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Regime Change
Upon taking office Wednesday, Joe Biden moved to immediately reverse, undo, and otherwise rollback some of Donald Trump's more controversial policies and initiatives.
The new president signed a multitude of executive orders right out of the gate. On the list of "corrections" was a halt to Trump's infamous "Muslim ban," which Biden's national security adviser described as "nothing less than a stain on our nation, rooted in xenophobia and religious animus."
So, say goodbye to that. And also to t
Dear H, I was reading a conservative letter writer and his ‘solution’ to solve inequality was to raise interest rates (as even a modest absolute number, say, 2.5% real IR would crater equity valuations, highly leveraged zombies etc that normal people aren’t really exposed to).
I’m obviously with you on the whole “it ain’t a good idea to burn down everything in order to be able to rebuild a nice economy” but I was wondering if you had other arguments.
I, for one, would want to see more “QE for the people”/helicopter money where the Fed largesse is distributed to normal people but I also think that it would make sense to raise rates afterwards and raise taxes on the richest (inasmuch as we can do within the corrupt political system of the USA) in order to ‘cure’ the economy.
This is only one sentence when there are tons of things that would go in a general overhaul. But still. Interested in your take as to what the “solution(s)” might look like.
Think about what you’re saying.
You’re saying that according to this unnamed “conservative letter writer,” solving inequality is as simple as hiking fed funds 400 basis points, deliberately crashing the stock market, and intentionally forcing a wave of bankruptcies among over-leveraged companies (which, by virtue of being companies, have employees) during the middle of a recession, when 10 million people are out of work and 3,500 people are dying every, single day from viral pneumonia.
And your question is: Do I have any other suggestions?
I do, in fact, have some other suggestions.
But let’s start with this one: Stop reading that person’s “letter.”
Mr H everybody should read everything. Birth of humor.
National Review is almost as funny as the National Lampoon. Huffpost is another good one.
NY Post is a side spitter.
You ain’t exactly a desert.
I have great hopes that Georgia turns into “Soap”
While I agree that perhaps a break from the activities of the last four years is probably a good idea, such a “stasis” might well offer the nation states with whom we compete a nice opportunity to further advance at our expense.
My suggestion to solve inequality is to start allocating money to help people. It sounds simplistic and it is. But at bottom that is what moves the needle. Whether you are talking about tax cuts/grants for the struggling, health care, housing aid, education, public health, unemployment insurance, worker training….. the list is long. This is all about fiscal policy and rebuilding and reimagining a safety net. People need to take risks, but failure when you take risks should not be catastrophic.
Republicans are 100% behind the wealthy that supply them the funds they need to hold their jobs. They will fight tooth and nail to keep the unequal distribution of wealth in this country just as it is. I see one way forward; the business community needs to step up. They are the only ones who can change Republican minds. Gridlock on addressing change is what will hold this country back. China is gaining on us while the Senate works 3 days a week. Imagine a war where the generals refuse to talk about strategy, let alone even come to work.
I understand the desire for stasis, given the breakneck insanity of the past several years, and I do expect it will be the dominant wind in Washington and amidst the ‘nobility’ at large. It is a comforting notion to them, wrapped cozy in wealth and their belief in myths like American exceptionalism. One of the tragic flaws of American exceptionalism of course is that it blinds people to really learn from (non-American) history. And the nobility remains almost entirely immune to the pain that could disabuse them of these myths. They are also immune to accountability. The problem with all of this of course is that stasis is what got us to this point in the first place, an empirical conclusion that the nobility has yet to take responsibility for. The ‘serfs’ across the political spectrum have clearly had enough. Breaking points have been reached and surpassed. Tens of millions of small businesses, built up over lifetimes, have been destroyed. People are opting out in different ways, becoming radicalized, or otherwise moving toward various forms of anarchism. So reversion to the mean is, simply put, not going to work any longer. What is needed is not amelioration, but some real leadership. The kind of which has not been seen in this country for at least a half a century. They have got to come clean. Own up to things. Propose structural solutions. We’ll see if they are up to the task.
For reference, according to tracktherecovery.org the number of small businesses open is down 30% from January 2020. There were 30 million small businesses in the US. Small businesses also used to employ roughly 50% of the workforce. Also, good to keep this all in mind when reading fund manager surveys and their consensus around reflation.