From people who extrapolate from personal observations, while dismissing statistics; to wit:
The chip shortage is ending. My Whirlpool contact told me they are now back to full production and going downstream to a HVAC company I am related to, all chip shortages ended in late summer.
Auto will be over by Halloween. Production of new cars will surge into 2021. Creating deflationary pressures. People like Condon don’t anticipate, they create intellectual fantasies.
That was a comment by Gregory Bott in September 2021.
So read this latest comment (from today) regarding the oil price increase/Russian invasion impact on economic prospects with that prognostication in mind:
I see little actual disruption. My guess by May, this will be reversed. Much like the coming upward revisions to gdp/payrolls in 2020-21. Be careful with struggling government data.
Gregory Bott may turn out to be right in the end. But I’m not betting on it (and I just really don’t know how people can be confident about things when the situation is so fluid).
For the bot, it’s an issue of rhetorical style. A bombastic style. He pretends to know what he only suspects. The record does not support his pretense.
Archilochus and Isaiah Berlin gave us the Fox and the Hedgehog; the Fox knows many things, but the Hedgehog knows one big thing. Berlin, a least, had in mind the thinking of great minds, and credited the Hedgehog with knowing a big, true thing. In economics, a Hegdehog might, for instance, know a great deal of math but have little use for alternative theory or history.
In the real world, hedgehogs often “know” one thing, but that thing is, let’s say, orthogonal to the truth. Elevating one’s own limited experience over general knowledge or data or the views of specialists limits one’s knowledge to one small thing. Not what Berlin had in mind.
Perhaps if the bot sat on a hedgehog, experience would tell him it’s a hairbrush.
So, might it all just as well be noise? What, exactly, does the dismal science have to offer? Is it too obvious to compare economics to theology, as a discipline?
Why no updated post on the thread topic Gregory Bott was replying to? This was regarding Tim Congdon’s PCE forecast differing from mainstream economists and policymakers. Instead, we swap one Menzie Chinn ego-post attempting to poop on Congdon with another Menzie Chinn ego-post attempting to poop on Gregory Bott. Poop.
Poop
Did you trouble reading the original post? Sure inflation expectations were mentioned but the thrust of the post was forecasts of real GDP and a comparison to certain measure of potential GDP. Then again – you probably do not even know the difference between these two macroeconomic concepts. So troll on in your usual ignorance.
PaGLiacci-
You’re looking extra clownish today. Please reread my comment and *THE ORIGINAL POST* where this all started. Menzie even linked to it but you’re too lazy/ignorant to understand what’s going on. Original post was 100% about PCE forecasts and zero to do with GDP. You’re confused. Again. Can’t wait to see how you try (and fail) to weasel out an explanation as to why your clown show actually includes egg yolk on your face as part of the routine.
I’m quite bored with you. Poop for you as well. Poop
“Please reread my comment and *THE ORIGINAL POST* where this all started.”
You do have this way of writing ambigious BS and expecting the rest of us to know WTF you are babbling about. You could have been clearer. You could have specifically linked to the ORIGINAL POST but you choose not to. Why – because you are nothing more than a self serving troll.
Ambiguous??? This is ambiguous???:
“Why no updated post on the thread topic Gregory Bott was replying to? This was regarding Tim Congdon’s PCE forecast differing from mainstream economists and policymakers.”
It’s perfectly clear what I’m referencing and what I am referencing is linked to in this post. It’s all there for anyone with the slightest initiative to see. Just admit that you didn’t read Menzie’s post and then you have the gall to question if I had “trouble reading”. You’re an absolute clown.
“Ambiguous”??? Hahaha Poor, PaGLiacci. At least you’ve wiped the egg off of your eyes but it’s still covering the rest of your face. Of which you continue to fail saving. HonkHonkHonkHonk
Where Do Monetarists Think the PCE Price Level Is Going To?
From an email from Tim Congdon, at the International Institute for Monetary Research (9/20):
Fine – like anyone gives a damn about some monetarist rant last fall from the “vaunted” International Institute for Monetary Research. Econned musdt have learned only one thing in his economics classes: M*V = P*Q, His “intellect” is indeed that limited. The rest of us have moved on as we get that V is not a constant (shhh – don’t tell Econned this reality).
I have tried to stomach the writings of monetarist Tim Congdon to see if he is one of those nutcases who thinks velocity is constant. He never says. Econned might have given us his worthless two cents on this since he thinks anyone here gives a hoot about what Congdon says. Of course Econned is all about hurling childish insults and nothing more. So maybe we should look a graph of GDP/M2 (Congdon says he is using M3 which is odd since it is no longer published by the Federal Reserve):
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V
Monetarists used to tell us that GDP/M2 hovered around 1.8. But wait – even pre-pandemic, this ratio was less than 1.5 for years. So is Congdon using 1.5 or 1.8? Oh wait of late this ratio is hovering just over 1.1.
So what is this magical constant in term of the M2 velocity of money. Congdon never says and of course Econned has no clue.
PaGLiacchi,
FYI… It’s Menzie Chinn who “gives a hoot what Congdon says.” And, of course, you would know this if you were paying merely the slightest bit of attention. Just a tad. But alas, here we are with you showing how absolutely clueless you are. And how you’re the only one obsessed with velocity. And now you’re suggesting Congdon, or I, have some “magical constant in terms of the M2 money supply” in an attempt to obfuscate the actual discussion. I suppose the egg has run back into your eyes.
HonkHonkHonkHonk
https://english.news.cn/20220419/90702aacb03c4114be6281bbe4cd9091/c.html
April 19, 2022
IMF cuts 2022 global growth forecast to 3.6 pct amid Russia-Ukraine conflict
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday slashed global growth forecast for 2022 to 3.6 percent amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, down by 0.8 percentage point from January projection, according to its newly released World Economic Outlook report.
WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday slashed global growth forecast for 2022 to 3.6 percent amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, 0.8 percentage point lower than the January projection, according to its newly released World Economic Outlook (WEO) report.
The Ukraine crisis unfolds while the global economy is “on a mending path” but has not yet fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, the report said, noting that global economic prospects have worsened “significantly” since the forecast in January.
A severe double-digit drop in GDP for Ukraine and a large contraction in Russia are “more than likely,” along with worldwide spillovers through commodity markets, trade and financial channels, the report showed.
This year’s growth outlook for the European Union has been revised downward by 1.1 percentage points to 2.8 percent due to the indirect effects of the conflict, making it a large contributor to the overall downward revision, according to the report.
The U.S. economy is on track to grow 3.7 percent in 2022, 0.3 percentage point lower than the January projection, before growth moderating to 2.3 percent in 2023. The Chinese economy is expected to grow 4.4 percent this year, 0.4 percentage point lower than the previous projection, followed by a 5.1 percent growth in 2023, the report showed.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Monday the country’s gross domestic product grew 4.8 percent year on year to 27.02 trillion yuan (about 4.24 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first three months, which is a steady start in 2022 in the face of global challenges and a resurgence of COVID-19 cases.
Analysts said the full-year growth target of 5.5 percent set by China’s policymakers is still attainable but requires greater efforts, given increasing economic headwinds.
Global growth is projected to decline from an estimated 6.1 percent in 2021 to 3.6 percent in both 2022 and 2023, 0.8 and 0.2 percentage points lower for 2022 and 2023, respectively, than in the January projection, the report noted….
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2022/April/weo-report?c=924,134,532,534,536,158,546,922,111,&s=PPPGDP,&sy=2007&ey=2021&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1
April 15, 2022
Gross Domestic Product based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) valuation * for China, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Macao and United States, 2007-2021
2021
China ( 27,744)
Germany ( 4,857)
India ( 10,219)
Japan ( 5,615)
United States ( 22,998)
* Data are expressed in US dollars adjusted for purchasing power parities (PPPs), which provide a means of comparing spending between countries on a common base. PPPs are the rates of currency conversion that equalise the cost of a given “basket” of goods and services in different countries.
Fannie has joined the herd:
https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/forecast/inflation-rate-signals-tighter-monetary-policy-and-threatens-soft-landing
Donald Trump Jr. celebrated Easter by posting a picture of bunnies wearing camo and holding military assault weapons:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-jr-easter-bunnies_n_625cd53fe4b06c2ea32c0e68
It is as if daddy wanted the Easter Bunny to storm the capital on January 6, 2021.
He got the Q Shaman instead.
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-cumulative-excess-deaths-from-covid-19/
Kevin Drum is playing with regressions again. This one covers an important topic. The excess deaths measure for COVID-19 deaths per capita by nation is regressed again against how far north the nation is.
Check it out as at least it is interesting way of thinking about these issues.
This is great. But I wonder about the theory here (caution: armchair epidemiology ahead!). We know that Covid (and the flu) have seasonality because when it gets colder, people cluster indoors, where the germs spread more easily. But this seems to be saying the opposite. What’s the story here? Is it *not* about the cold? Maybe it’s about people in certain places being more used to the cold (and so they mill about outdoors more often)? (If that were the case, we’d expect lower seasonality of both Covid and the flu there.)
Also, the people dying the most from Covid are elderly. Maybe the center of the *elderly* population is a more fitting measure.
In any case, there are a lot of confounders here, naturally. This would be a fun lesson in an econometrics class.
I sort of expect Kevin Drum would admit to engaging in “armchair epidemiology”. I love this term and might use it later.
“We know that Covid (and the flu) have seasonality because when it gets colder, people cluster indoors, where the germs spread more easily. But this seems to be saying the opposite.”
actually, no. the past year probably does not give a great basis to determine what, if any seasonality, is a part of covid. why is that? because the virus has not reach endemic status until very recently, if at all. and the rollout of mask mandates, social distancing, etc will impact seasonality. and how do we know this? flu season basically did not exist last year. and yet we “know” it is seasonal. so why would you expect covid to seasonality in a period of time when the flu did not? we will have a better idea of covid seasonality as it moves from pandemic to endemic.
“because the virus has not reach endemic status until very recently, if at all.”
That’s not evidence that Covid does not transmit faster during colder weather due to people piling indoors. You don’t need endemic status to determine that. A simple weather instrument (in the econometric sense) would do.
Also, I don’t know anything about there not being a flu season, but there a massive confounder, the Omicron strain, last flu season. Hard to take that as evidence that there *isn’t* seasonality in Covid.
But sometimes it really is worth one’s time to just look at the time series for positive tests. They skyrocketed in the fall of 2020 and the fall of 2021, and came down in the spring. The delta variant peaked much lower, during the spring/summer of 2021. That’s pretty good evidence for seasonality, don’t you think? And it’s not just the US.
I am not saying it is not seasonal. what I am saying is the data we currently have may not be seasonal, yet. as a baseline, the flu is seasonal. and yet it did not have a winter season of any significance.
https://www.familiesfightingflu.org/flu-deaths-vs-covid-19-deaths/
did omicron spike because of seasonality? or because the most infectious strain appeared in the population at the end of the year? what happens if omicron appears in the population in April? flu does not spike in the summertime.
@baffling “I am not saying it is not seasonal. what I am saying is the data we currently have may not be seasonal, yet.”
True, sure, but it’s unlikely. We have lots of theoretical reasons to believe it’s seasonal, and we have an example of a more-infectious-than-previous-strain strain, Delta, coming away from the peak season and peaking well below. A lot of this was the vaccine, but that took time to roll out. In any case, real epidemiologists (that is, not me!) already think we have good reason to believe in seasonality. That’s why the CDC was in such a panic in the past couple Octobers, and they were right.
To engage in a bit of footstool epidemiology, seasonal swings are seasonal, geography is full-time. If (I says from my footstool) the overall environment for Covid transmission is friendlier in the southern temperate zone than in the north, but cold-weather behavior is friendlier in the north, pattern explained.
Can I have a cookie?
Here is your cookie. I took a bite, hope you don’t mind. (Am vaccinated and boosted, don’t worry.)
Not familiar with this source, but the upshot is that Russia’ Duma is debating a grand economic experiment in response to sanctions:
http://johnhelmer.net/naive-questions-about-russias-war-economy/print/
The style is a bit cutsie for my taste, but to each his own.
Very cutsie – so much so I almost stopped reading. But this line could have been expanded on:
the two schemes, this is now the Russian choice between state socialism and oligarch capitalism. For the time being the mainstream Russian media have yet to realize what’s at stake; no one in the west has noticed.
Yeltsin’s oligarch capitalism was noticed by Joseph Stiglitz in his chapter “Who Lost Russia”. Yes a new scheme was needed which opened the door to Putin. But to suggest his version of crony capitalism was the new state socialism is a bit of a stretch. Putin replaced Yeltsin’s buddies with his own as the new oligarchs.
“oligarch capitalism”
I’m sorry, but that’s a really dumb term. It’s 2022 and we need to put “capitalism” to bed. It means absolutely nothing today.
“state socialism” is not far behind. It’s a cute way for people on the left to differentiate between Soviet/Chinese/North Korean actual socialism to Scandinavian/French/German absolutely-not-socialism. The latter is the “socialism” they think they like.
Nice to have commentary from someone who actually knows something about Russia for a change.
And you know he knows because…?
Funny how you chose to pipe up in comments to a post about pretending to know without knowing.
Special Operation in Defense of Donbas is the new language being used by the Kremlin to describe Putin’s war crimes. It seems Putin has already given up on taking Kyiv or much of Ukraine. All this destruction only to show how pathetically weak Putin is.
“Special Operation in Defense of Donbas”
The longer the official euphemism for the war, the worse it’s going.
It’ll be tough to get Russians before the International Criminal Court, since, like the United States, it is not a signatory to the treaty.
That said, the court has recently begun to broaden its jurisdiction: “ The International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken the unprecedented decision to launch an inquiry into the United States military and its Central Intelligence Agency, relating to war crimes and crimes against humanity that arose from the conflict in Afghanistan. Afghan and Taliban troops will also be under the microscope…
Seeking permission to proceed to a formal investigation, chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the court she could prove that members of the US armed forces and the CIA had “committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence,” in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, and later at CIA black sites in Poland, Romania and Lithuania. Permission was denied at first instance, but granted on appeal in The Hague.”
https://www.thearticle.com/the-icc-investigates-us-war-crimes-in-afghanistan
You are the defense attorney for Putin before the Hague? Pass the popcorn as this prosecution is guaranteed!
‘special operation’ is result of usa dissing minsk accords……
and ignoring the normandy meetings.
jim cramer does fast calculation on paltry 40k artillery shells from usa is too little and will wait on the artillery ‘tubes’ as ukr arty is soviet retread and calibers are all different!
maybe biden will send some 155 mm palladins with dipcm!!! the gun systems to fire them.
who and how will he teach them to use all these gifties!
Your gradeschool writing teacher must be so disappointed. A sentence should convey a complete idea. None o yours do.
For a robot translating directly from Russian its not that bad. I would give it a C-
Whoever they are, they are using a slang dictionary from 1994.
Anonyunous,
Your Putin propaganda is getting more and more ridicuous. The Minsk Accords did not fail because the US was “dissing” them. What a rank lie,
It is true that the US did not participate in the Normandy negotiations, but then it was thought that having the US part of it would just stir Putin up. It is true that they were viewed in the US as granting Putin a lot he did not deserve, but the US just stayed out of it. more importantly, Ukraine also held that view.
As it was, both Russia and Ukraine did not follow through on the Accord. The guff out of Moscow that it was all the fault of the Ukrainians that the Accords did not happen, presumably due to some noxious influence of the US, is just bs. You are just misrepresenting and lying here, yet again.
so!
how did the anti russian world deal with the minsk agreements?
aside from not shelling donetz since 2014 as the russians claim?
Is Jerome Powell guilty of the same forecasting sin?
“ ‘Our expectation is that these high-inflation readings that we are seeing now will start to abate. And it’ll be like the lumber experience,” Powell told reporters on Wednesday. “Prices that have moved up really quickly because of the shortages and bottlenecks and the like, they should stop going up. And at some point, they, in some cases, should actually go down. And we did see that in the case of lumber.’
Indeed, lumber’s recent cooling appeared to vindicate Powell’s easy-money policies even as the government reported the sharpest 12-month rise in wholesale commodities prices since records began in 1974.“
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/06/22/lumber-inflation-powell-economy/
Whatever Powell’s basis for his observation, lumber prices did continue to decline for a while…then rose sharply to 85% of their previous peak before declining again. Today they remain higher than when Powell made his remarks.
Should we be taking Powell to task for erroneous expectations?
Calling the Federal Reserve chair a sinner is a bit rich simply because he did not get exactly right the future price for a commodity with volatile prices. Of course you pretend you are THE EXPERT on lumber – like you are THE EXPERT on a lot of things that you clearly do not understand. But wait – making data claims without bothering to provide us a chart of the actual data. It seems Dr. Chinn had a recent post on this very type of trolling behavior. Since it took me all of 2 seconds to find a chart of lumber prices, let me fill in given you are utterly incompetent at this kind of stuff:
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lumber
Trading Economics even provided us this discussion (not that JohnH would ever understand it):
Chicago lumber futures consolidated around $950 per thousand board feet, rebounding from an almost five-month low of around $830 on prospects of higher demand as the large US home builders make their purchases necessary for the looming summertime construction season. Meanwhile, lumber prices reached record highs in Japan due to sanctions imposed against Moscow. Russia accounts for more than 80% of Japan’s imports of wood veneer sheets and nearly 20% of its imports of rafters. Still, prices have been under pressure recently, down almost 20% since the beginning of 2022, as transportation bottlenecks eased and output volumes at sawmills have recovered from such constraints amid better spring weather, easing supply concerns after months of tight inventories. On top of that, rising mortgage rates helped cool the red-hot US housing market.
The FED chair might be expected to factor in the housing market etc. but did JohnH actually expect him to know last summer that Putin would have invaded Ukraine? Oh my – if JohnH knew this would occur then he is truly a GENIUS (at least in his little mind).
Lumber prices hit a temporary peak of $1278 on January 18, more than a month before Russia’s invasion.
So should be take Powell to task for getting lumber prices and inflation in general wrong?
I would take his advice over that of our resident Village Idiot. I guess you failed to read the Trading Economics discussion given your stupid reply.
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2022/04/corporate-profits-pre-tax-w-o-iva-and-ccadj
Dr. Chinn was likely referring to some nonstop babble from JohnH when he insisted that doing the research and providing a graph might save someone from saying something stupid. Of course we have suggested this to JohnH. Yet this troll almost never does the hard work. One would think he would eventually learn but to date he has not.
Princeton Steve insisted the other day that the sanctions on Russia are a failure even though they are not a failure at all but then Stevie kept telling us that as long as Russia exported a lot of oil at high prices – nothing else mattered. I guess this expert on everything failed to notice this new from Bloomberg Russian oil exports plunged 25% in a week:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-19/russian-crude-shipments-shrink-with-asia-bound-cargoes-dwindling?srnd=premium
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-200000-jobs-western-companies-exit-moscow-mayor-2022-4
Moscow’s mayor notes his city is about to lose 200 thousand jobs. Ah but Putin says those sanctions do not work and his pet poodle Princeton Steve agrees with Putin.
Fantasies of the Past
From people who extrapolate from personal observations, while dismissing statistics…
[ An important and fine post. ]
Malcolm Nance takes his considerable talents to Ukraine to defeat Putin’s pigs!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/msnbc%20analyst%20malcolm%20nance%20joins%20the%20fight%20in%20ukraine/ar-AAWlz8Z?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=6257767693d043309dcab23dcdaa6295
the larpin’ us navy intel, analyst sr chief retire
pgl you would have as much more use for that ak than he does in lwow [former poland]!
A group of Georgian citizens are suing to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene off the ballot for her attempt to get reelected. The suit is on solid grounds as it is based on provisions in the 14th Amendment. Of course Taylor Greene wants this Georgia law allowing the suit to be declared unConstitutional but the courts have scoffed at their arguments. Look we know Taylor Greene is dumber than rocks but she can’t hire a competent lawyer? GEESH!
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-reelection-lawsuit-georgia-federal-judge/
pgl,
These Georgian citizens had better be careful. Putin might invade to save this fan of his and blame it on NATO Nazis, :-).
It’d still be called a “Russia hoax”! Clarence Thomas’s wife would probably accuse Justice Jackson of orchestrating the invasion.
Speaking of Georgia (the country), why didn’t Russia take over and set up a puppet government there? Isn’t the country much smaller and somewhat poorer than Ukraine? I wonder if recent history hasn’t taught us about what we’re witnessing now. The Russian leadership doesn’t appear to be aware of their own limits. Dangerous times …
The chip shortage has indeed ended. That isn’t what slowed down auto production in the early spring. Try harder(and yes, production post easter is back online).
GREGORY BOTT: https://www.electronicdesign.com/markets/automotive/article/21235580/electronic-design-how-much-longer-will-it-take-to-fix-the-chip-shortage
“Jan-Philipp Gehrmann, head of global marketing for the advanced analog business at NXP, said the auto industry has been affected by component sourcing issues more than any other sector, and it learned too late that it is impossible to fix it with the flip of a switch.
“What auto makers were unfamiliar with was the process of how chips are made and the complexity behind that,” said Gehrmann. While it usually only takes a single day to manufacture a vehicle from start to finish, the average chip has a front-end production cycle of 12 to 24 weeks. Additionally, it takes 4 to 8 weeks on the back-end to package and test it before the finished chip is finally shipped to the customer.
“The fact that producing a single chip can take six months was hard to understand,” said Gehrmann.”
Gregory probably is thinking in terms of how the auto sector got off its stupid Just in Time inventory approach – which of course was deemed to be the only sensible approach according to Bruce Hall. Here’s a question – for those auto companies who are getting the needed semiconductors, what is the price as compared to chip prices a few years ago?
As usual, pgl fails to make a link to the story…does he even know how?
Oh my are you dumb. Dr. Chinn provided the link. I know you have trouble following even the simplest things but DAMN!
Don’t worry, John. pgl just makes up stuff as he goes along… like saying I supported JIT when everything I wrote was about the risks of JIT coupled with distant geographic supply lines. It’s sort of like trying to have a discussion with Joe Biden who was a Class 8 truck driver and a college “professor”. He takes the Islamic approach to debate: deceit toward unbelievers (of his position) is required.
He does the same thing claiming I supported JIT when I was pointing out the logistical issues with that approach. He can’t cite one comment I made in support of JIT.
And I thought JohnH was the dumbest troll ever. No read this stupidity from the gold winner in being dumb. Or is Village Idiot Bruce Hall saying Menzie made this up.
Bruce Hall
April 20, 2022 at 9:37 am
Lucy,
I see you spreading another outright lie about me: Just in Time inventory approach – which of course was deemed to be the only sensible approach according to Bruce Hall. Exactly the opposite of what I’ve been saying. I’ve been pointing out the logistical problems associated with JIT.
Now you have to blatantly LIE about what you have said in the past. Congratulations Brucie for finally figuring out that you never had a clue what you have been saying.
This is so typical of the bot. Mere assertion, no evidence, and wrong too boot.
A look at evidence reveals how wrog:
https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/vw-expects-microchip-shortage-last-until-2024
https://www.kbb.com/car-news/microchip-shortage-update-car-production-still-slowed/
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/semiconductor-industry-outlook.html
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-22/volvo-cars-cuts-2022-production-goal-on-chip-constraints
https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2022/04/12/chip-shortages-expected-to-last-into-2023-auto-execs-say/
Ahem – I don’t think this is right. But OK – you get this issue a lot better than Bruce Hall, which is a low bar.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/tucker-carlsons-testicle-tanning-very-misleading-health-experts-say/ar-AAWn3mR?ocid=uxbndlbing
Tucker Carlson tells his male viewers to tan their testicles so they can be manly men. Excuse me but this practice is dangerously stupid. Besides Tucker Carlson is a trust fund baby with a bow tie to turn on guys he wants to date – even though Tucker Carlson is a complete wussy boy.
There’s some comments related to tucker carlson and a film and twitter that it’s tempting to make, but I think Menzie has shown an abundance of tolerance of me sullying his blog lately, so the curious will have to search that one out for themselves. I’d be tempted to use some derogatory terms no longer acceptable in the “woke” world so, it’s better for everyone this way.
“tan their testicles”
Boy, racists really are obsessed with race.
It is hard to tan them in the sun (especially in the winter) so may I suggest UV lamps – the stronger the better. UV is also known for its ability to sterilize. Maybe those “manly men” could eliminate themselves from the gene pool in the process.
And you thought Democrats were the good guys! “ CHUCK SCHUMER IS STALLING A FLOOR VOTE ON ANTITRUST BILLS TO REIN IN BIG TECH”
https://theintercept.com/2022/04/19/big-tech-antitrust-chuck-schumer/
Background: “ How Democrats Became the Party of Monopoly and Corruption.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/evjkwj/how-democrats-became-the-party-of-monopoly-and-corruption
Amazing how Democrats magically seem to find just enough votes to thwart progressive legislation.
You need to recheck the title of your first link which does not read what you wrote:
CHUCK SCHUMER “WORKING CLOSELY WITH SENATOR KLOBUCHAR” TO WHIP VOTES FOR ANTITRUST BILLS
There is a clear path to passage: Put the bill on the floor, and dare senators to oppose it.
Now I get Senators spin all the time so we need to monitor this to make sure the bill does come up for a vote. But could you actually READ your own links to make sure your comments are not misrepresenting them?
They changed the headline…interesting!!!
(I copied and pasted the original.)
Of course the original headline did not convey what the story said. So your putting forth the headline without telling us the substance of the story was just your usual dishonesty. After all – I actually READ the entire story. Either you didn’t or you lied AGAIN.
had progressives gotten on board with the biden agenda early on, they probably could have gotten most everything needed in the two big bills recently. but they stalled, wanting even more. those delays gave cover for folks like manchin and sinema to continue to delay and doubt. and the legislation failed. progressives need to learn how to play ball to get things done. at this point those progressive caucuses are about as effective as the now defunct tea partiers at passing legislation. but very effective at thwarting legislation.
“progressives need to learn how to play ball to get things done.”
It’s ideological strategery. For the “progressives” at the very extreme end (who seem to set the tone for others who call themselves progressives, peacocking or not), corporation-y Democrats are corporation-y, so any concession to them is very, very painful. Moreover, if you don’t concede, the corporation-y Democrats will eventually give in because after all, whatever the progressives want is popular by definition, and the corporations (whose goals are antithetical to that of The People) will just take the temporary hit.
In essence, the “progressives” *aren’t (small-d) democrats*. They think democracy is just a part of the corporation-y quote-unquote system. They’re not really socialists, but in an important way they actually are Marxists. I’m not sure they know it, though.
“at this point those progressive caucuses are about as effective as the now defunct tea partiers at passing legislation. but very effective at thwarting legislation.”
They’re even better at electing Republicans in swing districts and states.
I think the problem on the left is the mirror image of the problem on the right (though in miniature): People go to the news sources that confirm their biases, never ones that challenge them.
Alex Jones trying to replicate donald trump’s well known business acumen:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/infowars-alex-jones-files-for-bankruptcy
Judge needs to look at current and projected revenue from infowars. Even if Jones has been ordered to pay more than the net from operations, that doesn’t mean he should be off the hook for payment. He ain’t rich enough for even Purdue treatment. Receivership puts the court in charge of distribution of revenue. That would be ideal. Liquidation of assets without putting Jones future earnings on the table would make a mockery of the finding in the civil case.
“That would be ideal. Liquidation of assets without putting Jones future earnings on the table would make a mockery of the finding in the civil case.”
Well, I’m with you 100% as far as how I hope it would be handled. But you brought up the Sackler family. And that’s a prime example of what you said shouldn’t happen has happened before. If you watch a lot of these court cases involving “Distressed Debt” there’s a lot of funny business that goes on, where you wonder the relationship between the judge and the parties involved. Let’s say someone wants to provide Jones with a loan so he could take seizure of Jones’ company, and eventually Jones becomes something more like an “independent contractor” like the faces on FOX news. If Jones is desperate enough, and the judge makes a phony show that “this is the ‘best way’ to give restitution to the Sandy Hook families” there’s nothing at all that says Jones couldn’t find a way to walk out of it “free and clear” with a 7-figure salary in the offing. But my main point is, the results in these type cases tend to be extremely arbitrary. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, just kind of conversing here.
Interesting points. The article’s numbers on Infowars look terrible. Is Jones making any good money? I hear he sells male enhancement stuff.
Honestly, it’s strange that he’s doing so poorly. Makes me suspect he was milking his own company and hiding the money somewhere sunny.
If the judge requires receivership, that empowers the receiver or the court to look into all his finances, right? That’s what you mean, right?
I will take credit for that thought, yes. Hadn’t actually thought throuh the details, but…yes, of course I thought of that.
I wasn’t joking about the male enhancement stuff. It’s supplements, but it’s manly supplements, if you know what I mean. He pitched it shirtless. Not joking. Cannot unsee it.
Looks like he’s going to cooperate with the 1/6 commission. He must be in real doo-doo financially.
or he really does not believe in his schtick enough to go to jail to defend…
It’s all just noise, like Fischer Black said, right?
If Sri Lanka had an unlimited swap line with the Fed, would it have a food scarcity problem?
If Sri Lanka had competent monetary and fiscal policy, would it have a food scarcity problem?
Phillips P. OBrien (historian of war) on Twitter (@PhillipsPOBrien), Apr 18:
“I have developed one fool proof method to measure whether a thread actually hits home—the reaction of the Putin trolls. I have a few regular troll followers, and I’ve come to understand that the better a thread; the angrier, more abusive they become. Trolls do serve a purpose.”
I think this is generalizable beyond Putin trolls!