The wins in Georgia are huge. Now, if Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina can just come up with their own Stacy Abrams, we could see a snowball effect that would change American politics forever. Well, at least, for a long time. Some might think that this outcome along with its portents can solve the electoral college problem. It doesn’t. Doesn’t solve the problem of someone as unfit as Mitch McConnell tyrannizing the nation. The few...
Read More »Gabriel Sterling debunks Trump conspiracy theories
During the call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger , Trump cited a number of voting fraud – conspiracy theories. The State of Georgia Voting System Implementation manager, Gabriel Sterling debunked each theory as being inaccurate or false on Monday afternoon, January 4th. Its Monday and speaking in front of a poster that had many of the debunked claims Trump mentioned, Sterling starts off; “It’s whack-a-mole again, it’s...
Read More »Reichtum ist verfügbare Zeit und nichts weiter
Reichtum ist verfügbare Zeit und nichts weiter How it started (Charles Wentworth Dilke, 1821): THE PROGRESS OF THIS INCREASING CAPITAL WOULD, in established societies, BE MARKED BY THE DECREASING INTEREST OF MONEY, or, which is the same thing, the decreasing quantity of the labour of others that would be given for its use; but so long as capital could command interest at all, it would seem to follow, that the society cannot have arrived at that...
Read More »The 2004-2020 political red/blue shift:
The 2004-2020 political red/blue shift: the intersection of geography, the economy, and ethnic migration It’s a very slow, holiday-shortened economic week. We’ll get new home sales, plus personal income and spending Wednesday, and jobless claims as usual Thursday. In the meantime, here is something I found revealing. It’s a map, created by Nathan Jordan, a college student from Alabama (I think), showing the county-level change in Presidential...
Read More »The GOP has crossed the Rubicon
The GOP has crossed the Rubicon – by New Deal democrat In the Roman Republic, military leaders automatically lost their legal authority to command at the Rubicon River in northern Italy. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his legions, it was an act of war against the Republic. With the filing of their Amicus brief in the Supreme Court this past week, the GOP as represented by their Congressional delegation similarly finally broke...
Read More »Benjamin Franklin vs. John Locke on the Legislature vs. the Executive
Benjamin Franklin vs. John Locke on the Legislature vs. the Executive An initial note: there is very little economic data this week. Some house price information gets updated tomorrow, and then on Wednesday we get a slew of data, including Q3 corporate profits, jobless claims, new home sales, durable goods orders, and personal income and spending. That’s probably worth two days’ of posts, at least one of which will probably be at Seeking Alpha. Shorter...
Read More »The Language of Slavery
Peter Dorman, Economics professor at Evergreen State College has been posting at Angry Bear blog from time to time. His latest “The Language of Slavery” was published at Econospeak, November 9, 2020. Peter’s commentary draws from a NYT article – “Alexander Hamilton, Enslaver?” which differentiates between slave owner and enslaver as a “part of the larger movement to make politics a matter of individual responsibility. Slavery was a horror, and this...
Read More »Distribution
These days, the nation, the world, is faced with the problem of how to distribute wealth, wealth that is being created using less and less labor input? How to distribute the profits from highly capitalized, highly automated, production? Unions, that had been much a part of the solution to the distribution problem in the early 20th century, are becoming more and more irrelevant. A new economic model is desperately needed. Since the dawning of the...
Read More »Outsourcing
Warning! First person ahead. I don’t usually talk about myself, don’t even like to talk about people, but this a story that I want to tell and don’t know how to otherwise do so. So, your forbearance, please. Those of you who have been around as long as I, have probably witnessed personnel changes that follow a change in political Administrations. I happened to be on campus when Reagan became governor in 1967 and saw people with no qualifications...
Read More »Dearly Beloved
Our beloved Constitution has flaws. Only a very few, but these few have cost the Nation dearly, and, unless corrected, will continue to do so. It is very possible that unless corrected, they will lead to the Nation’s demise. These flaws have been and are being taken advantage of by the worst among us, and used against the rest of us. The electoral college, that most undemocratic of bodies, has, in just sixteen years, seated two of our most incompetent...
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