LS: He got America to move way back towards getting on track after a deeply dangerous and crazy period.
The most flagrant, mind-blowing disinformation yet. 70+% of Americans disagree that the country is on the right track.
Women’s rights are being annihilated by Baden’s maniacal insistence on trashing Title IX.
Savings are being decimated by Bidenflation.
Afghanistan is a terrorist hub due to Biden;s foreign policy.
The fraud of “green energy” is destroying our energy independence.
Our national sovereignty is being eliminated entirely by his failure to enforce our immigration laws and borders.
Our education system is in tatters because of his teacher union loyalty, catastrophic COVID policies, and monumentally stupid social engineering.
His merry band of economic illiterates is sending the economies of families and the country down the toilet.
And his “armed, prepared to use force” IRS is about to become an American Gestapo.
Great job there, Larry.
It is really difficult to understand how someone of such supposed intelligence and experience could venerate such poor performance, and consider this a “return to normal.”
Well said. I would add his energy policies are arguable effectuating an energy crisis around the world, especially with our allies in Europe. And his Covid policies led to the termination of thousands of healthcare workers and military personnel. This feels like a much more “deeply dangerous and crazy period” than anything we’ve seen in my lifetime.
Deeply dangerous but Larry doesn’t address any of that he to suffers from TDS. He is living in the 20th century forgetting we in the 21st. We have suffered from a pandemic which has literally obliterated our lives and all Larry and his ilk keep telling us is we have to save the environment from who?
Summers is guilty of that which caused the lack of perception of oncoming inflation in those he was more correct than on that score: being part of a herd of myopic elites stuck in a groupthink exacerbated by a growing class divide and the outrage machine of social media.
He broke out on one issue only and is firmly in line on all the others. That's why he's blind to reality in all other cases. He's just fortunate that his clearsighted plainspeak on one issue didn't get him canceled; then he would have been on Common Sense telling that story instead.
Correct again among the guests, but not so much among the subscribers. The subscribers seem to be more pro than against, but then it’s hard to call especially after Nellie’s TGIF today.
I agree too--but seriously rethinking my subscription to this site --if all we're going to get is propaganda supporting disastrous policy and wrong-headed thinkers! Milton Friedman was right about markets--the fact that Summers "disagrees" with him is simply political, otherwise you'd have to believe Summers is incapable of critical thinking. I'm guessing he gets more money and power supporting the king-makers in the Democrat party. Yuck.
It is now clear that the so-called "respected" in our society are marking every patriotic American a fascist. Anyone who dares to love America will be in great trouble. We must hate ourselves and America.
Commonsense will continue to present the essays on what the woke tyranny is doing to innocents, but it will never present the harsh reality of who is behind it. Maybe after they have hung Trump in the public square, but I doubt it.
Try: Christian Parenti at NONsite.org on the origins of woke. It was a Taibbi link. New at Substack, the brand new Renaud Beauchard LIMITS AND HOPE article presenting an overview of the author Christopher Lasch. --- If you can find it, the movie CAPITAL based on the book by Thomas Piketty. Or, THE DYING CITIZEN by Victor Davis Hanson. --- Stay strong. Stay clear. America is a long way from done.
Thank you for the links. I like them all, except not Piketty from what I know of him. I left socialism ten years after college as I started my own company from scratch to which I owe everything. I heartily believe in "free enterprise," and I emphasize the word "free." It was still quite free when I started my company in 1972. I also believe in holding all businesses to reasonable regulations, a challenge no government has ever learned to do, because government is, by definition, terribly inefficient due to no one having skin in the game. But we must still do it with this awareness. Today the WEF is a totalitarian combo of giant corps and government run by maybe 1000 aristocrats. It is not even socialism, it is fascism in pretty clothing. There is nothing free today that these fascists cannot shut down when they choose.
But you right I will never give up, but I will not turn from reality as I see it.
TYTY for the tip, Sir Mike. I'd read M. Beauchard before, but lost track of him. Read the article and Your fine comment. Subscribed as well as bought "Haven In A Heartless World." I had five other books by Lasch on my list. Lor' knows when I'll get to any-a them. TY again, Sir.
"Lasch’s thought reconciled an American civic tradition which is "culturally conservative, politically radical and proposing a complex religious vision of existence" and Marxist schools of thought such as the Frankfurt School or Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson’s tradition of English Marxism. "
The Frankfurt School were the original shillers of Critical Theory. English Marxism is still Marxist fuckwittery. This loony you are recommending couldn't be a bigger 'tard if he mixed in "Mein Kampf" and the "theory" of Shrinking Markets into his batty batter recipe.
I wasn't aware of that. Beauchard's overview seemed to present Lasch as an opportunity to explore an approach to politics other than what I feel has become a knee-jerk "latest crisis what are we gonna do" hysteria that seems to be grounded in nothing. I'm for a regulated free market capitalism. Definitely not a utopian Marxist.I owe myself a Barnes and Noble trip. I'll check it out. Thanks for the heads up.
"Lasch’s thought reconciled an American civic tradition which is "culturally conservative, politically radical and proposing a complex religious vision of existence" and Marxist schools of thought such as the Frankfurt School or Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson’s tradition of English Marxism. "
Because I don't think that's factually correct. Yeah, Lasch started *out* Marxist. He turned around. Drastically. That's what I've "heard" but I haven't read any-a his books yet. I've seen plenty-a quotes of his tho. And the synopsis's I read about them aren't anything to do with Marxism. Quite the opposite.
Covid regulations that will cost us millions more when all these wrongful termination lawsuits are done being paid out.
The busiest people in the country over the next decade will be civil rights attorneys defending those wrongfully terminated due to vaccine mandates as well as parents who’s educational rights were compromised simply because they’re uncomfortable with a tranny twerking in the face of their 6 year old.
I may be in a bubble but the rising levels of distrust and anger at Washington D.C. in general and the Democratic Party in specific seems to be exponential. The Clinton machine knew about Biden's "non compos mentis" state before the election and they ran him anyway. To paraphrase JFK: "...ask not what you can do for your country but ask what you can get away with.." (Isn't Summers a long time cover artist for Wall Street/Clinton/Obama Globalist crowd?)
In 2016 I said that Job 1 for Republicans was keeping Trump in check. Missed that one.
Then, from the Department of Not Learning From the Mistakes of Others, Democrats seem to have followed the same playbook for Biden.
Watching the US Senate primary here in Connecticut, the candidate with the long history of moderation, who stood the best chance of pulling in the independent and unaffiliated voters, lost.
It’s extremely difficult for Republicans to deemphasize Trump when the Democrats keep putting him in the news, and doing it in such authoritarian ways like a show trial, home raid, enormous Russia-Trump hoax/lie, etc.
Keeping Trump in check? That was non-Republicans "job", and they did it to such an extent that they essentially prevented him from exercising his office throughout his term.
Quite honestly, I mostly agreed with what he did. He truly put America first.
But…quit the tweeting, use the resources of the office, just don’t be so boorish.
The backlash from his personality lost 2018 and 2020…and Congress climbing aboard the Trump train just made it worse. The opportunity was to present the right as the party of cooperation. Not conciliation, not full compromise, but not full attack mode either (not that the left doesn’t deserve it).
Maybe. But I think his personality was just an excuse for the Dems to attack him. If he had been MLK or Gandhi, they still would have found a way to take him down. It's all about policy, in the long run, because policy determines who holds the power.
Well then why didn't that megalomaniac force up the southern wall?? Why didn't that megalomaniac force on Congress a deficit reduction and balanced budget Act?? If "they" failed to keep "him in check"......these things would have been done. He had Congress the fist two years.
A megalomaniac will Tweet at will.....otherwise, I wish he had been the MAGA megalomaniac everybody accuses him of being.
DeSantis will win in 2024. So Trump will than be a just note in Presidential history and always "the Nazi Devil" of the Democrats and the administrative state. History will look -- if not favorably on Trump, but certainly with approving curiosity and astonishment. In my opinion.
Trump didn't give two shits about deficit reduction or "balanced budgets" - he wanted to pass massive tax cuts with maximal spending and was pretty transparent that deficit reduction was a "Paul Ryan GOP" obsession that Trump's GOP was no longer beholden to.
He did actually shut the government down over the wall funding (as a belated response to getting some criticism from right wing media when he was about to accept a CR signed off by both McConnell and Pelosi with no wall funding). This was after he blew prior opportunities to secure more wall funding in prior negotations that would have given him some money for it.
Trump was both a terrible negotiator as well as lazy about policy. Yes, he had a Republican Congress that he could have forced into submission given their majorities came on his coattails into pursuing the MAGA agenda instead of the failed Ryan-McConnell mission to repeal the ACA and then move onto a big tax cut. Notably, his other big policy priority, renegotiating NAFTA, was something that also only happened after the Dems took the House in 2018 and passed a good version of it that McConnell was finally pressured into signing for Trump - but was more notable is how quickly that disappeared into his rearview until the Democratic House brought a bill to the floor. Why DID he never pressure Ryan to do it?
Trump is megalomaniacal - but not about pushing MAGA policy beyond Trump's self protection racket he wants to install into the federal government should he be re-elected. He's a megalomaniac about Trump - securing Trump's power, prestige, attention and most crucially, his revenue pipelines.
Trump wanted the wall as a monument to him. But he didn't really care about getting immigration under control. If he had, he would have thrown his support behind the Tom Cotton bill in '17 or '18, which would have mandated E-Verify nationally, which would have stanched the flood of illegal immigrants. True, the family separation policy did much to stanch that flood, but it backfired by upsetting large numbers of Democrats and some independents. (They would have had a much harder time arguing that E-VErify, a policy which could have saved a lot of American jobs, is detrimental to anything except for illegal immigration.)
E-Verify would have worked better than a wall in no small part because it would have stopped people from overstaying their visas, who account for a little more than half of illegal immigration. Why? becauase they would not have been able to get jobs.
The Cotton bill also would have reduced legal immigration--not by much, but by about 250,000 annually, which would have been the first time, and might have paved the way for further reductions.
I posted something similar. Add so many other bad policies from ending investigations of Chinese influence (Racism of course) to the restoration of kangaroo courts in campus.
She might! Pretty much call her out on her nonsense all the time and she lets it go through. She must be a VERY nice lady. Tough too. She has my respect for sure .
Lady, please consider that Bari interviewing him and letting his words speak for themselves is a riveting example of what we need: a chance to listen or read what he has to say and think about it.
Much of what he said makes sense, but then you have to laugh at the idea Biden moved us to a good place.
I don’t disagree with you. And I wouldn’t even think of canceling my subscription. But that final assessment of Biden’s effectiveness pushed my buttons.
Sometimes we do have to let people shovel their own hole.
Milton Friedman also noted that (paraphrasing) "You can't have open borders and a generous welfare state, because the influx will destroy these services." Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris Administration and the Dems are going to destroy our nation's social services having promised all these illegal aliens FREE government benefits and opened our borders. Obviously, Biden-Harris and the Dems have no respect nor concern for the American people who have paid into these systems and continue to pay into them via FICA and taxes, yet the Dems are going to innudate these services with the demands from illegal aliens and these services will eventually collapse.
True, but I personally, I don't want to pay for CS when I can get this sort of thinking anywhere. Larry Summers and other power elite interviews (some in depth) are all over the place...for free. I come to CS for "out of the box" takes on current events. Matt Taibbi does a good job of that, CS, not so much. Same reason I don't listen to Megyn Kelly - I can go to fox news et al. for the same tripe. CS is not even an alternative to mainstream media at this point; therefore, my CS sub is not going to be renewed.
I’m getting pretty tired of, every time Bari hosts an article or interview with someone who isn’t parroting right-wing talking points, that the top comments are always, “Shame on you. I expect better.”
I expect viewpoint diversity, and that’s what Bari is providing. I subscribe here exactly because I can get a range of opinions on important topics, both in the content and in the comments.
It’s fine by me to rebut the article or interview, which this comment does excellently. It’s counterproductive, in my opinion, to try to shut it down. If that happens, then this will be not different than any major news organization. THAT would be a shame, because they all suck.
No problem with giving Larry Summers the opportunity to explain his views, but this was largely a softball interview. Barry tried to ask some good questions but clearly she didn’t want to push - it seems like getting to interview somebody like Summers is a big enough thing for Common Sense, she wanted to be careful. It’s understandable but not satisfying.
Bari doesn't provide viewpoint diversity. She provides far-left Republicans and far-left Democrats. She has never claimed to show a diversity of viewpoints and it isn't a goal.
And the issue usually isn't where they fall on the political spectrum, it's that the far left is so delusional they think that having a war on one front and a potential war on a second - both with nuclear powers - is a move away from a dangerous time.
Leftist delusions should not be published. They should be criticized every time they are.
Trump hate is boring. It was boring in 2016. I can’t stand anyone who can’t see beyond their TDS and especially someone like this guy who does it subtly but consistently.
Bari has a strong track record of bringing in Trump haters. One can see them for free anywhere since most media loves to hate Trump. Why would I pay for more of the same?
The only thing that keeps me here is the rare on point article where I actually learn something. This article wasn’t one of them.
Nellie’s Friday summary is awesome too. It’s about the only thing I like about Common Sense anymore.
your right about viewpoint diversity, but most of the commentators are taking Summers apart for the contradictions in his piece. Yeah, you get a few what you say, but not most
I agree with you about that. There are great comments on this interview, and I’m learning a lot by reading them and following the referenced links. If the interview had never been published, I would have missed out on all of it.
Honest, good-faith promotions of alternative viewpoints are useful "viewpoint diversity". Craven dishonesty and bad faith are not.
I admit that finding left-wing writing that is the former rather than the latter is virtually impossible, as the Left has self-deluded to the point of being uniformly cult-like. But that doesn't mean we should bend over for them.
Because she never offers viewpoint diversity from Trump world. Never. It's a total blank. So she's missing the story. IMO. That is what people are mad about and I don't blame them. If you supposedly stand for viewpoint diversity you would at least have ONE person on the Trump side every so often. She sees that as going to the dark side, as do many journalists except Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald, who are brave enough to go all the way around the circle, not just the safe zones.
Common Sense is trying to be a centrist media outlet, so it tries to find a common denominator to a broad range of political views. I have no desire to offend, but the “Trump world” that you mention is not a set of political views, it’s a personality cult, it revolves around a person, which is always a big problem, especially when that person is a narcissistic sociopath who would have his country burn rather than admit defeat in a relatively close election. This is why while you might find many ideas on CS that are palatable to people who have voted for Trump, CS will not cater to the “Trump world”. Being fed up with the lies, corruption and arrogance of the pseudo-liberal elites is one thing, being a cultist is another.
Sorry but the cult is on the left. Cults isolate themselves. They purge and persecute dissent. They demand ideological compliance. They are cultists. By contrast, what cult do you know would have its leader take credit for inventing a vaccine, urge his followers to take it and have many of them refuse? Do you think Jim Jones or Charles Manson would have tolerated that? Any cult at all?
But truly, this comment is WHY Bari should be among those far less insane where this subject is concerned. Plenty of journalists are able to see the bigger picture without dehumanizing. I just heard a great interview with Coleman Hughes on Triggernometry, for example. See, people like you and Bari are okay with cancel culture, with purges and persecutions as long as it's the Trump people who are being punished. You've yet to realize it's all the same thing. If we can't be a society that can tolerate Trump supporters then this madness is with us for the long term.
You are perfectly right, the left has its own cult, and since way before Trump decided to fix his tarnished brand by getting in politics - a cult that goes all the way from woke pathology to climate catastrophism. But just saying, in a childish way “But they’re a cult!” doesn’t change that fact that there’s also a crazy Trump personality cult. Again and again, two wrongs don’t make a right. It shows this is a deep American disease, affecting most people in this country, not just the left. Trump had significant achievements but he absolutely tarnished everything but setting this country on fire with his idiotic claims of having the election stolen - also sabotaging the Republicans in the process and handing Senate to the Dems on a silver playter !
I perfectly understand why so many people voted for him - the alternative was terrible! - but going along with his madness is, at this point, madness itself. It’s difficult to respect people who feed a cult of personality, weather it’s Stalin, Trump, Hillary or anybody else. That’s where the hard line is drawn.
Yes I understand that many believe it's a personality cult. Just a little background on me - I was definitely in the Hillary cult up until 2020. But the election changed me. I just saw too many powerful people pulling the strings for an election I thought Biden could have won outright - though that was before the Summer of 2020, which is really what caused the major shift -- and why I think Trump would have won were it not for the ways they "adapted" the election.
But all of that side aside, I understood that I had been a part of one side dehumanizing the other side and it made me feel sick. So I have spent roughly the last year and a half getting to know, and humanizing, Trump and his supporters. That doesn't mean I agree with him or them - it just means I get where they're coming from and what it's all about. It is closer to the Hillary thing in a sense, but with Trump I think he's fighting for people our culture and government sees as human garbage - the forgotten working class. His speeches are not full of rage and hate. They're quite the opposite. It just bugs me that this seems to be misinterpreted. Obama was a cult or personality, so was Reagan, so was Elvis. This is how we operate as a species...what I think we need more of is humanity...all around.
He only questions Trump’s motives. Give me a break. Trump likes attention - so what. The Biden’s (Joe - his brother - his son) are motivated by selling political access to foreign countries.
Pops, I would have loved to have summers tell his if his objections to Trump were reached before jan 6 and exactly which of trumps policies or actions justified his conclusions. Easy to throw around innuendo without specifics or facts to back up the allegations. Maybe he is all in on Russian collusion and is more similar to schiff than to Milton friedman
I agree with your specific criticisms of one aspect of his views, yet I still understand why she provided this fantastic interview of a brilliant, informed person. One big picture in Bari's interview was the importance of providing a range of views. One wants to hear the very best advocates of views with which one disagrees. I agreed with many of Summers' positions, and am willing to take a second look at the ones with which I currently disagree.
Supporting Biden over Trump, and attempting to steer economic policy decisions of the administration we have, like it or not, are understandable.
(ASIDE)
Summers is personally familiar with the stifling effect of the woke mob against freedom of expression of ideas, ideas that are well supported by facts, argued in a sympathetic and nonjudgmental way. He first came to my attention with his controversial and thought-provoking remarks about ONE of the reasons one does not see a proportionate percentage of females in "hard" science/math majors like my own, physics.
Summers pointed out that male and female bell curves on intelligence are very similar, with a significant difference. At the extreme high and low tails, females are under-represented relative to males. At the low tail, that appears to be due to higher incidence of what used to be called mental retardation in males. (The extra X chromosome may compensate for one defective X chromosome, on which crucial genes for intelligence appear.)
It would not be clear why women do not therefore have higher representation on the right end of the bell curve; my hypothesis is that the reason may be very similar. Women appear, given our limited understanding of the issue, to have lower autism rates than males. There are indications that a significant number of physics geniuses were also autistic, with associated extreme math ability, focus and independence of thought.
Physics success requires intelligence in that very high tail, in which the percentage of females is markedly lower than that of males. This is one compelling argument for their low relative representation in such fields, among several other significant factors.
The public outrage against this poorly understood argument was immediate. One can only imagine what it would be like today.
Alice - "Summers pointed out that male and female bell curves on intelligence are very similar, with a significant difference." Of course women and men are of equal intelligence but he's an economist not an expert on global gender roles. And though neither of you may know it, you have been seduced by mendacious, gender ideologues.
After a decades long, global, empirical study of gender roles and occupations across 160 countries and 55 cultures using the UN's "Gender Inequality Index" -- that crazy, far-right organization, you know, the UN -- actual, empirical scientists determined that the more gender equal a society becomes the GREATER the difference in the career choices men and women make. Just in case my long sentence confused things: "the more gender equal a society becomes the GREATER the difference in the career choices men and women make."
Norway, followed by Finland and Denmark, had the most gender equal society (based on laws, culture, opportunities etc.) on the planet and yet with that freedom men and women made different career choices. Women did not suddenly choose the "hard science/math majors". Ironically, horribly gender unequal countries, like Iran, had higher percentages of women in hard sciences. Why? Because it was one of the few opportunities for a good independent life offered to women.
In fact, this 40 year study was so powerful, and so opposite of the "social scientific consensus view" that it has even been given its own name "The Gender Equality Paradox." Goodness, how could it possible be that free to choose, women don't make the same choices as men?!?! It is because we are physically, biologically, and psycho-socially different, what's that word again? Oh, yeah: DIVERSE!
The study is "Sex differences in the Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures. Published in 2008 in the "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology"
thank you, I remember this study, too bad it is not well known (Guess the reason???) In the software development/support field i see a LOT of young woman from India this days, which totally supports above point.
In my very early physics career I worked with an Arab woman and was disabused of my stereotypes regarding the total oppression of Arab women, without saying there is no oppression. It was surprising to learn from her that Arab women were not considered to be innately less competent at math, as females were thought to be when I was in high school in the U.S. The Arab world is so diverse that this anecdotal experience is probably not universal. But keeping an open mind regarding preconceptions was one lesson!
It is my personal hope that the high end of the tail reflects cultural effects more than something innate, whether women choose the demanding career of physics or not. However, I am open to other explanations, and am interested in them.
I appreciate your hope. Mine is that the unique intellectual strengths of women and men are respected and strengthened thereby taking humanity forward as effectively as practical.
Alice, here's a book you might really enjoy: Https://genderparadox.com/books.html. It goes very deep into the bio-psycho-social factors of male/female differences. Along the way it provides the best exposition of post-modern/social constructionist philosophy contrasted with the western enlightenment philosophy - you know that far right empiricist and scientific method stuff along with the idea that objective truth exists. ;-)
From the book: "These two dimensions (Things - People) were subdivided into additional factors of interests, which were Realistic and Investigative (Things) and Social and Artistic (People). These factors, when analyzed separately, illuminate the beautiful complexity of the bimodal distributions between men and women in regards to vocational interests:
“Men have stronger Realistic, Investigative, and STEM interests, and women have stronger Artistic and Social interests that parallel the Things - People sex difference. These differences were large, with the mean effect size of 0.84 for Realistic interests and 1.11 for engineering interests, equal to a 50.9% and 40.7% overlap of male and female distributions, respectively. The mean effect size for Social interest ( d = - 0.68) was moderate, equal to a 58.4% overlap of distributions. In other words, only 13.3% of female respondents were more interested in engineering than an average man, whereas 74.9% of female respondents showed stronger Social interests than an average man. These findings echo Thorndike’s (1911) statement that the greatest differences between men and women are in the relative strength of the interest in working with things (stronger in men) and the interest in working with people (stronger in women).”
PatriotD, The book sounds intriguing and I have saved the link. I find the conclusions quite plausible based on personal observation, and share your hope. This difference would certainly explain much of the STEM disparity without resorting to bell curve issues and you are right to emphasize it. "Along the way it provides the best exposition of post-modern/social constructionist philosophy contrasted with the western enlightenment philosophy ..." This sounds particularly interesting as it seems to me that the valid innovations in post-modern thought have been extrapolated in questionable ways in woke philosophy, but philosophy is hardly my area of expertise and I can only learn.
I am an outlier in some ways, personally, but am attentive to gender issues partly as a consequence. In high school I was told I "scored with the boys" in math and 3-D spatial representation. I do not like working with people and have low empathy. What I appreciated about feminism was that there was limited career opportunity for people like me when I was very young, and feminism changed that.
Things have changed for the better in many ways and we will hope Bari's efforts contribute to even better understanding and practice.
Absolutely agree regarding the factor of the Gender Equality Paradox, as I am somewhat familiar with the correlation of greater freedom of choice leading to greater career choice differences. Summers and I alluded to many other factors; that is among those. I wrote of the one that was both controversial and of mathematical interest to me. Big supporter of Damore's essay at Google before he was one of the early cancel victims.
Your comments are always interesting. "And though neither of you may know it, you have been seduced by mendacious, gender ideologues." Do you mean to imply there can be no truth in the factor of the bell curve tail, and that those who bring the subject up are intentionally lying due to entrenched ideology, or seduction by those?
I'm glad you find my comments interesting. And I must admit now that I read your comment too quickly, its deeper than I saw at first, and I would say I erred in my reply (though it was an opportunity to share something relevant to the topic). My apologies.
And your question is in parts, so here we go.
"Do you mean to imply there can be no truth in the factor of the bell curve tail" -
absolutely not. I think the question is more, what might be causal?
I really like the second half of your question: "and that those who bring the subject up are intentionally lying due to entrenched ideology, or seduction by those" -- yeah, bring it :-).
First, I use ideology to mean something like a simple, single factor explanation for large, complex questions encompassing many variables.
Someone seduced by an ideology can't see they are wrong and so they are not lying - it is simply what they foolishly believe without much (traditional) critical thinking.
Someone entrenched or I'd say possessed by an ideology will often claim the ends justify the means and so they think lying and even violence is justifiable in their quest to bring about their perceived utopia. Gosh, that never ends well.
Now that I have carefully read the argument you put forth, it would seem unlikely to be related to gender ideology except in that the social constructionists would deny it out of hand since it is based on empiricism, which they claim is yet another tool of the male patriarchy to oppress women, and well anyone and anything, I suppose.
I think I had an emotional reaction to the "females are under-represented relative to males" trope. The "under-represented" argument is used by SJWs to all sorts of ill purposes. In the context of your usage, it was perfectly appropriate and necessary. Again, my apology for not being more respectful of your comment before replying to it.
Yes, a terrific interview, even though Summers punted on the hard questions and Bari let him. So if the woke crowd stifles any unacceptable view what is your call to action against this? His views on Keynes are well known and not surprising. He insists on nibbling on the edges without addressing the fundamental issues, not a big surprise.
Good point about call to action. Important to speak up against it whenever one encounters it in real life. It is like bullies or bigots, thinking they are condoned if no one objects.
Sometimes I also tend to discredit speakers based on one opinion, generally when I have little else about them to go on.
Summers is indisputably intelligent and informed. He knows more about the subject than I do. Therefore, I am willing to reconsider my own beliefs if he makes an argument against them. I may still not agree, but I value the opportunity to reconsider.
Now, Paul Krugman is also indisputably intelligent and informed. I do not find his predictive track record to be as successful as Summers', and Krugman's bias is so obvious that it strongly affects his credibility. I like that Summers is willing to address subjects independently, rather than following a Party Line.
Yip that’s exactly it get real people. Rob Henderson is a real person you can relate to him. Why not get an interview with JD Vance? He could tell you about his life in real America and his struggles he overcame to come out of an Ivy League university. I didn’t take anything away from Larry Summers in fact I found the interview very irritating also a man suffering from major TDS. Wish Nellie well for the up coming confinement please God all goes well.
Would You prefer Bari to cancel voices like Larry summers on her blog, because what he has to say makes You feel uncomfortable? Sure sounds like it.....
Bernd...i doubt that it is a matter of Cancel, rather, if you have the guy in position, ask the pertinent questions. such...with employment high while the GDP contracts for 2 mos., since this situation Never happened before (over 200 years) in this country, is somebody lying or are we just repellent?..lies
Please, Bari provided a forum for an opinion you don't agree with. She should feel zero shame for that, while perhaps you might consider why you think she should. If you think these are falsehoods, make your case but don't be like the ones who wish to shut down opposing views.
Kstills...to have the interview, fine. But LS is econ, so to let an opinion ride with a negatory on Trumpty, having NO explicits what-so-ever...not bright. Is LS comparing Biden with Trumpty or the BO.? If so...well...heinous.
As I added elsewhere (but it got buried in the thread), my last comment was uncalled for, and I withdraw it. I am simply appalled that someone as supposedly intelligent as Larry Summers could be so myopic to ignore the damage done by Biden and company.
Lady...you do an excellent job, however, your last post "shame on Bari", i can see why you would say this but, it is up to us to deduct from the post and to carry on, how else would we know the real LS?
Not due to his remarks, but dissection and condensing the vapor, brings access to the battle field...thanks.
You are correct. The last comment was vitriolic and uncalled for. I withdraw it.
I am incensed by the needless economic suffering created by the Biden administration policies, and am struggling mightily because of them. I do confess this bias: My home burned to the ground last year, and now trying to rebuild in this climate of inflation, supply chain shortages and labor shortages has created real hardships. Economically, life was significantly better before Biden.
"Larry Summers is one of the most important economists in the world. He’s been the chief economist at the World Bank. He was Treasury Secretary under President Clinton. He was director of the National Economic Council under Obama."
I am sorry Bari but with CV like this, Mr Summers is one of the most responsible for financial issues USA is facing now. He was one of biggest proponents of abolishing of Glass–Steagall Act, which lead to financial meltdown in 2008. He didnt "predicted" that. Consequences of this, we see still today.
His testimony as Treasury Secretary to Congress about effects of having permanent Normal Trade Relations with Chinas and its assentation to WTO in 2000 is legendary on how wrong it was. Entire thing can be found her
**There are, however, three crucial advantages to the United States in passing this bill, which I would like to focus on today:
-First, there are the direct and commercial benefits of the market opening agreement that we concluded last fall.
-Second, there are the economic and broader benefits to the United States of promoting economic and social change in China.
-Third, there is the ultimate enhancement of America's national security interests that comes from integrating China more closely with the community of nations.**
In reality only one thing happened, Wall Streat has outsourced all American Manufacturing to China, thus killing manufacturing heartlands of USA, and making us dependent on Communist Dictatorship.
Larry Summers is thus one of the "experts" that got us in this mess. He supported outsourcing of US manufacturing to China, then supported abolishing regulation that kept Wall Street in check. He didnt predict anything.
I couldn’t have said it any better. I’m surprised Bari didn’t see the ultimate irony of her story that all these supposed experts play both sides and are all part of a cabal to destroy the middle class and enrich themselves. Because, of course, they are sooooo much smarter than all of us, just ask them! I’d rather pick a random group of people off the street than these “intellectuals” to run our monetary and fiscal policy. I also don’t appreciate the snotty disdain for Trump who is in fact the only person in my lifetime whose policies were focused on benefitting the little guy and focusing on America First vs last.
Well said. Bari dropped the ball when she didn't press him on exactly how this bill would reduce inflation.
It gives huge dollars to the producers of wind and solar power, both of which are flawed technologies that couldn't exist without govt subsidies, and if you watch Michael Moore's documentary Plane of Humans, produce as much carbon as they save. Same with EVs. And I don't see solar panels or EVs in middle class neighborhoods. So this bill provides huge dollars to the corporations that produce solar, the countries (mostly China) that produce the raw materials and/or batteries, and the mostly well off consumers of the products.
What troubles me more is creating an army of IRS agents to go after the middle class. Personal tax revenues have grown from $1.8T in pre-pandemic 2019 to $2.1T in 2021. But that's not enough? Where is the evidence that there is so much tax fraud going on that justifies this massive increase in auditors during a period where trust in our federal agencies has plummeted?
I always appreciate Bari providing alternate views, but this article caused my respect for Larry Summers, who I never really paid attention to, to plummet.
Agreed on all counts. The IRS expansion piece is especially bothersome. I do wish she had asked him why they’re going to need to be armed?? And why we need more agents than the CIA, FBI and Border Control combined?
New IRS agents will be seeking individuals who underreport their income. Underworld and organized crime. This is where the tax gap is. This is why they need guns.
The real joke here is that all the folks who really have money (Gates, Clintons, etc) are allowed to funnel their wealth into their own personal “charitable organization” thus exempting most of their income completely from the tax man. So they get to create their own empires and lobby for their own interest under the guise of good works. The billionaire tax is a myth.
Meanwhile “self employed” hard working individuals pay 15%, not 7% social security (7%which they won’t get back); and they often pay unemployment compensation to boot -which they can’t collect because who can lay themselves off?
And back at the ranch, large corporations, government entities and especially Congress (!!) have their own elitist, self-funded medical insurance programs, while individuals and small business are the ones who fund coverage for the poor, disabled and non working....
In the final analysis, ironically, working class folks who hold lower paying jobs find they simply can’t afford the one-size-fit-all Obama care policies. (And come yo discover that Obama care policies are actually quite a step down in coverage for most individuals and more expensive than previous private insurance.)
And now Insult to injury-- the large pharmacy companies & many big corporations will only offer a 30 hour week to lower salaries employees because it allows them to totally side-step the cost of providing medical insurance to their employees.
In short, Obama care is a total bust in terms of providing cost effective health care- simply put, it’s a convoluted health INSURANCE plan - not a health CARE plan.
And more fallout: Many of the most efficient, independent doctors & medical providers have been economically forced to merge with a few super large bureaucratic healthcare organizations given the onerous requirements of Obama care. Result: now we see less choice, mega medical corporations; hospital administrators multiplying in number and salary level, and doctors pushed into being subservient, obedient employees. (Take notice: these days the best are NOT going into medicine.) Most of my best specialists have retired as soon as possible.)
Yes, more lower income folks have access to free or very low cost medical insurance, but look again . First, they only qualify for a lower tier of care and service. Second, there were far more efficient ways of assuring everyone gets decent direct medical care than setting up a the totally bureaucratic Obama care system of medical insurance to serve the poor.
How can I say this? Many nonprofit providers will give you an upfront 30% discount if you pay day of service and they can avoid cost & hassle of billing insurance.
So yep, that’s your cost of convoluted system ..at least a 30% surcharge. And still too expensive and out of reach for many Americans.
And this giant $$$$ bill is supposed to help?Yeah, this economist sounds pretty out of touch to me. The Morlock high tech overlords are winning.
Shirley, evidently, you’re unaware that you’re displaying your ignorance! Firstly, The CIA is not a law enforcement agency; as a rule, their agents are not armed. The approximate 20,000 armed United States border patrol agents who work for homeland security which employs 240,000 people, and the FBI employs approximately 35000 people, of them 7800 are special agents who carry weapons. The IRS employs around 80,000 people; a little over 2000 are armed special agents. So if we do the math: 20,000 border patrol +7800 FBI agents would be ten times the IRS special agents. Shirley, I have now armed you with the facts!
you're focusing on the "armed" piece it seems, but the numbers are still interesting. You say the FBI employs 35,000 people, but the IRS is about to hire double that number, doubling the size of their agency. Whether armed or not they'll be aiming their calculators at us to try to make up for the trillions of dollars of wasted spending. no matter how much we pay in taxes (and we already pay a lot) we will never make up for the excesses of the bloated US government. And given what we already know about a weaponized IRS, I'm not all that comforted by your numbers - it's still too many.
Shirley, my intent was never to comfort you; I simply presented the facts to the best of my knowledge. The IRS workers would be hired over the next decade and never grow by more than a manageable 15% each year; these people, for example, would help collect the uncollected 554 billion in 2019. There is only one reason I think people support tax cheaters: there are cheaters themselves!
Simple. To catch rich tax cheats who have been avoiding billions of their share of taxes because the IRS hasn't been enforcing the law, and to make them pay their share like the rest of us. Or are you in favor of tax cheating?
Who do you think wrote the tax laws. They are designed to protect rich people. If you stacked the tax code as written on sheets of paper it would literally stand three feet tall. Rich people pay something like 70% of all taxes paid. They are not going to pay more. These agents are going after us. We need a flat tax. No write offs. Everyone below the poverty rate pays. It’s the only way. The current tax code is a social engineering mess. It isn’t a tax code.
Rocky...simple, do you not see, they are not breaking law, the law is written and hence they use law to avoid. Bottom, in order to avoid a tax, people invest, which helps build the economy...come on!
Now for a Government to get more of YOUR money, they'll raise the cost of the companies that YOU buy from, hence those co. will raise the cost of goods that YOU buy...bingo. thanks. Rocky, it just sounds like "they got you"...again. take a breath.
I’ve sold records for many years, I sell records in order to buy more records, sometimes the records I sell aren’t cheap and most of the records I buy aren’t cheap. This year, I received an email from PayPal informing me I have a tax code to connect my account to my tax filing. So now my obsessive collecting of records is earn income. Guess what happened this year, I was audited. Even though I pay quite an ungodly amount of taxes through my job, now I’m having to hire someone to sort this out for me. Wish I was one of the billionaires who could support my record collecting and stay out of trouble with the federal government.
Bullet proof vests. Training. Guns. Ammo. Surveillance equipment. Expanded SWAT support. The creation of the "social credit score". The merger of social media comments and posts with tax records and banking information. The "...rules for thee not for me.." selective enforcement, the legal council you cannot afford, seizure of property, prosecution and incarceration of dangerous citizen "terrorist" offenders.
FYI, the tax gap is with underreporting by individuals, the so called under world economy and organized crime. That’s why the IRS agents will have guns, to investigate criminals. And I agree, they will also be pointed at middle class taxpayers. My preferred approach to the tax gap is to reduce spending. But democrats would rather increase taxes. Shameful.
IRS won't be going after the middle class. Going after anyone who criticizes the regime, which includes most of us here (and especially Nellie Bowles). Also going after anyone who tries to circulate honest information, which is called "misinformation" by the regime that wants to keep people ignorant. It's not about money, it's about power.
Jon, I agree with you that huge subsidies will be lavished on solar and wind. A fool's errand? - time will tell.
But just as a point of comparison - by many accounts the fossil fuel industry received close to $20 billion in subsidies from US governments last year..
Many good points, but you're incorrect to say that the repeal of Glass-Stegall led to the financial crisis of 2008. It was the mortgage industry in the US that caused that crisis, and Glass-Steagall never regulated the mortgage industry.
Glass-Steagall separated commercial and investment banking. If Glass-Steagall had remained in effect the crisis of 2008 would still have taken place, and the fallout would have been even worse.
Think back to 2008. Bear-Stearns had failed and its share holders were wiped out. Lehman Brothers had failed and was liquidated. Merrill Lynch and AIG were on the brink. Bank of America stepped in and saved Merrill Lynch, which was only possible because Glass-Steagall had been repealed.
What would 2008 have been like if a third major investment bank had failed? Glass-Steagall would have assured that.
Fannie and Freddie had a lot to do with causing that crisis, but Glass-Steagall wouldn't have prevented their gross irresponsibility either.
If Glass-Steagall was in place, actually crisis would be much milder, because it would be contained only to investment banks in USA. Commercial banks in USA would have been unaffected thus it would be mild recession and not meltdown that we saw 2008.
Reason for crisis started with mortgages, but it was spin out of control by collateralized debt obligations (CDO). Bassicly all banks started making bets that CDOs are all 100% safe with no risk because US housing market only goes up. These CDOs were packaged by newly merged commercial investment banks and old investment banks and then sold to pension fonds, banks abroad and others. This thing with CDOs was not possible during Glass-Steagall.
There was a reason why we never had similar meltdown before (since 1933), and that reason was Glass-Steagall, yes it was crude instrument, but it kept Wall Street in check, especialy speculations on Housing and Pension markets.
With Glass-Steagall Fannie and Freddie would have not have incentive to create and sell CDOs.
We never had a similar meltdown before because mortgage lending standards were higher. Do you remember the days when you had to put 20% down to buy a principal residence? The lowering of standards was done by Fannie and Freddie, which were landing pads for Democrats.
We had financial engineering while Glass-Steagall was in force. Junk bonds became a big thing in the 1980s. Investment banks would have created all kinds of dubious instruments if Glass- Steagall had been in effect.
Have you ever heard of Long Term Capital Management? It was a hedge fund that nearly brought down the entire international financial system in 1998 while Glass-Steagall was fully in effect. Glass-Steagall is not the magic wand you make it out to be.
While we can speculate what would or would not have happened if Glass Steagall had been in effect, one fact is clear. Bank of America would not have been able to rescue Merrill Lynch if it had been in effect and the crisis of 2008 would have been much worse.
Specifically, "The meltdown was the consequence of a combination of the easy money and low interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve and the easy housing engineered by a variety of government agencies and policies. Those agencies include the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and two nominally private "government-sponsored enterprises" (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The agencies — along with laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act (passed in the 1970s, then fortified in the Clinton years), which required banks to make loans to people with poor and nonexistent credit histories — made widespread homeownership a national goal. This all led to a home-buying frenzy and an explosion of subprime and other non-prime mortgages, which banks and GSEs bundled into dubious securities and peddled to investors worldwide. Hovering in the background was the knowledge that the federal government would bail out troubled "too-big-to-fail" financial corporations, including Fannie and Freddie."
And my personal favorite: https://www.villagevoice.com/2008/08/05/andrew-cuomo-and-fannie-and-freddie/ - all about how Clinton's appointee, Mr. Andrew Cuomo, bragged about how he put these measures in place in the name of, wait for it... wait for it.... "Social Justice." 2008 folks. 2 years before the capture of most of the Ivy's by the Critical Theorists and SJWs. Ah... had we only known then what we know now.
As I recall, during the bailouts the government basically guaranteed, the home loans, and never stopped. Or something like that... I don't remember the detail... do you?
Additional support that repeal was a significant factor (from investopedia)
“On November 12, 1999, President Clinton signed the Financial Services Modernization Act that repealed Glass-Steagall.16 Congress had passed the so-called Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act along party lines, led by a Republican vote in the Senate.
The repeal of Glass-Steagall consolidated investment and retail banks through financial holding companies. The Federal Reserve supervised the new entities. For that reason, few banks took advantage of the Glass-Steagall repeal. Most Wall Street banks did not want the additional supervision and capital requirements.
Those that did became too big to fail. This required their bailout in 2008-2009 to avoid another depression.”
Larry Summers only gets respect because he is one of the few prominent lefty economists who is not a complete political hack or left wing nutjob. But, you are correct that he has been wrong about almost everything.
Pretty spot on Raziel. Milton Friedman is ultimately correct once again: the government controls the money supply and when there is too much money chasing too few goods you get inflation. Unfortunately for us rubes Biden completely shut down oil and gas which really is torch raising inflation.
How is printing more money during inflationary periods going to lower inflation? It isn't. The UniParty is just sending YOUR money to their patrons who are the richest people in the world.
Thank you for that breakdown, I wonder what investments he has in his support of green energy and this new package that was just passed. I miss the days when a single bill was voted on.
Yeah, when I was young I thought we should trade with China, reasoning that if we needed each other then we were less likely to kill each other. Ah, the Naïve optimism of the youth. It did not occur to me that a kleptocracy clothed in a utopian ideology might grow stronger rather than change to become more free. Seems bloody obvious to me now.
PatriotD, I have a different take; the corporate capitalist saw an untapped market of 1.2 billion workers and consumers. And corporations cared more about their stockholders than their workers.
To be fair - a large part of the ability for privatization and capitalism to properly function is a adherence to the rule of law. The Russians seem to have ignored that part
You are probably referring to the Shleifer affair. Not well known in the US. All too well known in Russia. Was L. Summers involved. Sad to say he was. For fun I Googled summers. I found no mentions of the Shleifer affair. Summers was tarred and feathered for referencing the GMVH (Greater Male Variability Hypothesis), not his ties to Shleifer.
If you think that anything that happened in Russia has to do with American advice you have no idea how former communist countries work. State assets were sold for cents on the dollar (or much less) because powerful, dangerous people hugely benefited. You’ve heard about the Russia privatisation story but not about other smaller countries. It went exactly the same way, without any American involvement or advice. You’re buying into some weird, Americano-centric version of history that everybody in Eastern Europe laughs at.
This comment is late, and I don't expect that very many people will see it. But I worked on the International Space Station in the mid-'90s. I worked with two Russian contractors, Khrunichev and Energia. The Khrunichev people were smart. They knew their stuff. They were, in my experience, as talented as any American or European company. I would have been proud to work alongside them. The other company was Energia. We all knew that Energia had government connections. Their work was crap. They didn't document things properly, and they frequently made changes in production that weren't documented. We learned, through hard experience, that their engineering drawings often did not reflect what was actually built. Guess how it came out? To keep a long story short, Putin forced Khrunichev to merge with Energia, and most of Khrunichev's employees and management were dismissed.
Yeah, not surprisingly as corrupt institutions are corrupt in part because they are based on cronyism and political beliefs and not merit or competence doing the job at hand. Appreciate your comment, late or not.
This reminds me of a statement made by Matt Taibbi on this topic in a Common Sense interview: “We [the Americans] practically owned the place [in the early ‘90s]”. Poor Matt, he lived in Russia at that time and still never learned that in Russia you don’t own anything unless you have a gun, very specifically the biggest gun. You can imagine the American economists in Moscow ordering around the local big guys in black leather jackets who were putting their guns on the table in business meetings (real case!) ?
The “American advisors” for the “shock therapy” of abrupt privatization in the early ‘90s were just a simple smoke screen for powerful local interests, ready to physically eliminate anybody standing in their way. And what was the alternative? Supposedly keeping assets into the (corrupt) government hands until the ex-communist countries would reach a level of “civic and political awareness” that would have allowed honest privatisation? I lived in Russia too, and I know that will take much, much longer than our life spans, if ever. Just look where Russia is now, on the path to civic spirit and honest business. Same in my country. On the other hand, look at the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, they succeeded to do it reasonably right. Let’s stop blaming the deep historically rooted shortcomings of our people on the West.
You’re taking here about a completely different thing. In Soviet propaganda in the West, it was called “whataboutism”. How can you criticize our lack of freedom? What about the way you treat your black people?”
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Let’s put our own house in order first and then complain about the evil Western elites, who supposedly did us so much evil.
I would clarify, "Some are just as evil, cynical and narcissistic as the old Soviet elites were." That is very true, and they remain admired as the media doesn't cover their excesses, they ignore the obvious and celebrate the ideological pathology. Bill Gates is a good example - Mr. "math is racist" (I got that from his own website, it was his second largest education donation last year), he's selling climate change (e.g. telling everyone that we need to stop eating beef to reduce carbon emissions despite that being an infinitesimal carbon creator when compared to say coal or third world countries burning dung and wood)and buying up farmland. So he can now independently impact food production in the US - just deny or otherwise put restrictions on the land leases.
This reminds me of a statement made by Matt Taibbi on this topic in a Common Sense interview: “We [the Americans] practically owned the place [in the early ‘90s]”. Poor Matt, he lived in Russia at that time and still never learned that in Russia you don’t own anything unless you have a gun, very specifically the biggest gun. You can imagine the American economists in Moscow ordering around the local big guys in black leather jackets who were putting their guns on the table in business meetings (real case!) ?
CL - at a macro level I guessed that the real power before and after the fall of the wall changed but by not more than half. Meaning that the party members (people) controlling most wealth (thinking monopolist/oligarch) before and after the fall didn’t change that much, but the political systems around them did. So the move was from one form of corruption/tyranny to another. You were there, do you know about that?
Thanks CL. I've read that USSR was full of true believers, but people are people, trade is trade, and the political beliefs mostly inform what they think is okay and not okay. Most of the money ends up in the top x% regardless. The question is how well can the majority do, how bad does the bottom have it, and how productive and moral are the societies. The West has no monopoly on morality but compared to its peers, it is easy to show it as more productive, less tyrannical, more equal, more diverse, etc.
Mr Summers lost his credibility to me with his last comment about Joe Biden: "He got America to move way back towards getting on track after a deeply dangerous and crazy period."
The only interview with Larry Summers I'll ever respect is one that starts with this...
Larry, over the last 25 years you've helped lead the greatest wealth transfer in human history through the complete bastardization of Modern Monetary Policy. In this period you've completely destroyed class mobility in the United States (one of our economy's greatest assets) and oversaw a real income and purchasing power decline for the bottom 25% of the country, while the top 1% increased its real income and purchasing power by more than 1000%. Why? And how much money did you personally make during the last 25 years? Do you see any issue with the poor getting poorer while the rich get almost unimaginably richer, all while you've become famously wealthy?
Should we all guess what his answers will be as no journalist will ever actually ask those questions? Instead we get non answers on how Summers bribed Manchin to get his vote on an "inflation reduction act" that every sane person knows will only increase inflation?
I have really enjoyed Common Sense but it's a good thing none of us come here for insights on how to actually pressure the ruling class. Bari is great, and we need people addressing "suburban mom problems," but I hope she appreciates that this is why so many people still follow Tim Pool, and Alex Jones, and all the people the Bari's of the world look down upon because they'll actually have real conversations about REAL issues that are destroying the fabric of this country. And Bastardized Modern Monetary Theory - and the destruction of of our class mobility and economic independence - may well be the top of that list. It's really too bad we couldn't ask one of the men most responsible for that destruction of our societal fabric why.
The D.C. hog trough is just that. I don't know how long we can keep screaming "..they're robbing us again.." to one another. Crisis to crisis, they pretend, and America pays. But apparently, not enough. If every mortgage, deed and dollar was converted and handed over to the U.S. Treasury it wouldn't satisfy the venality and megalomania of D.C. hucksters. First your livelihood then your life.
"...the horseleech has two daughters who cry give give...."
Just a guy who likes to learn, and try to share what I've learned so it can be challenged and improved, and shared again, and challenged again, and improved again, hopefully all the way until I die.
But more likely a guy who ends up being a stubborn old man once I lose the joy of having my children in my house challenging me every day... but I try to be an optimist :).
His lobbying of Manchin is where he lost it with me, and the Biden comment only added an exclamation point. He wasn't the lone voice in predicting inflation, as any/everyone outside the Dem party establishment could see it.
When a liberal expert said inflation wouldn't be a problem, everybody in the center doesn't believe them because that's their job. When a conservative expert says inflation will be a massive problem, nobody in the center believes them for the same reason. The experts who go against their own party are the ones who stand out.
87.000 ARMED IRS agents. The assault on small, family owned businesses is about to begin. Armed? Only if you believe every small taxpayer owns guns. Somehow, after hearing Tucker list out all the racist directed money and programs in this "inflation" bill, my guess is they are going to intentionally go after white owned small businesses and farms.
I read that. It was a single job posting that was posted before the bill passed. The 87000 new armed IRS agents nonsense is incorrect. Or more accurately, it is a lie.
That said, what's even more onerous than increasing audits of middle-class taxpayers and small businesses is that the Democrats want to allow the IRS electronic access of every financial transaction (above a low threshold), put it into a database and mine the data.
I believe this is the mantra for the woke culture warriors; paranoia strikes deep into your life; it will creep. Now, to put some perspective on the new IRS employees. Approximately 20,000 armed United States border patrol agents work for homeland security, which employs 240,000 people, and the FBI employs about 35000 people; of them, 7800 are special agents who carry weapons. The IRS employs around 85,000 people; a little over 2000 are armed special agents.
"The tax and climate bill includes $80 billion over 10 years for IRS. When the Biden administration first floated that funding total as part of an infrastructure package last year, it released a report finding it could use the money to hire 86,852 employees. The Treasury Department said IRS would hire around 5,000 workers in the first year and slowly grow that to around 12,000 annually toward the end of the 10-year window. The administration and Senate Democrats, however, said that number is partially accounting for the tens of thousands of employees IRS expects to leave through natural attrition in the coming years."
Oooooh scary! Populism! Dear God! Where are my Harvard-branded smelling salts; the dirty little people might *pollute* politics with their silly and dangerous idea they have a right to self-advocacy!
I can’t believe this pompous asshole literally used the word POLLUTE.
Populism is bad because you're ascribing authority to people who aren't educated enough to use it. By "educated" I don't mean college--there are plenty of smart people who didn't go to school. I mean people who flat out don't know how government works.
Government is the only area where people seem to think total inexperience is a plus. I never hear anyone say "that surgeon has been in the system WAY too long I'm going to let this biology major put in that heart stent" or "the pilots at United need term limits because some of them have been flying for more than 10 years."
Government is a big, complicated, messy business and we need smart people who understand how it works. Now, there's some legitimate disagreement about how it should work but people should still "pay their dues" as they learn about it. For example, you start on a School Board or something similar, maybe become a mayor or councilperson, then a state representative, then move into the federal system.
I'm center-left, but I'll take conservative Mary who went to business school and was in the state legislature for 10 years over liberal Jordan who participated in a bunch of protests. Same thing on the other side, I'll take liberal Mike who studied law and ran a housing department over conservative Bubba who was a fry cook.
We broadly agree, but I would argue that those who have spent their entire lives in government are just as unfit to serve ("serve") as those who have spent no time in government, probably more so. No one is arguing for making a fry cook president, but I'll take a fry cook who eventually bought and ran the restaurant and then served on his local municipal business development board and then ran for school board for ANY office, including president, over a lifelong trough-gobbler like Obama or Sanders, and their fellow traveler suckerfish like Summers. None of those is qualified to run a nail salon, let alone the country.
Summers is so clueless that he says things like that 'pollute' remark (and then gets lauded for his 'bravery' by well meaning but naive people like Bari) without pausing to remember what happens, historically, to elites who think they're above correction.
This depends entirely on the integrity of those "experienced" people. Too many just become grifters in love with their power and vastly increased wealth that just mysteriously happened.
And, it also presupposes that these experienced people are the best judges of how the lowly plebe fry cooks want - no - SHOULD to be governed. People don't like unsolicited advice, and they really don't like unsolicited government. 80000 new IRS agents with guns?? Even a lowly fry cook Bubba understands this new army is not being assembled for storming Jeff Bezos's castle.
I felt similarly about the IRS but then saw an interesting article on how thoroughly antiquated they are. Everything is still done with pen and paper. Even people who submit their returns electronically can't do any kind of advanced tracking.
Most of the new employees are not going to have guns--they're going to be rank and file auditors, accountants and (hopefully) technology professionals. The only ones with guns are going to be those who have to seize assets but I'm a bit wary of that--shouldn't they just work with the FBI or Sherriffs when that becomes necessary?
Power tends to corrupt, and the longer one holds power the more corrupt one becomes. Experiened thieves are more dangerous than amateur thieves. What we need is a government that is less "big, complicated and messy". Maybe one with limited and defined powers, as James Madison described the Constitution. Then our government can be less dangerous to our liberty.
Ideally, shouldn't term limits be organic in that people will vote out those they feel have been there too long and are no longer doing their jobs? Maybe that's just wishful thinking given how geriatric our Congress is.
I did a thought experiment with some friends where we discussed what would happen if the House of Representatives were chosen randomly from all adults and you had to serve a year, similar to jury duty. You'd get a lot closer to representing how people actually feel and there's be little chance for lobbyists to buy them off because they wouldn't even know who they are until it was too late.
Another option we discussed was selecting representatives statewide and eliminating districts altogether. If you live in a state with 10 representatives, you vote for three (or some other number). The 10 with the most votes statewide win. That eliminates gerrymandering and allows underrepresented groups of people in districts to band together and get at least one seat at a statewide level.
Interesting. I’d go with the normal two year term. Just like jury duty is a very good analogy. Statewide might not work for me as I understand what you are saying. I’d be concerned a red or blue state would have all the same party in congress
Right! Populism is bad, sure, but “wokeism” has polluted American politics to the point dangerous outcomes and bad policies TODAY. How can that be ignored?
Just out of curiosity, you say "Right! Populism is bad, sure"…
Why is it "bad". It’s like saying "liberalism is bad". "Progressivism is bad". "Theology is bad."
The idea that the government should act in the best interest of the people of a nation is core to "populism". It can be taken to dangerous extremes (like any believe system) but why simply dismiss it as "bad"?
Fair point. It can lead to bad things as all extreme ideas can, which I think is what he means. I’m willing to grant him that but not to the exclusion of the particularly bad ideas that got us to this point.
I almost never watch videos over 10 or 15 minutes. But this 30-minute video of dialogue between Summers and Ray Dalio was interesting. In case You don't know, Dalio is much more Conservative than Summers. And Summers is disliked by Progressives, so there is that.
Someone here (mebbe Raziel?) provided this link. Didn't pay much attention to the article itself. The video was worth it: Dalio discusses populism and he goes into what needs to be done, and how difficult the situation is, very realistically. Granted, most people are immune to a POV that's different than theirs is. In my experience, it never hurts to look. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/15/larry-summers-emerges-as-the-unlikeliest-democratic-hero-00051433
Good discussion. I was very troubled by Larry’s comment of “ We are living in a time.. where we are not living in end of history”.
But it still doesn’t address why “populism is de-facto bad”. The civil rights movement of the 60’s was a populist movement.
Taken to extremes (by either the far left or right) is bad but to simply fall into the trap of saying populism is bad simply serves a very specific narrative.
I can't recall whether it was Summers or Dalia or both, but mention was made about populism on the left. I *assumed* it was talking about the Woke, but I-sure-CBW.
TY for Your reply. I took that first comment by Summers to mean that events have contradicted what Fukuyama wrote in his views when the Soviet Union collapsed. "End of History and the Last Man."
I'd hafta relisten to the piece to be sure, but I took that about populism to mean that what the Right has done is elevate someone, one-a whose primary qualifications is that he likes to fight. More than just about anything. And that, while that's a good quality in a demagogue, it's not necessarily what the country needs right now. I may be over-extrapolating from what Summers said, of course.
But what both Summers and Dalia emphasized was that, for the U.S. to survive, politics needs to restructure around groups than can work *together,* right? That current polarization is gonna be the end of us. (Or, mebbe, that the end will come a lot sooner, rather than later. According to how I interpret the book by Dalia) That not exactly Trump's bailiwick, right? TY again.
TY. I find I can often learn something I didn't know, even if I disagree with a lotta what another person says. Have done here on this forum, constantly.
Populism is just a smear. These fucks wail on about their DEMOCRACY, but they don't respect it unless they get the outcome they want. Wyoming voters (including me) just tossed out Lizard Cheney. I am informed by MSCNNPR that this is because we are small-minded bigoted racists (aka "white people") who are under the evil spell of TrumpHitler, and who don't understand how awesome perpetual war can be, or how bad guns are, unless they are held by IRS agents and the DC capital police, in which case guns are awesome.
Exactly. I have friends that say “Nationalism is bad” and point to 1930’s Germany as example. But this was “folk nationalism” and very different in scope than what the majority of the US (except the elite) consider nationalism.
W. E. B. Du Bois brought up the idea of “folk nationalism” as did Hitler in the second volume of The Mien Kampf. The two reached differs conclusions to Hegel’s Master/Slave dialectic.
We all know that by "populism" Summers means those who won't let the ruling government class do what it wants (ie.. condescendingly tell the little people what is best for them, do as their told, and line their pockets while doing so..)
I just listened to a breakdown of the bill’s supposed reduction in out-of-pocket medication costs. These reductions don’t start going into effect until 2024-2026. By 2029-2030, there will be a whopping 20 medications on the list. That part of the bill is complete BS and another example of our government bending over to big pharma. But it lets democrats campaign on reducing medication costs right before a mid-term election when many older voters won’t even be alive when these reductions are supposed to go into effect. Again, it’s political BS.
I don’t know much about Larry Summers but I find it hard to believe that with the positions he’s held, that his advice/policy recommendations didn’t help lead us to where we’re at. In fact, based on him helping to push this bill through tells me all I need to know about his contributions to our financial mess. The solution is always to spend more money we don’t have. Printing new money in a time when we have massive inflation due to the increase in our money supply will never make sense. Here’s an idea, how about no new money gets printed until inflation gets back down the 2%.
Anyone interested in an alternative take on the inflation mess should look up Professor Steve Hanke. I listened to an interview with him in June 2021 and he absolutely nailed the prediction for our inflation level and says it’s here to stay for at least another 12 months. More importantly, he explains that the most critical contribution to inflation is the rate of expansion in the money supply. At the peak of “Covid relief,” our money supply was growing at 20% a year. Less than 5% growth is generally considered necessary to keep inflation down around 2-3%. So we were way over that. Last I heard, the money supply was growing at 12% a year, so we’re still more than twice what we need to be at. Thus a spending bill that dumps billions or trillions of new money into the economy is the last thing we need to drive down inflation. I know there’s different theories in economics but so far, Professor Hanke has been right so I trust him more than the guy telling us more government spending is the cure to our cancer.
No offense to Mr. Summers but from the outside, it looks like he was critical of the cool kids until the cool kids invited him into their group. Then he drank the cool-aid and is now spouting off the same garbage we get from other financial gurus (Yellen, Powell, etc.).
The reductions will be a boon for lobbyists as big Pharma and they're Dem partners navigate and negotiate. Tell you what we'll force 10's of millions to get these shots in exchange you accept less money for generic you no longer care about. DEAL!
"It’s tempting to blame it on politics, but I don't think there’s heavy political motivation among the prominent business economics forecasters at the major financial firms. "
It’s a good thing inflation is just a theoretical term economists use. As a basic plebe, I don’t know what it really represents. Kinda like I really don’t understand what a recession is. You have to be an expert to use big words like that.
Biden got America back on track except for the catastrophic defeat in Afghanistan (which no one was held accountable for), the crushing inflation and expanding debt of working class Americans (which no one is held accountable for), a nightmarish border situation where human trafficking killings and sexual abuse are mundane at this point (They did go after border guards over a picture, there is that at least), the Ukraine nightmare which only has small chance of expanding into a nuclear war (The admin views this a success). Other normalities include the possible assassination and targeting of Supreme Court justices , a raid on a former president with ever shifting justifications and a not recession.
I have enormously mixed feelings about Summers. His economic views seem sound in general, but in the case of the current boondoggle legislation I am surprised he buys into the climate change rationale for all that subsidizing and tax crediting that will not lower the earth's temperature one one-thousandths of a degree ever. Most of all, I find it infuriating that he asserts his opposition to the cancel culture of academia. He had a golden opportunity to stop it when they went after him at Harvard for daring to say something absolutely reasonable about women in the sciences. He should have stood his ground and fought. He did not. Harvard today is a hopeless mess, and his failure of nerve was a key turning point in that decline. And finally, STILL in the face of these catastrophes of the Maoist left, he comes down on the side of ludicrously praising BIden and opposing populism. To the degree populism is turning ugly (it need not be in essence) it is because elite figures like Summers have flinched in defending the liberalism that once stood strong against the mob, but does so no more.
Lightning Round: Since the last administration was so “dangerous” - why was inflation exceeded by wage growth, unemployment at record lows, income taxes reduced + federal revenues high, consumer and small business confidence indices at record highs and consumer energy prices low?
I can’t help myself. I MUST comment further, not on the content of the interview, but on its implications.
Bari, and Larry Summers, and the globalist cabal that have lost their collective minds over Trump and the people who voted for him are seemingly oblivious to the realities of those people. I assert, on intuition not data, that 99% of Trump supporters are not enthralled by his personal traits, his hubris, his flamboyance, his narcissism. Rather, they see in him a (flawed) champion for the ethos that this country was formed upon: the rejection of potentates and kings, the determination to escape serfism, the right to self-determination, the striving for individual liberty and the creation of all men as equals.
Globalism is merely the cloak for a totalitarianism underwritten, ironically, by fabulous capitalist wealth. It is motivated by avarice, not altruism. It suppresses freedom and reduces the masses to statistics.
And its consequences will be the same as those over 200 years ago: revolt against oppression. As they say, history may not repeat itself, but it most surely does rhyme. And THIS will not be a verse of the nursery variety.
Its safer to attack Trump and demean his supporters rather then address the real policy concerns such as catastrophic and foreign adventures and wealth transfers to the elite class.
I wasn't gonna comment on this, because these comments are about done, and TGIF is here already. But I believe this statement deserved some attention:
"Rather, they see in him a (flawed) champion for the ethos that this country was formed upon: the rejection of potentates and kings..."
I go back to what You said above, Lady:
"99% of Trump supporters are not enthralled by his personal traits, his hubris, his flamboyance, his narcissism."
It's no where near 99%, but that's neither here nor there. The main point is that these qualities You correctly identified, are the exact qualities *of* a king. Trump was a TV star whose main talent, besides pushing people buttons, was to play the *role* of the President-King. Where what the country needs now is a Philosopher-King as of the old ages. (Biden? Pffffft.)
‘Twenty years in and around politics have left me sure of one thing. Most people’s ideological commitments are extraordinarily soft. What they think of as a belief is often a post-hoc rationalisation of a group loyalty. Crucially, this is more true, not less, of degree-holding, “high-information” voters.’
At any rate, I know that's true when I voted for Ds. The *vibe* the Ds give off is one of *great concern* for underdogs and like propositions. Poor people. Minorities. The environment. The little guys. I was just trying to make a living. Who had time to actually investigate? It was all about going with the tribe. Still is, to this day, right?
That's how You get a lotta people here who say they don't like Trump, but liked his policies. But the characteristics You ascribed to Trump shows that he's a man with the character of slime mold. And people like that care about *one* thing, and that's *themselves* above everything else. Does anybody actually think Trump cared about the people arrested on Jan. 6. I suppose some do. I'm not one-a them. And I've posted this quote from Trump:
"Are you talking about disinformation or are you talking about lies? There is a more beautiful word called disinformation.”
This is a guy who made a living off-a "disinformation" spewed out to friend and foe alike. "Stop the steal," because he was a sore loser. *All* the good he did is *erased* by that comment. And because he would *not* turn the power he *craved* over to the man who was elected.
There may be more to the “cult of personality” than I give credit to. I just don’t move in circles that could be described that way. But in the end, many of us are far worse off under the policies of today’s Dems, regardless of theirs and Trump’s personalities. And the luminaries of the party today seem much more elitist, far less the party ordinary folks. Republicans always were the country club snobs, but I don’t recall them being as anxious to crush the opposition with made-up Russian collusion hoaxes and the like.
In the end, I go back to the old wisecrack about politician and prostitution both starting with a “p.” Seems about right.
Biden plagiarized a college paper and a campaign speech. He changed positions to get re-elected. He sold his soul to the highest bidder! He has become a millionaire off taxpayers backs! Trump cares for the working stiffs! We know it!
It's just too bad that Trump strives to change certified election results that do not suit him and not conform to the dignified transfer of power that we in this country had always enjoyed - until now.
And what do we call someone who attempts to remain in power after being voted out?
I remember Gore, as sitting Vice President, after losing in the Supreme Court, actually presiding over the ceremonial Electoral College count showing Bush to be the victor. Something like being at his own funeral.
There was no attempt made to find alternate electors.
Your right , that was in 2016 with electors. Followed by the Russia hoax to delegitimize the president elect , jail his advisers and maybe even jail him.
A bit on the rude side but anyway, one day your medicine yearly cost will be capped at $2000 and you'll enjoy it - long after you've forgotten this conversation..
To understand my comment, you first must read the comment I based my response to. In it, the writer expressed the thought that over 99% of Trump supporters disliked (a lot) some (most?) of his personal traits. Narcissism being one of them. But that he had brought some good stuff to the table and was a 'champion of the ethos'..
So, Critical, Lady in the Lake brought up Trump - and that's why I did too...
Larry Summers is a lifelong Democrat who is fully aware of the economic damage the Biden administrative is foisting on the American people. But Larry would love to get back into the game. Unfortunately for him he sometimes inadvertently speaks the truth. For example the Harvard incidents with Cornell West and the crack about females and relative absence in stem professions. By not sticking entirely to the playbook Summers cost himself some major Washington jobs such a Fed Chairman and Treasury Secretary in Democrat administrations. It is easy to see in the interview with Bari that he is reluctant to put his foot in his mouth once again. I think Bari should seek an interview with Thomas Sowell at Hoover and ask him what he thinks of Biden economics and where it's taking this country.
Summers would say, who? He’d be too afraid to interview Sowell’s thoughtful analysis & confront truths. Larry is a political animal, Sowell is not. Larry can’t afford to be truthful because he isn’t willing to give up the popularity game.
My megaphone may be smaller, but my advice to Larry Summers is that he can go pound sand. Inflation is when too much money is chasing too few goods and services, and no amount of verbal gymnastics can tap dance around that inconvenient fact.
Someone please enlighten me. He believes that in 2021 we were spending too much and he warned of the dangers of inflation. GOT IT. Check and agree.
In 2022 there was a bill proposed that would result in spending even more. But this time, the bill didn’t put money in the hands of the citizens, this time the bill put the money in the hands of government administrative agencies to address the behaviors of the citizens. He believes this bill is better and met with a politician who opposed the bill, had a conversation he won’t tell you about, but was worded strongly enough to change the politician’s vote on the bill to one that supported it, because there are other things in the bill that he supports. And He doesn’t believe that the financial policies being setforth are politically motivated? Ok…he just verified my distrust. What parallel universe is this? The only respect I have for this man is that he respects Milton Friedman AND that teaching Keynesian methods should never had been canceled. How else are people going to learn that Keynesian methodologies don’t work and Milton Friedman is respected because his methodologies do work?
Larry summers IS the bastardization of modern monetary theory. He “questions Trumps motives” because Trump is the first politician in his life that does not agree with the largest wealth transfer in human history that Summer oversaw during his time in the Obama administration (I wrote on this in my stack about the size of the government) and the new largest wealth transfer in human history that he’s helping guide now
Imagine how good it has to feel to know you’ve disagreed with every decision Summers has ever made - it’s the key to sleeping well at night.
I hate calling it "Modern Monetary Theory," because what they're practicing isn't really MMT. Instead I refer to it as "bastardized modern monetary theory," or "BMMT."
We practiced true MMT during WWI, and part of the American people learned an amazing lesson from what they accomplished. We kind of practiced true MMT during WWII, but learned all the wrong lessons. In the 1970's, and then REALLY in the late 90's, we transformed to BMMT and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Keynesian economic theory of unadulterated investment in means of production has some very serious merit. Like many quality theories (Nudge theory being my favorite example of a great theory bastardized to manipulate people), once it was placed in the hands of government it was completely corrupted to be used purely for manipulation of power and personal gain. But we shouldn't trash the theory because the people overseeing its implementation are corrupt and incompetent (sort of like how we shouldn't throw out the theory of Christianity because the Vatican is corrupt as all get up).
Said very simply, we took a theory based on investment in the means of production (education, literal production capacity threshold increases, supply chain investments, etc...) and decided that it was way easier to print money and buy sh*t then it was to invest in building it and wait for the return on that investment.
Summers actually says it very well in that interview - they "don't like slow and steady growth." Which is the only sustainable kind. So instead they print money, buy tons of sh*t from China, and call it economic growth. It isn't economic growth, it's buying more stuff.
And that was the destruction of the US economy. Pre and Post WWI we actually used MMT - we INVESTED very heavily in the means of production - factories, labor investments, educational investments, infrastructure investments, etc... Now, I don't believe we should even have a 16th amendment, so I still think the free market would have better adapted to all these things than the government did, but post WWI it was still the free market making the vast majority of these investments and the government was simply paying for the transition to military production and then back to consumer production, which seems at least reasonable. Today? Today we have it ALL wrong, and we're going to pay for it. But people like Summers, who created it, will be too wealthy to care.
Well said, we need to increase supply (means of production) to tame inflation but our government prefers printing and buying stuff from other countries. All backwards.
Totally agree. The biggest thing Trump got right about the economy was understanding how broken it was. He realized that by simply walking and chewing gum at the same time (deregulate to significantly boost the short term economy and incentivize domestic investment to stimulate the long term economy) he could fundamentally alter the US economy. And it worked.
I wrote a whole stack on how much easier BIG problems are to solve than small problems, because even minor solutions look amazing when the problem is large enough and Trump realized that. Obama and Summers had so badly murdered the fundamentals of our economy it took only minor tweaks to look like a savior.
The big D dems are so incompetent (or, more likely, so blinded by their own wealth) they're right back to destroying all the same underlying fundamentals not realizing how easy that will, once again, make it for the next R who walks into office.
Whether Trump, or DeSantis, or whomever, all that person will need to do is open domestic energy production, make miniscule personal tax code changes to invigorate spending, and reintroduce the same onshoring fiscal benefits Trump provided last time to increase investment in localized production (something as simple as extending depreciation schedules) and away the economy will go.
The real test will be education. As I covered in a separate Stack, the power of the US economy was in the diversity of its economy. If we want that bad, we need diversity of education. We need regional focuses on regional expertise. Whomever gets that right won't get the credit at the time, but whomever can undue the damage caused by "No Child Left Behind" will be the real hero, and while it will take time to appreciate (like it's taken time to realize how much damage Obamacare actually did - with premiums increasing almost 200% since that law was passed), people in the know will view that person as possibly having saved generations of Americans.
BW: What do you think Joe Biden’s legacy will be?
LS: He got America to move way back towards getting on track after a deeply dangerous and crazy period.
The most flagrant, mind-blowing disinformation yet. 70+% of Americans disagree that the country is on the right track.
Women’s rights are being annihilated by Baden’s maniacal insistence on trashing Title IX.
Savings are being decimated by Bidenflation.
Afghanistan is a terrorist hub due to Biden;s foreign policy.
The fraud of “green energy” is destroying our energy independence.
Our national sovereignty is being eliminated entirely by his failure to enforce our immigration laws and borders.
Our education system is in tatters because of his teacher union loyalty, catastrophic COVID policies, and monumentally stupid social engineering.
His merry band of economic illiterates is sending the economies of families and the country down the toilet.
And his “armed, prepared to use force” IRS is about to become an American Gestapo.
Great job there, Larry.
It is really difficult to understand how someone of such supposed intelligence and experience could venerate such poor performance, and consider this a “return to normal.”
Well said. I would add his energy policies are arguable effectuating an energy crisis around the world, especially with our allies in Europe. And his Covid policies led to the termination of thousands of healthcare workers and military personnel. This feels like a much more “deeply dangerous and crazy period” than anything we’ve seen in my lifetime.
Deeply dangerous but Larry doesn’t address any of that he to suffers from TDS. He is living in the 20th century forgetting we in the 21st. We have suffered from a pandemic which has literally obliterated our lives and all Larry and his ilk keep telling us is we have to save the environment from who?
He all but glosses over that the hedge fund peeps won't be taxed! Just the middle class!!!
Summers is guilty of that which caused the lack of perception of oncoming inflation in those he was more correct than on that score: being part of a herd of myopic elites stuck in a groupthink exacerbated by a growing class divide and the outrage machine of social media.
He broke out on one issue only and is firmly in line on all the others. That's why he's blind to reality in all other cases. He's just fortunate that his clearsighted plainspeak on one issue didn't get him canceled; then he would have been on Common Sense telling that story instead.
TDS is strong among most of Baris guests
Correct again among the guests, but not so much among the subscribers. The subscribers seem to be more pro than against, but then it’s hard to call especially after Nellie’s TGIF today.
I agree too--but seriously rethinking my subscription to this site --if all we're going to get is propaganda supporting disastrous policy and wrong-headed thinkers! Milton Friedman was right about markets--the fact that Summers "disagrees" with him is simply political, otherwise you'd have to believe Summers is incapable of critical thinking. I'm guessing he gets more money and power supporting the king-makers in the Democrat party. Yuck.
You are totally correct I mostly read the comments because often there are good comments and discussion.
I never read nellies articles. I send it straight to trash.
You know HG you correct I’m going to do the same I’m going to trash it to.
I could not agree more.
It is now clear that the so-called "respected" in our society are marking every patriotic American a fascist. Anyone who dares to love America will be in great trouble. We must hate ourselves and America.
Commonsense will continue to present the essays on what the woke tyranny is doing to innocents, but it will never present the harsh reality of who is behind it. Maybe after they have hung Trump in the public square, but I doubt it.
Try: Christian Parenti at NONsite.org on the origins of woke. It was a Taibbi link. New at Substack, the brand new Renaud Beauchard LIMITS AND HOPE article presenting an overview of the author Christopher Lasch. --- If you can find it, the movie CAPITAL based on the book by Thomas Piketty. Or, THE DYING CITIZEN by Victor Davis Hanson. --- Stay strong. Stay clear. America is a long way from done.
Thank you for the links. I like them all, except not Piketty from what I know of him. I left socialism ten years after college as I started my own company from scratch to which I owe everything. I heartily believe in "free enterprise," and I emphasize the word "free." It was still quite free when I started my company in 1972. I also believe in holding all businesses to reasonable regulations, a challenge no government has ever learned to do, because government is, by definition, terribly inefficient due to no one having skin in the game. But we must still do it with this awareness. Today the WEF is a totalitarian combo of giant corps and government run by maybe 1000 aristocrats. It is not even socialism, it is fascism in pretty clothing. There is nothing free today that these fascists cannot shut down when they choose.
But you right I will never give up, but I will not turn from reality as I see it.
The CAPITAL movie is a good overview. I have Piketty's book but could only make the first 20 or 30 pages.
Worth reading: The Renaud Beauchard LIMITS AND HOPE Substack site has an overview of the works of Christopher Lasch.
TYTY for the tip, Sir Mike. I'd read M. Beauchard before, but lost track of him. Read the article and Your fine comment. Subscribed as well as bought "Haven In A Heartless World." I had five other books by Lasch on my list. Lor' knows when I'll get to any-a them. TY again, Sir.
"Lasch’s thought reconciled an American civic tradition which is "culturally conservative, politically radical and proposing a complex religious vision of existence" and Marxist schools of thought such as the Frankfurt School or Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson’s tradition of English Marxism. "
The Frankfurt School were the original shillers of Critical Theory. English Marxism is still Marxist fuckwittery. This loony you are recommending couldn't be a bigger 'tard if he mixed in "Mein Kampf" and the "theory" of Shrinking Markets into his batty batter recipe.
I wasn't aware of that. Beauchard's overview seemed to present Lasch as an opportunity to explore an approach to politics other than what I feel has become a knee-jerk "latest crisis what are we gonna do" hysteria that seems to be grounded in nothing. I'm for a regulated free market capitalism. Definitely not a utopian Marxist.I owe myself a Barnes and Noble trip. I'll check it out. Thanks for the heads up.
Who said this?
"Lasch’s thought reconciled an American civic tradition which is "culturally conservative, politically radical and proposing a complex religious vision of existence" and Marxist schools of thought such as the Frankfurt School or Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson’s tradition of English Marxism. "
Because I don't think that's factually correct. Yeah, Lasch started *out* Marxist. He turned around. Drastically. That's what I've "heard" but I haven't read any-a his books yet. I've seen plenty-a quotes of his tho. And the synopsis's I read about them aren't anything to do with Marxism. Quite the opposite.
Covid regulations that will cost us millions more when all these wrongful termination lawsuits are done being paid out.
The busiest people in the country over the next decade will be civil rights attorneys defending those wrongfully terminated due to vaccine mandates as well as parents who’s educational rights were compromised simply because they’re uncomfortable with a tranny twerking in the face of their 6 year old.
All of these consequences are the result of Biden’s policies, which was intentional.
These things didn’t happen by chance, they were purposefully executed.
I may be in a bubble but the rising levels of distrust and anger at Washington D.C. in general and the Democratic Party in specific seems to be exponential. The Clinton machine knew about Biden's "non compos mentis" state before the election and they ran him anyway. To paraphrase JFK: "...ask not what you can do for your country but ask what you can get away with.." (Isn't Summers a long time cover artist for Wall Street/Clinton/Obama Globalist crowd?)
I believe democrats don’t see it the way you see it. I have too many of them as friends and they are not angry. I am very pissed off though.
Don’t forget Bush.
Yes he is! Long time cover artist.
In 2016 I said that Job 1 for Republicans was keeping Trump in check. Missed that one.
Then, from the Department of Not Learning From the Mistakes of Others, Democrats seem to have followed the same playbook for Biden.
Watching the US Senate primary here in Connecticut, the candidate with the long history of moderation, who stood the best chance of pulling in the independent and unaffiliated voters, lost.
It’s extremely difficult for Republicans to deemphasize Trump when the Democrats keep putting him in the news, and doing it in such authoritarian ways like a show trial, home raid, enormous Russia-Trump hoax/lie, etc.
Keeping Trump in check? That was non-Republicans "job", and they did it to such an extent that they essentially prevented him from exercising his office throughout his term.
What did he do that needed to be “kept in check”? Other than taunt Democrats and foreign adversaries?
They can’t answer that one
Quite honestly, I mostly agreed with what he did. He truly put America first.
But…quit the tweeting, use the resources of the office, just don’t be so boorish.
The backlash from his personality lost 2018 and 2020…and Congress climbing aboard the Trump train just made it worse. The opportunity was to present the right as the party of cooperation. Not conciliation, not full compromise, but not full attack mode either (not that the left doesn’t deserve it).
Maybe. But I think his personality was just an excuse for the Dems to attack him. If he had been MLK or Gandhi, they still would have found a way to take him down. It's all about policy, in the long run, because policy determines who holds the power.
Nobody could keep that megalomaniac Trump in check.
Well then why didn't that megalomaniac force up the southern wall?? Why didn't that megalomaniac force on Congress a deficit reduction and balanced budget Act?? If "they" failed to keep "him in check"......these things would have been done. He had Congress the fist two years.
A megalomaniac will Tweet at will.....otherwise, I wish he had been the MAGA megalomaniac everybody accuses him of being.
DeSantis will win in 2024. So Trump will than be a just note in Presidential history and always "the Nazi Devil" of the Democrats and the administrative state. History will look -- if not favorably on Trump, but certainly with approving curiosity and astonishment. In my opinion.
Trump didn't give two shits about deficit reduction or "balanced budgets" - he wanted to pass massive tax cuts with maximal spending and was pretty transparent that deficit reduction was a "Paul Ryan GOP" obsession that Trump's GOP was no longer beholden to.
He did actually shut the government down over the wall funding (as a belated response to getting some criticism from right wing media when he was about to accept a CR signed off by both McConnell and Pelosi with no wall funding). This was after he blew prior opportunities to secure more wall funding in prior negotations that would have given him some money for it.
Trump was both a terrible negotiator as well as lazy about policy. Yes, he had a Republican Congress that he could have forced into submission given their majorities came on his coattails into pursuing the MAGA agenda instead of the failed Ryan-McConnell mission to repeal the ACA and then move onto a big tax cut. Notably, his other big policy priority, renegotiating NAFTA, was something that also only happened after the Dems took the House in 2018 and passed a good version of it that McConnell was finally pressured into signing for Trump - but was more notable is how quickly that disappeared into his rearview until the Democratic House brought a bill to the floor. Why DID he never pressure Ryan to do it?
Trump is megalomaniacal - but not about pushing MAGA policy beyond Trump's self protection racket he wants to install into the federal government should he be re-elected. He's a megalomaniac about Trump - securing Trump's power, prestige, attention and most crucially, his revenue pipelines.
Trump wanted the wall as a monument to him. But he didn't really care about getting immigration under control. If he had, he would have thrown his support behind the Tom Cotton bill in '17 or '18, which would have mandated E-Verify nationally, which would have stanched the flood of illegal immigrants. True, the family separation policy did much to stanch that flood, but it backfired by upsetting large numbers of Democrats and some independents. (They would have had a much harder time arguing that E-VErify, a policy which could have saved a lot of American jobs, is detrimental to anything except for illegal immigration.)
E-Verify would have worked better than a wall in no small part because it would have stopped people from overstaying their visas, who account for a little more than half of illegal immigration. Why? becauase they would not have been able to get jobs.
The Cotton bill also would have reduced legal immigration--not by much, but by about 250,000 annually, which would have been the first time, and might have paved the way for further reductions.
isnt being a megalomaniac a prerequisite for a politician in this era..
Yes.
I posted something similar. Add so many other bad policies from ending investigations of Chinese influence (Racism of course) to the restoration of kangaroo courts in campus.
How many column inches would it take to catalog ALL of the failures, misjudgments, and falsehoods of the Biden administration? Too many to post here 😂
You could write a column in and of itself on the doublespeak that defines this admin and the elite class that props them up.
That you could do ...Bari wouldn’t put it up though
She might! Pretty much call her out on her nonsense all the time and she lets it go through. She must be a VERY nice lady. Tough too. She has my respect for sure .
I actually can’t think of a positive thing Brandon has done for America
"BW: What do you think Joe Biden’s legacy will be? "
Biden is a moron. Beside being a lying, cheating, plagiarists, he has always been a moron. He couldn't grab his ass with a handful of fishhooks.
Maybe he's increased ice consumption? <g>
Lady, please consider that Bari interviewing him and letting his words speak for themselves is a riveting example of what we need: a chance to listen or read what he has to say and think about it.
Much of what he said makes sense, but then you have to laugh at the idea Biden moved us to a good place.
I don’t disagree with you. And I wouldn’t even think of canceling my subscription. But that final assessment of Biden’s effectiveness pushed my buttons.
Sometimes we do have to let people shovel their own hole.
Lady...perfecto
Fair enough. For all the good she’s done, sometimes she needs the benefit of the doubt.
I’m not even close to canceling, but I also see a need to find her way. Just how many cancel-culture/anti-woke pieces can you post?
Ok…at least one more.
I agree with many of his statements in the interview, but I just can’t get over that he disagrees with Milton Friedman.
You cannot tax and spend at these levels and agree with Milton Friedman even if you know he is right.
True. His mental gymnastics to support Manchin’s bill reveals this flawed logic. Friedman is my hero.
Summers' dream dinner is JM KEYNES. THE contrast to M Friedman and Summers' preference is clear and why he was Obama’s choice.
Milton Friedman also noted that (paraphrasing) "You can't have open borders and a generous welfare state, because the influx will destroy these services." Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris Administration and the Dems are going to destroy our nation's social services having promised all these illegal aliens FREE government benefits and opened our borders. Obviously, Biden-Harris and the Dems have no respect nor concern for the American people who have paid into these systems and continue to pay into them via FICA and taxes, yet the Dems are going to innudate these services with the demands from illegal aliens and these services will eventually collapse.
True, but I personally, I don't want to pay for CS when I can get this sort of thinking anywhere. Larry Summers and other power elite interviews (some in depth) are all over the place...for free. I come to CS for "out of the box" takes on current events. Matt Taibbi does a good job of that, CS, not so much. Same reason I don't listen to Megyn Kelly - I can go to fox news et al. for the same tripe. CS is not even an alternative to mainstream media at this point; therefore, my CS sub is not going to be renewed.
I’m in agreement with you Matt terrific also Epoch Times they have fabulous interviews
That by itself casts a shadow on his credibility and sincerity.
Anne...yep, really, the good part is "good place" is soooo good, most will agree we must move...vote.
Similar to JB presidency never answers any questions even the soft ones
and he dodged most of them.
Lynn...you are correct, from what i see without the mellow, we don't get to see.
I’m getting pretty tired of, every time Bari hosts an article or interview with someone who isn’t parroting right-wing talking points, that the top comments are always, “Shame on you. I expect better.”
I expect viewpoint diversity, and that’s what Bari is providing. I subscribe here exactly because I can get a range of opinions on important topics, both in the content and in the comments.
It’s fine by me to rebut the article or interview, which this comment does excellently. It’s counterproductive, in my opinion, to try to shut it down. If that happens, then this will be not different than any major news organization. THAT would be a shame, because they all suck.
No problem with giving Larry Summers the opportunity to explain his views, but this was largely a softball interview. Barry tried to ask some good questions but clearly she didn’t want to push - it seems like getting to interview somebody like Summers is a big enough thing for Common Sense, she wanted to be careful. It’s understandable but not satisfying.
Exactly
Bari doesn't provide viewpoint diversity. She provides far-left Republicans and far-left Democrats. She has never claimed to show a diversity of viewpoints and it isn't a goal.
And the issue usually isn't where they fall on the political spectrum, it's that the far left is so delusional they think that having a war on one front and a potential war on a second - both with nuclear powers - is a move away from a dangerous time.
Leftist delusions should not be published. They should be criticized every time they are.
Trump hate is boring. It was boring in 2016. I can’t stand anyone who can’t see beyond their TDS and especially someone like this guy who does it subtly but consistently.
Bari has a strong track record of bringing in Trump haters. One can see them for free anywhere since most media loves to hate Trump. Why would I pay for more of the same?
The only thing that keeps me here is the rare on point article where I actually learn something. This article wasn’t one of them.
Nellie’s Friday summary is awesome too. It’s about the only thing I like about Common Sense anymore.
your right about viewpoint diversity, but most of the commentators are taking Summers apart for the contradictions in his piece. Yeah, you get a few what you say, but not most
I agree with you about that. There are great comments on this interview, and I’m learning a lot by reading them and following the referenced links. If the interview had never been published, I would have missed out on all of it.
Honest, good-faith promotions of alternative viewpoints are useful "viewpoint diversity". Craven dishonesty and bad faith are not.
I admit that finding left-wing writing that is the former rather than the latter is virtually impossible, as the Left has self-deluded to the point of being uniformly cult-like. But that doesn't mean we should bend over for them.
Because she never offers viewpoint diversity from Trump world. Never. It's a total blank. So she's missing the story. IMO. That is what people are mad about and I don't blame them. If you supposedly stand for viewpoint diversity you would at least have ONE person on the Trump side every so often. She sees that as going to the dark side, as do many journalists except Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald, who are brave enough to go all the way around the circle, not just the safe zones.
Common Sense is trying to be a centrist media outlet, so it tries to find a common denominator to a broad range of political views. I have no desire to offend, but the “Trump world” that you mention is not a set of political views, it’s a personality cult, it revolves around a person, which is always a big problem, especially when that person is a narcissistic sociopath who would have his country burn rather than admit defeat in a relatively close election. This is why while you might find many ideas on CS that are palatable to people who have voted for Trump, CS will not cater to the “Trump world”. Being fed up with the lies, corruption and arrogance of the pseudo-liberal elites is one thing, being a cultist is another.
Sorry but the cult is on the left. Cults isolate themselves. They purge and persecute dissent. They demand ideological compliance. They are cultists. By contrast, what cult do you know would have its leader take credit for inventing a vaccine, urge his followers to take it and have many of them refuse? Do you think Jim Jones or Charles Manson would have tolerated that? Any cult at all?
But truly, this comment is WHY Bari should be among those far less insane where this subject is concerned. Plenty of journalists are able to see the bigger picture without dehumanizing. I just heard a great interview with Coleman Hughes on Triggernometry, for example. See, people like you and Bari are okay with cancel culture, with purges and persecutions as long as it's the Trump people who are being punished. You've yet to realize it's all the same thing. If we can't be a society that can tolerate Trump supporters then this madness is with us for the long term.
You are perfectly right, the left has its own cult, and since way before Trump decided to fix his tarnished brand by getting in politics - a cult that goes all the way from woke pathology to climate catastrophism. But just saying, in a childish way “But they’re a cult!” doesn’t change that fact that there’s also a crazy Trump personality cult. Again and again, two wrongs don’t make a right. It shows this is a deep American disease, affecting most people in this country, not just the left. Trump had significant achievements but he absolutely tarnished everything but setting this country on fire with his idiotic claims of having the election stolen - also sabotaging the Republicans in the process and handing Senate to the Dems on a silver playter !
I perfectly understand why so many people voted for him - the alternative was terrible! - but going along with his madness is, at this point, madness itself. It’s difficult to respect people who feed a cult of personality, weather it’s Stalin, Trump, Hillary or anybody else. That’s where the hard line is drawn.
Yes I understand that many believe it's a personality cult. Just a little background on me - I was definitely in the Hillary cult up until 2020. But the election changed me. I just saw too many powerful people pulling the strings for an election I thought Biden could have won outright - though that was before the Summer of 2020, which is really what caused the major shift -- and why I think Trump would have won were it not for the ways they "adapted" the election.
But all of that side aside, I understood that I had been a part of one side dehumanizing the other side and it made me feel sick. So I have spent roughly the last year and a half getting to know, and humanizing, Trump and his supporters. That doesn't mean I agree with him or them - it just means I get where they're coming from and what it's all about. It is closer to the Hillary thing in a sense, but with Trump I think he's fighting for people our culture and government sees as human garbage - the forgotten working class. His speeches are not full of rage and hate. They're quite the opposite. It just bugs me that this seems to be misinterpreted. Obama was a cult or personality, so was Reagan, so was Elvis. This is how we operate as a species...what I think we need more of is humanity...all around.
None of my business BUT she did have on Mike Pompeo Recently! 99.9 sure
Pretty sure and there are others as well …..
I’m guessing you’ve learned from others but I’m too lazy to reread the thread .
She also turned me onto Rafael Mangual who does a great Objective job with crime stats history and is by No Stretch a leftist!
That's true on Mike Pompeo! Walter Kirn might also exist a bit in that realm.
I disagree
She has been disappointing
She is showing TDS interfering with the good judgment I came here for
Not Every One who criticizes , didn’t vote for or doesn’t like Trump has TDS !
Many do though….
Often hearing the other view makes it far easier to understand why they’re wrong !
As always we can change the channel !
My view exactly. If i wanted to read only one side of the story, i would not have cancelled my decade long subscription to nyt
I wouldn’t go around bragging that you subscribed to the NYT. They’ve been a rag as long as I can remember.
Ditto Rich 👏👏👏👏👏
Rich...dang good pointing...
throw in baby formula shortage just for fun!
For real, man
I think historians will view Biden as one of the worst and most divisive presidents
Assuming any historians are left.
And assuming any historians are not Left.
He only questions Trump’s motives. Give me a break. Trump likes attention - so what. The Biden’s (Joe - his brother - his son) are motivated by selling political access to foreign countries.
Pops, I would have loved to have summers tell his if his objections to Trump were reached before jan 6 and exactly which of trumps policies or actions justified his conclusions. Easy to throw around innuendo without specifics or facts to back up the allegations. Maybe he is all in on Russian collusion and is more similar to schiff than to Milton friedman
I agree with your specific criticisms of one aspect of his views, yet I still understand why she provided this fantastic interview of a brilliant, informed person. One big picture in Bari's interview was the importance of providing a range of views. One wants to hear the very best advocates of views with which one disagrees. I agreed with many of Summers' positions, and am willing to take a second look at the ones with which I currently disagree.
Supporting Biden over Trump, and attempting to steer economic policy decisions of the administration we have, like it or not, are understandable.
(ASIDE)
Summers is personally familiar with the stifling effect of the woke mob against freedom of expression of ideas, ideas that are well supported by facts, argued in a sympathetic and nonjudgmental way. He first came to my attention with his controversial and thought-provoking remarks about ONE of the reasons one does not see a proportionate percentage of females in "hard" science/math majors like my own, physics.
Summers pointed out that male and female bell curves on intelligence are very similar, with a significant difference. At the extreme high and low tails, females are under-represented relative to males. At the low tail, that appears to be due to higher incidence of what used to be called mental retardation in males. (The extra X chromosome may compensate for one defective X chromosome, on which crucial genes for intelligence appear.)
It would not be clear why women do not therefore have higher representation on the right end of the bell curve; my hypothesis is that the reason may be very similar. Women appear, given our limited understanding of the issue, to have lower autism rates than males. There are indications that a significant number of physics geniuses were also autistic, with associated extreme math ability, focus and independence of thought.
Physics success requires intelligence in that very high tail, in which the percentage of females is markedly lower than that of males. This is one compelling argument for their low relative representation in such fields, among several other significant factors.
The public outrage against this poorly understood argument was immediate. One can only imagine what it would be like today.
I thought it was an excellent interview.
Alice - "Summers pointed out that male and female bell curves on intelligence are very similar, with a significant difference." Of course women and men are of equal intelligence but he's an economist not an expert on global gender roles. And though neither of you may know it, you have been seduced by mendacious, gender ideologues.
After a decades long, global, empirical study of gender roles and occupations across 160 countries and 55 cultures using the UN's "Gender Inequality Index" -- that crazy, far-right organization, you know, the UN -- actual, empirical scientists determined that the more gender equal a society becomes the GREATER the difference in the career choices men and women make. Just in case my long sentence confused things: "the more gender equal a society becomes the GREATER the difference in the career choices men and women make."
Norway, followed by Finland and Denmark, had the most gender equal society (based on laws, culture, opportunities etc.) on the planet and yet with that freedom men and women made different career choices. Women did not suddenly choose the "hard science/math majors". Ironically, horribly gender unequal countries, like Iran, had higher percentages of women in hard sciences. Why? Because it was one of the few opportunities for a good independent life offered to women.
In fact, this 40 year study was so powerful, and so opposite of the "social scientific consensus view" that it has even been given its own name "The Gender Equality Paradox." Goodness, how could it possible be that free to choose, women don't make the same choices as men?!?! It is because we are physically, biologically, and psycho-socially different, what's that word again? Oh, yeah: DIVERSE!
The study is "Sex differences in the Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures. Published in 2008 in the "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology"
thank you, I remember this study, too bad it is not well known (Guess the reason???) In the software development/support field i see a LOT of young woman from India this days, which totally supports above point.
In my very early physics career I worked with an Arab woman and was disabused of my stereotypes regarding the total oppression of Arab women, without saying there is no oppression. It was surprising to learn from her that Arab women were not considered to be innately less competent at math, as females were thought to be when I was in high school in the U.S. The Arab world is so diverse that this anecdotal experience is probably not universal. But keeping an open mind regarding preconceptions was one lesson!
It is my personal hope that the high end of the tail reflects cultural effects more than something innate, whether women choose the demanding career of physics or not. However, I am open to other explanations, and am interested in them.
I appreciate your hope. Mine is that the unique intellectual strengths of women and men are respected and strengthened thereby taking humanity forward as effectively as practical.
Alice, here's a book you might really enjoy: Https://genderparadox.com/books.html. It goes very deep into the bio-psycho-social factors of male/female differences. Along the way it provides the best exposition of post-modern/social constructionist philosophy contrasted with the western enlightenment philosophy - you know that far right empiricist and scientific method stuff along with the idea that objective truth exists. ;-)
From the book: "These two dimensions (Things - People) were subdivided into additional factors of interests, which were Realistic and Investigative (Things) and Social and Artistic (People). These factors, when analyzed separately, illuminate the beautiful complexity of the bimodal distributions between men and women in regards to vocational interests:
“Men have stronger Realistic, Investigative, and STEM interests, and women have stronger Artistic and Social interests that parallel the Things - People sex difference. These differences were large, with the mean effect size of 0.84 for Realistic interests and 1.11 for engineering interests, equal to a 50.9% and 40.7% overlap of male and female distributions, respectively. The mean effect size for Social interest ( d = - 0.68) was moderate, equal to a 58.4% overlap of distributions. In other words, only 13.3% of female respondents were more interested in engineering than an average man, whereas 74.9% of female respondents showed stronger Social interests than an average man. These findings echo Thorndike’s (1911) statement that the greatest differences between men and women are in the relative strength of the interest in working with things (stronger in men) and the interest in working with people (stronger in women).”
489 Su, R., & Rounds, J., et al. (2009). 873.
PatriotD, The book sounds intriguing and I have saved the link. I find the conclusions quite plausible based on personal observation, and share your hope. This difference would certainly explain much of the STEM disparity without resorting to bell curve issues and you are right to emphasize it. "Along the way it provides the best exposition of post-modern/social constructionist philosophy contrasted with the western enlightenment philosophy ..." This sounds particularly interesting as it seems to me that the valid innovations in post-modern thought have been extrapolated in questionable ways in woke philosophy, but philosophy is hardly my area of expertise and I can only learn.
I am an outlier in some ways, personally, but am attentive to gender issues partly as a consequence. In high school I was told I "scored with the boys" in math and 3-D spatial representation. I do not like working with people and have low empathy. What I appreciated about feminism was that there was limited career opportunity for people like me when I was very young, and feminism changed that.
Things have changed for the better in many ways and we will hope Bari's efforts contribute to even better understanding and practice.
PatriotD,
Absolutely agree regarding the factor of the Gender Equality Paradox, as I am somewhat familiar with the correlation of greater freedom of choice leading to greater career choice differences. Summers and I alluded to many other factors; that is among those. I wrote of the one that was both controversial and of mathematical interest to me. Big supporter of Damore's essay at Google before he was one of the early cancel victims.
Your comments are always interesting. "And though neither of you may know it, you have been seduced by mendacious, gender ideologues." Do you mean to imply there can be no truth in the factor of the bell curve tail, and that those who bring the subject up are intentionally lying due to entrenched ideology, or seduction by those?
I'm glad you find my comments interesting. And I must admit now that I read your comment too quickly, its deeper than I saw at first, and I would say I erred in my reply (though it was an opportunity to share something relevant to the topic). My apologies.
And your question is in parts, so here we go.
"Do you mean to imply there can be no truth in the factor of the bell curve tail" -
absolutely not. I think the question is more, what might be causal?
I really like the second half of your question: "and that those who bring the subject up are intentionally lying due to entrenched ideology, or seduction by those" -- yeah, bring it :-).
First, I use ideology to mean something like a simple, single factor explanation for large, complex questions encompassing many variables.
Someone seduced by an ideology can't see they are wrong and so they are not lying - it is simply what they foolishly believe without much (traditional) critical thinking.
Someone entrenched or I'd say possessed by an ideology will often claim the ends justify the means and so they think lying and even violence is justifiable in their quest to bring about their perceived utopia. Gosh, that never ends well.
Now that I have carefully read the argument you put forth, it would seem unlikely to be related to gender ideology except in that the social constructionists would deny it out of hand since it is based on empiricism, which they claim is yet another tool of the male patriarchy to oppress women, and well anyone and anything, I suppose.
I think I had an emotional reaction to the "females are under-represented relative to males" trope. The "under-represented" argument is used by SJWs to all sorts of ill purposes. In the context of your usage, it was perfectly appropriate and necessary. Again, my apology for not being more respectful of your comment before replying to it.
Yes, a terrific interview, even though Summers punted on the hard questions and Bari let him. So if the woke crowd stifles any unacceptable view what is your call to action against this? His views on Keynes are well known and not surprising. He insists on nibbling on the edges without addressing the fundamental issues, not a big surprise.
Good point about call to action. Important to speak up against it whenever one encounters it in real life. It is like bullies or bigots, thinking they are condoned if no one objects.
The BS he spewed about the “Inflation Reduction Act” is enough to discredit the entire article. Cheaper energy my ass!
Sometimes I also tend to discredit speakers based on one opinion, generally when I have little else about them to go on.
Summers is indisputably intelligent and informed. He knows more about the subject than I do. Therefore, I am willing to reconsider my own beliefs if he makes an argument against them. I may still not agree, but I value the opportunity to reconsider.
Now, Paul Krugman is also indisputably intelligent and informed. I do not find his predictive track record to be as successful as Summers', and Krugman's bias is so obvious that it strongly affects his credibility. I like that Summers is willing to address subjects independently, rather than following a Party Line.
If you just do the opposite of what Krugman has said you’d have an enviable track record. 🤣
Bingo
How did he arrive at the conclusion that we were in a dangerous path before Biden?
Said by a permanent resident if an ivory tower …
Yip that’s exactly it get real people. Rob Henderson is a real person you can relate to him. Why not get an interview with JD Vance? He could tell you about his life in real America and his struggles he overcame to come out of an Ivy League university. I didn’t take anything away from Larry Summers in fact I found the interview very irritating also a man suffering from major TDS. Wish Nellie well for the up coming confinement please God all goes well.
Would You prefer Bari to cancel voices like Larry summers on her blog, because what he has to say makes You feel uncomfortable? Sure sounds like it.....
Bernd...i doubt that it is a matter of Cancel, rather, if you have the guy in position, ask the pertinent questions. such...with employment high while the GDP contracts for 2 mos., since this situation Never happened before (over 200 years) in this country, is somebody lying or are we just repellent?..lies
Yes, Bari dropped the ball in this interview.
No hard questions maybe she’s in awe of him, I’m not.
She did ask a few tough questions, like how did Larry convince Joe Manchin to support the bill, and Larry declined.
Please, Bari provided a forum for an opinion you don't agree with. She should feel zero shame for that, while perhaps you might consider why you think she should. If you think these are falsehoods, make your case but don't be like the ones who wish to shut down opposing views.
Kstills...to have the interview, fine. But LS is econ, so to let an opinion ride with a negatory on Trumpty, having NO explicits what-so-ever...not bright. Is LS comparing Biden with Trumpty or the BO.? If so...well...heinous.
Great take until the last line. I am here for free speech and dialogue
As I added elsewhere (but it got buried in the thread), my last comment was uncalled for, and I withdraw it. I am simply appalled that someone as supposedly intelligent as Larry Summers could be so myopic to ignore the damage done by Biden and company.
Lady...you do an excellent job, however, your last post "shame on Bari", i can see why you would say this but, it is up to us to deduct from the post and to carry on, how else would we know the real LS?
Not due to his remarks, but dissection and condensing the vapor, brings access to the battle field...thanks.
You are correct. The last comment was vitriolic and uncalled for. I withdraw it.
I am incensed by the needless economic suffering created by the Biden administration policies, and am struggling mightily because of them. I do confess this bias: My home burned to the ground last year, and now trying to rebuild in this climate of inflation, supply chain shortages and labor shortages has created real hardships. Economically, life was significantly better before Biden.
"Larry Summers is one of the most important economists in the world. He’s been the chief economist at the World Bank. He was Treasury Secretary under President Clinton. He was director of the National Economic Council under Obama."
I am sorry Bari but with CV like this, Mr Summers is one of the most responsible for financial issues USA is facing now. He was one of biggest proponents of abolishing of Glass–Steagall Act, which lead to financial meltdown in 2008. He didnt "predicted" that. Consequences of this, we see still today.
His testimony as Treasury Secretary to Congress about effects of having permanent Normal Trade Relations with Chinas and its assentation to WTO in 2000 is legendary on how wrong it was. Entire thing can be found her
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB957377738406963350
Small excerpt of what he clamed is following
**There are, however, three crucial advantages to the United States in passing this bill, which I would like to focus on today:
-First, there are the direct and commercial benefits of the market opening agreement that we concluded last fall.
-Second, there are the economic and broader benefits to the United States of promoting economic and social change in China.
-Third, there is the ultimate enhancement of America's national security interests that comes from integrating China more closely with the community of nations.**
In reality only one thing happened, Wall Streat has outsourced all American Manufacturing to China, thus killing manufacturing heartlands of USA, and making us dependent on Communist Dictatorship.
Larry Summers is thus one of the "experts" that got us in this mess. He supported outsourcing of US manufacturing to China, then supported abolishing regulation that kept Wall Street in check. He didnt predict anything.
Another of his "pearls" can be found here :
https://www.deseret.com/1999/10/25/19472096/u-s-treasury-secretary-says-china-s-wto-entry-would-ease-disputes
For nice overview who Mr Summers really is check this old article (2013) in "The Nation"
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/return-lawrence-summers-mr-spectacular-failure/
For his services to Wall Street in 2008 during financial meltdown, Mr Summers was paid $8 Million in speaking fees by Wall Street banks.
I couldn’t have said it any better. I’m surprised Bari didn’t see the ultimate irony of her story that all these supposed experts play both sides and are all part of a cabal to destroy the middle class and enrich themselves. Because, of course, they are sooooo much smarter than all of us, just ask them! I’d rather pick a random group of people off the street than these “intellectuals” to run our monetary and fiscal policy. I also don’t appreciate the snotty disdain for Trump who is in fact the only person in my lifetime whose policies were focused on benefitting the little guy and focusing on America First vs last.
Exactly summers is part of the problems
He is back in so he considers himself the solution.
Well said. Bari dropped the ball when she didn't press him on exactly how this bill would reduce inflation.
It gives huge dollars to the producers of wind and solar power, both of which are flawed technologies that couldn't exist without govt subsidies, and if you watch Michael Moore's documentary Plane of Humans, produce as much carbon as they save. Same with EVs. And I don't see solar panels or EVs in middle class neighborhoods. So this bill provides huge dollars to the corporations that produce solar, the countries (mostly China) that produce the raw materials and/or batteries, and the mostly well off consumers of the products.
What troubles me more is creating an army of IRS agents to go after the middle class. Personal tax revenues have grown from $1.8T in pre-pandemic 2019 to $2.1T in 2021. But that's not enough? Where is the evidence that there is so much tax fraud going on that justifies this massive increase in auditors during a period where trust in our federal agencies has plummeted?
I always appreciate Bari providing alternate views, but this article caused my respect for Larry Summers, who I never really paid attention to, to plummet.
He talks about the bathtub with too much water and then he goes and puts MORE water in it thinking the bathtub will simply grow.
Larry Summers is not a good person IMO.
Just another in a long history of tax/spend bureaucrats. Sorry to be so cliché, but it fits. They are totally detached from the citizens they govern.
Agreed on all counts. The IRS expansion piece is especially bothersome. I do wish she had asked him why they’re going to need to be armed?? And why we need more agents than the CIA, FBI and Border Control combined?
Bothersome? Lol, there aren’t that many billionaires. Who do ordinary Americans think they will go after when they run out of rich people?
New IRS agents will be seeking individuals who underreport their income. Underworld and organized crime. This is where the tax gap is. This is why they need guns.
The real joke here is that all the folks who really have money (Gates, Clintons, etc) are allowed to funnel their wealth into their own personal “charitable organization” thus exempting most of their income completely from the tax man. So they get to create their own empires and lobby for their own interest under the guise of good works. The billionaire tax is a myth.
Meanwhile “self employed” hard working individuals pay 15%, not 7% social security (7%which they won’t get back); and they often pay unemployment compensation to boot -which they can’t collect because who can lay themselves off?
And back at the ranch, large corporations, government entities and especially Congress (!!) have their own elitist, self-funded medical insurance programs, while individuals and small business are the ones who fund coverage for the poor, disabled and non working....
In the final analysis, ironically, working class folks who hold lower paying jobs find they simply can’t afford the one-size-fit-all Obama care policies. (And come yo discover that Obama care policies are actually quite a step down in coverage for most individuals and more expensive than previous private insurance.)
And now Insult to injury-- the large pharmacy companies & many big corporations will only offer a 30 hour week to lower salaries employees because it allows them to totally side-step the cost of providing medical insurance to their employees.
In short, Obama care is a total bust in terms of providing cost effective health care- simply put, it’s a convoluted health INSURANCE plan - not a health CARE plan.
And more fallout: Many of the most efficient, independent doctors & medical providers have been economically forced to merge with a few super large bureaucratic healthcare organizations given the onerous requirements of Obama care. Result: now we see less choice, mega medical corporations; hospital administrators multiplying in number and salary level, and doctors pushed into being subservient, obedient employees. (Take notice: these days the best are NOT going into medicine.) Most of my best specialists have retired as soon as possible.)
Yes, more lower income folks have access to free or very low cost medical insurance, but look again . First, they only qualify for a lower tier of care and service. Second, there were far more efficient ways of assuring everyone gets decent direct medical care than setting up a the totally bureaucratic Obama care system of medical insurance to serve the poor.
How can I say this? Many nonprofit providers will give you an upfront 30% discount if you pay day of service and they can avoid cost & hassle of billing insurance.
So yep, that’s your cost of convoluted system ..at least a 30% surcharge. And still too expensive and out of reach for many Americans.
And this giant $$$$ bill is supposed to help?Yeah, this economist sounds pretty out of touch to me. The Morlock high tech overlords are winning.
But hey, the Democrats got that passed and added a feather to their virtue signaling hat 😡😡😡😡😡.
Underworld types don’t file taxes. How will they know? They will be seeking us….
The honor system doesn’t mean much there I guess
Your neighbor could be underreporting income. Live above their reported income.
Or my neighbor could think that’s what I’m doing and report me
Shirley, evidently, you’re unaware that you’re displaying your ignorance! Firstly, The CIA is not a law enforcement agency; as a rule, their agents are not armed. The approximate 20,000 armed United States border patrol agents who work for homeland security which employs 240,000 people, and the FBI employs approximately 35000 people, of them 7800 are special agents who carry weapons. The IRS employs around 80,000 people; a little over 2000 are armed special agents. So if we do the math: 20,000 border patrol +7800 FBI agents would be ten times the IRS special agents. Shirley, I have now armed you with the facts!
you're focusing on the "armed" piece it seems, but the numbers are still interesting. You say the FBI employs 35,000 people, but the IRS is about to hire double that number, doubling the size of their agency. Whether armed or not they'll be aiming their calculators at us to try to make up for the trillions of dollars of wasted spending. no matter how much we pay in taxes (and we already pay a lot) we will never make up for the excesses of the bloated US government. And given what we already know about a weaponized IRS, I'm not all that comforted by your numbers - it's still too many.
Shirley, my intent was never to comfort you; I simply presented the facts to the best of my knowledge. The IRS workers would be hired over the next decade and never grow by more than a manageable 15% each year; these people, for example, would help collect the uncollected 554 billion in 2019. There is only one reason I think people support tax cheaters: there are cheaters themselves!
"comfort you"? Weird.
Good luck with that audit Just Me. It's coming to you.
You still trolling? Figures. You never learn.
Uuuuuh. "facts"
That nasty "F-word", that gets the utterly uninformed going as the "N-word" does with the overly educated.
Bernd, a bizarre juxtaposition indeed!
Simple. To catch rich tax cheats who have been avoiding billions of their share of taxes because the IRS hasn't been enforcing the law, and to make them pay their share like the rest of us. Or are you in favor of tax cheating?
Who do you think wrote the tax laws. They are designed to protect rich people. If you stacked the tax code as written on sheets of paper it would literally stand three feet tall. Rich people pay something like 70% of all taxes paid. They are not going to pay more. These agents are going after us. We need a flat tax. No write offs. Everyone below the poverty rate pays. It’s the only way. The current tax code is a social engineering mess. It isn’t a tax code.
Should read everyone above the poverty line pays
Rocky...simple, do you not see, they are not breaking law, the law is written and hence they use law to avoid. Bottom, in order to avoid a tax, people invest, which helps build the economy...come on!
Now for a Government to get more of YOUR money, they'll raise the cost of the companies that YOU buy from, hence those co. will raise the cost of goods that YOU buy...bingo. thanks. Rocky, it just sounds like "they got you"...again. take a breath.
I’ve sold records for many years, I sell records in order to buy more records, sometimes the records I sell aren’t cheap and most of the records I buy aren’t cheap. This year, I received an email from PayPal informing me I have a tax code to connect my account to my tax filing. So now my obsessive collecting of records is earn income. Guess what happened this year, I was audited. Even though I pay quite an ungodly amount of taxes through my job, now I’m having to hire someone to sort this out for me. Wish I was one of the billionaires who could support my record collecting and stay out of trouble with the federal government.
PayPal fell to the enemy a loooooong time ago. It is your own stupid fault for using them in the first place.
Kevlar is expensive.
Bullet proof vests. Training. Guns. Ammo. Surveillance equipment. Expanded SWAT support. The creation of the "social credit score". The merger of social media comments and posts with tax records and banking information. The "...rules for thee not for me.." selective enforcement, the legal council you cannot afford, seizure of property, prosecution and incarceration of dangerous citizen "terrorist" offenders.
Multiply it by 84,000.
FYI, the tax gap is with underreporting by individuals, the so called under world economy and organized crime. That’s why the IRS agents will have guns, to investigate criminals. And I agree, they will also be pointed at middle class taxpayers. My preferred approach to the tax gap is to reduce spending. But democrats would rather increase taxes. Shameful.
It's obvious that Manchin sold his soul to the high pressure assault from the Squad and others. His constituents will not appreciate that.
Well, we still owe him a debt of gratitude along with what’s her name for refusing to support “build back better”
I agree.
IRS won't be going after the middle class. Going after anyone who criticizes the regime, which includes most of us here (and especially Nellie Bowles). Also going after anyone who tries to circulate honest information, which is called "misinformation" by the regime that wants to keep people ignorant. It's not about money, it's about power.
Yep.
And they will have guns.
Jon, I agree with you that huge subsidies will be lavished on solar and wind. A fool's errand? - time will tell.
But just as a point of comparison - by many accounts the fossil fuel industry received close to $20 billion in subsidies from US governments last year..
Perfect. I snorted coffee out of my nose when I read this:
BW: If you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be?
LS: John Maynard Keynes.
Thanks for sharing those articles.
Admitting China to WTO was a colossal mistake, which haunts us today.
NAFTA's 1994 debacle wasn't much better. ("Better"? Did I say better?)
Many good points, but you're incorrect to say that the repeal of Glass-Stegall led to the financial crisis of 2008. It was the mortgage industry in the US that caused that crisis, and Glass-Steagall never regulated the mortgage industry.
Glass-Steagall separated commercial and investment banking. If Glass-Steagall had remained in effect the crisis of 2008 would still have taken place, and the fallout would have been even worse.
Think back to 2008. Bear-Stearns had failed and its share holders were wiped out. Lehman Brothers had failed and was liquidated. Merrill Lynch and AIG were on the brink. Bank of America stepped in and saved Merrill Lynch, which was only possible because Glass-Steagall had been repealed.
What would 2008 have been like if a third major investment bank had failed? Glass-Steagall would have assured that.
Fannie and Freddie had a lot to do with causing that crisis, but Glass-Steagall wouldn't have prevented their gross irresponsibility either.
If Glass-Steagall was in place, actually crisis would be much milder, because it would be contained only to investment banks in USA. Commercial banks in USA would have been unaffected thus it would be mild recession and not meltdown that we saw 2008.
Reason for crisis started with mortgages, but it was spin out of control by collateralized debt obligations (CDO). Bassicly all banks started making bets that CDOs are all 100% safe with no risk because US housing market only goes up. These CDOs were packaged by newly merged commercial investment banks and old investment banks and then sold to pension fonds, banks abroad and others. This thing with CDOs was not possible during Glass-Steagall.
There was a reason why we never had similar meltdown before (since 1933), and that reason was Glass-Steagall, yes it was crude instrument, but it kept Wall Street in check, especialy speculations on Housing and Pension markets.
With Glass-Steagall Fannie and Freddie would have not have incentive to create and sell CDOs.
We never had a similar meltdown before because mortgage lending standards were higher. Do you remember the days when you had to put 20% down to buy a principal residence? The lowering of standards was done by Fannie and Freddie, which were landing pads for Democrats.
We had financial engineering while Glass-Steagall was in force. Junk bonds became a big thing in the 1980s. Investment banks would have created all kinds of dubious instruments if Glass- Steagall had been in effect.
Have you ever heard of Long Term Capital Management? It was a hedge fund that nearly brought down the entire international financial system in 1998 while Glass-Steagall was fully in effect. Glass-Steagall is not the magic wand you make it out to be.
While we can speculate what would or would not have happened if Glass Steagall had been in effect, one fact is clear. Bank of America would not have been able to rescue Merrill Lynch if it had been in effect and the crisis of 2008 would have been much worse.
Specifically, "The meltdown was the consequence of a combination of the easy money and low interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve and the easy housing engineered by a variety of government agencies and policies. Those agencies include the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and two nominally private "government-sponsored enterprises" (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The agencies — along with laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act (passed in the 1970s, then fortified in the Clinton years), which required banks to make loans to people with poor and nonexistent credit histories — made widespread homeownership a national goal. This all led to a home-buying frenzy and an explosion of subprime and other non-prime mortgages, which banks and GSEs bundled into dubious securities and peddled to investors worldwide. Hovering in the background was the knowledge that the federal government would bail out troubled "too-big-to-fail" financial corporations, including Fannie and Freddie."
https://reason.com/2012/10/14/clintons-legacy-the-financial-and-housin/
And my personal favorite: https://www.villagevoice.com/2008/08/05/andrew-cuomo-and-fannie-and-freddie/ - all about how Clinton's appointee, Mr. Andrew Cuomo, bragged about how he put these measures in place in the name of, wait for it... wait for it.... "Social Justice." 2008 folks. 2 years before the capture of most of the Ivy's by the Critical Theorists and SJWs. Ah... had we only known then what we know now.
As I recall, during the bailouts the government basically guaranteed, the home loans, and never stopped. Or something like that... I don't remember the detail... do you?
Subprime mortgages were the root of the problem, not CDOs and not repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Additional support that repeal was a significant factor (from investopedia)
“On November 12, 1999, President Clinton signed the Financial Services Modernization Act that repealed Glass-Steagall.16 Congress had passed the so-called Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act along party lines, led by a Republican vote in the Senate.
The repeal of Glass-Steagall consolidated investment and retail banks through financial holding companies. The Federal Reserve supervised the new entities. For that reason, few banks took advantage of the Glass-Steagall repeal. Most Wall Street banks did not want the additional supervision and capital requirements.
Those that did became too big to fail. This required their bailout in 2008-2009 to avoid another depression.”
That doesn't support the claim that repeal of Glass-Steagall caused the crisis: "... few banks took advantage of the Glass-Steagall repeal".
Repeal was the reason BofA was able to save Merrill Lynch.
Larry Summers only gets respect because he is one of the few prominent lefty economists who is not a complete political hack or left wing nutjob. But, you are correct that he has been wrong about almost everything.
Raziel, when I see your name, I know I’m going to learn something.
Pretty spot on Raziel. Milton Friedman is ultimately correct once again: the government controls the money supply and when there is too much money chasing too few goods you get inflation. Unfortunately for us rubes Biden completely shut down oil and gas which really is torch raising inflation.
How is printing more money during inflationary periods going to lower inflation? It isn't. The UniParty is just sending YOUR money to their patrons who are the richest people in the world.
sounds pretty racist to me, not really but what isn't these days.
Haha!
Masterfully done Raziel. Thank you.
Amen Raziel!
Thank you for that breakdown, I wonder what investments he has in his support of green energy and this new package that was just passed. I miss the days when a single bill was voted on.
Always a thoughtful, reasoned, and fact based assessment. I always look forward to your comment, Raziel.
Raziel, you left out several co-conspirators that sold the American worker down the river, corporate America, Congress, and several presidents!
Yeah, when I was young I thought we should trade with China, reasoning that if we needed each other then we were less likely to kill each other. Ah, the Naïve optimism of the youth. It did not occur to me that a kleptocracy clothed in a utopian ideology might grow stronger rather than change to become more free. Seems bloody obvious to me now.
PatriotD, I have a different take; the corporate capitalist saw an untapped market of 1.2 billion workers and consumers. And corporations cared more about their stockholders than their workers.
Agree! And…
Money over country = no more country.
'create a system of tycoon capitalism run for the benefit of a corrupt political oligarchy'
Which is the new Democrat strategy for maintaining power in our country.
Many, if not most, are totally ignorant of that historical fact of which Larry Summers had a big role. He is just another sociopath.
To be fair - a large part of the ability for privatization and capitalism to properly function is a adherence to the rule of law. The Russians seem to have ignored that part
And we seem to be following that precedent.
The Ivy’s now pump out SJW lawyers — you ain’t seen nothing yet.
You are probably referring to the Shleifer affair. Not well known in the US. All too well known in Russia. Was L. Summers involved. Sad to say he was. For fun I Googled summers. I found no mentions of the Shleifer affair. Summers was tarred and feathered for referencing the GMVH (Greater Male Variability Hypothesis), not his ties to Shleifer.
If you think that anything that happened in Russia has to do with American advice you have no idea how former communist countries work. State assets were sold for cents on the dollar (or much less) because powerful, dangerous people hugely benefited. You’ve heard about the Russia privatisation story but not about other smaller countries. It went exactly the same way, without any American involvement or advice. You’re buying into some weird, Americano-centric version of history that everybody in Eastern Europe laughs at.
This comment is late, and I don't expect that very many people will see it. But I worked on the International Space Station in the mid-'90s. I worked with two Russian contractors, Khrunichev and Energia. The Khrunichev people were smart. They knew their stuff. They were, in my experience, as talented as any American or European company. I would have been proud to work alongside them. The other company was Energia. We all knew that Energia had government connections. Their work was crap. They didn't document things properly, and they frequently made changes in production that weren't documented. We learned, through hard experience, that their engineering drawings often did not reflect what was actually built. Guess how it came out? To keep a long story short, Putin forced Khrunichev to merge with Energia, and most of Khrunichev's employees and management were dismissed.
Yeah, not surprisingly as corrupt institutions are corrupt in part because they are based on cronyism and political beliefs and not merit or competence doing the job at hand. Appreciate your comment, late or not.
Both you and Andy are correct. Both things and more happened to make that mess.
This reminds me of a statement made by Matt Taibbi on this topic in a Common Sense interview: “We [the Americans] practically owned the place [in the early ‘90s]”. Poor Matt, he lived in Russia at that time and still never learned that in Russia you don’t own anything unless you have a gun, very specifically the biggest gun. You can imagine the American economists in Moscow ordering around the local big guys in black leather jackets who were putting their guns on the table in business meetings (real case!) ?
The “American advisors” for the “shock therapy” of abrupt privatization in the early ‘90s were just a simple smoke screen for powerful local interests, ready to physically eliminate anybody standing in their way. And what was the alternative? Supposedly keeping assets into the (corrupt) government hands until the ex-communist countries would reach a level of “civic and political awareness” that would have allowed honest privatisation? I lived in Russia too, and I know that will take much, much longer than our life spans, if ever. Just look where Russia is now, on the path to civic spirit and honest business. Same in my country. On the other hand, look at the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, they succeeded to do it reasonably right. Let’s stop blaming the deep historically rooted shortcomings of our people on the West.
You’re taking here about a completely different thing. In Soviet propaganda in the West, it was called “whataboutism”. How can you criticize our lack of freedom? What about the way you treat your black people?”
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Let’s put our own house in order first and then complain about the evil Western elites, who supposedly did us so much evil.
I would clarify, "Some are just as evil, cynical and narcissistic as the old Soviet elites were." That is very true, and they remain admired as the media doesn't cover their excesses, they ignore the obvious and celebrate the ideological pathology. Bill Gates is a good example - Mr. "math is racist" (I got that from his own website, it was his second largest education donation last year), he's selling climate change (e.g. telling everyone that we need to stop eating beef to reduce carbon emissions despite that being an infinitesimal carbon creator when compared to say coal or third world countries burning dung and wood)and buying up farmland. So he can now independently impact food production in the US - just deny or otherwise put restrictions on the land leases.
This reminds me of a statement made by Matt Taibbi on this topic in a Common Sense interview: “We [the Americans] practically owned the place [in the early ‘90s]”. Poor Matt, he lived in Russia at that time and still never learned that in Russia you don’t own anything unless you have a gun, very specifically the biggest gun. You can imagine the American economists in Moscow ordering around the local big guys in black leather jackets who were putting their guns on the table in business meetings (real case!) ?
CL - at a macro level I guessed that the real power before and after the fall of the wall changed but by not more than half. Meaning that the party members (people) controlling most wealth (thinking monopolist/oligarch) before and after the fall didn’t change that much, but the political systems around them did. So the move was from one form of corruption/tyranny to another. You were there, do you know about that?
Thanks CL. I've read that USSR was full of true believers, but people are people, trade is trade, and the political beliefs mostly inform what they think is okay and not okay. Most of the money ends up in the top x% regardless. The question is how well can the majority do, how bad does the bottom have it, and how productive and moral are the societies. The West has no monopoly on morality but compared to its peers, it is easy to show it as more productive, less tyrannical, more equal, more diverse, etc.
Mr Summers lost his credibility to me with his last comment about Joe Biden: "He got America to move way back towards getting on track after a deeply dangerous and crazy period."
The only interview with Larry Summers I'll ever respect is one that starts with this...
Larry, over the last 25 years you've helped lead the greatest wealth transfer in human history through the complete bastardization of Modern Monetary Policy. In this period you've completely destroyed class mobility in the United States (one of our economy's greatest assets) and oversaw a real income and purchasing power decline for the bottom 25% of the country, while the top 1% increased its real income and purchasing power by more than 1000%. Why? And how much money did you personally make during the last 25 years? Do you see any issue with the poor getting poorer while the rich get almost unimaginably richer, all while you've become famously wealthy?
Should we all guess what his answers will be as no journalist will ever actually ask those questions? Instead we get non answers on how Summers bribed Manchin to get his vote on an "inflation reduction act" that every sane person knows will only increase inflation?
I have really enjoyed Common Sense but it's a good thing none of us come here for insights on how to actually pressure the ruling class. Bari is great, and we need people addressing "suburban mom problems," but I hope she appreciates that this is why so many people still follow Tim Pool, and Alex Jones, and all the people the Bari's of the world look down upon because they'll actually have real conversations about REAL issues that are destroying the fabric of this country. And Bastardized Modern Monetary Theory - and the destruction of of our class mobility and economic independence - may well be the top of that list. It's really too bad we couldn't ask one of the men most responsible for that destruction of our societal fabric why.
The D.C. hog trough is just that. I don't know how long we can keep screaming "..they're robbing us again.." to one another. Crisis to crisis, they pretend, and America pays. But apparently, not enough. If every mortgage, deed and dollar was converted and handed over to the U.S. Treasury it wouldn't satisfy the venality and megalomania of D.C. hucksters. First your livelihood then your life.
"...the horseleech has two daughters who cry give give...."
Who are you?
Just a guy who likes to learn, and try to share what I've learned so it can be challenged and improved, and shared again, and challenged again, and improved again, hopefully all the way until I die.
But more likely a guy who ends up being a stubborn old man once I lose the joy of having my children in my house challenging me every day... but I try to be an optimist :).
His lobbying of Manchin is where he lost it with me, and the Biden comment only added an exclamation point. He wasn't the lone voice in predicting inflation, as any/everyone outside the Dem party establishment could see it.
When a liberal expert said inflation wouldn't be a problem, everybody in the center doesn't believe them because that's their job. When a conservative expert says inflation will be a massive problem, nobody in the center believes them for the same reason. The experts who go against their own party are the ones who stand out.
I hope we haven't got to a point where people are evaluating policy statements solely on the party of the "expert" making the statement.
I think we are there now sadly.
Fair. After Trump, any reason politician would move us back toward sanity.
If this is what "getting back on track" looks like, I don't think I ever want to ride a train again.
Ha-ha. It feels more like we are stuck on tracks in view of the approaching train.
This shows Summer’s hatred of Trump.
If we are back towards where we should be, it’s time to leave.
Typical globalist. It must kill him inside that Trumps economy was far better then Biden’s. Democrats destroy everything they touch
Thanks for 87,000 More IRS AGENTS Larry. Those audits are gonna be a blast!!
87.000 ARMED IRS agents. The assault on small, family owned businesses is about to begin. Armed? Only if you believe every small taxpayer owns guns. Somehow, after hearing Tucker list out all the racist directed money and programs in this "inflation" bill, my guess is they are going to intentionally go after white owned small businesses and farms.
87.000 ARMED IRS agents.
OMG, 87,000 armed agents! That is nuts! Say more!!
Where do you get this nonsense about armed IRS agents?
Not nonsense. Fact.
Can you provide documentation for this?
It's true, I read it myself on the IRS website. Apparently because of the uproar the part about being armed was removed.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/irs-deletes-job-posting-seeking-applicants-willing-to-use-deadly-force/
I read that. It was a single job posting that was posted before the bill passed. The 87000 new armed IRS agents nonsense is incorrect. Or more accurately, it is a lie.
That said, what's even more onerous than increasing audits of middle-class taxpayers and small businesses is that the Democrats want to allow the IRS electronic access of every financial transaction (above a low threshold), put it into a database and mine the data.
Every IRS agent won't be armed but it is true that between March 1 and June 1, 2022, the IRS ordered $696,000 in ammunition. Why do they need that?
It's nothing new, IRS has had armed special agents for over 100 years. Most of the ammo goes for training.
The financial monitoring is what every American should be very worried about. That’s police state stuff.
From Naomi. They seem to have trustworthy sources.
I believe this is the mantra for the woke culture warriors; paranoia strikes deep into your life; it will creep. Now, to put some perspective on the new IRS employees. Approximately 20,000 armed United States border patrol agents work for homeland security, which employs 240,000 people, and the FBI employs about 35000 people; of them, 7800 are special agents who carry weapons. The IRS employs around 85,000 people; a little over 2000 are armed special agents.
"The tax and climate bill includes $80 billion over 10 years for IRS. When the Biden administration first floated that funding total as part of an infrastructure package last year, it released a report finding it could use the money to hire 86,852 employees. The Treasury Department said IRS would hire around 5,000 workers in the first year and slowly grow that to around 12,000 annually toward the end of the 10-year window. The administration and Senate Democrats, however, said that number is partially accounting for the tens of thousands of employees IRS expects to leave through natural attrition in the coming years."
https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/08/specifics-senate-tax-and-climate-bill-impact-agency-staffing-levels/375558/
You are supporting the addition of 78,000 ARMED IRS agents? Really?
Naomi, are you being silly or obtuse? It would be illogical to support something that will take place!
“ Making sure that populism does not completely pollute American politics to the point of producing dangerous outcomes in 2024.”
Huh? We are living in the MIDST of dangerous outcomes right now. Summers has TDS.
Oooooh scary! Populism! Dear God! Where are my Harvard-branded smelling salts; the dirty little people might *pollute* politics with their silly and dangerous idea they have a right to self-advocacy!
I can’t believe this pompous asshole literally used the word POLLUTE.
Hey Summers, if you’re reading this, FUCK YOU.
So, what do you think about Larry Summers?
Amen brother! I literally shouted fuck you to my phone when I read that line about populism.
Populism is bad because you're ascribing authority to people who aren't educated enough to use it. By "educated" I don't mean college--there are plenty of smart people who didn't go to school. I mean people who flat out don't know how government works.
Government is the only area where people seem to think total inexperience is a plus. I never hear anyone say "that surgeon has been in the system WAY too long I'm going to let this biology major put in that heart stent" or "the pilots at United need term limits because some of them have been flying for more than 10 years."
Government is a big, complicated, messy business and we need smart people who understand how it works. Now, there's some legitimate disagreement about how it should work but people should still "pay their dues" as they learn about it. For example, you start on a School Board or something similar, maybe become a mayor or councilperson, then a state representative, then move into the federal system.
I'm center-left, but I'll take conservative Mary who went to business school and was in the state legislature for 10 years over liberal Jordan who participated in a bunch of protests. Same thing on the other side, I'll take liberal Mike who studied law and ran a housing department over conservative Bubba who was a fry cook.
We broadly agree, but I would argue that those who have spent their entire lives in government are just as unfit to serve ("serve") as those who have spent no time in government, probably more so. No one is arguing for making a fry cook president, but I'll take a fry cook who eventually bought and ran the restaurant and then served on his local municipal business development board and then ran for school board for ANY office, including president, over a lifelong trough-gobbler like Obama or Sanders, and their fellow traveler suckerfish like Summers. None of those is qualified to run a nail salon, let alone the country.
Summers is so clueless that he says things like that 'pollute' remark (and then gets lauded for his 'bravery' by well meaning but naive people like Bari) without pausing to remember what happens, historically, to elites who think they're above correction.
Extra points for trough-gobbler and suckerfish.
This depends entirely on the integrity of those "experienced" people. Too many just become grifters in love with their power and vastly increased wealth that just mysteriously happened.
And, it also presupposes that these experienced people are the best judges of how the lowly plebe fry cooks want - no - SHOULD to be governed. People don't like unsolicited advice, and they really don't like unsolicited government. 80000 new IRS agents with guns?? Even a lowly fry cook Bubba understands this new army is not being assembled for storming Jeff Bezos's castle.
I felt similarly about the IRS but then saw an interesting article on how thoroughly antiquated they are. Everything is still done with pen and paper. Even people who submit their returns electronically can't do any kind of advanced tracking.
Most of the new employees are not going to have guns--they're going to be rank and file auditors, accountants and (hopefully) technology professionals. The only ones with guns are going to be those who have to seize assets but I'm a bit wary of that--shouldn't they just work with the FBI or Sherriffs when that becomes necessary?
Power tends to corrupt, and the longer one holds power the more corrupt one becomes. Experiened thieves are more dangerous than amateur thieves. What we need is a government that is less "big, complicated and messy". Maybe one with limited and defined powers, as James Madison described the Constitution. Then our government can be less dangerous to our liberty.
How about a mix of people with different levels of experience? What is it with absolutist thinking right now?
How about term limits?
Ideally, shouldn't term limits be organic in that people will vote out those they feel have been there too long and are no longer doing their jobs? Maybe that's just wishful thinking given how geriatric our Congress is.
Ideally but Incumbents have a huge built in advantage that in this day and age is very difficult to overcome.
I did a thought experiment with some friends where we discussed what would happen if the House of Representatives were chosen randomly from all adults and you had to serve a year, similar to jury duty. You'd get a lot closer to representing how people actually feel and there's be little chance for lobbyists to buy them off because they wouldn't even know who they are until it was too late.
Another option we discussed was selecting representatives statewide and eliminating districts altogether. If you live in a state with 10 representatives, you vote for three (or some other number). The 10 with the most votes statewide win. That eliminates gerrymandering and allows underrepresented groups of people in districts to band together and get at least one seat at a statewide level.
Interesting. I’d go with the normal two year term. Just like jury duty is a very good analogy. Statewide might not work for me as I understand what you are saying. I’d be concerned a red or blue state would have all the same party in congress
Good point about red/blue but if you could, say, only vote for 3 and your state had 30 representatives you could probably avoid that issue
I think it’s called but-we’ve-always-done-it-this-way. I find it to be very non-dynamic, status-as-merit thinking.
Right! Populism is bad, sure, but “wokeism” has polluted American politics to the point dangerous outcomes and bad policies TODAY. How can that be ignored?
Just out of curiosity, you say "Right! Populism is bad, sure"…
Why is it "bad". It’s like saying "liberalism is bad". "Progressivism is bad". "Theology is bad."
The idea that the government should act in the best interest of the people of a nation is core to "populism". It can be taken to dangerous extremes (like any believe system) but why simply dismiss it as "bad"?
Every meaningful idea has more than one side. People who focus on labels tend to try to erase that fact.
Fair point. It can lead to bad things as all extreme ideas can, which I think is what he means. I’m willing to grant him that but not to the exclusion of the particularly bad ideas that got us to this point.
I almost never watch videos over 10 or 15 minutes. But this 30-minute video of dialogue between Summers and Ray Dalio was interesting. In case You don't know, Dalio is much more Conservative than Summers. And Summers is disliked by Progressives, so there is that.
Someone here (mebbe Raziel?) provided this link. Didn't pay much attention to the article itself. The video was worth it: Dalio discusses populism and he goes into what needs to be done, and how difficult the situation is, very realistically. Granted, most people are immune to a POV that's different than theirs is. In my experience, it never hurts to look. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/15/larry-summers-emerges-as-the-unlikeliest-democratic-hero-00051433
Good discussion. I was very troubled by Larry’s comment of “ We are living in a time.. where we are not living in end of history”.
But it still doesn’t address why “populism is de-facto bad”. The civil rights movement of the 60’s was a populist movement.
Taken to extremes (by either the far left or right) is bad but to simply fall into the trap of saying populism is bad simply serves a very specific narrative.
I can't recall whether it was Summers or Dalia or both, but mention was made about populism on the left. I *assumed* it was talking about the Woke, but I-sure-CBW.
It was Dalia. Summer completely forgot the fire bombing and Washington riots of Jan 20 2017 inauguration.
I find Dalia much more balanced but still sounded like he was WEF light thinking it is the job of experts to decide how everyone should live.
TY for Your reply. I took that first comment by Summers to mean that events have contradicted what Fukuyama wrote in his views when the Soviet Union collapsed. "End of History and the Last Man."
I'd hafta relisten to the piece to be sure, but I took that about populism to mean that what the Right has done is elevate someone, one-a whose primary qualifications is that he likes to fight. More than just about anything. And that, while that's a good quality in a demagogue, it's not necessarily what the country needs right now. I may be over-extrapolating from what Summers said, of course.
But what both Summers and Dalia emphasized was that, for the U.S. to survive, politics needs to restructure around groups than can work *together,* right? That current polarization is gonna be the end of us. (Or, mebbe, that the end will come a lot sooner, rather than later. According to how I interpret the book by Dalia) That not exactly Trump's bailiwick, right? TY again.
I appreciate your observing the apparent immunity or is allergy to differing POVs.
TY. I find I can often learn something I didn't know, even if I disagree with a lotta what another person says. Have done here on this forum, constantly.
Populism can indeed be bad. The Jim Crow laws pushed by Southern Democrats in the late 19th and 20th century are one glaring example.
Socialism can be bad. Unfettered free markets can be bad.
But reflexively saying “populism is bad” because it can be bad is simplistic.
Populism is just a smear. These fucks wail on about their DEMOCRACY, but they don't respect it unless they get the outcome they want. Wyoming voters (including me) just tossed out Lizard Cheney. I am informed by MSCNNPR that this is because we are small-minded bigoted racists (aka "white people") who are under the evil spell of TrumpHitler, and who don't understand how awesome perpetual war can be, or how bad guns are, unless they are held by IRS agents and the DC capital police, in which case guns are awesome.
I think certain kinds-a populism can be bad. I dunno if that's what Summers was saying or not.
Exactly. I have friends that say “Nationalism is bad” and point to 1930’s Germany as example. But this was “folk nationalism” and very different in scope than what the majority of the US (except the elite) consider nationalism.
W. E. B. Du Bois brought up the idea of “folk nationalism” as did Hitler in the second volume of The Mien Kampf. The two reached differs conclusions to Hegel’s Master/Slave dialectic.
The biggest segregationist president of the 20th century was Woodrow Wilson, hardly a populist.
We all know that by "populism" Summers means those who won't let the ruling government class do what it wants (ie.. condescendingly tell the little people what is best for them, do as their told, and line their pockets while doing so..)
Yeh, that statement at the end was bizarre for sure. I’m guessing this was aimed at Trump.
His sentence says nothing. Does nothing. Evokes nothing. Conveys nothing. Except, “Hi, team! Did I do good?”
I just listened to a breakdown of the bill’s supposed reduction in out-of-pocket medication costs. These reductions don’t start going into effect until 2024-2026. By 2029-2030, there will be a whopping 20 medications on the list. That part of the bill is complete BS and another example of our government bending over to big pharma. But it lets democrats campaign on reducing medication costs right before a mid-term election when many older voters won’t even be alive when these reductions are supposed to go into effect. Again, it’s political BS.
I don’t know much about Larry Summers but I find it hard to believe that with the positions he’s held, that his advice/policy recommendations didn’t help lead us to where we’re at. In fact, based on him helping to push this bill through tells me all I need to know about his contributions to our financial mess. The solution is always to spend more money we don’t have. Printing new money in a time when we have massive inflation due to the increase in our money supply will never make sense. Here’s an idea, how about no new money gets printed until inflation gets back down the 2%.
Anyone interested in an alternative take on the inflation mess should look up Professor Steve Hanke. I listened to an interview with him in June 2021 and he absolutely nailed the prediction for our inflation level and says it’s here to stay for at least another 12 months. More importantly, he explains that the most critical contribution to inflation is the rate of expansion in the money supply. At the peak of “Covid relief,” our money supply was growing at 20% a year. Less than 5% growth is generally considered necessary to keep inflation down around 2-3%. So we were way over that. Last I heard, the money supply was growing at 12% a year, so we’re still more than twice what we need to be at. Thus a spending bill that dumps billions or trillions of new money into the economy is the last thing we need to drive down inflation. I know there’s different theories in economics but so far, Professor Hanke has been right so I trust him more than the guy telling us more government spending is the cure to our cancer.
No offense to Mr. Summers but from the outside, it looks like he was critical of the cool kids until the cool kids invited him into their group. Then he drank the cool-aid and is now spouting off the same garbage we get from other financial gurus (Yellen, Powell, etc.).
The reductions will be a boon for lobbyists as big Pharma and they're Dem partners navigate and negotiate. Tell you what we'll force 10's of millions to get these shots in exchange you accept less money for generic you no longer care about. DEAL!
We'll also force insurance to mandate coverage for this that and the other thing in the name "Fill in blank".
Correct, the increase in M2 is what caused most of this inflation.
"It’s tempting to blame it on politics, but I don't think there’s heavy political motivation among the prominent business economics forecasters at the major financial firms. "
It’s a good thing inflation is just a theoretical term economists use. As a basic plebe, I don’t know what it really represents. Kinda like I really don’t understand what a recession is. You have to be an expert to use big words like that.
It’s ALL politics.
Biden got America back on track except for the catastrophic defeat in Afghanistan (which no one was held accountable for), the crushing inflation and expanding debt of working class Americans (which no one is held accountable for), a nightmarish border situation where human trafficking killings and sexual abuse are mundane at this point (They did go after border guards over a picture, there is that at least), the Ukraine nightmare which only has small chance of expanding into a nuclear war (The admin views this a success). Other normalities include the possible assassination and targeting of Supreme Court justices , a raid on a former president with ever shifting justifications and a not recession.
At least we can still get baby formula!
Oh, wait...
I have enormously mixed feelings about Summers. His economic views seem sound in general, but in the case of the current boondoggle legislation I am surprised he buys into the climate change rationale for all that subsidizing and tax crediting that will not lower the earth's temperature one one-thousandths of a degree ever. Most of all, I find it infuriating that he asserts his opposition to the cancel culture of academia. He had a golden opportunity to stop it when they went after him at Harvard for daring to say something absolutely reasonable about women in the sciences. He should have stood his ground and fought. He did not. Harvard today is a hopeless mess, and his failure of nerve was a key turning point in that decline. And finally, STILL in the face of these catastrophes of the Maoist left, he comes down on the side of ludicrously praising BIden and opposing populism. To the degree populism is turning ugly (it need not be in essence) it is because elite figures like Summers have flinched in defending the liberalism that once stood strong against the mob, but does so no more.
Yes, Summers speaks his mind, but ultimately is a coward. Harvard. Inflation bill. Manchin.
Anyone who gets a hard-on from Keyneseism has mush for brains. Summers economics are total bullshit.
Lightning Round: Since the last administration was so “dangerous” - why was inflation exceeded by wage growth, unemployment at record lows, income taxes reduced + federal revenues high, consumer and small business confidence indices at record highs and consumer energy prices low?
mean tweets
And all while taxes went down!
It was a truly dark period for all.
I can’t help myself. I MUST comment further, not on the content of the interview, but on its implications.
Bari, and Larry Summers, and the globalist cabal that have lost their collective minds over Trump and the people who voted for him are seemingly oblivious to the realities of those people. I assert, on intuition not data, that 99% of Trump supporters are not enthralled by his personal traits, his hubris, his flamboyance, his narcissism. Rather, they see in him a (flawed) champion for the ethos that this country was formed upon: the rejection of potentates and kings, the determination to escape serfism, the right to self-determination, the striving for individual liberty and the creation of all men as equals.
Globalism is merely the cloak for a totalitarianism underwritten, ironically, by fabulous capitalist wealth. It is motivated by avarice, not altruism. It suppresses freedom and reduces the masses to statistics.
And its consequences will be the same as those over 200 years ago: revolt against oppression. As they say, history may not repeat itself, but it most surely does rhyme. And THIS will not be a verse of the nursery variety.
Its safer to attack Trump and demean his supporters rather then address the real policy concerns such as catastrophic and foreign adventures and wealth transfers to the elite class.
I agree, globalist cover their actions in virtue, but their motivations are purely self enrichment.
I wasn't gonna comment on this, because these comments are about done, and TGIF is here already. But I believe this statement deserved some attention:
"Rather, they see in him a (flawed) champion for the ethos that this country was formed upon: the rejection of potentates and kings..."
I go back to what You said above, Lady:
"99% of Trump supporters are not enthralled by his personal traits, his hubris, his flamboyance, his narcissism."
It's no where near 99%, but that's neither here nor there. The main point is that these qualities You correctly identified, are the exact qualities *of* a king. Trump was a TV star whose main talent, besides pushing people buttons, was to play the *role* of the President-King. Where what the country needs now is a Philosopher-King as of the old ages. (Biden? Pffffft.)
And I think there's a lotta truth in this article: "Everything is vibes and nothing is real" https://edwest.substack.com/p/everything-is-vibes-and-nothing-is Ed West quotes one Janan Ganesh:
‘Twenty years in and around politics have left me sure of one thing. Most people’s ideological commitments are extraordinarily soft. What they think of as a belief is often a post-hoc rationalisation of a group loyalty. Crucially, this is more true, not less, of degree-holding, “high-information” voters.’
At any rate, I know that's true when I voted for Ds. The *vibe* the Ds give off is one of *great concern* for underdogs and like propositions. Poor people. Minorities. The environment. The little guys. I was just trying to make a living. Who had time to actually investigate? It was all about going with the tribe. Still is, to this day, right?
That's how You get a lotta people here who say they don't like Trump, but liked his policies. But the characteristics You ascribed to Trump shows that he's a man with the character of slime mold. And people like that care about *one* thing, and that's *themselves* above everything else. Does anybody actually think Trump cared about the people arrested on Jan. 6. I suppose some do. I'm not one-a them. And I've posted this quote from Trump:
"Are you talking about disinformation or are you talking about lies? There is a more beautiful word called disinformation.”
This is a guy who made a living off-a "disinformation" spewed out to friend and foe alike. "Stop the steal," because he was a sore loser. *All* the good he did is *erased* by that comment. And because he would *not* turn the power he *craved* over to the man who was elected.
Mebbe I should "say," IMO. Mebbe not.
There may be more to the “cult of personality” than I give credit to. I just don’t move in circles that could be described that way. But in the end, many of us are far worse off under the policies of today’s Dems, regardless of theirs and Trump’s personalities. And the luminaries of the party today seem much more elitist, far less the party ordinary folks. Republicans always were the country club snobs, but I don’t recall them being as anxious to crush the opposition with made-up Russian collusion hoaxes and the like.
In the end, I go back to the old wisecrack about politician and prostitution both starting with a “p.” Seems about right.
Biden plagiarized a college paper and a campaign speech. He changed positions to get re-elected. He sold his soul to the highest bidder! He has become a millionaire off taxpayers backs! Trump cares for the working stiffs! We know it!
Yeah, I agree it's about right.
It's just too bad that Trump strives to change certified election results that do not suit him and not conform to the dignified transfer of power that we in this country had always enjoyed - until now.
And what do we call someone who attempts to remain in power after being voted out?
Al gore?
I remember Gore, as sitting Vice President, after losing in the Supreme Court, actually presiding over the ceremonial Electoral College count showing Bush to be the victor. Something like being at his own funeral.
There was no attempt made to find alternate electors.
Your right , that was in 2016 with electors. Followed by the Russia hoax to delegitimize the president elect , jail his advisers and maybe even jail him.
Sir Lee, I gotta ask: Why You come in here and disrupt the echo chamber? For *shame.* For SHAME!
You're right. I'm guilty as charged..
Thanks for the levity..
The article we all just went through was about the glories of the of the Inflation Reduction Act, take your echo chamber and stick it.
Actually, I should thank You for making my point: A while ago I compared the MAGAtites with the Woke. Both don't acknowledge inconvenient facts.
That You can't see these comments are pretty much an echo chamber indicates a level of willful ignorance only found at the extremes.
Just what I would expect from You guys/gals.
A bit on the rude side but anyway, one day your medicine yearly cost will be capped at $2000 and you'll enjoy it - long after you've forgotten this conversation..
Do you have anything else to comment on? Maybe Melania's wardrobe?
It's embarrassing to see 'blue' jacket people's arguments continuously revert to a "But Trump"
Do you have a position on ANYTHING in the bill as relates to economics, or the betterment of Americans?
To understand my comment, you first must read the comment I based my response to. In it, the writer expressed the thought that over 99% of Trump supporters disliked (a lot) some (most?) of his personal traits. Narcissism being one of them. But that he had brought some good stuff to the table and was a 'champion of the ethos'..
So, Critical, Lady in the Lake brought up Trump - and that's why I did too...
Once again, Sir Lee, You confuse people with the facts of the matter. Will You never learn? That's just plain cruel on Your part.
Larry Summers is a lifelong Democrat who is fully aware of the economic damage the Biden administrative is foisting on the American people. But Larry would love to get back into the game. Unfortunately for him he sometimes inadvertently speaks the truth. For example the Harvard incidents with Cornell West and the crack about females and relative absence in stem professions. By not sticking entirely to the playbook Summers cost himself some major Washington jobs such a Fed Chairman and Treasury Secretary in Democrat administrations. It is easy to see in the interview with Bari that he is reluctant to put his foot in his mouth once again. I think Bari should seek an interview with Thomas Sowell at Hoover and ask him what he thinks of Biden economics and where it's taking this country.
Would LOVE to see interview with Sowell!
Summers would say, who? He’d be too afraid to interview Sowell’s thoughtful analysis & confront truths. Larry is a political animal, Sowell is not. Larry can’t afford to be truthful because he isn’t willing to give up the popularity game.
Yeah, and pointing out positive aspects of Trump is the one Rubicon they cannot cross.
I cannot LOVE this comment enough. YES!
Bari, if you read this please interview Thomas Sowell. Thank you.
My megaphone may be smaller, but my advice to Larry Summers is that he can go pound sand. Inflation is when too much money is chasing too few goods and services, and no amount of verbal gymnastics can tap dance around that inconvenient fact.
Someone please enlighten me. He believes that in 2021 we were spending too much and he warned of the dangers of inflation. GOT IT. Check and agree.
In 2022 there was a bill proposed that would result in spending even more. But this time, the bill didn’t put money in the hands of the citizens, this time the bill put the money in the hands of government administrative agencies to address the behaviors of the citizens. He believes this bill is better and met with a politician who opposed the bill, had a conversation he won’t tell you about, but was worded strongly enough to change the politician’s vote on the bill to one that supported it, because there are other things in the bill that he supports. And He doesn’t believe that the financial policies being setforth are politically motivated? Ok…he just verified my distrust. What parallel universe is this? The only respect I have for this man is that he respects Milton Friedman AND that teaching Keynesian methods should never had been canceled. How else are people going to learn that Keynesian methodologies don’t work and Milton Friedman is respected because his methodologies do work?
Best comment here.
Larry summers IS the bastardization of modern monetary theory. He “questions Trumps motives” because Trump is the first politician in his life that does not agree with the largest wealth transfer in human history that Summer oversaw during his time in the Obama administration (I wrote on this in my stack about the size of the government) and the new largest wealth transfer in human history that he’s helping guide now
Imagine how good it has to feel to know you’ve disagreed with every decision Summers has ever made - it’s the key to sleeping well at night.
MMT is on display today and is failing miserably.
I hate calling it "Modern Monetary Theory," because what they're practicing isn't really MMT. Instead I refer to it as "bastardized modern monetary theory," or "BMMT."
We practiced true MMT during WWI, and part of the American people learned an amazing lesson from what they accomplished. We kind of practiced true MMT during WWII, but learned all the wrong lessons. In the 1970's, and then REALLY in the late 90's, we transformed to BMMT and the rest, as they say, is history.
The Keynesian economic theory of unadulterated investment in means of production has some very serious merit. Like many quality theories (Nudge theory being my favorite example of a great theory bastardized to manipulate people), once it was placed in the hands of government it was completely corrupted to be used purely for manipulation of power and personal gain. But we shouldn't trash the theory because the people overseeing its implementation are corrupt and incompetent (sort of like how we shouldn't throw out the theory of Christianity because the Vatican is corrupt as all get up).
Said very simply, we took a theory based on investment in the means of production (education, literal production capacity threshold increases, supply chain investments, etc...) and decided that it was way easier to print money and buy sh*t then it was to invest in building it and wait for the return on that investment.
Summers actually says it very well in that interview - they "don't like slow and steady growth." Which is the only sustainable kind. So instead they print money, buy tons of sh*t from China, and call it economic growth. It isn't economic growth, it's buying more stuff.
And that was the destruction of the US economy. Pre and Post WWI we actually used MMT - we INVESTED very heavily in the means of production - factories, labor investments, educational investments, infrastructure investments, etc... Now, I don't believe we should even have a 16th amendment, so I still think the free market would have better adapted to all these things than the government did, but post WWI it was still the free market making the vast majority of these investments and the government was simply paying for the transition to military production and then back to consumer production, which seems at least reasonable. Today? Today we have it ALL wrong, and we're going to pay for it. But people like Summers, who created it, will be too wealthy to care.
Well said, we need to increase supply (means of production) to tame inflation but our government prefers printing and buying stuff from other countries. All backwards.
Totally agree. The biggest thing Trump got right about the economy was understanding how broken it was. He realized that by simply walking and chewing gum at the same time (deregulate to significantly boost the short term economy and incentivize domestic investment to stimulate the long term economy) he could fundamentally alter the US economy. And it worked.
I wrote a whole stack on how much easier BIG problems are to solve than small problems, because even minor solutions look amazing when the problem is large enough and Trump realized that. Obama and Summers had so badly murdered the fundamentals of our economy it took only minor tweaks to look like a savior.
The big D dems are so incompetent (or, more likely, so blinded by their own wealth) they're right back to destroying all the same underlying fundamentals not realizing how easy that will, once again, make it for the next R who walks into office.
Whether Trump, or DeSantis, or whomever, all that person will need to do is open domestic energy production, make miniscule personal tax code changes to invigorate spending, and reintroduce the same onshoring fiscal benefits Trump provided last time to increase investment in localized production (something as simple as extending depreciation schedules) and away the economy will go.
The real test will be education. As I covered in a separate Stack, the power of the US economy was in the diversity of its economy. If we want that bad, we need diversity of education. We need regional focuses on regional expertise. Whomever gets that right won't get the credit at the time, but whomever can undue the damage caused by "No Child Left Behind" will be the real hero, and while it will take time to appreciate (like it's taken time to realize how much damage Obamacare actually did - with premiums increasing almost 200% since that law was passed), people in the know will view that person as possibly having saved generations of Americans.
His inflation bill gives tax credits to rich people to buy electric cars. Insanity.
That you can’t buy because demand far outstrips supply. So GM and Ford simply increase the cost so they get ALL the incentives.
Mr. Summers is a tool.
subsidizing increases costs? Hope they don't try that with student loans!
When do you think the extreme cost increases started? Yep. When the government took over the student loan program 14-15 years ago.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha, nice one!
nothing fights inflation like wealth transfers to corporations and the affluent.