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Odysseus And The Sirens
Larry Summers is worried. About good news.
Headline US inflation likely decelerated in July, which, if borne out by crucial data due Wednesday, would represent a welcome reprieve for American households. The optics of cooler prints would also be good for the Fed which, all "long and variable lag" excuses aside, isn't running fast enough to catch inflation. Maybe hindsight will allow us to say that in fact, the Fed did overtake inflation this summer by setting the stage for a recession that ulti
Rudderless…like a drunk sea captain attempting to land his ship.
Exxon Valdez intensifies
They will likely wait for September and do what they will do.
On a different topic, sanders ammendment today lost 99-1. Per my earlier comments, lots of rhetoric and no results. Not even close.
The Founders did a marvelous and radical thing in 1776 when they set the wheels in motion for the United States republic. But the historic trajectory of both parties in the United States has been conservative.
In my memory of the 20th century, progressivism became a line of thought for the Democratic Party in the 60s and 70s with the voices of George McGovern, Ed Muskie, and to a lesser extent Ted Kennedy. That said, the ideas expressed today by so-called conservative republicans are uncommonly radical. They in no way can legitimately call themselves conservatives. They are instead crusaders AGAINST certain fundamental tenets of American liberal democracy.
Bernie Sanders has been a persistent, progressive voice since he was back at the University of Chicago in the 60s. I admire the likes of Bernie, Pramilla Jayapal, AOC, etal. I believe they represent an evolving line of political thinking that’s happening in response to parallel realities across the US body politic. I like their ability to make a case for change and promote it patiently but persistently. Bernie has been presenting similar arguments for many years, and he has not stopped for blink.
Politics is not religion. To me it’s about thoughtful engagement and stomach. The Founders exercised both. To the extent we are thoughtfully engaged, voting, and generally expressing ourselves about our politics for the benefit of our citizenry and compatriots, we are engaged as our Founders were. Not all the words of all the Founders found their way into the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution. I cannot help but admire Bernie’s legacy. He is a good man, unlike self-serving, would-be autocrats among the republicans.
I happen to call myself a democrat. But I fault democrats and republicans alike for their horrible lack of backbone, and their lack of appropriate rhetoric to call out autocratic republicans for what they are. I’m no historian. But the democrats’ milk-toast weeny rhetorical approach to autocratic republicans simply does not work when confronted with radical, self-serving, autocratic lies.
Reading the books written by John Perkins and researching Paul Wellstone’s demise might give you some insight into the Democratic party’s reluctance to support Bernie’s legislative initiatives.
Bernie lost me when he promised that, if elected, he would “ban fracking on day one.” Poor Elizabeth Warren felt obliged to follow his lead. Yeah, he had to chose which wing of the party to cater to. In this case, he sided with wealthy tree huggers rather than most of the other 90%.
Powell would need to be strapped to the mast, with blindfold and earplugs to get beyond the noise. Of course that ends with a recession.
Subadra is right. It’s increasingly looks like obsessing over every datapoint is a fool’s errand.