Impact on a typical family:
Source: Brendan Duke, CAP.
From McKibben, Hogan, Noland (2024), cost to US economy from 10% tariffs, in GDP and inflation (deviation from baseline):
Additional 60% tariffs on Chinese imported goods.
From Alec Phillips, David Mericle and Tim Krupa (Goldman Sachs, 3 September 2024):
And we haven’t even considered the economic implications of mass deportations.
Menzie,
I’m still feeling good about my Kamala short position. Thanks to you, I got in cheap. I’m looking to celebrate with the winnings.
If you guys feel differently, there is still time to place your bets.
shall we limit our choices to individuals who are not convicted felons, frauds, perpetrators of sexual assault, and compulsive liars?
Baffled,
Kamala is selling for 39 cents on polymarket. If you believe Kamala is going to pull it off, 39 cents should look cheap.
Given that Trump is still cheap on Predictit relative to polymarket I increased my stake with an additional long Trump trade.
Everybody is playing the “what happens next?” game as we wait for election outcomes. I want to play, too. I will limit myself to a possible Harris presidency, because I don’t see much mystery about what Trump would get up to in a second term.
Biden has governed in accordance with already-established ideas of what the U.S. needs. He has not, however, merely picked up where Obama left off. Rather, he beefed Obama’s modest antitrust efforts, pushed back against union busting, went all-in against recession and adopted much stronger policies to mitigate climate change. Governing according to established ideas, Biden has run up an impressive record. His biggest failure is in giving Israel the weapons and international cover to engage in ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the West Bank and now Southern Lebanon.
We’re throwing Biden out of office, but not to elect his opponent – an historic oddity. I can tick off some of the factors involved, but I don’t have a full explanation – I ain’t that smart. Biden and Trump, like Clinton (H) and Trump, were unpopular as candidates. Inflation and a housing shortage and other scars of the Covid pandemic create dissatisfaction with the economy that is at odds with conventional economic data, which suggests we should look beyond conventional data.
Anyhow, in an election in which many independent voters would vote against, rather than for, a candidate, best not to give them a candidate who is easy to vote against. In steps Kamala.
So what will Kamala do? Surely, she’ll stick with established Democratic ideas. In that regard she looks to me more like Obama than Biden, but I’m not an insider, so I could easily be wrong. Anyhow, a weak mandate makes policy innovation hard to do. Only a big election surprise will provide her much policy room.
More likely, weakness will be a big issue in a Harris presidency, but not because Harris is personally weak – clearly not. The public just doesn’t care much for its political choices these days. Lack of popularity is lack of strength in politics.
Harris would have same weak Congressional caucus as Biden, Obama and Clinton (Bill, in this case) did. Slim majority, slim minority, divided Congress – it makes a difference, but none of them provides a strong hand. Presidents have to persuade in order to accomplish much in this situation. Biden, Obama and Clinton were persuasive. Maybe Harris will be, too, maybe not. Part of being persuasive is offering popular policies – don’t need to know much to know that.
Populist nostrums are the hallmark of the “new” Republican Party, and they succeed. Biden has tried to take some populist ground. He is a reluctant, optimising trade warrior, but trade a trade warrior, nonetheless. Biden attempted to pass a bad immigration bill, drafted by Republicans, and has turned back more border crossers than Trump ever did. Will Harris grab more populist territory, seeing populism as the only road to political survival for Democrats? I don’t know. Republicans could prove easier to pick off without Trump than with him. In that case, no need to sell the soul of the Democratic party to stay in power. But voters are fickle, so maybe ditching Trump will strengthen Republicans’ chances
So one Harris future is populism. Another is a slim list of accomplishments. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Another is to build on Biden’s accomishments, in the hope that good policy will prove to be good politics, eventually.
Pretty namby-pamby analysis, I realize, but I’m not going to pretend to know stuff that I don’t know. This is all I’ve got.
“Biden has run up an impressive record. His biggest failure is in giving Israel the weapons and international cover to engage in ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the West Bank and now Southern Lebanon.”
It’s too bad Biden took his impressive record, better than Obama, and p**sed it all away on Israel. The same as Lyndon Johnson who took his impressive record on Medicare and civil rights and p**sed it all away on Vietnam.
It remains to be seen what Biden is remembered most for 10 years from now.
Biden will be remembered as a great president who defeated trump and brought rationality back to the white house.
Hope so. The first draft of history is being written by a bunch of preening, profit-driven, equivocating chatterers. Clio has her work cut out for her.
“Biden will be remembered as a great president who defeated trump and brought rationality back to the white house.”
He might also be remembered as the president who brought Trump back to the White House. History can be cruel.
you can blame democrats in general for that one. democrats have let old people run the party for far too long.