One gets to be a billionaire, in most cases, not because s/he is a genius, but because s/he is ruthless - often sociopathic. Paul's characterization of Musk and Trump validates this psychologist's view on the matter of obscene wealth. When I had my one-and-only one-on-one with Trump back when we were 30ish, he struck me as completely lacking in empathy. He dominated the conversation because he could not read my reactions to what he was saying. He came across like that kid on the playground who wanted a friend, but had no idea how to make friends. That is sociopathy.
Like his MAGA supporters, as both Paul and Martin noted, sociopathy can make you feel resentment due to social isolation. Soon, they discover ways to use shared resentments to gain some degree of social inclusion (us vs them), but in the end, they never have any friends, just toadies and people who want to exploit their influence. Power over others is their only delight in life.
The subject of US furniture-making was discussed a bit, how the towns in the Carolinas that made so much of the country's furniture have been devastated by Chinese imports. Not mentioned was the fact that furniture-making used to be concentrated in New England. When it moved south, mostly because of lower paid non-union workers there, those New England towns were devastated, and many still are.
From a global point of view, this move within the US is really no different to a move from the US to China, is it? But if you are a US citizen, it seems very different. It would be interesting to see this issue discussed in a future post.
Jamestown, New York. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Grand Rapids, Michigan and Jamestown, NY were the two top furniture manufacturing cities in the US. My husband's family has lived near the latter city since the 1860's; Swedish, of course, since they were the workers who built the furniture industry here. They could chop down trees (which were plentiful) and they were used to the snowy winters.
The city was filled with furniture factories (one remains, a niche company that makes wood chairs for places like the Library of Congress.) The enormous downtown hotels, built to house the regular furniture buyers conventions, have been converted to SRO's (single room occupency) that at least keep the lowest income residents off the streets.
The factories, filled with union labor, were moved (they did not just magically 'move;' let's acknowledge the agency) to the South, which was hostile to unions. Then, they 'were moved' offshore. To use even cheaper labor and lax environmental regulations . China did not magically just flood the US market with cheap furniture; corporate persons made the decisions to close factories in the US and the US government did nothing to stop them.
The owners and stockholders of these furniture companies kept making profits. The residents of Jamestown, NY were left without decent jobs. The City is rotting. Downtown has boarded-up buildings and the SRO's and a couple of restaurants and two hotel chains. Oh, and the Government-funded National Comedy Center, an ironic attempt at revitalization. As well as the Lucy Museum. The rail line between Hoboken, NY and Chicago, closed down in the 1970's. The last commercial flights to the Municipal Airport ceased a decade ago.
We try. We soldier on because it's where our Swedish (and Italian and Black and Ukrainian) ancestors settled and our families are all about us. And the lakes and rivers and old meadows and wooded areas are beautiful in summer and filled with fish and game in winter. No Government-funded post-industrial policy is coming to save us. Amazingly, a lot of us voted for Trump.
Bloomington, Indiana, claimed to have the largest single hardwood furniture factory in the world in the early 1900s. The Showers Bros. factory covered 14 acres, spread along a rail line that brought timber in at the north end and sent furniture out at the south end, a lot of it kits sold through the Sears-Roebuck mail order system.
That ended in the 1920s. But in the 1950s, Bloomington, Indiana, was the site of a major RCA manufacturing facility and billed itself as "The Color Television Capital of the World." It's remarkable how many obituaries in the local papers over the last ten years are for 85-year-olds who worked for RCA.
That ended, too. Now, Bloomington, Indiana's big (non-academic) industry is medical. Besides being a regional hospital center, it's a center for manufacturing medical devices, with the Cook Group being the flagship. Bloomington's old downtown at least appears to thrive thanks in part to the philanthropy of Bill Cook.
Lots of Indiana's cities are not doing nearly so well as Bloomington. What is happening is that a smaller number of urban areas are gaining an increasing share of the industry and the population. Muncie, Indiana, has been losing population since the 1980s and can appear a bit sad. But it's just an hour's drive to Monument Circle in the middle of Indianapolis, which keeps on growing.
I'll comment on Prof. Krugman's old home in Utica, New York, separately.
Change, however — including geographic change — is costly, especially to workers who have just one job and one home. Prof. Krugman has mentioned the Schleifer-Summers paper about companies being able to renege on implied contracts with their employees. Mr. Wolf alluded to the fact that the US Government ended (!) Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers a couple years ago. This is what we need to talk about, rather than trying to stop the world from turning or trying to somehow force companies not to automate.
The New England experience in furniture was coupled with shoes and textiles. Foreign car manufacturers in the USA aren't unionized. Foe other links to localized effects see Norma Ray.
Similarly, the development of new technologies to produce engineered lumber in the early-mid 1980s made logging pine plantations in the South East more cost effective than logging here in the PNW. We experienced the same kind of economic dislocation and loss of community identity as West Virginia and North Carolina, but it occurred during the Reagan administration. That administration barely recognized the devastation because it was not a useful political tool for it, whereas the MAGA party desperately needed a political tool to regain white working class voters after junior Bush’s disastrous administration.
True. As long as Trump has "trial balloons", he has little need to be informed (beyond poll result. D'uh!)
Trump is frequently uncertain exactly how some crazy idea he ( or Fox) has will affect his "cultist love" for him, so he waits to see the poll results of releasing some whacko-crazy idea (like attacking Panama.)
If the polls go against his insane idea, he claims it was a joke, or he was being sarcastic. (At this point, even someone with even a vague concept of humor would be more welcome...)
If the polls are in his direction, he proceeds, knowing he can place the blame on the public acceptance of something truly harmful and stupid.
And IF it "works" (meaning, convinces his base that it will victimize innocent people, usually people of color), he then proceeds, claiming all credit for the reenergizing of his base by hate, violence and ignorance.
A lot of great discussion about numerous important issues, but one comment stands out to me:
“Krugman: Well, one thing they did wrong was to not actually pursue legal action against the people who tried to overthrow the US government in 2021. So, you know, a lot might look different, as people kept on saying. Merrick Garland was Biden's attorney general. And all through this, people kept on saying, none of this would be happening if Merrick Garland were still alive, which he was, but of course he was just not doing anything. So that's one issue.”
Our society is paying a terrible price for that FAILURE to grind into dust the election liars (“deniers”), Trump officials who attempted to destroy the rule of law, and of course Trump for his incitement of violence. We witnessed crimes, and then witnessed the criminals getting away with it. So I’m done. Out. No more donations. No more activity for nothing. Thanks, Democratic Party for making me feel like I wasted my time, effort, emotions, and money for nothing.
Garland's appointment made some sense if, in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, you assumed that Trump had irretrievably discredited himself, the storm was over, the task now was reconciliation and healiing, the restoration of normal. The Republicans could be brought back to sanity. That was, in fact, the CW at the time.
Of course, it became clear pretty quickly we were just in the eye, but Garland didn't change his approach of seeking reconciliation with Republicans. He didn't appoint a Special Counsel until he had no choice, and allowed the DOJ to be weaponized against Biden by Republicans.
Biden, I suspect, regretted appointing him fairly quickly, but judged firing him would be a serious political problem. Note what he silently endured from the DOJ, which was absolutely disgraceful.
The best time to fire him would have been early in 2021, as soon as it became clear that, in contravention of explicit DOJ practice, he was not publicly pursuing a matter of grave and widespread public concern (this is in DOJ's handbook, it's the exception to "speak only through indictments").
What we've seen is "norms" elevated over principles. "We don't prosecute presidents" even when they're criminals, we keep law enforcement out of politics, even in the case of the gravest pilitical crime.
Despite what MAGA believes, I've always considered the DOJ closet--if not outright-- conservatives. Mueller gave Trump way too much the benefit of the doubt & I'm tired of discovering new legal loopholes as to why he never pays for his actions and why republicans' bad legislation couldn't be stopped....contempt of court....John Robert's bs. What a prestigious racket they're all involved in.
What do you do when the spouse of a SCOTUS justice is in on it, too? SCOTUS is the major problem now....makes me wonder if they're allowing the attorneys to line their pockets with legal fees by letting these cases go to the Supreme Court before they just rule against the majority of them.
Great wise and substantive conversation but like all others a fact that is never mentioned: When Trump has run against a male he has never won and when he has run against a female he has never lost. This "pearl" comes from a 80 yo white male with an MD and JD degree.
That's an interesting observation, but there's insufficient data to be able to really draw that conclusion. He only ran against a male one time, and lost, and two women and won. That was a likely factor, and it appears that way empirically at least, but we'd have to see his performance in many more contests to see if that bears out.
What's astounding to me is how reichwing union busting (especially starting with St. Reagan) caused so many former union members to turn sharply ... to the right. The irony of it is downright bizarre. The members of busted unions turn to the financial elite of the right because the left is primarily academic elite? That doesn't quite make sense, even though that seems to be what's happened. I know that's an oversimplification of it, the reasons are numerous and, dare I say it, diverse.
The white working class can be easily manipulated by perceived "others" getting breaks that they may feel aren't reciprocal. I saw in a recent online article that there were protests by Blacks for good jobs in the early 60's. So maybe by the 1980's, whites feeling threatened by competition for their livelihoods was being blamed on minorities (immigrants today) when in actuality the money was manipulating them to vote against their and their competitions' interests. I used to chat with someone who told me his blue collar family never voted republican again after Reagan. The rail road strikers were voting not to get fired on a demerit system. Biden pushed for higher pay during the holiday season strike. But that didn't solve the problem of being fired for calling in for a day off after one demerit too many. What good is higher pay if you're fired because you took off for say--a death/illness in the family?
1. The Republicans used racist dog whistles to appeal to the white working class, especially Southern "Lost Cause" types, and they fell for it, because they felt threatened by the competition.
That's true, but only part of the story. There was also resentment of so called "welfare queens" and "young bucks eating steak", both racist cliches that were pure BS.
//
2. Biden supported unions, but failed to address one critical issue - that of the "demerit" system, leading some to stupidly turn to The Orange Scourge.
Thank you for getting real here. I've definitely noticed that when people are not familiar with certain other people, prejudices develop. Interestingly, NYC--which was ground zero for 9/11--never has as much Islamophobia as people outside of our city. That explains why our Democrats were able to choose Zohran Mamdani as our mayoral candidate. I'm glad you noticed that in the case of immigrants. Well done Paul.
A comment is necessary on the "what went wrong with the Biden administration" part of this. Clearly, communication. The job is leadership, and leadership demands communication in the modern era. The evolution of this began with FDR, made a huge leap with Kennedy, and then settled into place with Reagan. Biden lost his communication skills, and the public saw the failure. It is interesting that Wolf does not investigate this aspect of the leader's role, because a sharp wit and ability to debate are core to British leadership, as is practiced in Commons. The challenge for 2028 for the Democrats is to find someone who is vigorous and who can communicate well.
There is documented evidence that people's widespread perception that they were being subjected to "greedflation" (and that gov't should stop it) was largely accurate. The Economic Policy Institute in 2022 found 51% of price rises went to increased profits (I heard Mark Blyth recently cite a study finding 40% in Europe).That is, the largest factor, the lion's share. US CEOs were recorded gloating to investors about "inflation" giving cover for their "pricing operations".
There was talk of an excess profits tax in 2022 (Sanders, Warren), but no concerted push, nor for an anti price gouging law, which Bob Casey of PA proposed in early 2023. When Harris proposed an anti price gouging law for groceries in 2024, we learned from Zephyr Teachout that no less than 37 states have such laws, including Texas, usually enforceable in disasters and emergencies. SC,in fact, passed one hurriedly to get ahead of an approaching hurricane in 2024. Well, what was Covid? That wasn't a disaster? No wonder people expected something to be done, "markets" be damned. It's NORMAL. I'd be astonished if Europeans didn't feel the same.
Deference to "markets" (meaning, in reality, those that control them) probably lost this election. Forcing Republicans to stop either a tax or a law would given THEM ownership of "inflation".
Btw, Dr Krugman did remark of Harris' proposal, 'couldn't hurt'. It would have done a lot of good in 2022, when Democrats could have passed it in the House.
There's video of a Fox townhall in Ohio in 2022 in which Brett Baier asked Tim Ryan (running for Senate, Vance won) what he clearly thought was a gotcha question about Biden calling for action on gas price gouging. Ryan's expression of support, given how high prices were, and ongoing stock buybacks, got such vociferous approval from the audience Baier hurriedly bailed ("Let's move on!").
Meidas Touch Network has it on You Tube, last I looked.
Here's where I wonder about your comments on the efficiency of government. Do you believe that the Federal government gets value for what it spends and could it spend less to get the same or better outcomes? Do you believe that the Federal government truly invests to ensure the future of this country? As you liken it to an insurance entity with an army, remember that most insurers don't invest for a better future, they focus more on immediate profits. Examples: why haven't the last 5 presidents and their Treasury departments locked in our rising national debt at lower, long-term interest rates instead of floating short term? Why has the IRS been paying billons to consultants with an IT system from the last century? Why does Medicare pay less than the true cost of healthcare, not investing in things like patient non-compliance which is responsible for 25-30% of our total healthcare spend? It encourages use of ER instead of investing more dollars in our poor communities to provide them regular healthcare access. I could go on, but I am not sure that you are truly looking at the cost/benefit of government spend. I am not saying that Musk/DOGE was right, but I am suggesting maybe they were looking at and in the wrong places to achieve better value for our tax dollars.
Because the donor class determines where that money and how much is spent? Prime example: Medicare Advantage. Another example....major Medicare fraud at HCA under Rick Scott's reign as CEO. What consequences did he face? Life as a permanent politician now from the state of Florida. Cerner has just about bankrupted many of those poor rural communities health care providers....no wonder it was a juicy buy for Oracle.
I actually meant all the government payers including Medicare, Medicaid, etc. They are being subsidized by the third party payers whose rates have to be higher to make up for this. There is a middle ground that would be far more fair.
MedicAd and Medicare are different programs. I appreciate people to be concise.
It is unclear to me who the "third party payers" are. Taxpayers?
People on Medicare have paid into that system, many of them for over 40 years. Only Medicare A is "for free". Medicare B has to be paid, the same goes for a Medicare D plan as chosen. Most of the Medicare-insured also pay monthly a premium to an insurance company to cover the 20% cap. Dental is has to be insured separately, vision too.
Now the problem as I see it is all the layers. Forcing doctors to bill twice, etc. Unless people opted for all-in Medicare Advantage which, sorry to say so, has many similarities to a scam. Although for a lot of people it seems to work.
You talk about "lack of adherence". No doubt that happens. People on Medicare are in most cases either eligible based on a condition or because they are old. And if you are unwell, you do not often make the most prudent choices.
But there is also the iatrogenic issue, something you do not mention. About 25-30% of medical issues are caused by medical interventions. If we could get a handle on that, we would save a lot of money. And a lot of suffering.
Third party payers are not governments, they are private insurers, sometimes connected to the patients employers who pay under negotiated contracts with providers. Their approved rates are higher than government payers, in part, because they are making up for the shortfalls in payments by government payers. All the government payers, pay the providers less than cost of providers. The lack of adherence is not a function of age or condition. It's a function of many things: patients don't take medicine as prescribed; they aren't communicating with their providers because they don't have adequate communication devices, transportation, burdened by transportation, childcare, eldercare responsibilities i.e. the so-called social determinants of health.
Thank you for explaining. I appreciate it. Did anyone ever do the arithmetic how much these third parties pay "over" because of the Medicare short-changing?
I agree about the social determinants. Some could be remedied by involving dedicated volunteers? But I think you should not omit lack of adherence based on medical condition(s).
As to the arithmetic, not that I know of, but it is a constant theme I hear in my healthcare volunteer life. You are right about medical conditions playing a role, but I don't think volunteers are the answer. The answer is that as part of good treatment, you increase the probability of adherence by steps that you take; such steps avoid future more costly steps that would result from lack of adherence.
"...Musk, who otherwise seems to be able to create functioning companies (albeit with some government assistance)..."
Some government assistance!? Oh please, the only reason why Tesla is still a thing is because of the $465,000,000 government bailout loan it got in 2009. That is the basis of Musk's fortune, and getting that loan is the best business move he ever made. But that doesn't make him a great businessman. It makes him just another plutocrat suckling at the government’s teat.
THIS right here, is SO on-point: "[T]here's a general devaluation of expertise. Anybody who actually produces facts and figures, anybody who's actually studied a subject, is inherently suspect with the current regime in the United States. So it's almost disqualifying to know what you're talking about." And when that's the position of the party you're in a conversation with, there's just really nothing you can do to change their mind, because they have no actual mind. You just find yourself in an impossible position.
When the stakes aren't high, it's easy enough to walk away. But when the stakes comprise the continued existence of your country, and when the other party has created enormous fear in anyone in an official position to stand in their way ... well, you CAN'T just walk away. But "winning the argument" is undoubtedly going to come at a very dear price to you and the others who actually value facts, figures, experience, and expertise. And that's just where we are.
So who among us is ready to wade into these difficult waters?
The last time we had widespread buy-in and personal involvement in an effort of this sort was MAYBE the '60s (when I was a child) but certainly the '40s. And that basically means hardly anyone currently alive can remember what this level of sacrifice was like.
But I know for certain that not making the sacrifice, not stepping up with a willingness to pay whatever price ends up being necessary is GUARANTEEING that the price you pay will be your freedom, your dignity, and that of your children, your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren, as well as that of all life on this land and in these oceans. Because what they want to do, what they are in the process of doing, jeopardizes all of that. ALL of it.
It is what it is. The anti-immigrant frenzy and the DEI madness is simply America's original sin, its racist roots emerging yet again.
Yes there is the rich vs poor business and the tech revolution but the basis of Trump's support is racist. Sad to say because I thought we were past that and I was wrong.
I am really enjoying these conversations. It’s great to have a readable transcript, too, so thank you for posting both here.
Actually, too many points to comment on so I'll just write, thank you for both of you sharing your insights.
One gets to be a billionaire, in most cases, not because s/he is a genius, but because s/he is ruthless - often sociopathic. Paul's characterization of Musk and Trump validates this psychologist's view on the matter of obscene wealth. When I had my one-and-only one-on-one with Trump back when we were 30ish, he struck me as completely lacking in empathy. He dominated the conversation because he could not read my reactions to what he was saying. He came across like that kid on the playground who wanted a friend, but had no idea how to make friends. That is sociopathy.
Like his MAGA supporters, as both Paul and Martin noted, sociopathy can make you feel resentment due to social isolation. Soon, they discover ways to use shared resentments to gain some degree of social inclusion (us vs them), but in the end, they never have any friends, just toadies and people who want to exploit their influence. Power over others is their only delight in life.
Very well observed.
Ruthless and lucky!
The subject of US furniture-making was discussed a bit, how the towns in the Carolinas that made so much of the country's furniture have been devastated by Chinese imports. Not mentioned was the fact that furniture-making used to be concentrated in New England. When it moved south, mostly because of lower paid non-union workers there, those New England towns were devastated, and many still are.
From a global point of view, this move within the US is really no different to a move from the US to China, is it? But if you are a US citizen, it seems very different. It would be interesting to see this issue discussed in a future post.
Jamestown, New York. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Grand Rapids, Michigan and Jamestown, NY were the two top furniture manufacturing cities in the US. My husband's family has lived near the latter city since the 1860's; Swedish, of course, since they were the workers who built the furniture industry here. They could chop down trees (which were plentiful) and they were used to the snowy winters.
The city was filled with furniture factories (one remains, a niche company that makes wood chairs for places like the Library of Congress.) The enormous downtown hotels, built to house the regular furniture buyers conventions, have been converted to SRO's (single room occupency) that at least keep the lowest income residents off the streets.
The factories, filled with union labor, were moved (they did not just magically 'move;' let's acknowledge the agency) to the South, which was hostile to unions. Then, they 'were moved' offshore. To use even cheaper labor and lax environmental regulations . China did not magically just flood the US market with cheap furniture; corporate persons made the decisions to close factories in the US and the US government did nothing to stop them.
The owners and stockholders of these furniture companies kept making profits. The residents of Jamestown, NY were left without decent jobs. The City is rotting. Downtown has boarded-up buildings and the SRO's and a couple of restaurants and two hotel chains. Oh, and the Government-funded National Comedy Center, an ironic attempt at revitalization. As well as the Lucy Museum. The rail line between Hoboken, NY and Chicago, closed down in the 1970's. The last commercial flights to the Municipal Airport ceased a decade ago.
We try. We soldier on because it's where our Swedish (and Italian and Black and Ukrainian) ancestors settled and our families are all about us. And the lakes and rivers and old meadows and wooded areas are beautiful in summer and filled with fish and game in winter. No Government-funded post-industrial policy is coming to save us. Amazingly, a lot of us voted for Trump.
Thank you for sharing this, Claire. It's incredibly poignant.
Bloomington, Indiana, claimed to have the largest single hardwood furniture factory in the world in the early 1900s. The Showers Bros. factory covered 14 acres, spread along a rail line that brought timber in at the north end and sent furniture out at the south end, a lot of it kits sold through the Sears-Roebuck mail order system.
That ended in the 1920s. But in the 1950s, Bloomington, Indiana, was the site of a major RCA manufacturing facility and billed itself as "The Color Television Capital of the World." It's remarkable how many obituaries in the local papers over the last ten years are for 85-year-olds who worked for RCA.
That ended, too. Now, Bloomington, Indiana's big (non-academic) industry is medical. Besides being a regional hospital center, it's a center for manufacturing medical devices, with the Cook Group being the flagship. Bloomington's old downtown at least appears to thrive thanks in part to the philanthropy of Bill Cook.
Lots of Indiana's cities are not doing nearly so well as Bloomington. What is happening is that a smaller number of urban areas are gaining an increasing share of the industry and the population. Muncie, Indiana, has been losing population since the 1980s and can appear a bit sad. But it's just an hour's drive to Monument Circle in the middle of Indianapolis, which keeps on growing.
I'll comment on Prof. Krugman's old home in Utica, New York, separately.
Change, however — including geographic change — is costly, especially to workers who have just one job and one home. Prof. Krugman has mentioned the Schleifer-Summers paper about companies being able to renege on implied contracts with their employees. Mr. Wolf alluded to the fact that the US Government ended (!) Trade Adjustment Assistance for Workers a couple years ago. This is what we need to talk about, rather than trying to stop the world from turning or trying to somehow force companies not to automate.
The New England experience in furniture was coupled with shoes and textiles. Foreign car manufacturers in the USA aren't unionized. Foe other links to localized effects see Norma Ray.
Similarly, the development of new technologies to produce engineered lumber in the early-mid 1980s made logging pine plantations in the South East more cost effective than logging here in the PNW. We experienced the same kind of economic dislocation and loss of community identity as West Virginia and North Carolina, but it occurred during the Reagan administration. That administration barely recognized the devastation because it was not a useful political tool for it, whereas the MAGA party desperately needed a political tool to regain white working class voters after junior Bush’s disastrous administration.
I recall LP the siding debacle. The 90's spotted owl debate further alienated logging communities in the PNW.
New England has recovered from that loss.
True. As long as Trump has "trial balloons", he has little need to be informed (beyond poll result. D'uh!)
Trump is frequently uncertain exactly how some crazy idea he ( or Fox) has will affect his "cultist love" for him, so he waits to see the poll results of releasing some whacko-crazy idea (like attacking Panama.)
If the polls go against his insane idea, he claims it was a joke, or he was being sarcastic. (At this point, even someone with even a vague concept of humor would be more welcome...)
If the polls are in his direction, he proceeds, knowing he can place the blame on the public acceptance of something truly harmful and stupid.
And IF it "works" (meaning, convinces his base that it will victimize innocent people, usually people of color), he then proceeds, claiming all credit for the reenergizing of his base by hate, violence and ignorance.
You've also just described Elon Musk in a nutshell.
I fear that's the coming "standard of governance" for the far-wrong.
Thank you, Stephen.
A lot of great discussion about numerous important issues, but one comment stands out to me:
“Krugman: Well, one thing they did wrong was to not actually pursue legal action against the people who tried to overthrow the US government in 2021. So, you know, a lot might look different, as people kept on saying. Merrick Garland was Biden's attorney general. And all through this, people kept on saying, none of this would be happening if Merrick Garland were still alive, which he was, but of course he was just not doing anything. So that's one issue.”
Our society is paying a terrible price for that FAILURE to grind into dust the election liars (“deniers”), Trump officials who attempted to destroy the rule of law, and of course Trump for his incitement of violence. We witnessed crimes, and then witnessed the criminals getting away with it. So I’m done. Out. No more donations. No more activity for nothing. Thanks, Democratic Party for making me feel like I wasted my time, effort, emotions, and money for nothing.
Garland's appointment made some sense if, in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, you assumed that Trump had irretrievably discredited himself, the storm was over, the task now was reconciliation and healiing, the restoration of normal. The Republicans could be brought back to sanity. That was, in fact, the CW at the time.
Of course, it became clear pretty quickly we were just in the eye, but Garland didn't change his approach of seeking reconciliation with Republicans. He didn't appoint a Special Counsel until he had no choice, and allowed the DOJ to be weaponized against Biden by Republicans.
Biden, I suspect, regretted appointing him fairly quickly, but judged firing him would be a serious political problem. Note what he silently endured from the DOJ, which was absolutely disgraceful.
The best time to fire him would have been early in 2021, as soon as it became clear that, in contravention of explicit DOJ practice, he was not publicly pursuing a matter of grave and widespread public concern (this is in DOJ's handbook, it's the exception to "speak only through indictments").
What we've seen is "norms" elevated over principles. "We don't prosecute presidents" even when they're criminals, we keep law enforcement out of politics, even in the case of the gravest pilitical crime.
Great PK Garland joke - "If Merrick Garland were still alive, we wouldn't have this situation..."
Despite what MAGA believes, I've always considered the DOJ closet--if not outright-- conservatives. Mueller gave Trump way too much the benefit of the doubt & I'm tired of discovering new legal loopholes as to why he never pays for his actions and why republicans' bad legislation couldn't be stopped....contempt of court....John Robert's bs. What a prestigious racket they're all involved in.
Yep. There's a reason that treason has historically been classified as a hangin' crime.
What do you do when the spouse of a SCOTUS justice is in on it, too? SCOTUS is the major problem now....makes me wonder if they're allowing the attorneys to line their pockets with legal fees by letting these cases go to the Supreme Court before they just rule against the majority of them.
Great wise and substantive conversation but like all others a fact that is never mentioned: When Trump has run against a male he has never won and when he has run against a female he has never lost. This "pearl" comes from a 80 yo white male with an MD and JD degree.
That's an interesting observation, but there's insufficient data to be able to really draw that conclusion. He only ran against a male one time, and lost, and two women and won. That was a likely factor, and it appears that way empirically at least, but we'd have to see his performance in many more contests to see if that bears out.
This country is not advanced enough to vote for a female president. (And still Hillary won the popular vote.)
What's astounding to me is how reichwing union busting (especially starting with St. Reagan) caused so many former union members to turn sharply ... to the right. The irony of it is downright bizarre. The members of busted unions turn to the financial elite of the right because the left is primarily academic elite? That doesn't quite make sense, even though that seems to be what's happened. I know that's an oversimplification of it, the reasons are numerous and, dare I say it, diverse.
The white working class can be easily manipulated by perceived "others" getting breaks that they may feel aren't reciprocal. I saw in a recent online article that there were protests by Blacks for good jobs in the early 60's. So maybe by the 1980's, whites feeling threatened by competition for their livelihoods was being blamed on minorities (immigrants today) when in actuality the money was manipulating them to vote against their and their competitions' interests. I used to chat with someone who told me his blue collar family never voted republican again after Reagan. The rail road strikers were voting not to get fired on a demerit system. Biden pushed for higher pay during the holiday season strike. But that didn't solve the problem of being fired for calling in for a day off after one demerit too many. What good is higher pay if you're fired because you took off for say--a death/illness in the family?
If I understand correctly, what you're saying is:
1. The Republicans used racist dog whistles to appeal to the white working class, especially Southern "Lost Cause" types, and they fell for it, because they felt threatened by the competition.
That's true, but only part of the story. There was also resentment of so called "welfare queens" and "young bucks eating steak", both racist cliches that were pure BS.
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2. Biden supported unions, but failed to address one critical issue - that of the "demerit" system, leading some to stupidly turn to The Orange Scourge.
Thank you for getting real here. I've definitely noticed that when people are not familiar with certain other people, prejudices develop. Interestingly, NYC--which was ground zero for 9/11--never has as much Islamophobia as people outside of our city. That explains why our Democrats were able to choose Zohran Mamdani as our mayoral candidate. I'm glad you noticed that in the case of immigrants. Well done Paul.
A comment is necessary on the "what went wrong with the Biden administration" part of this. Clearly, communication. The job is leadership, and leadership demands communication in the modern era. The evolution of this began with FDR, made a huge leap with Kennedy, and then settled into place with Reagan. Biden lost his communication skills, and the public saw the failure. It is interesting that Wolf does not investigate this aspect of the leader's role, because a sharp wit and ability to debate are core to British leadership, as is practiced in Commons. The challenge for 2028 for the Democrats is to find someone who is vigorous and who can communicate well.
To say nothing of Mr Obama's breathtaking communication skills. I agree completely.
There is documented evidence that people's widespread perception that they were being subjected to "greedflation" (and that gov't should stop it) was largely accurate. The Economic Policy Institute in 2022 found 51% of price rises went to increased profits (I heard Mark Blyth recently cite a study finding 40% in Europe).That is, the largest factor, the lion's share. US CEOs were recorded gloating to investors about "inflation" giving cover for their "pricing operations".
There was talk of an excess profits tax in 2022 (Sanders, Warren), but no concerted push, nor for an anti price gouging law, which Bob Casey of PA proposed in early 2023. When Harris proposed an anti price gouging law for groceries in 2024, we learned from Zephyr Teachout that no less than 37 states have such laws, including Texas, usually enforceable in disasters and emergencies. SC,in fact, passed one hurriedly to get ahead of an approaching hurricane in 2024. Well, what was Covid? That wasn't a disaster? No wonder people expected something to be done, "markets" be damned. It's NORMAL. I'd be astonished if Europeans didn't feel the same.
Deference to "markets" (meaning, in reality, those that control them) probably lost this election. Forcing Republicans to stop either a tax or a law would given THEM ownership of "inflation".
Btw, Dr Krugman did remark of Harris' proposal, 'couldn't hurt'. It would have done a lot of good in 2022, when Democrats could have passed it in the House.
There's video of a Fox townhall in Ohio in 2022 in which Brett Baier asked Tim Ryan (running for Senate, Vance won) what he clearly thought was a gotcha question about Biden calling for action on gas price gouging. Ryan's expression of support, given how high prices were, and ongoing stock buybacks, got such vociferous approval from the audience Baier hurriedly bailed ("Let's move on!").
Meidas Touch Network has it on You Tube, last I looked.
Here's where I wonder about your comments on the efficiency of government. Do you believe that the Federal government gets value for what it spends and could it spend less to get the same or better outcomes? Do you believe that the Federal government truly invests to ensure the future of this country? As you liken it to an insurance entity with an army, remember that most insurers don't invest for a better future, they focus more on immediate profits. Examples: why haven't the last 5 presidents and their Treasury departments locked in our rising national debt at lower, long-term interest rates instead of floating short term? Why has the IRS been paying billons to consultants with an IT system from the last century? Why does Medicare pay less than the true cost of healthcare, not investing in things like patient non-compliance which is responsible for 25-30% of our total healthcare spend? It encourages use of ER instead of investing more dollars in our poor communities to provide them regular healthcare access. I could go on, but I am not sure that you are truly looking at the cost/benefit of government spend. I am not saying that Musk/DOGE was right, but I am suggesting maybe they were looking at and in the wrong places to achieve better value for our tax dollars.
Because the donor class determines where that money and how much is spent? Prime example: Medicare Advantage. Another example....major Medicare fraud at HCA under Rick Scott's reign as CEO. What consequences did he face? Life as a permanent politician now from the state of Florida. Cerner has just about bankrupted many of those poor rural communities health care providers....no wonder it was a juicy buy for Oracle.
Are you sure you mean Medicare and not Medicaid/Calaid?
I actually meant all the government payers including Medicare, Medicaid, etc. They are being subsidized by the third party payers whose rates have to be higher to make up for this. There is a middle ground that would be far more fair.
MedicAd and Medicare are different programs. I appreciate people to be concise.
It is unclear to me who the "third party payers" are. Taxpayers?
People on Medicare have paid into that system, many of them for over 40 years. Only Medicare A is "for free". Medicare B has to be paid, the same goes for a Medicare D plan as chosen. Most of the Medicare-insured also pay monthly a premium to an insurance company to cover the 20% cap. Dental is has to be insured separately, vision too.
Now the problem as I see it is all the layers. Forcing doctors to bill twice, etc. Unless people opted for all-in Medicare Advantage which, sorry to say so, has many similarities to a scam. Although for a lot of people it seems to work.
You talk about "lack of adherence". No doubt that happens. People on Medicare are in most cases either eligible based on a condition or because they are old. And if you are unwell, you do not often make the most prudent choices.
But there is also the iatrogenic issue, something you do not mention. About 25-30% of medical issues are caused by medical interventions. If we could get a handle on that, we would save a lot of money. And a lot of suffering.
Third party payers are not governments, they are private insurers, sometimes connected to the patients employers who pay under negotiated contracts with providers. Their approved rates are higher than government payers, in part, because they are making up for the shortfalls in payments by government payers. All the government payers, pay the providers less than cost of providers. The lack of adherence is not a function of age or condition. It's a function of many things: patients don't take medicine as prescribed; they aren't communicating with their providers because they don't have adequate communication devices, transportation, burdened by transportation, childcare, eldercare responsibilities i.e. the so-called social determinants of health.
Thank you for explaining. I appreciate it. Did anyone ever do the arithmetic how much these third parties pay "over" because of the Medicare short-changing?
I agree about the social determinants. Some could be remedied by involving dedicated volunteers? But I think you should not omit lack of adherence based on medical condition(s).
As to the arithmetic, not that I know of, but it is a constant theme I hear in my healthcare volunteer life. You are right about medical conditions playing a role, but I don't think volunteers are the answer. The answer is that as part of good treatment, you increase the probability of adherence by steps that you take; such steps avoid future more costly steps that would result from lack of adherence.
The USA is too small for two such egos.
Yeah, we need to do away with both of them.
"...Musk, who otherwise seems to be able to create functioning companies (albeit with some government assistance)..."
Some government assistance!? Oh please, the only reason why Tesla is still a thing is because of the $465,000,000 government bailout loan it got in 2009. That is the basis of Musk's fortune, and getting that loan is the best business move he ever made. But that doesn't make him a great businessman. It makes him just another plutocrat suckling at the government’s teat.
THIS right here, is SO on-point: "[T]here's a general devaluation of expertise. Anybody who actually produces facts and figures, anybody who's actually studied a subject, is inherently suspect with the current regime in the United States. So it's almost disqualifying to know what you're talking about." And when that's the position of the party you're in a conversation with, there's just really nothing you can do to change their mind, because they have no actual mind. You just find yourself in an impossible position.
When the stakes aren't high, it's easy enough to walk away. But when the stakes comprise the continued existence of your country, and when the other party has created enormous fear in anyone in an official position to stand in their way ... well, you CAN'T just walk away. But "winning the argument" is undoubtedly going to come at a very dear price to you and the others who actually value facts, figures, experience, and expertise. And that's just where we are.
So who among us is ready to wade into these difficult waters?
The last time we had widespread buy-in and personal involvement in an effort of this sort was MAYBE the '60s (when I was a child) but certainly the '40s. And that basically means hardly anyone currently alive can remember what this level of sacrifice was like.
But I know for certain that not making the sacrifice, not stepping up with a willingness to pay whatever price ends up being necessary is GUARANTEEING that the price you pay will be your freedom, your dignity, and that of your children, your grandchildren, and your great grandchildren, as well as that of all life on this land and in these oceans. Because what they want to do, what they are in the process of doing, jeopardizes all of that. ALL of it.
It is what it is. The anti-immigrant frenzy and the DEI madness is simply America's original sin, its racist roots emerging yet again.
Yes there is the rich vs poor business and the tech revolution but the basis of Trump's support is racist. Sad to say because I thought we were past that and I was wrong.