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Making the Most of the ‘Biden Boom’
The last two years have not gone well. Devastating inflation (reducing the wealth of absolutely everybody, rich and especially poor), urban collapse, high interest rates, increasing racial tensions, a European war that threatens WWIII, increasing energy costs, huge drops in the stock market, China invading our airspace (& Taiwan’s airspace) with no consequences, a humanitarian crisis at our southern border, shipping problems, rising crime rates, explosions in suicides and drug overdoses, prominent leaders openly discussing secession, the FBI, CIA, and our military becoming prominent partisan actors in our political sphere, and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on…
Republicans are displeased, but this is not surprising. They didn’t vote for all this to begin with.
It’s the Democrats I wonder about. Paul Krugman won a Nobel Prize for Economics. He is not stupid. When he wrote the above article when Biden was elected, did Mr. Krugman believe it? Did he really believe that leftism would make America a better place, like it did Venezuela, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Cuba, etc? Regardless of whether he believed what he was writing then, what does he think now? Now that he has seen how this turned out, if he were given the chance, would he go back in time and vote for Trump instead of Biden? If not, why not? How many people voted for Biden? How many of them would vote the same way today? Why?
I’ve heard that there is a growing movement among Democrats who hope that Biden does not run for re-election. Why, I cannot imagine, since he has been the most productive Democrat president since at least FDR, and probably ever. He has gotten more Democrat policies enacted in just two years than any other Democrat president has in their entire term. But still, some Democrats apparently want someone new.
But despite that, and despite all that has happened, I really believe that a huge majority of Democrat voters would not change their vote in 2020, given the chance. Despite all that has happened.
I just don’t understand.
Conservatives have long said that no one could be a leftist unless they were unaware of the events of the 20th century, and unless they had never traveled to a leftist country like Cuba or Venezuela. But now here we are — all of us up to our necks in the results of leftism. And most leftists seem to stick with leftism.
There’s no way they believe that leftism works — the last two years prove that it does not, just as the 20th century did.
There’s no way they’re simply unaware of the results of applied leftism – they’re living it right now.
So why do they continue to support leftism? The only possible answer I can think of is so horrifying that I refuse to consider it.
Is this what they want for their children? Of course not. But they continue to vote for it?
I just don’t understand.
Published in General
I am reading this book now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Mind
I read some of it before the cruise because it was the book club book discussed in the 3 optional book club seminars. I missed 1 of the 3 because my tour ran late. I didn’t have time to finish it before the cruise. It seemed dry at first but got more interesting the deeper I got into it. I do recommend it.
In a perfect world, we need both the left and right. We don’t live in a perfect world and the left has become too extreme to be an asset for creating a better world, in my opinion.
If several others could read the book, it would make for an interesting discussion thread or Land of Confusion podcast, perhaps broken into 3 podcasts, one for each section.
I’ve read it. Definitely an interesting book. I like how Haidt categorizes the different aspects of morality that societies emphasize.
He also paints quite the unflattering view of the liberal mindset, although I’m not sure that was his intent.
I thought the morality part was interesting. The book gets more interesting the deeper I get into it.
First pick your narrative. Than choose a baseline measurement (or point on the X axis) to fit your narrative.
Costco hardest hit:
https://babylonbee.com/news/thanks-to-inflation-more-american-families-forced-to-survive-solely-on-costco-samples
But seriously, …
Yes, inflation can be very sweet for, say, fixed-rate mortgage borrowers without cash-flow problems, since they’re repaying their debts with cheaper and cheaper money while their properties simultaneously appreciate.
That’s just a restatement of “the lesser of two evils.”
GR has in the past also admitted to having these “luxury beliefs.”
I like this one:
Draw your curves then plot your points.
…precisely because the vast majority of them are unaware of the events of the 20th century and have never travelled to a leftist country like Cuba or Venezuela.
And then there are the Sean Penns. . . what’s their excuse?
I think this is the fallacy of ignorance. These people hate us and our system. We are not miscommunicating. They are consumed by their negative emotions, addicted to the thrill of white-hot hatred, and bored out of their ungrateful skulls.
Because they have too much free time.
I think back to the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, when Bernie Sanders seemed to be leading the field. But then Bernie Sanders’ comments regarding Fidel Castro’s Cuba came up and the Democratic primaries seemed to turn on a dime towards Joe Biden.
Not that Joe Biden isn’t pretty far to the Left. It’s just that I think there was a bit of a backlash against Bernie Sanders’ outspoken “socialism.”
(Actually Bernie Sanders didn’t spend his honeymoon in Denmark or Sweden, but in the Soviet Union, so “communism” is probably the more appropriate word to describe Bernie Sanders’ favorite political system).
I know what they need.
Subsistence-level farming will fix that right up.
Most especially the U.S. government, which is paying bondholders back in dollars worth less than what it borrowed. This benefits us and penalizes Japan, our largest bondholder, and China, our second-largest bondholder.
A book I read in 2011 said that there were only three ways the U.S. government could cope with its massive debt: (a) raise taxes, which the author Russ Koesterich said the taxpayers wouldn’t tolerate; (b) spending cuts, which the author said the voters wouldn’t tolerate; and (c) letting inflation run. He said it’s been the policy of the fed to keep a tight lid on inflation since the Carter years, but if they had instead let it out a bit at a time, the economy would have adjusted to it. Doing it this way is going to hurt.
I think this is actually the Biden administration’s plan, to let inflation reduce the federal debt. I think that’s what we’re looking at right now.
I worry that a great global recession coupled with the advancing time on the Doomsday Clock could mean a wild disaster.
It’s a somber time.
But doesn’t inflation mean that interest rates on the debt increase? And last I heard, it wouldn’t take much before interest payments on the debt consume all “discretionary” federal spending.
The U.S. government (or any government, for that matter) is NOT a FIXED-rate borrower (see NOTE below). It is an ADJUSTABLE-rate borrower. That’s why rising interest rates are a problem for it (and, therefore, for US “we the people”).
NOTE:
The US government (writ large: the US Establishment/DeepState/etc.), of course, has had LOTS of power over the last generation or so (not just domestically, but internationally) via which to develop a delightfully self-serving low FIXED interest-rate (e.g. via such fascinating financial “innovations” such as Quantitative Easing and variations thereof). Until recently (i.e. the past year or so).
REALITY always wins, … in the end. Its victory can only be … DELAYED.
My understanding is that most Treasury bonds are fixed rate:
There are some new ones that are variable. I don’t remember what they are called. Perhaps that’s what you are referring to.
This is bizarre. I wrote out a longer answer earlier to KEDavis, but it has disappeared. For a second or so, it was comment 79. Oh, well. :)
I’d like to see it!
All of the T-bills are more or less variable, because they come up for renewal occasionally, and since they can’t be paid back – the money isn’t available – they get re-sold/rolled over at whatever the current rate is.
NOT just most. It’s ALL. EACH individual Treasury bill, note, and bond issued by the US Treasury does indeed have a FIXED rate.
But only for whatever their term is, which for the big government bonds like they sell to big banks or to China, might be as little as 1 year or even 90 days.
Exactly.
It would have been so nice if the “best and brightest” at Treasury would have extended the maturity of the debt, and locked in the low rates when, say, 30-year bonds were at 1.5-2.0%.
But noooooo …
Sometimes they try to extend the duration, but then they may not get bought, if buyers are concerned about higher inflation to come. It can be the same thing now, they might not be able to sell long-term bonds even at 7% if there is concern that inflation might soon reach 9% or more.
Very true, in regards to the current situation. The situation between 2015 and 2020, however, was quite different. In the absence of inflation concerns then, demand was robust even at those low rates. Missed opportunity, alas.
The ones I’m recalling were sort of like variable-rate mortgages. The interest rate changed but at set and fixed intervals. I’ve forgotten the name of them. And perhaps they were a short-lived experiment.
I’ve read/heard, although I suppose it may not be true, that the Treasury Dept tries to get the longest terms possible for bond sales, but they have to make adjustments for what buyers will actually accept. If they weren’t selling longer-term bonds between 2015 and 2020 it would seem to mean that nobody was willing to buy them. Not that they didn’t try to sell them.
And remember too, they can’t NOT sell the bonds.