- Thoughts about whether the pandemic has led to autocracy around the world;
- How that, and inequality, have left Americans in a sour economic mood;
- A graphic illustrating how those who want to privatize everything think everything is about making money;
- The administration’s latest “administrative error” sends an innocent man to a Salvadoran prison;
- How Karoline Leavitt is obsessed by spiritual warfare;
- An economics professor explains why Trump’s ideas about tariffs make no sense.
Similar idea encountered twice today.
First,on KQED’s Forum radio interview program.
This morning hosted Alexis Madrigal, with guests Anne Applebaum and Steven Levitsky.
KQED Forum, 1 Apr 2025: How Countries Fall Into Autocracy
Alas there’s no transcript (at least not yet) but the point that struck in passing was how, *as a result of the pandemic*, people around the world are generally discontent, to the point where they keep voting incumbents out of office, via regular votes or recalls. (Rather than being guided by any overall philosophical or political goals.)
(And in fact, there has been a rash of recalls in the SF Bay Area in the past few years. Whenever everything isn’t perfect, many people seem to think, it’s the fault of whoever is in charge, so get ’em out of office asap.)
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Then this, on the front page.
NY Times, Talmon Joseph Smith, 31 Mar 2025: America Has Never Been Wealthier. Here’s Why It Doesn’t Feel That Way., subtitled “A surge in U.S. wealth has been driven by stock and home values. But the gains are concentrated at the top, leaving others in a sour economic mood.”
Is this the same or a parallel issue? Like, maybe inequality driven by Republican tax policies that favor the wealthy?
America is more prosperous than ever.
U.S. household net worth reached a new peak at the end of 2024. The unemployment rate has levitated just above record lows for three years. The overall debt that households are carrying compared with the assets they own is also near a record low.
But even a land of plenty has its shortcomings, influencing both perceptions and realities of how Americans are doing.
The U.S. economy remains deeply unequal, with vast gaps in wealth and financial security persisting even as inflation has ebbed and incomes have risen. And data designed to capture the overall population may be obscuring challenges experienced by a broad range of Americans, especially those in the bottom half of the wealth or income spectrum.
Consider this:
This seems to be a separate issue, but not entirely.
Despite the growth in overall wealth, economic confidence among American households has not returned to where it was before the pandemic. That was the case even before consumer sentiment readings — along with the stock market — were dampened by the prospect of an inflationary global trade war from President Trump’s tariff campaign. But what is also striking in the data is the increasing gap in perceptions along income lines.
Over the past four years, the University of Michigan’s monthly survey of consumer sentiment has shown those in the bottom two-thirds of income to be deeply pessimistic about the economy — with rock-bottom ratings more common during periods of deep recession, including the 2008 financial crisis.
In contrast, sentiment among the top third of earners recently rebounded after falling from prepandemic levels.
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This graphic showed up in my Facebook feed again. It’s been around for a while. Why conservatives want to privatize everything.
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The Trump administration scandal of the week is sending an innocent man to a harsh prison in El Salvador. It was an “administrative error.”
The Atlantic, Nick Miroff, 31 Mar 2025: An ‘Administrative Error’ Sends a Maryland Father to a Salvadoran Prison, subtitled “The Trump administration says that it mistakenly deported an immigrant with protected status but that courts are powerless to order his return.”
And they don’t care.
The Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing Monday that it had grabbed a Maryland father with protected legal status and mistakenly deported him to El Salvador, but said that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return from the megaprison where he’s now locked up.
The case appears to be the first time the Trump administration has admitted to errors when it sent three planeloads of Salvadoran and Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador’s grim “Terrorism Confinement Center” on March 15. Attorneys for several Venezuelan deportees have said that the Trump administration falsely labeled their clients as gang members because of their tattoos. Trump officials have disputed those claims.
While others in the administration keep insisting the man had terrorist ties. Karoline Leavitt:
Yahoo! News, from The New Republic, 1 Apr 2025: Karoline Leavitt Pulls a 180 After ICE Admits It Deported Wrong Guy
The Trump administration is continuing to lie about the Venezuelan nationals they deported on claims they were all Tren de Aragua gang members.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked on Tuesday about the case of Kilmer Armado Abrego Garcia, the Maryland-based Salvadoran national who was deported to El Salvador earlier this month based on a “clerical error.”
Clearly, this administration is looking for any excuse at all to deport people who are not white.
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And… Karoline Leavitt is a sterling example of black and white, good vs. evil, thinking. Conservative thinking.
Boing Boing, Jason Weisberger, 1 Apr 2025: Gilead is here: Karoline Leavitt thinks every day is a holy war
God saved Trump, prayer meetings before press conferences, and a certainty that THE LORD is on their side are just a few of the ideas keeping the notoriously dishonest Karoline Leavitt fighting Democracy.
In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Convicted Felon #47’s mouthpiece, Karoline Leavitt, described the “spiritual warfare” she is engaged in. There are “evil forces” out there trying to stop Trump, and only the grace of God has spared them. Their Lord also helps Leavitt articulate her words.
Childish thinking.
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Clear thinking about tariffs. And why Trump thinks every country in the world is ripping off the US.
NY Times, opinion guest essay by Jason Furman, 31 Mar 2025: Trump Is About to Bet the Economy on a Theory That Makes No Sense
My local bookstore has been taking advantage of me for years. I have run a trade deficit, giving it money with nothing but books in return. At the same time I have been taking advantage of my employer, running a trade surplus with it as it gives me a salary with nothing but educational services in exchange.
Thinking that way about the kinds of exchanges we all engage in is obviously absurd. But that’s precisely the reasoning behind the “reciprocal tariffs” President Trump is expected to announce this week. The details have not yet come into view, but if he does follow through, it’s clear the plan would add to what are already the nation’s highest tariffs since the 1940s. Their effect will be lower economic growth, higher inflation, higher unemployment, the destruction of wealth and a tax increase on American families. It will deal a blow to the rules underlying the global trading system and further empower China.
Mr. Trump has cycled through numerous rationales for tariffs: They will raise revenues, with foreigners footing the bill. They will help American manufacturers and national security. They will provide leverage against Mexican fentanyl and Canadian sovereignty. In all of these cases there is a bit of truth and a lot of falsehood.
But the one argument Mr. Trump has returned to again and again is that other countries are taking advantage of the United States. He measures the degree to which they are doing so by the magnitude of our trade deficit with them — that is, how much more money we spend on another country’s goods and services than we get from selling it our goods and services.
In this reckoning, the reason those deficits arise is that other countries erect tariffs and other trade barriers against the United States. It follows from this analysis that the solution is to reciprocate by erecting our own tariffs, which will either protect the United States or else get other countries to lower their barriers, either way reducing or eliminating the trade deficits.
Every step in this chain of reasoning is wrong.
The writer goes on to explain why.
