I missed posting yesterday because there was a Locus Foundation meeting (via Zoom) that began at 3pm my time and ran until 5:30pm, right through my blogging hour. At 5:30 it was time to get ready for dinner with my partner. The meeting was mostly a presentation by two consultants Liza had hired to provide a vision of how Locus might continue and thrive. Many things might change in the next year; I can say no more.
\\\
Let’s see what I can choose from, among the links I’ve compiled from the past two days.
LA Times, Aine Seitz McCarthy, 5 Dec 2024: Opinion: America needs to retake Econ 101
If they ever took it at all, is my thought. I never took an econ course, but I read the news and follow economists like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman and have gathered that many things most people think are obvious about the economy simply aren’t true.
Politicians of all stripes need to move away from selling voters the false promise that they have control over inflation and globalization. … As voters, it is also our job to learn some basic economics, at least enough to understand supply and demand for housing; the effect of tariffs, taxes and subsidies as tools; and the causes of inflation.
With a list of economic policies that might actually work to do what Americans want: expand the earned income tax credit; expand the child tax credit; build more housing; subsidize child care.
\\
Here’s one of those intuitive things that is simply wrong, and even the billionaires (who became so by running businesses) believe this.
NY Times, guest essay by Ray Fisman, 7 Dec 2024: Why Running the Government Like a Business Would Be a Disaster
It’s a popular idea; it’s also a terrible one. Businesses and government do fundamentally different jobs, and efforts at remaking government with an eye to cost-cutting can end in disaster. That’s because a lot of what the government does is hard to quantify and involves complicated tasks that inevitably require bureaucratic coordination and, yes, inefficiency.
Businesses often run more efficiently than governments do. So it’s natural to conclude that if only businesspeople were put in charge of public administration, everything would work better — shorter lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles, fewer cost overruns at the Pentagon, service with a smile at airport security.
The problem, though, is that business appears more efficient in large part because what it does is usually simpler than what the government does. … [example of auto glass installation] …
Contrast this with, say, the job of preventing terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Catching terrorists is a lot more complex a task than installing a windshield, of course, or even assembling a Tesla automobile. It involves cooperation among many agencies: F.B.I. field offices around the country, local law enforcement, the C.I.A. and other agencies across the Department of Justice and the intelligence community. They need to share information and deploy a range of skills, such as surveilling social media and tracking down and capturing criminals.
And if everything is done just right, nothing happens at all.
This last line is a key point. Extrapolation of why is left to the reader.
\\\
We had an item about how Republicans suddenly think the economy isn’t so bad after all, since Trump won the election. Now this.
Washington Post, Dana Milbank, 6 Dec 2024: Trump suddenly discovers that America is already great, subtitled “The president-elect is also discovering that the country is already great.”
With a list of accomplishments Trump claims even before taking office — solving the border crisis, bringing peace to the Middle East, reducing the opioid epidemic, and claiming the record stock market is due to his election.
Members of the reality-based community might have noticed that Trump did not do any of these things but rather is claiming credit for the Biden administration’s accomplishments.
With links to evidence.
Trump’s quick post-election pivot away from calling America a “failing nation” was inevitable. He spent the past couple of years selling the country a load of bull. Now, he’s inheriting a stronger economy and a safer country than he left Joe Biden, with the border more secure and crime rates lower, and inflation tamed to below 3 percent. Contrary to Trump’s apocalyptic campaign claims, the world isn’t on fire, and the U.S. military is not dominated by woke drag queens.
So what’s a defrocked doomsayer to do? Declare victory!
Politics is stories, unmoved by evidence about reality; his followers will believe him.
\\\
And yet, there are many signs that things will get worse, far worse.
- Salon, Heather Digby Parton, 6 Dec 2024: Donald Trump is not even bothering to hide the corruption this time, subtitled “Trump’s sons are scurrying across the globe to secure new deals with foreign governments for the Trump Organization”
- The Atlantic, David A. Graham, 6 Dec 2024: Fill the Swamp?, subtitled “Trump’s appointments are putting lobbyists and industry leaders into positions of immense government power.”
- Salon, Austin Sarat, 7 Dec 2024: Welcome to the New Dark Ages, subtitled “If Trump has his way, the next four years will be far worse than even the Gilded Age”
- The Atlantic, Adam Serwer, 5 Dec 2024: Trump’s Fans Are Suffering From Tony Soprano Syndrome, subtitled “Some conservatives are embracing the villains in what are supposed to be cautionary tales.”
- Here’s an idea. NY Times, Michelle Goldberg, 6 Dec 2024: Trump’s F.B.I. Pick Has an Enemies List. Biden Should Pardon Everyone on It. (My comment: of course pardoning someone implies they might have been guilty. But in today’s MAGA Republican world, prosecutions aren’t about committing crimes, they’re about retribution for disloyalty or not bowing to the king.)
- Yet another example of how I see the law as rationalization for prejudice and ideology. NY Times opinion by M. Gessen, 6 Dec 2024: The Supreme Court Just Showed Us What Contempt for Expertise Looks Like. The writer looks in to the tortured reasoning of the Supreme Court justices.
