You DID hear it here first. I picked Becerra for VP 15 months ago.
Back then and even now it was and is ‘Xavier Who?’ But equally nobody thought Trump would even be running, still less making his campaign largely center on the Yuuuge Wall. And a lot of progressives are little leery of Julian Castro based on his mixed record as HUD Secretary. I think Congressman Becerra could have big effects on Nevada, Arizona and Colorado.
And sooth feelings in California over what is looking to be a bruising Senate battle between Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez. Because the Dem establishment will be lining up behind Harris in what will seem like an embarrassing pile on way. Picking Becerra can smooth that right out.
We will see of course. Just wanted to double down when and if.
Quick update: this from the NY Times on May 5 of this year: As Xavier Becerra Stirs Crowds, Hispanic Democrats See a Running Mate
Not to mention my call just this month for Trump-Ernst. If I nail both Clinton-Becerra and Trump-Ernst surely someone somewhere owes me a beer:
http://angrybearblog.strategydemo.com/2016/05/oh-fsm-let-your-noodly-appendages-bless-trump-ernst-2016.html
Bruce:
Did I miss the article or are you forecasting this with a greater certainty?
“We will see of course. Just wanted to double down when and if.”
Just buying my ticket in the Veepstakes
Good Morning Bruce:
On a different topic to your post, I just read (AARP) Social Security again will not be increased for the 3rd time since 2010.
“Social Security beneficiaries won’t get a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) because of low inflation. This will be the third time since 2010 that beneficiaries won’t get a raise.”
For sure that is one way to eliminate inflation fears if one were to be concerned about wage or transfer – driven inflation.
Run – The COLA you are referring to is the one for December of last year (announced in October). It is possible that there will be no COLA again this year. Since there was no COLA last year, the next COLA will be based on the change in CPI-W from the third quarter of 2014 to the third quarter this year. The Q3 2014 CPI-W was 234.242. The latest value is lower (233.438 for April 2016). It wouldn’t take much inflation to get above the Q3 2014 level by Q3 2016 (I think about a 1% annual rate), but that isn’t certain. (I think there probably will be a COLA, since dropping gas prices have kept inflation down, and that is unlikely to continue.)
Mike:
You could be correct. AARP is probably just reminding people.
I recently argued with the Healthcare.gov site about their premium increase for 2016. They said it was because of inflation. The SSA says there is no inflation depending on what CPI index you use. We all know that the cost of food, healthcare, energy and education has gone up so I would say there is moderate inflation but not an over heated economy. We will no doubt see a .25% rate increase after the June fed meeting. This will be a fake rate increase because we all know oil prices always start dropping right after the 4th of July…
Bill:
Healthcare costs always grows at a faster pace than normal inflation. The only thing which inflates faster is the cost of getting an education.
Health care inflation is weighted differently in CPI-W vs CPI-U vs CPI-E (Experimental/Elderly). And over the last few years the resultants have worked in both directions.
As to the claim that energy prices have gone up that is measurably untrue in the context of the last 3rd quarter numbers (which is what the SSA COLA is based on). Energy hasn’t been cheaper than it was last fall for a lot of years. And is pretty much the entire reason there wasn’t a COLA.
Also take a look at this table from SSA showing COLA history https://www.ssa.gov/news/cola/automatic-cola.htm
Energy prices spiked in the 3rd quarter in 2008 leading to a relatively massive COLA of 5.8% in January 2009, the largest such since 1982. To say the least this mistimed the worldwide crash of the next two quarters as energy and a lot of other things went down.
Which in the cold light of retrospective day means that the January 2009 5.8% was in pure arithmetic terms a pure bonus by the time it kicked in, it totally overshot the actual index that had set it. And it took a full two years for prices to catch up. With the result that COLA’s were set to zero rather than what would have been a better end result, that of 2.0% increases each year instead of 5.8%, 0%, 0%.
That is given that there is no clawback provision retirees were actually ‘overpaid’ during 2009 and 2010 and into 2011 even as they were getting no COLA. That is they got their inflation boost early. But don’t try to explain that to people who were and are trying to stretch a totally inadequate SocSec check to meet their monthly needs. Because telling someone that they were actually getting ‘overpaid’ $6 a month or so by SocSec during years when they may have lost a lifetime of home equity and seen the value of their pensions go to shit doesn’t get you ANYWHERE. Trust me on that. All my friends back then were retirees and I didn’t even TRY to show them the numbers. I would have gotten beaten to death by canes and walkers.
But the numbers were and are what they are. Nobody got cheated by those zero COLA’s. Everyone came out ahead of the game. Where the game is defined narrowly as SocSec benefits as opposed to retirement security overall.
Bruce:
Thanks for the explanation and saving me from looking it up.