Failed Perceptions Of Economic Reality It is long viewed that what the electoral populace thinks of the state of the economy is an important factor in how they vote and electoral outcomes. Prior to 2000 the state of the economy as measured by real per capita GDP growth explained presidential election outcomes except in cases […]
Michigan 8th District Congressman Mike Bishop’s ad: “Additionally, under the American Health Care Act (AHCA), insurance companies cannot deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions – yet Elissa Slotkin continues to lie about Mike Bishop’s record. Sec. 137 of H.R. 1628 of the AHCA states: “Nothing in this Act shall be construed as permitting health insurance […]
When the stock market headlines the political blogs . . . Here is a graph I saw on Digby’s blog this morning: There was also a highly-recommended, heavily-commented piece at Daily Kos. Here’s a pro tip: when you see a daily stock market move leading the political blogs, it’s a sign of a bottom, not a […]
“The Opportunity Cost of Socialism” Why is the Council of Economic Advisers producing party political propaganda for the GOP? As many folks have pointed out, the “report” is rather bizarre. My favorite part is Figure 1, which summarizes Milton Friedman’s argument that people spending “their own money” are “more careful how much to spend and on what […]
How To Get Distracted From What Is Most Important Of course as the midterm elections are nearly upon us, there is a rising cacophony of issues bubbling up, especially as Donald Trump attempts to excite his extremist base with base fears, while trying to distract most voters from threats by GOPs in Congress to cut […]
If you have not seen this yet, take a moment, watch, and listen. It makes you feel good about being a Democrat. This is the 7th District Virginia’s Elissa Slotkin, Abigail Spanberger running for the Congressional Representative in Virginia. After verbally wondering if Dave Brat knows which Democratic candidate she is, listen to her remind […]
HuffPost Politics: New York Times columnist Economist Paul Krugman fears that President Donald Trump’s insistent complaints of “voter fraud” are a setup to deny the legitimacy of a Democratic majority in the House should the party win in the midterm elections. Those who don’t believe such a scenario is possible “haven’t been paying attention,” the […]
Jargon is a heck of a drug: If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. The discourse of global warming/climate change is lousy with jargon. This rampant obfuscation gives science […]
Or not enough. Nate Silver has long performed fairly complicated calculations with (lots of) raw data. Even back when he was Poblano at DailyKos this was highly controversial. Now that he leads a huge team at fivethirtyeight.com, it is almost necessary just to decide whether to trust them, because it is very time consuming to […]
Tracking Trump’s tariffs: US vs. Canadian rail loads Let me start out by saying that there is an excellent case for the US imposing a VAT (“value added tax”) similar to those enacted by Canada and European countries in order to recapture the losses due to far lower wages in China and other developing countries. […]