It appears people will argue the economic and social positives of the different political parties over periods of time. They probably are different. So, EPI has managed to chart the differences. What the first four charts do is detail the differences between the two parties over two different time periods. One time period staring in 1949 and the next time period in 1981. A contrast in beliefs? Maybe . . .

The last two Appendix Charts compare presidencies and their differences in Growth and Distribution (based on income) results. I am sure many of you will flock to those comparisons.

I thought they were interesting. Maybe you will also.

Economic performance is stronger when Democrats hold the White House”

by Josh Bivens

Economic

Four Climate and Decarbonization Commentaries by Professor Joel Eissenberg

A collection of Joel Eissenberg’s posts. Read only.

1. Geoengineering and the global climate crisis – Angry Bear Global heating continues unabated. While decarbonizing our energy sources is certainly important, it is too late to prevent global disaster. 

2. Why do we need carbon capture? – Angry Bear Yesterday, I posted about geoengineering the oceans as a promising form of carbon capture. But why do we need carbon capture at all? Can’t we just conserve our way out of global warming?

3. More thoughts on carbon capture – Angry Bear Analogies are risky things, but I think there’s a useful analogy between (1) the belief that global conservation is a sufficient antidote

Potential Dem VP Pick Comes After JD Vance

by Kathryn Rubino

Above the Law

Well, Joe Biden is out of the 2024 race for president. Dems have seemingly coalesced around Kamala Harris for the top of the ticket, leaving the political speculation to focus on who will be the Democratic Vice President candidate.

There are plenty of qualified options out there, each bringing their own pluses and minuses to the equation. One tantalizing option is Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. Beshear stacks up well against the Republican VP choice, JD Vance, and he’s already fielding questions from mainstream media about that potential. It’d be interesting for lawyerly-types as it’d be a T14 law school matchup, pitting Beshar’s UVA Law versus Vance’s Yale.

2020 Census: 1 in 6 People in the United States Were 65 and Over, MAY 2023

Added a chart from the Census Bureau to emphasize the point of an aging population.

There are a whole lot of us who are just a few years behind Joe Biden, and society isn’t ready for it.

What happens when the young-old get old-old

by Lloyd Alter

Carbon Upfront

I was thinking about getting old this weekend, and not just because of Joe Biden.

I was at a friend’s 75th birthday party on Saturday, which got me thinking again about aging baby boomers (a subject I wrote about for years at the Mother Nature Network) and what a shitty profession architecture is. Here is a guy, in partnership with his wife, who can’t retire; you can’t live on the Canada Pension

Biden’s legacy: a Summary

by Noah Smith – an introduction to Noahpinion

Noahpinion

Joe Biden announced today that he won’t seek reelection for President. We don’t yet know who will replace him, but we know Biden’s tenure in office will soon end. Now is the perfect time to talk about Biden’s legacy as America’s 46th President.

How Presidents are judged by history is a complicated question, and I don’t have much confidence in my ability to predict how the country will remember Joe Biden. But I do have lots of thoughts on how he  should be remembered. Basically, I see his policy legacy as a mostly positive one, but I think his political  legacy could leave his party in a weaker position going forward.

So I’m going to go through nine

President Joe Biden ends his 2024 reelection bid after weeks of pressure from Democrats to drop out, PBS News No doubt the moneyed influence played an important part in his leaving the race. Much of this has to do with future plans of addressing tax breaks. More on this part later.

Tags: Joe Biden

By commenter Ten Bears

Homeless on the High Desert

It’s not about Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris was my only endorsement in 2020. Kamala Harris is the reason I set aside the three times Joe Biden’s politics have harmed me, harmed my family, harmed the Oregon Timber Industry … and voted for him. And will cast my no party affiliated, independent vote for him again as he turned out the best president of my lifetime. It’s not about Kamala Harris. It’s not even about Joe Biden, it’s about who The People want: Joe Biden

The Democratic Party base, the voters, want Joe Biden. Many Republican voters want Joe Biden. A sizable population of the independently minded, no party affiliated “swing” voters everybody till yesterday was in a dither over what to

Building Badly Needed Muti-Family Housing

What is holding back more building of badly needed muti-family housing is the Fed Rate. The effort of course is to bring down inflation. As you read, I think you will discover the effort by the Fed is not achieving the goal it wishes to achieve. Indeed, its efforts to reduce inflation is hurting housing. Read the different scenarios and see if you agree.

In a recent Employ America article, Skanda Amarnath discusses the growing shortage of multifamily housing in various stages of construction. Such that the months of supply under construction has shrunk from 30 months to 18 months. Such large dwelling projects can take 1 to more years to complete. The importance of which, we may soon hit a dry spell of

Book review of “Corruptible” as authored by Brian Klaas and reviewed by The one-handed economist, David Zetland on his blog.

Brian Klaas published this book in late 2021, which was too early to discuss Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine but not too late to discuss Trump’s first term — let alone his first day.

Those oversights do not matter because Klaas discusses the essential features of corrupt “leaders” in a way that helps us understand their psychopathic personalities, i.e., thinking they are smarter than others and can bend reality to their will, regardless of the human costs.

This page turner is a pleasure to read, even if its content and characters can drive you crazy. The pleasure comes in the stories, the diagnoses, and the

I believe I have seen one boy walk out of a Frys with something in his arms. He did not pass through the cashier line but waited for the gates to open to the store and walked through the opposite way. Did the need whatever he had? I don’t know.

The only thing this false narrative does is change the priorities from working on real issues to false issues. The author is correct. Stores should have more staff on hand to help customers, stock inventory, and cover the floors. Frys is shy help, especially at the butcher counter.

Shoplifting is not on the rise. The tough talk by retail giants and politicians distracts from what really creates safety.

The Truth about Retail Theft

Sam McCann

Vera Institute

In October, retail lobbyists

Angry Bear (I) found this in my in box this Friday morning. Not much of a scoop now as the world knows about the issue. Let’s talk about why this tech outage occurred.

There does not appear to be a backup for failure of systems when one of significance fails. This baffles me as we always had a backup system in the past even if it was a manual lookup and a paper transaction. It appears we are too dependent on one layer of information and have relegated the security and accuracy of it to an outside company.

CrowdStrike suffers an error in programing and companies dependent upon their system lose the ability to conduct business. The company’s customers can not transact business. It appears we have been too dependent on a system which may be

Another take on Housing and Supply of Housing by Skanda Amarnath at the well-known Employ America. This follows or leads what New Deal democrat has been discussing at Angry Bear blog here, here, and here.

When we bought into our single-family home, I was able to lock in a 2.6% 30 year mortgage. At this point in time 50% of my mortgage payment goes to principal. The city we live-in is building apartments like they never existed before. The housing will be there eventually. However, the road infrastructure does not exist to support an influx of people.

Since the state is running a deficit, it has delayed the building on a road in and out of the city which is short-term thinking. The state has delayed the build for 5 years. Never mind the lack of

If you have not been watching, Manafort returns to Trump’s side. Forty-seven months in prison was too short for Manafort. And Trump reveals his ways by having him there. Convicted criminals’ side by side.

And Democrats are in disarray over Biden or . . .

“July 18, 2024,” Walking the floor of the Republican National Convention

by Prof. Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from and American

Paul Manafort walking onto the floor of the Republican National Convention yesterday illustrating the Republican Party under Trump has become thoroughly corrupted into an authoritarian party aligned with foreign dictators. 

Manafort first advised and then managed Trump’s 2016 campaign. A long-time Republican political operative, he came to the job after

It has been a while since I have commented on anything ACA related. This popped up in my in-box. I follow Andrew Sprung for the technical side of it. xpostfactoid’s Andrew and Charles Gaba at ACASignups are my go-to people on ACA healthcare and healthcare. To answer this question . . . how can it be half of all enrollees are eligible for free benchmark Silver ACA Coverage?

One only has to look as far as joe Biden’s March 2021 American Rescue Plan Act.

“In 2024, Average Monthly Enrollment in the ACA marketplace will more than double the 2016 total”

by Andrew Sprung

xpostfactoid

The marketplace’s role as an escape valve for some in the “coverage gap” in nonexpansion states continues to expand

Early this month CMS released

GOP Pretends as usual

By Robert Reich

Substack

The Republican Party began its national convention last night, with a bow to . . . (wait for it) . . . organized labor. Or Unions.

You read that correctly.

A few days ago, the Republican National Committee sent out an email with this remarkably ironic headline:

“RNC STATEMENT ON FAILED BIDEN’S ANTI-UNION, PRO-CHINA POLICIES”

This was followed by an even more absurd RNC statement:

Joe Biden is not pro-union, he is pro-CCP—forcing EV mandates to please Communist China while making gas prices soar and killing auto industry jobs. If Biden really cared about working class Americans, he would stop caving to China, unleash our energy, and make life affordable again for working

J.D. Vance’s Yale Law School Classmates Trying To Derail His Political Career

It’s not flattering to the GOP pick for Vice President

By Kathryn Rubino 

Sigh. So Yale Law School’s own J.D. Vance was selected as Donald Trump’s running mate yesterday. It’s a victory for ass-kissers everywhere, and those who haven’t spent the last few years writing about the very junior senator from Ohio are trying to figure out what the maybe vice president is all about.

Josh McLaurin, a Georgia state senator, was actually J.D. Vance’s roommate in law school, and they famously remained in contact after graduation. He posted on social media saying that Vance is “angry and vindictive” and a “perfect fit for Trump’s revenge.”

In case you were unclear how

Thom Hartmann Commentary Some interesting reads . . .

Finally: The New York Times Editorial Board Calls for Republicans To Reject Trump. 

Calling him “Dangerous in Word, Deed, and Action,” the Times editorial board laid out, in detail, how deranged Trump is and how deadly his second presidency would be to American democracy and to the American people ourselves.

Biden’s gaffes notwithstanding, he’s been one of the most effective and high-integrity presidents in my lifetime (and probably yours, as well). While I wrote an op-ed the day after that disastrous thing that CNN laughingly called a “debate” calling for Biden to step back for another candidate (presumably Harris), it’s clear that he’s not taking that advice, which may well be a good

By Lloyd Alter

Carbon Upfront!

The size an style of these vehicles will not make you embrace them as an alternative form of transportation. The concept is solid though. The savings to be achieved is realistic. The impact on our environment would be enormous.

It is about time America abandons the too big, too fast, and too often phase we have in our heads.

Doug Ford, the Premier of the Province of Ontario where I live, is trying to kill us. At the same time as he is closing hospitals, he is making beer and wine available at corner stores (we used to have to get wine from the government-run liquor stores and beer from special beer stores). And now, he has increased the speed limits on some highways by 10 km/hr. His trained seals, who

By Dean Baker

Center for Economic and Policy Research

That’s what readers must conclude after reading this Washington Post’s piece on President Biden’s plans to increase corporate taxes and taxes on the rich. At one point, the piece reports the response to these plans from Rep. Steven Scalise (R-La), the second-ranking Republican in the House:

“He tries to act like it’s not going to affect certain people, but when you raise taxes, it hits everybody, especially low-income families. Look at what his energy policies have done. The people hit the hardest are low-income families paying higher gas prices, paying more at the grocery store and more for their household electricity bills all because of bad Biden policies.”

While it then turns back

There is another version to this which I may get into in the comments section. CDS were not known at the time to be dangerous investments by Wall Street Banks. Besides Long Term Capital, AIG was offering CDS insuring other CDS. The problem arose when AIG’s credit default swaps did not call for collateral to be paid in full due to market changes. “In most cases, the agreement said that the collateral was owed only if market changes exceeded a certain value or if AIG’s credit rating fell below a certain level.” 

AIG was accruing unpaid debts, collateral it owed its credit default swap partners, but did not have to hand over due to the agreements’ collateral provisions. But when AIG’s credit rating was lowered, those collateral provisions kicked in

Angry Bear has been posting articles on PFAS for a while now. Since I lived in Livingston County, Michigan, this was a problem. You could no longer eat the fish out of Strawberry Lake and some of the shallow wells were contaminated. Other commentaries . . . County shows higher levels of PFAS in blood than the U.S. population – Angry Bear. This goes beyond Livingston County. A Pittance Offered Up for National PFAS Cleanup. PFAS Contamination, the New Flint at Military Bases and Again in Michigan. Michigan’s Land and Water Contamination (Huron River Water Shed).

The Lever commentary is discussing insurance companies dropping coverage for PFAS pollution.

Forever Chemicals Are Poisoning Your Insurance, The Lever, Helen Santoro

Elizabeth Mitchell

There is a lot going on with SCOTUS this year. The death of Chevron diverts decision making from agencies which have an expertise in particular situations to the courts who lack the technical expertise. So now we have Thomas looking back in his crystal ball to see what they were doing in the 18th Century.

Roberts believes the justices know more than the scientists and engineers know. This was done in Chevron which agency experts criticized. And they should be critical. The courts determination will undermine decisions by scientists and the very same agency experts.

It is not just Chevron which also devastated South America with bad environmental practices, it is the court reversing Roe v Wade, EPA’s interstate air pollution, Moyle v. U.S.,

Struggling to sort out your feelings about the president? So am I.

by Paul Waldman

The Cross Section

The purpose of this piece is not to convince you that Joe Biden should drop out of the race. In fact, I wrote it because I’m not sure if he should, and I think there are millions of people struggling with ambivalent and contradictory thoughts and emotions just as I am. So here are some things to keep in mind — some good, some not so good — as this story continues to develop in the wake of Biden’s disastrous performance in last week’s debate.

Struggling? No, for me there is no struggle. There is no comparison between the guy with the bad suntan who will not grow up and Joe Biden who will tell you right out he is old. A crook versus a ma who

AB was off the internet. Just about the time I called our hardware computer company, we came back up again.

The particular tactic used by trump has a name for it. Gish Gallop which is a technique, named after the creationist Duane Gish who employed it, whereby someone argues a cause by hurling as many different half-truths and no-truths into a very short space of time so that their opponent cannot hope to combat each point in real time. This leaves some points unanswered and allows the original speaker to try and claim his opponent lacks the counter-arguments.

This was introduced by a commenter named MikeyB who was commenting on the trump methodology in talking to Biden. This was no debate and it totally unregulated except for running out of time. Net time, the moderators should interfere with trumps running of the mouth with lies.MikeyB: Well, that

After Decades of Costly, Regressive, and Ineffective Tax Cuts, a New Course Is Needed, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Part 2

Steps to Creating a Better Tax System (a given)

Instead of doubling down on the flawed trickle-down path of the Bush and Trump tax cuts, there are opportunities to work toward a tax code that raises more needed revenues, is more progressive and equitable, and supports investments that make the economy work for everyone. A crucial first step is allowing the 2017 tax law’s provisions primarily benefiting high-income households to expire. Additional steps include scaling back the 2017 law’s large corporate tax cuts, ensuring that more income of very wealthy households faces annual taxation, and limiting other tax

AB: I am always looking for these types of articles. They offer up explanations on how certain government policies and acts impact the nation’s economy and its citizens. Been a while since I looked at the 2001 and 2003 tax breaks.

Steve Roth and I were exchanging emails on the more recent Republican 2017 tax break. There is so much wrong with these tax breaks. The latest one passed using Reconciliation. The 2017 tax break for the 1-percenters has yet to be neutral in its impact on the budget. Indeed, it has cost $2 trillion in lost revenue and then some.

Two Parts to this. Second Part tomorrow.

~~~~~~~

Testimony of Samantha Jacoby, Senior Tax Legal Analyst, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Before the Senate Committee on the

Recent end-of-session SCOTUS Decisions. In no particular order. Still, some are left to be decided.

SCOTUS Decisions

by Amy Howe

SCOTUS Blog (except where cited from elsewhere)

Are there no Union workhouses? The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor? Compliments to Scrooge . . . Grants Pass v. Johnson was decided in favor of Grants Pass. Besides several trips to jail and fines, there does not appear to be an alternative other than criminalize the homeless. Except, the Homeless people in Grants Pass have a state law right to sue the local government for a place to sleep.

No need to guess how the Trump-3 sways SCOTUS decisions. Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Supreme Court (Friday) cut back sharply on the power of

After listening to trump about improving the environment, I decided to look it up. It is pretty easy to look up factual evidence. Well, here they are, the answer to another polished trump lie.

This list of trump’s accomplishments comes from the NY Times. The date of this updated list is Jan. 20, 2021. It was not done recently to refute the trump candidacy in 2024. It is a report on what the trump administration he selected did during his first term ending in January 2020.

As far as character, trump himself has little to boast about. In any case, I will take a person who stutters and is slow to respond.

The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List.

by Nadia Popovich, Livia Albeck-Ripka, and

By Daniel Bergstresser

Econofact

Second of two commentaries on Government Debt. This commentary does mention tax policies since 2000 which reduced revenue. The latest passed in 2017 as advocated by trump and supported by Congress. It passed under Reconciliation. The failure to balance out the debt created by the tax reduction with revenue achieved through economic growth will force a repeal of it.

Here, the author discusses the dreag on the economy and citizens due to increasing debt not covered by revenue.

The Issue:

Interest payments on federal government debt are projected to reach $892 billion in 2024.

This is more than the government is projected to spend on defense. It is almost a third higher than what the United States