than Obama I am afraid, and much better at managing the appallingly ill disciplened Dem senate.
Birdie
@Aussie Sheila: Hear hear to this, and to the fervent wish that Americans could learn that not everything is about something they (or their government) did. As a mortgage holder you bet I’m glad that the cost of my debt is decreasing.
Eolirin
@Eolirin: Another way of putting this is that it seems to me that effective progressive taxation is more effective as a preventative, in setting a more stable baseline for the economy by reducing the amount of money that is sitting around waiting to be funneled into sudden spending but it’s even less direct in the face of a genuine wage price spiral (which I don’t think we’re currently dealing with, to be clear), than interest rate hikes and short induced recessions, and it’s less clear to me that it would be as effective.
You can conceivablely get a wage price spiral even as you reduce the overall money supply if what’s left is shifting from low velocity to high velocity. Interest rates seem to me to be better for arresting that process than taxation if that’s the circumstances you’re dealing with.
Eolirin
@Major Major Major Major: Well sure, but that’s regressive and hits everyone. And it’s targeted in the right place, spending. But that’s not taxing the rich.
Freemark
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): but Labor costs are having extremely little effect on inflation; about 7%. Over half of inflation is corporate greed. Over 50% of inflation has gone directly to increased profit margins. Considering that I think Powell and company could have braked a little softer. I’m afraid the economy will smash headfirst into the windshield at this rate.
Birdie
@Major Major Major Major: Austerity Britain would like a word. Really, not everything is as simple as the “money supply big” crowd think it is…
Chetan Murthy
@Eolirin:
I have read a number of well-respected economists point out that there has always been an alternative to raising interest rates: more aggressive macroprudential regulation. That is to say, greater oversight of loan quality. That has the effect of slowing down loans and esp. slowing down foolish high-risk loans. And many economists point out that when interest rates rise, good ideas also have a hard time getting funded: it’s not just bad ideas that get shut down.
I’m sure we all remember the housing buble, and just how much of that consisted in loans of dubious (to be generous) quality, and in both the residential and *commercial* real estate markets. More aggressive macroprudential regulation could have forestalled some of that. Only …. y’know, regulation is something that’s anathema, to GrOPers and neolibs. The latter make mouth noises about regulation, but when push comes to shove, they never follow thru.
Major Major Major Major
@Eolirin: the main benefit is the immediacy and simplicity, if it was easy to do some progressive payroll thing that might be better but I think you have a big software issue there.
Aussie Sheila
@Major Major Major Major: How about lifting the cap on SS contributions? Make it eye watering for the billionaires, and plowing the surplus into at least some semblance of free universal health care? Or putting a cap on student debt? Honestly the crap that even the US middle class puts up with is incredible. No wonder the poor don’t vote.
opiejeanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You do this every time you enter a thread, you derail it with something that you’re starting to really really worry about. Really worry. Really.
We were all talking about something else. Why don’t you just join a conversation instead of steering it elsewhere?
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: He’s lost patience with Goku, and so have I.
Again.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: I’m cranky. It’s late. I am going to sleep now. I’ll be nicer tomorrow.
Nighty-night.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@opiejeanne:
I agree. The constant worry about one thing after another is damned tiring, and I’m just reading it.
I pity those responding to it.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Tech hiring from bad to good: adtech, retail tech, cloud, other software, hardware. Cloud mostly because they’re so supply constrained that they just can’t do a lot.
My son is in the semiconductor hardware side and things are great there.
Martin
@Eolirin: Yeah, not only does high marginal rates restrain demand, but it gives government a LOT of money to use to boost supply side or provide relief when inflation does show up.
A lot of analysis suggests that 70s stagflation was made a lot worse due to austerity.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: These are good points. I’ve long advocated for greater regulation of quality of imports as an alternative to tariffs. That’s served the US auto market pretty well – lots of emergent auto industries can’t meet US vehicle regulations. So long as the regulations (safety, emissions) aren’t just bullshit protectionism and actually benefit consumers and society, then we should do it. And we can do that in a lot of other industries as well. Require certain worker regulations be met for apparel imports, etc. We do that in other industries.
NobodySpecial
One thing that hardly anyone talks about is that if Vladdy Daddy is the big Russian imperialist he pretends to be for the rubes, Peter The Great had some words for future Russian leaders:
“approach as near as possible to Constantinople and India. Whoever governs there will be the true sovereign of the world. Consequently, excite continual wars, not only in Turkey, but in Persia . . . Penetrate as far as the Persian Gulf, advance as far as India.”
As far as our current inflation woes, the best thing we could do is figure out a way to get money out of the stock market and into the economy. That way you have less tech billionaires financing vanity purchases with inflated assets and instead putting that money into actually building infrastructure and other useful public goods.
YY_Sima Qian
I would be more sanguine about the current bout of inflation being the transitory effect of the pandemic & the Russian invasion of Ukraine, if the world powers aren’t busy dismantling globalization & rending apart global supply chains in the name of “national security” & “supply chain resilience”, all of which will have a structural effect to heighten global inflation.
A big reason inflation has been largely tame in the past 3 decades is because of the integration of China into the global economy. That dividend is now at an end, both because China has hit demographic peak, & because there is a movement in Western countries to reduce their dependence on Chinese manufacturing, w/ some pushing for total decoupling w/o thinking through the consequences. There are no short term replacement for the China centered supply chain. Vietnam is already starting to run out of skilled labor & land. India has the demographics, but at reduced literacy & numeracy, much poorer infrastructure, much worse corruption, much more cumbersome regulations, & much smaller domestic market. Africa is even farther away. If it really was cheaper to manufacture outside of China, firms (including Chinese ones) would have shifted already (as they have done in select sectors & for some final assembly), rather than having their arms twisted by their governments.
Aussie Sheila
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes I agree there are risks going forward in dismantling/ destroying previous supply chains. However there should be solutions in technological changes that have occurred in the last 30 years, together with a different fiscal and monetary policy that incentivises productive investment, and withdraws investment incentives from real estate, especially as a solution to western middle class status anxiety.
There are any number of ways to a modern 21st century industrial policy, it’s just that a sizeable slab of the western middle class has come to expect tax breaks for becoming landlords. Worst. Policy. Ever.
It has helped fuel the rise of authoritarian politics via a race for status which the middle and prosperous working class can never win against the real winners in a financialised economy.
ColoradoGuy
YY_Sima Qian brings up a very good point. The trade war initiated by T****, and not completely terminated by Biden, is acting as an additional supply-chain disrupter, on top of CV19 intermittent shutdowns up and down the supply chain. A great deal of global production is looped through China, and re-shoring even part of that back to North America will take at least a few years and incur significant costs from building new factories. The re-shoring is going on now, but those factories in Mexico and the USA are not yet on-line.
The various trade wars have fed into and amplified the CV19 disruptions. In addition, both Russia and Ukraine have reduced their food and fertilizer exports, raising living costs and creating shortages in the Mideast and Africa. All of these scarcities are artificially induced, but are real in market terms, and are reflected in higher prices worldwide.
The chickens from the anti-NAFTA, anti-China, Brexit, anti-Globalization “hot talk” in 2016 are coming home to roost. Turns out it costs money, and a lot of it, to back away from the economies of globalization. The constant downward pressure on prices, due to pan-Asian manufacturing efficiency over the last twenty years, has stopped.
Baud
@ColoradoGuy:
All transitions are disruptive. That’s something we on the left of center side always ignore when we talk about the need for systemic change.
lowtechcyclist
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
IANA economist, but I think the Fed has its head up its ass. This isn’t your classical “the workers are being paid more than our economy can produce” inflation that can be brought under control by raising rates. This is a worldwide phenomenon, and hurting American workers won’t bring it under control.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Major Major Major Major: Ow. That’s not good. I’m glad you’re still ok
Jackie
@opiejeanne: 100% agree. This happens almost every night. It’s frustrating.
lowtechcyclist
It’s a little too late to have thought of this, but the Dems should have attacked and blamed the GOP over inflation. Like all good attacks, it’s oversimplified but has some genuine truth to it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Aussie Sheila:
Just to be clear, I fully support appropriate industrial policy, a degree of state intervention in the economy & strong regulations. China is the extreme example in many aspects, the good, bad & ugly. Less extreme examples are E/SE Asian countries, less extreme still are European countries.
However, the whole industrial policy effort to improve the lot of the domestic working & middle classes, & to increase competitiveness in emerging technologies, is now wrapped up in national security, great power competition & coercion/extraterritorial enforcement of unilateral sanctions.
The world absolutely need more diversity in the rare earths processing (where China accounts for nearly 90%) or the most advanced semiconductors (where Taiwan + South Korea account for > 95%). However, when the US twists arms through the CHIPS Act to get Samsung & TSMC to invest in the US (even though they have calculated that such investments will not be cost competitive), with the ultimate aim of achieving > 25% share of global advanced semiconductor capacity in the US, & every other major economy naturally following suit, we should not kid ourselves as to what such policies will mean for South Korea & Taiwan. If successful as intended, it will necessarily mean the hollowing out of the semiconductor industries in South Korea & Taiwan, key pillars to their economies. Such policy makes sense from the US’ perspective, but South Korea & Taiwan will come out on the worse end. In the meantime, the US’ advanced semiconductor restrictions to China will, if they work as intended, will cut Samsung & TSMC from one of their major markets. China accounts for nearly 60% of Taiwan’s semiconductor exports, & nearly 50% of South Korea’s. Now the US is twisting the arms of reluctant Allie’s to implement similar restriction on China. China accounts for > 50% of global semiconductor demand.
It seems lot of industrial policies are being instituted w/o debate, & w/o thinking through the unintended consequences & 2nd/3rd order effects.
Bokonon
@Major Major Major Major:
That happened at my tech company too – except I was one of the people that got nailed in the layoff. In the process of finding another job.
Whatever ritual sacrifices Wall Street wants … Wall Street gets.
Hang in there!
sab
@Jackie: I don’t agree. You can always pie him.
A lot of jackals got into discussion with him in ways indicating that they were interested. Others ignored him and had their own different conversations.
The alternative is late night dead threads, and we have a more than enough of those.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: Would a successful US policy of building domestic chip manufacturing to >25% neccessarily lead to a hollowing out of the industry in Taiwan and South Korea? It seems to me that it would only depress their growth trajectory. The effect would not kick in for several years and then very gradually.
I guess much would depend on overall growth in the global market
And I think you are right when you say that the second and third prder effects of the policies you criticize are not examined like they should be. You do, and I think your analysis generally brings a lot of value.
YY_Sima Qian
@ColoradoGuy: Not only has the Biden Administrate not done anything on the self-harming trade war w/ China, they have in the mean time launched a tech war against China (starting from advanced semiconductors for HPC & AI, but set to expand to applications in biotech., as well as from hardware to softwares), whose long term consequences no one seems to have gamed or calculated. Biden has ended the punitive tariffs against Canada & the EU, but the “Buy American” provisions (essentially stipulating 0% non-NAFTA content to qualify for subsidies) for EVs have really pissed off South Korea, Japan & the EU.
I believe the Biden Administration when it says they do not intend these technological sanctions for decoupling from China or launch a Cold War, but these policies may well further these outcomes, anyway. & a future GOP administration will only escalate further & faster, w/ the aim of decoupling & fermenting a new Cold War.
None of the European powers sleepwalking into WW I intended to enter a ruinous conflagration that would destroy or fatally weaken their empires.
scribbler
@Bokonon: Sorry you’re going through this. Good luck with the job search!
satby
Because Goku is a troll. And that’s what trolls do, and what Goku has done literally for years here. And remember, the backstory is that this nursing school graduate decided to stay a grocery store cashier during the pandemic because *reasons*. Though a person truly worried about inflation and making ends meet might normally go for the much higher paid job they are qualified for, no? I wish people would ignore the derailments, but they happen like clockwork, every night.
satby
@sab: part of the reason late night threads are often dead is because of the trolling just taking over the entire thing.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: It’s not just the US grabbing its share, but China, Japan & the EU are all following suit. If they all succeed (which is far from assured), South Korea & TW will probably end up w/ less than a third of the pie. The US, & others, not aiming for a fixed capacity target that account for a percentage of the current global capacity, but a share of the expanding pie. Since foundry work require experienced engineers & technical management to run efficiently, guess where the US/China/Japan/the EU will poach those engineers?
More likely though, the US efforts will fail, or only succeed partially for a period of time, due the overreach. If they succeed, it will be at the expense of permanently higher semiconductor prices.
YY_Sima Qian
@Bokonon: Good luck w/ your search. Look forward, not back.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@satby:
I’m not here every night. And I am not a troll. It’s not trolling to disagree with people. And the conversation segued from a natural, related point another commenter made upthread. In the future, I’ll just discuss this topic less
I’ve explained in the past why I decided to pursue the path I have: it was a combination of fearing dying/becoming disabled from COVID and realizing all along I was fooling myself into thinking I was good at nursing or that I could learn to be better at it. I lied to myself for years. It was the sunk costs fallacy.
There were sims we did in labs where we acted out a real medical situation and I could barely get through them
zhena gogolia
Looking forward to Letterman and Zelenskyy — one comedian to another.
Tony G
@Mike in NC: “48% of Republicans think we are doing too much to help Ukraine.” I’m pretty sure that 48% of Republicans could not find Russia, let alone Ukraine, on a map. They are sheep. They “think” what they’re told to think.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It seems to me that your concern about inflation is not personal but rather over its political effect. Rightly and wrongly, inflation is a major issue right now.
But people are free to scroll past you, try to refute you or post their own ideas about the problem
The topic can be problematic because it has so many different aspects: inflation as a general economic problem, inflation as it affects different classes of individuals, short term and longterm effects, etc. Not to mention Fed policy to date and moving forward.
Figuring out the effect inflation as a political problem itself involves issues of policies already active, prospective solutions. And, (sorry to use the “M” word!) messaging is also involved.
Tony G
@Tony G: An awful lot of American are functionally innumerate and functionally illiterate. A million, a billion, a trillion — what’s the difference? I tend to think that these people are over-represented in the Republican Party.
Baud
@Tony G: Always have been. A long time ago, the poll was about how much of the federal budget went to foreign aid. Republicans believed it was some ginormous amount. It is Republican gospel that most of “their money” is wasted on “those people.”
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: The global pie is not growing much anymore, & everybody is trying to grab a bigger share. The game has become increasingly zero-sum in every country’s estimation, & that is a frightening dynamic. Yes, the plutocrats & global capital sold a nice story of “rising water lifting all boats” to ensure they reaped the maximum share of the value created & exploited global labor as much as they can, but the global pie has been growing by leaps & bounds in real (inflation adjusted) terms through the globalization process. The reason globalization is faltering is because most nations failed to ensure more equitable domestic distribution of the value created, as the policymakers were captured by global capital. This caused a protectionist & nativist backlash, fuel for populism, xenophobia, & right wing authoritarianism, & justification for an economic policy of “military Keynesianism”.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid: I hate it when people gang up on Goku. Thanks for your reasonable reply.
Tony G
@Major Major Major Major: That’s terrible. I’ve been through that in the past. “The decimation of the staff will continue until productivity improves.”
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian: I wish you were around when we had to stop Hillary Clinton because of TPP.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: I mean the TPP certainly was highly problematic in many ways (also had some pioneering provisions in labor & environmental protection), but the bipartisan 180 degree turn around really was an own goal in every aspect, whether economic or geopolitical. The CPTPP w/o the US might be a better deal, as the remaining countries stripped away the giveaways to industries where the US is advantaged (such as Big Pharma).
satby
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): oh, I don’t doubt you’re a real person. And you’ve repeatedly promised not to derail threads… until you start to again. The pattern has repeated for years here. You won’t get banned because unlike others you don’t get abusive or misogynistic or racist, but you still behave as trolls do and ultimately usurp the threads where you “share your worries”.
@zhena gogolia: and people who point out trolling behavior, and the repetitive nature, and/ or just basically disagree are not “piling on”. They’re sharing their thoughts, just like Goku does. That a number of them might share the same opinion used to be the basis for robust, thought-provoking conversations around here. But very few of us want to have the same freaking conversation all the time.
Eyeroller
@YY_Sima Qian: There is a related issue, to which you may have alluded earlier–a lot of economic growth for at least a few centuries now has been due simply to human population growth. I haven’t done any curve fitting, but the start of exponential growth seems to have coincided roughly with industrialization. I’m sure we all agree that we can’t have an infinite number of humans (no, we are not going to Mars). Now population growth is slowing or reversing in a significant part of the world, and we have no idea how to deal with this since infinite growth is so baked in to our economies and expectations.
YY_Sima Qian
@Eyeroller: Yes, how economies can age gracefully. Japan may actually show the way there, despite the well earned reputation of having “Lost” the last 3 decades.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My niece switched from nursing in a neonatal ICU to teaching nursing because she was burning out from the heartbreaking situations. She went back to nursing to help out during the Covid crunch.
It’s not a bad thing to admit a particular career path is wrong for you.
You should investigate paths that use that nursing education. I went from law ( which I absolutely hated) to tax accounting. The law background gave me an edge over the other accountants.
Ken
@YY_Sima Qian: Your mention of Japan’s “lost” decades reminds me of this Onion article, where the joke is that Japan is so far ahead of the rest of the world, that they can lose ground and still be ahead. Reality isn’t so neat, of course.
Aussie Sheila
@YY_Sima Qian: Yes. I wasn’t sad the US withdrew, because we are always scared a Tory government here will give in to the US pharma industry and screw our system where our govt negotiates drug prices down from the inflated levels permitted by the US.
But the successor agreement that we signed up for is far less risky and in general, I support free trade, provided the rules are set properly and fairly and aren’t rigged by a big country that runs the world’s reserve currency.
In fact US workers have been told for years that they didn’t need pay rises because of the deflationary effects of ‘free trade’ on the costs of goods. It was always crap. If as much effort had been put into raising wages and lessening the costs of housing, education and health as was put into cheap and crappy gimcrackery, maybe trump could have been avoided, and maybe Clinton could get a break for losing an election that always looked dicey to me.
My rule of thumb is-when ‘immigration’ is a successful election strategy, it means there is displaced grievance. Ugly and useless?
Absolutely. But effective. The republicans are shockers on this, but so are UK Tories, and Tories where I live.
Conservative grievance mongering is a given. The left/centre left simply must get a grip on this, otherwise we are all fucked.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: I’m curious: how is Australia’s new government doing in your opinion? And in public opinion?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@satby:
I’m sorry
YY_Sima Qian
@Aussie Sheila: Completely agree. Neoliberal economics fuel precarity, & the resulting anxiety stimulates every reactionary instinct. Either the left & left of center find solutions to the root of precocity driven anxiety, or the right wing reactionaries will seize the ground w/ their false promises. Military Keynesianism is no solution, it merely externalizes the anxiety toward the Other.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid: I’m glad you asked. It’s going great. Polling for our PM 60% favourable, which is higher than when elected in May. The government is exhibiting a calm competence and a ‘take no crap’ approach to the Tory oppo. There is choppy water of course. Inflation and high gas (heating and cooking, not petrol) prices.
The government looks like it’s gearing up for a big swig at the fossil fuel companies for a windfall profits tax.
The press and the Tories will squeal like stuck pigs. The electorate will love it. The one industry Australians hate more than banks is the oil industry because they believe, rightly, that big oil rigs prices.
Australia avoided the 2008-2009 recession completely, thanks to a Labor govt at the time. Then they got blamed for debt in the next election. Now the debt is huge and badly structured, but at least the Tory press (Murdoch natch) has been shut down on that issue for the time being at least. I am very confident they will win re-election in 2005.
YY_Sima Qian
@Aussie Sheila: Australia also avoided the consequences of the GFC because of the massive stimulus launched by China that went into infrastructure construction, which disproportionally benefited Australia’s commodities exports. Germany also disproportionally benefitted due to export of construction machinery, as well as high value components that go into such machinery
Need to watch out for the negative impact of the coming fall in prices of the commodities that Australia exports – coal & iron ore. The world is shifting away from coal, & China’s decades long construction boom has deflated.
Baud
@Aussie Sheila: Excellent news.
Aussie Sheila
@YY_Sima Qian: That is true. China’s stimulus was a great help. But our government did a mighty job on the domestic demand side. Unemployment barely rose, although wages remained stagnant.
The government is also running hell for leather on transitioning from fossil fuel and to a green energy economic strategy. The green new deal, but not called as such. Hope we there before they are voted out after a decade. 👌😀
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: Thank you! Mr. Albanese’s 60% job approval is pretty darn good in a democracy these days.
I think liberal, progresive governance can be broadly popular. It produces backlash for sure, but if a liberal government can get over that hump it could form a durable electoral majority.
Maybe Australia’s new government will get over that hump. I think Democrats in the US can do similarly, but it will be a hard slog for the next 2 or 3 cycles.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Looks like Gym Jordan’s bombshell is a nothingburger, aided and abetted by Axios trying to drum up a clickbait “scoop.”
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: One objection to a clean energy transition was that it would be costly in ecomomic terms. There may have been a time when this would have been true, but it sure isn’t true now. It’s actually the opposite: the clean energy transition is a job creator and a profit maker. Investors see this, as do industries. Workers and communities are beginning to see it.
Eventually a majority of voters will. This is s an area where advocacy groups, politicians, and amateur commentators like those here can make at least some difference.
YY_Sima Qian
@Aussie Sheila: Had the Liberals stayed in power, the coming commodities shock would have been extremely painful for Australia.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia: Late to the thread, but I don’t. He’s playing us for the wide-eyed anxiety-prone naif that he isn’t. Read the history of his comments over the years. A screamingly clear pattern of intentional derailment, although the topic of choice has changed from “I want to write…something” to “OMG inflation.” He stopped the former when well-intended people trying to help him FINALLY realized he had no intention to write and was just attention-grabbing. As a person trained in language and literature, you might also notice an occasional distinctive change in persona with a noticeable change in writing style. Occasionally he seems to forget who he’s supposed to be online. I get that he triggers a lot of folks’ parental instincts with his eternal “I’m a young person who’s worried about [insert squirrel du jour here],” but after many years of observation I don’t buy it and I find it tiresome when responses, as programmed, take over the thread. YMMV.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@O. Felix Culpa:
Co-signed. In triplicate. I have watched the same derailing, again and again for years.
I just haven’t figured out of it’s a mission or if it’s a desire to be the center of a conversation.
WaterGirl
@O. Felix Culpa:
I have long thought that there may be two different people writing as “Goku”, and the writing style and the knowledge of current events changes depending on which one is writing.
O. Felix Culpa
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Yes, we can’t know the motivation, but we can certainly see the desired effect.
@WaterGirl: Interesting. That could explain the distinctly different voices under the nym, one of which has a long history of “look! squirrel!” posts. Remember when one of those was “OMG treasury bonds are only sold online anymore”? That one was floated several times before being dropped for lack of takers.
The Pale Scot
Dire Asshole.
Always loved dolphins. Years ago when I lived in St Pete FL I spent a lot of time at the beach doing laps perpendicular to shore. One time there were all these kids on the beach jumping up and down and pointing in my general direction. Figuring it was a shark I punched the turbos and headed for the beach. Where all these kids were so excited because 2 dolphins were following me apparently just feet away.
I figured they mistook me for a Manatee, me and John have similar configurations.
It happened the next two years also, I think they were a pod migrating north, the last time they nudged my foot. I freaked, a hundred yards off shore and I didn’t know they were behind me, I wish I could have met them
The Pale Scot
Yes