Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't understand the logic behind party A did something, and then blame party B for not undoing it. Not everything is a simple ctrl-z, and the blame lays squarely on who implemented it.
It's called the ratchet effect [1]. In our modern political paradigm, conservatives torch the economy, introduce heinous policies and give massive tax breaks to the wealthy until their popularity drops enough that Democrats get voted in and... do nothing. This has several names such as "controlled opposition" and the "mirage of dissent" [2]. As an example, take the current Iran war. There's very little opposition in…
The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling
71–80 of 101 posts
Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is all being exacerbated by the disastrous war in Iran No, why? US is an exporter, not importer of oil, so any price increase of crude oil is good for US. Maybe not consumers, but government (Venezuela had literal amine while exporting a lot of oil and honoring all of the international debt payments). So US must have more money to service its international debt.
>> US is an exporter, not importer of oil, so any price increase of crude oil is good for US. It is good for US oil producers , who have indeed been making money hand over fist exporting oil at a premium. It certainly it not good for anyone else.
Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling
#73As everyone should know by now, the US government runs a massive deficit, that is the difference between tax receipts (and other income) minus expenses. The current US public debt is hovering around $40T and the annual deficit is pushing toards $2T. A lot of that $40T was borrowed at lower interest rates but let's assume for argument's sake that it was borrowed at 5%. That's $2T in interest alone every year. There's…
American fixed 30y mortgages actually make interest rate policy much less effective, in theory. In most countries with normal mortgages, raising rates fairly immediately transmits through to the rest of the economy, because it affects the mortgage market. This isn't true in America, because everyone quite reasonably is able to get these insane mortgage products with literally no downside risk - if rates go up, you do…
Since 1990 the top 1% of wealth holders have seen their share of the wealth increase significantly, almost entirely on the backs of the middle class (and to a lesser extent, the upper-middle class).
The middle/upper middle class may have more collectively than the wealthy, but this is why the middle feels materially poorer and more reactionary than they were 30 years ago. They are being outcompeted in housing (unfairly, by people with vastly more wealth) and are being overcharged and underdelivered on medical care, education and food.
The rich need to be taxed back down to a reasonable share of wealth (<20%) or the politics of the country will continue to be unstable because the masses will continue to vote for change, every election, in search of that outcome.
Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't understand the logic behind party A did something, and then blame party B for not undoing it. Not everything is a simple ctrl-z, and the blame lays squarely on who implemented it.
It's called the ratchet effect [1]. In our modern political paradigm, conservatives torch the economy, introduce heinous policies and give massive tax breaks to the wealthy until their popularity drops enough that Democrats get voted in and... do nothing. This has several names such as "controlled opposition" and the "mirage of dissent" [2]. As an example, take the current Iran war. There's very little opposition in…
Biden did a pretty good job cleaning up after Trump. Was he perfect? Not even close. But Dem primary voters had the option of more progressive candidates and instead they circled around Biden. Did donors try and engineer a Biden win? Sure. Were voters obligated to go along with their scheme? Also no.
The blame for our situations rests squarely on the shoulders of the American people, who have been living so insulated from the consequences of their votes that they entertained a guy like Trump, twice.
Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling
#75Reuters attributes this to be somehow a personal flaw in Walsh. Pretty sure Jerome Powell, the previous chair, would have done exactly the same thing. In fact Jerome Powell is still in the Fed and participated in this decision.
Jerome Powell would’ve communicated in a mealy mouthed and confusing way that was meant to appease Trump? I’ve had quite enough of Trump’s “meritocracy”, personally.
Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using the same word for two completely different things is very confusing. Also the Arabs took the land from the Byzantine empire in the 7th century AD.
> Also the Arabs took the land from the Byzantine empire in the 7th century AD. A historical event from 1300 years ago is a bit irrelevant to contemporary issues.
1300 years vs 78 years, what is the cutoff?
Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's called the ratchet effect [1]. In our modern political paradigm, conservatives torch the economy, introduce heinous policies and give massive tax breaks to the wealthy until their popularity drops enough that Democrats get voted in and... do nothing. This has several names such as "controlled opposition" and the "mirage of dissent" [2]. As an example, take the current Iran war. There's very little opposition in…
Other than Dems having a super majority for a few weeks with Obama, when was the last time they were “voted in” at a national level? Biden did a pretty good job cleaning up after Trump. Was he perfect? Not even close. But Dem primary voters had the option of more progressive candidates and instead they circled around Biden. Did donors try and engineer a Biden win? Sure. Were voters obligated to go along with their sc…
Republicans like the filibuster because they can force through most of what they want under reconciliation, which only requires a simply majority, and they can block Democrats with a minority. Democrats like the filibuster because it gives them an excuse to do nothing. Because a lot of what Democrats want to do isn't filibuster-proof.
Also, the filibuster once meant that you had to stand up and hold the floor to block a vote. Now we have a silent hold since the 1970s. If you for some reason believe in needing 60 votes to end debate, why not at least adopt the earlier interpretation that requires someone to stand at a podium? Because Democrats don't want to do anything. That's why.
Biden had four terrible decisions in his presidency:
1. Appointing Merrick Garland as AG. He's another establishment Democrat that didn't want to do anything, really, particularly not prosecute the insurrection that took place. He was embarrassed into doing so by the January 6 Committee. He basically lost 2 years of potentially prosecuting the administration;
2. His Israel policy, particularly the bear hug strategy and especially not ending the genocide;
3. Not raking MBS over the coals for not ending the Trump 2020 OPEC deal, wich exacerbated the inflation price shock; and
4. Running for re-election.
It's worth adding that the only reason Biden was the candidate was because the DNC was scared Bernie Sanders would be the candidate so they fixed the race in South Carolina thanks to Jim Clyburn in particular. Everyone dropped out of the primary and got rewarded with Cabinet posts, etc (eg Pete Buttigief as DoT Secretary). Except one. Elizabeth Warren stayed in to split Bernie's vote.
As for blaming the voters, I 100% disagree. The party leadership has repeatedly engineered situations to give the voters terrible choices and rely on lesser evil voting. After the 2017 election, the DNC got sued and argued in court that they had no obligation to stay neutral. That was a political promise not a binding promise. Basically, they argued that they were free to overrule the will of primary voters with superdelegates and manipualting of funds by then DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who when exposed and was forced out, just went and joined the Hilary campaign.
Voters stayed home in the millions in 2024 (vs 2020) because they were given no choice. They're not responsible for that. The candidate is. And if you end up being angry about Kamala losing, blame her for having a terrible platform, not the voters who decided a slightly better candidate was the only available choice.
Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look at outcomes, not just words. Bernanke made a correct prediction that the rate had to stay low and that it wouldn't result in high inflation. Meanwhile, the ECB started raising the rate once the economy stopped crashing. And that promptly caused the second recession in Europe.
What caused the second recession in Europe was a decrease in energy supply. Country that depended the most on the North sea or North Africa oil and gas exports suffered the most. We still live under the constraints of our world, and energy availablity is a big one.
It caused the double-dip recession in 2012: https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/euu/eur... and https://www.statista.com/statistics/621489/fluctuation-of-fi...
The actions of the ECB caused at least 10 years of misery for Europe. The 2008 crisis was inevitable, but the US bounced back from it within 2 years. While Europe is _still_ not fully recovered.
Bernanke deserves a lot of credit for that. He was brave enough to ignore the deficit hawks who were screaming about "inflation" and "debasing the dollar".
Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also the Arabs took the land from the Byzantine empire in the 7th century AD. A historical event from 1300 years ago is a bit irrelevant to contemporary issues.
"A historical event from 1300 years ago is a bit irrelevant to contemporary issues." 1300 years vs 78 years, what is the cutoff?
Don't understand why you think 78 years is a long time, even less why you think it's equivalent to 1300 years.
Re: The bond market isn’t buying what Fed Chair Warsh is selling
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand the point you're making about blind devotion to Trump but the reality is that Biden is not free from blame here, in four ways: 1. Trump in his first term created the Abraham Accords that directly contributed to the genocide that has since happened (by excluding Palestinians from the process). Biden did not reverse any of that because he is an avowed Zionist; 2. Trump blew up the JCPOA that sought to incl…
"he is an avowed Zionist" What exactly do you mean when you say Zionist?
> If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one
It's lying about working on a ceasefire [2][3]. It's sending more and more weapons to Israel afer October 7, going so far as to split them into up to 100 smaller packages to avoid the need for Congressional approval [4].
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2HZs-v0PR44
[2]: https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/the-biden-admin...
[3]: https://truthout.org/articles/former-top-biden-spox-admits-i...
[4]: https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-us-quietly-approved-mor...