Saturday AM

Government Spending

Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress claim that America spends too much on things like food stamps, welfare, and foreign aid. But let’s look at how the government actually spends your federal tax dollars each year. pic.twitter.com/yHPOvPZvRN

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 30, 2019

DON’T ABET REPUBLICAN BAD FAITH ON DEFICITS

Democrats gain absolutely nothing from focusing on deficit reduction, since any gains will simply be used by the next Republican government for more upper-class tax cuts. Dems don’t need to be as fiscally irresponsible as Republicans, but the next time they get the chance to govern they need to focus on making their programs as popular and as durable as possible, and if that means not accounting for every dime of spending that’s fine. 

Demographics

Where rich millennials are moving

Also... Where the Jobs are going be    vs.     Where the R and D Voters are.

Media - Establishment Propaganda

CNN doing its best not to mention Sanders - Commentators: Who won the Democratic debate?

BBC - Declares Biden the winner. Shows a picture of Sanders underneath  the "Losers" headline even though the paragraph never mentions him.  - Democratic debate winners and losers from both nights

BBC is worried about one-liners. I'd prefer a longer explanation. Trump is good at one liners.

CNN’s Industry Spin Shows Need for Independent Debates

We desperately need serious, independently run debates, not over-the-top industry-friendly spectacles of the sort put on by CNN—and endorsed and gate-kept by the major parties.

Ian Welsh nails the Media - A Broken Media Is A Broken Society



Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA - I see articles like this as plants to make Epstein look like a super bond-villain type who was able to con all those rich folk because, well, he was a super bond villain. He conned us all !  In reality, he had a ton of cash and pretty much just fit in with the rest of our rich and powerful.. until he got caught. Now they need to distance themselves from him.



Line of the Day

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS - L,G&M on Epstein.

It also illustrates the crying need for far more financial transparency. Where did Epstein get his money and where has it been going? There are many hints here that he’s some sort of grifting shakedown artist at the head of a largely phony financial empire, who also has a taste for blackmail and sexual assault. 

Just imagine if someday things should get decadent enough for someone like Epstein to become president of the United States.

Medicare for All

When Did You Realize American Health Care Was Broken?



Sheldon's Money

Sheldon Adelson is Trump and the R's largest donor and he and his wife really like Nikki Haley. They are not going to like Kellyanne's smart-assed "PENCE2020" reply.  NIKKI HALEY CRITICIZES DONALD TRUMP ON TWITTER.



US and Israel

IS THE ‘TRUMP VIRUS’ ABOUT TO SHATTER JEWISH UNITY IN THE U.S?


Political Economy

Is Politics Getting to the Fed?  - Rs just don't play by the established rules.

The entire point of central-bank independence is to establish a credible monetary policy by insulating the relevant decision-makers from such influence. That is what we learned from the early 1980s, when Fed Chair Paul Volcker hiked the federal funds rate up to the level necessary to choke off inflation. The big difference, of course, is that President Ronald Reagan supported Volcker, whereas Trump is Powell’s chief antagonist. 

Powell’s challenge, then, is to maintain Volckerian discipline and independence in the face of growing political pressure. At the moment, his prospects for success are not great.

Who are you going to believe, me or the evidence of your own eyes?

Misleading statistics result in misguided policies. If governments think the economy is well on the road to recovery because that’s what GDP suggests, they might not take the strong policy measures needed to resuscitate the economy that they would take with metrics that inform on whether most of the population still feels in recession. If they do not have metrics on the extent of people’s economic insecurity, they may not take measures to bolster the safety net and social protection; they might even set about stripping away some social programmes.  

One reason the Great Recession morphed into a social and political crisis is that relying on GDP not only gave a false picture of the overall state of well-being, it contributed to the decline of trust in governments and experts, as people saw that their own situation was not improving despite the claim by the experts, based on certain official figures, that a recovery was underway. If we had had better metrics, including better measures of increases in people’s economic insecurity, we might have realised that the downturn was deeper than the GDP statistics indicated. And if that had been the case, perhaps governments would have responded more strongly to mitigate the negative impacts of the crisis.