Biden's presidency

[oblong]

27 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Yes, but it’s not hardened Republicans they would want to convince.

I hope there is enough of them left to matter. 

[ewsieg]

Fixed this for you

13 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Also, Trump's legal liability isn't only the fact that he left with classified docs in his possession... it's that, after being contacted multiple times by NARA, he also continued to withhold at least some of those documents and he and his representatives appear to have lied at various points about it as well. 

 

8 minutes ago, oblong said:

intent matters legally.  Some people just insist on playing both sides and what about and “yeah but games and pretend they aren’t and I’m not going to participate anymore. 

I never said both sides were legal issues.  But 5 years of confidential documents in a facility that wasn't designed to hold confidential materials and it's a bad look.  So yes, did Biden's team do the right thing, absolutely.  But let's not try and turn this into a 'win' for him.

[ewsieg]

4 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

I never said both sides were legal issues.  But 5 years of confidential documents in a facility that wasn't designed to hold confidential materials and it's a bad look.  So yes, did Biden's team do the right thing, absolutely.  But let's not try and turn this into a 'win' for him.

I guess my point is if we allow our POTUS going forward to grade themselves against Trump, we're all fucked.  Biden's team did the right thing after it was discovered.  That's what I want to expect from any POTUS and I don't want to give them high fives for doing what you're legally supposed to do.  

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

Fixed this for you

You made it incorrect. Again, the warrant on Mar-a-Lago happened not upon NARA initially noticing documents missing, it happened after multiple back and forths and discovering that not all documents to be returned were accounted for. Which is, to my knowledge, where legal liability lies.

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

So yes, did Biden's team do the right thing, absolutely.  But let's not try and turn this into a 'win' for him.

I'll leave the politics of wins/losses to you, I just don't think "both sides" are remotely the same here based on the facts as they exist.

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

I guess my point is if we allow our POTUS going forward to grade themselves against Trump, we're all fucked.  

On the contrary, I would argue that we are ****ed because many of us continue to grade Trump on a curve versus other Presidents, past and present. 

The soft bigotry of low expectations. We expect the bad behavior from Trump, tolerate and, in the process, normalize it. And then draw the kinda false equivalencies that the NYT Pitchbot Twitter account lampoon daily

Edited January 11, 2023 by mtutiger

[Tigerbomb13]

Death, taxes, and both sides’n

[chasfh]

10 hours ago, oblong said:

I hope there is enough of them left to matter. 

I gotta believe that the more Republicans lean into the crazy, the more their voters on the left side of their margins peel off. I can’t imagine many traditional conservatives, moderates, or declared never-Trumpers are watching the way they are shitting the bed in Congress this month and concluding yes, that’s the party I’ve wanted all along, I’m back in. I believe the only way they can grow their voter base that way is to unearth even more crazy people who haven’t been dug up yet, and I just don’t think there are enough of those out there to win national majorities in elections.

In the meantime, Biden and the Democrats have to keep talking to the still-uncommitted and vacillating middle, get them on board, and keep them there as long as the Republican Party is shoving its collective head ever further up its own ass.

[chasfh]

10 hours ago, ewsieg said:

I guess my point is if we allow our POTUS going forward to grade themselves against Trump, we're all fucked.  Biden's team did the right thing after it was discovered.  That's what I want to expect from any POTUS and I don't want to give them high fives for doing what you're legally supposed to do.  

I think we should give them high fives for this because in some cases, the thing you’re supposed to do isn’t the thing most people would do.

[mtutiger]

11 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I think we should give them high fives for this because in some cases, the thing you’re supposed to do isn’t the thing most people would do.

Definitely... we should incentivize doing the right thing, not ridicule or punish it. 

Otherwise you just incentivize doing the wrong thing.

[ewsieg]

9 hours ago, mtutiger said:

You made it incorrect. Again, the warrant on Mar-a-Lago happened not upon NARA initially noticing documents missing, it happened after multiple back and forths and discovering that not all documents to be returned were accounted for. Which is, to my knowledge, where legal liability lies.

The raid on Mar-a-Lago happened because they knew he was lying about not having docs still.  Additionally, we now have evidence that he either purposely or at least with reckless abandon, took these documents to Mar-a-Lago, which is another crime.  

26 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I think we should give them high fives for this because in some cases, the thing you’re supposed to do isn’t the thing most people would do.

I would contend that most people in these positions, that make an error, do the right thing.  I would contend that if we don't want to grade any president on a curve, this would be the expectation, not something we honor.

And again, 5 years, confidential materials, sitting in a facility that i'm sure did not have the type of security one would expect for confidential materials.  Doesn't sound like something to give high fives for.

[CMRivdogs]

Trumpers and Trump leaning Republicans can't have it both ways. Either Sleepy Joe is so addled he can't remember what he had for breakfast or he is a schemer who purposely hid documents in a locked closet in a room that is probably locked a majority of the time.

 

[chasfh]

5 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

I would contend that most people in these positions, that make an error, do the right thing.  I would contend that if we don't want to grade any president on a curve, this would be the expectation, not something we honor.

And again, 5 years, confidential materials, sitting in a facility that i'm sure did not have the type of security one would expect for confidential materials.  Doesn't sound like something to give high fives for.

Maybe not celebratory high fives, per se, but “attaboy” or “good job” would certainly be appropriate. Not just pretending it’s a big so what.

[ewsieg]

19 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Definitely... we should incentivize doing the right thing, not ridicule or punish it. 

Otherwise you just incentivize doing the wrong thing.

Isn't it incentivizing the act of taking confidential materials, even if it's by accident, if you give him high fives for this?  Can we meet in the middle?  High five him for notifying the right people and then immediately yell at him for being so irresponsible.

And back to Oblong's anecdote, the guy doing 70 over should be facing criminal ramifications on top of losing his license and major fines.  The guy doing 10 over should get a slap on the wrist.  I'm not saying they are on the same level.

[oblong]

where do you get this crazy idea that nobody is going to "yell at him"?  It's been turned over to a prosecutor to investigate. You are just making shit up.

 

[mtutiger]

58 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

Isn't it incentivizing the act of taking confidential materials, even if it's by accident, if you give him high fives for this?  

First, I don't agree with the "high five" characterization.

Second, my post still stands. Creating a feeding frenzy and drawing false equivalencies creates a larger incentive for dishonesty in the future imo. We'll have to agree to disagree here

[mtutiger]

27 minutes ago, oblong said:

where do you get this crazy idea that nobody is going to "yell at him"?  It's been turned over to a prosecutor to investigate. You are just making shit up.

 

Not to mention the new House, who, despite all their dismissals of Trump doing anything wrong for doing far worse, will do their best to make this the scandal of the Century.

[mtutiger]

Soft landing incoming?

[gehringer_2]

44 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Soft landing incoming?

could be. I've been disappointed in the quality of the logic being applied in this cycle. People, including economists and analysts who should know better, keep fixating on the increase in interest rates and not their absolute value. It is true that when the fed has pushed rates up 5% or more in the past that has braked the economy into recession, but it was never from a starting point of zero. 5% is still not a very high interest rate, not a rate as high as that which would normal slam the economy enough to cause recession, or at least a severe one. When people make decisions about borrowing money - they don't care what the difference is between what rates are and what they were a year ago, all they care about is what they are now. 5% has been enough to put a brake on housing, and it has definitely takien the froth out of the stock market asset bubble, but it's not really a level that's going to choke off much otherwise worthwhile business expansion. Based on that, I've not been expecting there to be any kind of hard crash.

It's always possble the FED does goes way overboard from here, but they have been talking like they aren't going much higher.

Edited January 12, 2023 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

Here's the thing I never hear anyone talk about at all and it's just mind-boggling to me: the recent inflation trend is nothing like 6% or 7%!

Every month when these numbers come out, we hear what inflation is versus 12 months ago. Half a year ago it was over +9%;  as recently as September it was still over +8%; last month it was something like +7.1%; now this month it's +6.5%.

But the numbers always get reported in this flat fact kind of way: "The new inflation numbers have just come out and inflation is now at 6.5%." It gives the impression that inflation is going up at an inexorable rate of +6.5% annually month after month after month, as though prices are rising roughly half a point each month. It's like, oh, man, will inflation ever stop? Damn you, Joe Biden!

But what they never seem to highlight is how much inflation has changed just in the last few months. They might mention the month-over-month number in passing but they rarely highlight it with its own paragraph and, crucially, they never add it to the other recent single month numbers to create a 3-month or 6-month or similar inflation figure.

Here what I mean: In December the CPI-U actually went down by -0.31%, Last month it was -0.10%. For the four months prior to that they were +0.41%, +0.22%, -0.04%, and +0.01%. It was +1.37% for just June, so June to July seems to have been some kind of turning point.

When we look at the change in CPI for just the last six-month period, meaning December (296.8) versus June (296.3), the totally change was a little more than +0.16%. That projects out to a 12-month inflation rate of +0.33%. That's basically flat inflation for six months.

That is decidedly less than the 6.5% for this December over last December. That +6.5% is a real number, sure, but it also misrepresents what the inflation trend has been for six solid months, which is also a real number of +0.3%.

Why don't we see anything along those lines when we read inflation stories every second Thursday of a month? Who knows? Maybe it's some kind of political thing. Or maybe they think Joe and Jane Typical won't understand what that means. I'm not interested in contemplating that for this post.

But the fact of the matter is that the trend of inflation over the past six months is basically flat, not +6.5%, and nothing in the near future suggests that it's going to shoot back up to that number. All indications are by the time we get to this June, the number will probably be two-something, or perhaps one-something, or maybe even sub-one.

Folks can dismiss this whole idea and pretend inflation is still going up at an inexorable 6.5% annual rate month after month after month if they want to, but I have no interest in engaging anyone who's itching to gainsay me about this. I also don't want to debate the reported CPI versus the so-called shadow rate which, if we could look at those month by month, we would also find is lower June to December in the same way the CPI index is.

All I will say at this point is that, to my way of thinking, those CDs that online banks are offering at 4+% right now are looking mighty tempting. If we want one, we better move fast, because at some point soon, those rates going back down fast.

[CMRivdogs]

 

[Deleterious]

Instead of CDs consider a 1 year T-Bill instead.  You get a higher rate (4.7% today) and the gains are not taxed at the state and local level, increasing your yield even more over a CD.  On top of that you preserve your liquidity.  

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Here's the thing I never hear anyone talk about at all and it's just mind-boggling to me: the recent inflation trend is nothing like 6% or 7%!

Every month when these numbers come out, we hear what inflation is versus 12 months ago. Half a year ago it was over +9%;  as recently as September it was still over +8%; last month it was something like +7.1%; now this month it's +6.5%.

But the numbers always get reported in this flat fact kind of way: "The new inflation numbers have just come out and inflation is now at 6.5%." It gives the impression that inflation is going up at an inexorable rate of +6.5% annually month after month after month, as though prices are rising roughly half a point each month. It's like, oh, man, will inflation ever stop? Damn you, Joe Biden!

But what they never seem to highlight is how much inflation has changed just in the last few months. They might mention the month-over-month number in passing but they rarely highlight it with its own paragraph and, crucially, they never add it to the other recent single month numbers to create a 3-month or 6-month or similar inflation figure.

Here what I mean: In December the CPI-U actually went down by -0.31%, Last month it was -0.10%. For the four months prior to that they were +0.41%, +0.22%, -0.04%, and +0.01%. It was +1.37% for just June, so June to July seems to have been some kind of turning point.

When we look at the change in CPI for just the last six-month period, meaning December (296.8) versus June (296.3), the totally change was a little more than +0.16%. That projects out to a 12-month inflation rate of +0.33%. That's basically flat inflation for six months.

That is decidedly less than the 6.5% for this December over last December. That +6.5% is a real number, sure, but it also misrepresents what the inflation trend has been for six solid months, which is also a real number of +0.3%.

Why don't we see anything along those lines when we read inflation stories every second Thursday of a month? Who knows? Maybe it's some kind of political thing. Or maybe they think Joe and Jane Typical won't understand what that means. I'm not interested in contemplating that for this post.

But the fact of the matter is that the trend of inflation over the past six months is basically flat, not +6.5%, and nothing in the near future suggests that it's going to shoot back up to that number. All indications are by the time we get to this June, the number will probably be two-something, or perhaps one-something, or maybe even sub-one.

Folks can dismiss this whole idea and pretend inflation is still going up at an inexorable 6.5% annual rate month after month after month if they want to, but I have no interest in engaging anyone who's itching to gainsay me about this. I also don't want to debate the reported CPI versus the so-called shadow rate which, if we could look at those month by month, we would also find is lower June to December in the same way the CPI index is.

All I will say at this point is that, to my way of thinking, those CDs that online banks are offering at 4+% right now are looking mighty tempting. If we want one, we better move fast, because at some point soon, those rates going back down fast.

You are completely correct. It's sort of similar people not understanding  'sunk cost'  fallacies. Once a price has increased once - it will continue to show up in every year to year comparison for the next 12 months even if it never went up again. The only way to recover the year-to-year numbers inside a year to actually experience *deflation* and economists generally agree you never want to go there.

[Tiger337]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Here's the thing I never hear anyone talk about at all and it's just mind-boggling to me: the recent inflation trend is nothing like 6% or 7%!

Every month when these numbers come out, we hear what inflation is versus 12 months ago. Half a year ago it was over +9%;  as recently as September it was still over +8%; last month it was something like +7.1%; now this month it's +6.5%.

 

That has always been a peeve of mine too.  Both numbers are important.  It's important to know that  inflation is up let's say 7% in the past year (because we know we are not going back to the same prices again).  It's also important to know that inflation stayed the same month to month.  It's two different stories. Each one matters. 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Tiger337

[Tiger337]

31 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

Instead of CDs consider a 1 year T-Bill instead.  You get a higher rate (4.7% today) and the gains are not taxed at the state and local level, increasing your yield even more over a CD.  On top of that you preserve your liquidity.  

I've got some of those.  The only problem (and it may not be a problem for everyone) is I have to pay a commission if I want to do it in my IRA.  So, I have to make sure I am really getting more than I would with the CDs.  

[ewsieg]

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/12/1148685480/classified-documents-biden-doj-archives-delaware

Atta Boy!

[ewsieg]

https://apnews.com/article/biden-united-states-government-district-of-columbia-0574fd762159e8cb5f31c85205df3dc0

Another Atta Boy!  Is Biden doing this just for the added pats on the back?