Please devote a newsletter to the fact that good GDP numbers and a booming stock market do not translate into better incomes or benefits for the vast majority of people. We don't have a productivity problem; we have a fairness and distribution problem. The rich get richer, and everyone else suffers.
Ever since they started showing graphics of the DOW on the nightly news, we've been having this problem. The DOW (or S&P or NASDAQ) is not and have never been a measure of the heatlh of the economy. It isn't even an effective measure of the health of the companies trading stocks in those markets. Only dunces like Trump who didn't attend enough classes at Wharton to understand the basics of Econ 101 believe that the Stock Market is an effective measure of anything but the Stock Market. There are literally millions of companies that do not trade stocks. If they're doing badly, it doesn't matter how much CryptoXYZ is doing.
I have long been dismayed by the tendency of news organizations to include stock market fluctuations in their daily reporting: "As of 10:100 a.m., stocks are up 1.2%;" "Today the Dow fell 1300 points." As you point out, these data points are, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, misleading. Is there a better metric? "Today the price of beef rose 2.1% on average in American supermarkets?"
That's a good suggestion. There is a useful metric they could be reporting on the nightly news. I think the Consumer Price Index would fulfill the role you describe. Real numbers that you can observe at your local supermarket. If you invest in the Stock Market, unless your investment fund it pegged to the Dow, the level of the Dow means little to you. And if you do invest in the Stock Market, you can follow the fluctuations specific to your investment on any number of wesbites including the website through which you invested in the first place. Also, as someone else in this thread pointed out, investing in the stock market are for the long term. You shouldn't care about daily fluctuations because it all evens out over the course of months or years.
CPI isa good suggestion. As you note, however, CPI is not measured on a day-to-day basis. The Dow is the media's lazy substitute for reporting on the economy, but at least there are daily inputs. What will those newscasters and talking heads do if they don't have a metric, however specious, they can point to in every newscast?
Interesting data on the stock markets. On the one hand, 62% of all adults in US have some type of investment in the stock market, e.g., 401(k) so growth is good. On the other hand, 87% of the value of the stock market is in the hands of only 10% of US households. Most importantly, though, most of the affordability issues are short term and the market is important long term ... especially given dire predictions of the future of Social Security.
Catherine's last chart above shows how well the International markets have fared vs. the domestic markets. I have had the same broker since 1997 and he has ALWAYS had us invest between 25% and 30% of our investment portfolio in international stocks. And since I retired and Trump became President he has us keep 3 years of cash flow in T-Bills, CDs and cash. It's not always the best way to maximize gains but it definitely helps with risk and worry.
Unless some drastic actions are taken by the government, artificial intelligence is going to greatly exacerbate this already dismal status quo that you mention - stock market will soar, the wealthy will get much wealthier, and 90% of the country will struggle and starve.
The *Constitution* should be *the* issue of 2026. Whenever I hear the word "affordability," I hear a politician who can't see the forest for the trees, just as most of my countrymen can't. The pols are trying to follow the most blind citizens. America needs leadership to bring the citizenry back to the Constitution. Affordability v. constitutional rights. Anyone who puts the former over the latter is not someone whom I respect.
I know you’re right. But for the, ‘silent majority’ of Americans, the issue of affordability, prices, cost-of-living, whatever you wish to call it, will always be their primary concern come election time. Fortunately, this time, so will the, ‘throw the bums out’ mentality that at least for this upcoming election cycle, will favor the Dems. Back to your point that the constitution should be the driving issue, you are undoubtedly correct. But unfortunately, the majority of the populace in our selfish, ignorant country can barely pronounce, “constitution”, cannot spell, “constitution”, have zero idea what is in the constitution, and have no interest in learning how the foundational document (s) of the birth our country might apply to them, who they vote for or how such decisions might affect them.
Unfortunately, if it is too big to go on a bumper sticker ( especially concerning economics) you lose too many Americans. Perhaps here is a good one for the bumper: Trump tariffs are taxes on you. I agree with you and Kevin. The poll Catherine mentions, foreign policy is dead last. When you consider there is a war in Ukraine, we'll probably go to war with Iran, we are totally alienating our allies to look to China for trade, here is another area that we Americans are selfish and ignorant.
I know that your description of Americans is correct Tim. It’s how many that is the question today, and with the heroic people of Minneapolis, I’d say, much lower. A lot of people have taken our form of government for granted, maybe because they never thought it could go away, how actually fragile a democracy is. Now they are awake. Judging by the elections I am hearing about that Democrats win, and out heroic judicial system-yeah, we could leave out the Supreme Court for now-that is holding this administration accountable to the law and Constitution, the people are speaking, and the Republicans are scared. This administration was counting on the majority of the population being as you wrote. They were wrong.
This hasn't happened overnight- the GOP has been building this for years. They're like termites. It's not just trump - it's all those who have gone before - Reagan did an enormous amount of damage, and it's been built upon.
Trump couldn't take out a garbage can on his own - or work out how to open it. How do you think he comes up with all these loopholes and obscure laws to get around his challenges? It's not just him - he's just the face. He's got a whole squad of folks lined up behind him - and I reckon Stephen Miller is at the head.
One of my ‘hobby-horses’ has always been to rail against ‘R’ backed attacks on public education. The White Christian Nationalists jumped in bed with the Chamber of Commerce and many other well aligned grass roots endeavors to reduce funding and exert local control over school boards, and very well organized attacks on the funding for and curriculum of public education. These attacks, over the last 40 years in particular have produced the desired result of a less educated and more malleable populace. And, in my not-so-humble opinion has brought us to the doorstep of our own destruction.
Yes. When I worked for a blue chip company, I learned about "corporate memory loss" - which is the concept that every time an employee moves on, the replacement loses 10% of what the original knew.
Same with families. Parents can't teach their children everything they know, especially with today's workloads, so education depends a LOT on schools. and if schools aren't properly funded, or overseen, an awful lot can be missed.
Plus, the system of having state-set syllabuses is weird - what a child in Alabama learns can be totally different from that of a child in Maine.
The brains of a country are its bedrock - no education, no progress. And no prosperity. Your population can be as malleable as you like - but they are not going to produce new products that the world will flock to buy. Or new concepts that will lift The People out of ill health and poverty.
The problem is, as Catherine has stated before, that the President can't do much to bring the prices of food, housing, etc. down. President Knownothing doesn't have the big red inflation button he can unpush and make it all go away. (I mean, he could frickin' stop doing things that INCREASE prices, of course. But...) And no Democrat does either. So a win on affordability now could endanger Dems in 2028 because the silent majority won't see their prices fall immediately after the midterms. The focus should be on throwing the bums in jail (while the policy wonks behind the scenes repair our trading agreements with Europe and Canada and India and get prices moving in the right direction again).
This is where leadership is required. You're not factoring that into your calculus probably because we've all become accustomed to not having real leadership! The Constitution is a contract between we the people and those who govern. That contract is not being upheld. That is a severe problem. Affordability won't matter when civil society breaks down. Would you like my description of what that will look like? That's what will happen if we do not correct course. My countrymen must be led back to the Constitution. It's the one foundational thing we have in common.
Being nobly correct but losing is exactly what will cause the most suffering amongst those the nobility of Constitutional provisions are intended to protect. I share your desire 100% for candidates who, when elected, will honor the Constitution. Once IN a position of leadership, they can use that power of the bully pulpit. But in the campaign? They should not lie, of course, but if they spend more time on issues of salient interest, that only improves the odds that they will be able to address what we find most important.
The Constitution isn't some relic. It isn't fluff. It's the supreme law of the land that defines our system of self-government. All three branches are out of compliance with the Constitution. The administration is not upholding it. It's arguably overthrowing it. At stake are our liberties. This not about noble pretense. My countrymen need leadership to make them acutely aware of these stakes.
I saw a Documentary about Barbara Jordan. She had clarity and would even school her congressional colleagues about the Constitution. We need more like her.
What's works for New York City does not necessarily work for the rest of the country. I suspect New Yorkers will eventually experience buyer's remorse.
"Affordability" is coded language. When we speak of "affordability", notionally we're talking about just that; however, "affordability" is only relevant in a world where thee is at least some notion of (looks around to see if anyone is watching, then whispers)...equality, which is manifested through democracy.
Imagine the money we could have if we reduced the national debt by 400, 500 or even 600%! A lot of people say it would be the biggest amount of money ever had by anyone, ever.
Unless The Dearest Donald collapsed and died during his SOTU, I couldn’t care less about it. Anything he said that wasn’t purely self-glorifying or purely cruel or purely mocking or purely ridiculous was some combination of the four.
Was anyone surprised—or even informed—by anything he said?
Then why waste time to give him the audience he craves?
Among his infinite bad characteristics, The Dearest Donald is an attention whore. In that regard big key to personal happiness is knowing what and whom to ignore. Obviously, we can’t ignore The Dearest Donald completely all the time, but we can ignore his television appearances. And who knows? If his “ratings”sink, he might be motivated to behave like a semi-normal human being.
I think it's too late for him to become a semi-normal human being. Is it possible for him to pretend to be a semi-normal human being and behave like one? Theoretically, I suppose, yes, but I think it extremely unlikely. His actions are driven by his malignant narcissism, his greed, his need for power and the need to support his fragile ego. The lower his ratings, the more his ego needs support and flattery from his toadies and himself, and the more he will feel compelled to lash out and go on extended Lies Antisocial rants.
Catherine, Loved the joke at the beginning, a true classic. Excellent review and commentary on the Dunceman Donny's harangue. How'd this idiot get through high school? His understanding of math is baffling. The really funny part though is Republicans were standing, cheering and applauding every impossible number he threw out. The sad part is, there are too many Americans who aren't very good at math either. They're not very good at reading either. They're not very good at spelling either. And logic, reasoning and judgement are in the same boat. What we seem to excel at is being gullible. Maybe we should get serious about education, instead of constantly increasing our military capabilities, building ballrooms and chasing gold medals. If we want to solve any of our myriad of problems, we're going to have to find a lot smarter leaders than we have now.
Trump is the poster child for not allowing billionaires to exist. He is the product of a Daddy who bought his education for him. He couldn't pass a fourth-grade math or reading test.
LOL! Now, this comes from Michael Sheen's protrayal of Andrew and not the real Andrew, but when watching "A Very Royal Scandal", it struck me how Andrew has no self-doubt. He just believes his shit doesn't stink and he can never do wrong. You can't raise kids who think they are infallible!
Agreed. Of course I'm rather anti-monarchist as base, so I think the whole idea of someone growing up in such an atmosphere to be laughable to begin with.
None of this matters. The rubes love their führer, his approval rating has been above 41% for months (natesilver.net aggregate of polls). That’s higher than Biden, higher than trump’s first term. Schumer and Jeffries haven’t and can’t budge this. Time for a change.
I don't understand why, but these same people seem incapable of blaming the true culprits. They protect the Epstein class as if they're part of it. It's baffling!
About the violence and gushing blood, someone said that violence is clearly his kink and I can't unsee that now. It turns him on. It tracks from what all his victims say. I can't even fathom what he's put people through.
I am very worried about Dems pushing affordability without a plan to address it so I look forward to your ideas. I think #1 has to be some kind of tax incentive to help people get out of the rent cycle. I had an idea, I don't know how feasible it is but it would be a 1 per lifetime federal income tax holiday where you get your entire federal income tax back with the idea to help people buy homes, get out of debt, or pay for college. It would be difficult to implement and could cause problems if too many people do it in 1 year so probably need a limit and or to means test it. I would be curious what you think.
It has the same problem a lot of these give money to homebuyers plans have: if you increase the amount of money set aside for people to buy homes and do nothing else, the price of homes spike as everyone bids over the same stock with more assets to do so.
The only real way out is to either build more houses (in places where people want to live) faster or convince people to ‘consume’ less housing, namely by getting people to live in larger family groupings.
Government can’t do much about the second one, but the easiest thing they can do to help homebuyers is to invest in construction and amend regulations to make the building of condo style living spaces on relatively small geographic footprints.
1 thing I wish someone would address is abandoned properties. Where I live in Delaware it seems like there are 1000s of abandoned properties that are just rotting away when they could be repaired or demolished to increase supply while improving property values for everyone else in the area. I see alot of new home and condos going up but prices aren't any better.
What I can't understand is why governments can't build using manufactured homes. They're tens of thousands $$$ less to build, and can be built within weeks anywhere in the world. Check out websites like Ellis Modular, and others that can do build employee housing in downright remote areas as well as cities etc.
I think we need to do something to incentivize new *home builders* to build more affordable housing. Every builder I know just wants to build McMansions because they pay the company the most when they sell. But first-time home buyers typically can't afford them. The United States is severely lacking in other types of homes, like split doubles and row homes. People need to start somewhere. A new couple with no kids or a single person does not need a 4-bedroom 4 1/2-bath with 3-car garage. We need to build more variety.
It's really shocking when you come to live in the Netherlands. There are all these different types of houses: condos, split doubles, rows. And there are places to live mixed in everywhere: apartments above shops, a grocery store on the ground floor of an apartment building. There's a housing crisis here too, but when they build, they build mixed dwellings, not just houses for the rich. Also every building that has luxury penthouses also has social housing in it. So we don't have trashy "projects" where poor people get neglected. They live in the same nice new building as the rich folks, just in the smaller apartments without a view.
Ah, meine leibe Frau, that would require an understanding of how the construction industry works which, despite his claims of being a "builder", he has no idea.
This is why you should be reading Catherine Rampell on The Bullwark:
Also in the speech, Trump said Vice President J.D. Vance would be in charge of a new “war on fraud.” Psst: The call is coming from inside the White House.
He claimed that “affordability” problems were either created or imagined by Democrats, and naturally, that they have all been solved since he took office
Trump promised that his tariff revenue would be used to defray other American expenses—specifically, that it would “substantially replace” income taxes. This is a mathematical impossibility.
He said he “lifted 2.4 million Americans, a record, off of food stamps.” These people weren’t lifted up so much as kicked off
As far as I'm concerned, DJT should keep saying what he keeps saying: the economy is great. Nothing like telling people believe me than how you are really doing. That dog will bite Trump.
The graph adds up to about 60 - 70 minutes of total time. I'm curious what the other 40 - 50 were? Did people really sit through close to an hour of hemming hawing and bloody gore? Eep!
A lot of time gets used in endless displays of Congresspeople getting to their feet and clapping. I would like to see a president get up there and say, "Please, no clapping until the end, we want to help our poor audience get to sleep on time." Then speak breifly and pithily.
1) Here is just one more example of the asymmetry in today’s politics. Remember how Biden was roasted when he said that the economy wasn’t that bad? Now Trump is saying basically the same thing, and the blowback is much more muted. But at least it appears to be affecting voting patterns.
2) I know it’s old news, but isn’t it truly amazing that Trump would (again) cite gas prices that he claims are much lower than they really are. Since it’s not hard to find out the truth, it just shows (once again) that so many people just want to be misled (or they don’t care about the truth which is really about the same thing).
3) A few comments on the Guerrero interview:
a) Construction execs didn’t expect immigration enforcement to go “quite this far, especially in South Texas”. That seems like a clear admission that they believe that Trump is primarily interested in punishing his perceived enemies. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the claim that Trump is working for all the American people.
b) Guerrero seems like a really decent guy, but his defense of Trump’s construction history is a little short-sighted. Apparently, he’s forgotten about all those bankruptcies (also, it seems like a pretty insignificant reason to vote for someone). But perhaps it’s that Trump can get stuff built, he just can’t run them profitably.
4) CR – Here’s a question for you: Has Trump ever published some “success criteria” for his tariffs? For example, I believe he has said that his tariffs will bring back manufacturing jobs; but has he actually put a number on that? Same with the revenue? Has he ever put a number on what he expects the U.S. to collect? Same with the unemployment rate? Or the trade deficit?
The reason I’m asking is because it seems to me that it’s a principle of Business 101 that you have to try to quantify what the impact of some business plan is. You can’t just say “things will be better”. Without that quantification, no one has any idea if a given plan is a success or not (I realize that Trump will claim it’s a success regardless of any numbers, but I was wondering if there were some predictions that we could use to evaluate his tariff plans).
I can’t remember any specific claim that Trump has made (even the ridiculous claim that the tariff revenue would allow us to get rid of the income tax), but maybe he has.
As far as his Billionaires build their own energy source, When I heard that last night, my thought more than a few public utility companies would have a word or two to say about that. Those companies that are publicly traded care only about their bottom line, not their customers and I'm pretty sure they see those sites a win/win revenue stream.
Please devote a newsletter to the fact that good GDP numbers and a booming stock market do not translate into better incomes or benefits for the vast majority of people. We don't have a productivity problem; we have a fairness and distribution problem. The rich get richer, and everyone else suffers.
Ever since they started showing graphics of the DOW on the nightly news, we've been having this problem. The DOW (or S&P or NASDAQ) is not and have never been a measure of the heatlh of the economy. It isn't even an effective measure of the health of the companies trading stocks in those markets. Only dunces like Trump who didn't attend enough classes at Wharton to understand the basics of Econ 101 believe that the Stock Market is an effective measure of anything but the Stock Market. There are literally millions of companies that do not trade stocks. If they're doing badly, it doesn't matter how much CryptoXYZ is doing.
I have long been dismayed by the tendency of news organizations to include stock market fluctuations in their daily reporting: "As of 10:100 a.m., stocks are up 1.2%;" "Today the Dow fell 1300 points." As you point out, these data points are, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, misleading. Is there a better metric? "Today the price of beef rose 2.1% on average in American supermarkets?"
That's a good suggestion. There is a useful metric they could be reporting on the nightly news. I think the Consumer Price Index would fulfill the role you describe. Real numbers that you can observe at your local supermarket. If you invest in the Stock Market, unless your investment fund it pegged to the Dow, the level of the Dow means little to you. And if you do invest in the Stock Market, you can follow the fluctuations specific to your investment on any number of wesbites including the website through which you invested in the first place. Also, as someone else in this thread pointed out, investing in the stock market are for the long term. You shouldn't care about daily fluctuations because it all evens out over the course of months or years.
CPI isa good suggestion. As you note, however, CPI is not measured on a day-to-day basis. The Dow is the media's lazy substitute for reporting on the economy, but at least there are daily inputs. What will those newscasters and talking heads do if they don't have a metric, however specious, they can point to in every newscast?
Interesting data on the stock markets. On the one hand, 62% of all adults in US have some type of investment in the stock market, e.g., 401(k) so growth is good. On the other hand, 87% of the value of the stock market is in the hands of only 10% of US households. Most importantly, though, most of the affordability issues are short term and the market is important long term ... especially given dire predictions of the future of Social Security.
Catherine's last chart above shows how well the International markets have fared vs. the domestic markets. I have had the same broker since 1997 and he has ALWAYS had us invest between 25% and 30% of our investment portfolio in international stocks. And since I retired and Trump became President he has us keep 3 years of cash flow in T-Bills, CDs and cash. It's not always the best way to maximize gains but it definitely helps with risk and worry.
Agreed!!! Thank you for putting this into words so succinctly.
Unless some drastic actions are taken by the government, artificial intelligence is going to greatly exacerbate this already dismal status quo that you mention - stock market will soar, the wealthy will get much wealthier, and 90% of the country will struggle and starve.
Ties directly into affordability.
The *Constitution* should be *the* issue of 2026. Whenever I hear the word "affordability," I hear a politician who can't see the forest for the trees, just as most of my countrymen can't. The pols are trying to follow the most blind citizens. America needs leadership to bring the citizenry back to the Constitution. Affordability v. constitutional rights. Anyone who puts the former over the latter is not someone whom I respect.
I know you’re right. But for the, ‘silent majority’ of Americans, the issue of affordability, prices, cost-of-living, whatever you wish to call it, will always be their primary concern come election time. Fortunately, this time, so will the, ‘throw the bums out’ mentality that at least for this upcoming election cycle, will favor the Dems. Back to your point that the constitution should be the driving issue, you are undoubtedly correct. But unfortunately, the majority of the populace in our selfish, ignorant country can barely pronounce, “constitution”, cannot spell, “constitution”, have zero idea what is in the constitution, and have no interest in learning how the foundational document (s) of the birth our country might apply to them, who they vote for or how such decisions might affect them.
Unfortunately, if it is too big to go on a bumper sticker ( especially concerning economics) you lose too many Americans. Perhaps here is a good one for the bumper: Trump tariffs are taxes on you. I agree with you and Kevin. The poll Catherine mentions, foreign policy is dead last. When you consider there is a war in Ukraine, we'll probably go to war with Iran, we are totally alienating our allies to look to China for trade, here is another area that we Americans are selfish and ignorant.
I know that your description of Americans is correct Tim. It’s how many that is the question today, and with the heroic people of Minneapolis, I’d say, much lower. A lot of people have taken our form of government for granted, maybe because they never thought it could go away, how actually fragile a democracy is. Now they are awake. Judging by the elections I am hearing about that Democrats win, and out heroic judicial system-yeah, we could leave out the Supreme Court for now-that is holding this administration accountable to the law and Constitution, the people are speaking, and the Republicans are scared. This administration was counting on the majority of the population being as you wrote. They were wrong.
I'm 70 and I thought that our institutions were much stronger than one maniac. I was wrong.
No.
This hasn't happened overnight- the GOP has been building this for years. They're like termites. It's not just trump - it's all those who have gone before - Reagan did an enormous amount of damage, and it's been built upon.
Trump couldn't take out a garbage can on his own - or work out how to open it. How do you think he comes up with all these loopholes and obscure laws to get around his challenges? It's not just him - he's just the face. He's got a whole squad of folks lined up behind him - and I reckon Stephen Miller is at the head.
One of my ‘hobby-horses’ has always been to rail against ‘R’ backed attacks on public education. The White Christian Nationalists jumped in bed with the Chamber of Commerce and many other well aligned grass roots endeavors to reduce funding and exert local control over school boards, and very well organized attacks on the funding for and curriculum of public education. These attacks, over the last 40 years in particular have produced the desired result of a less educated and more malleable populace. And, in my not-so-humble opinion has brought us to the doorstep of our own destruction.
Yes. When I worked for a blue chip company, I learned about "corporate memory loss" - which is the concept that every time an employee moves on, the replacement loses 10% of what the original knew.
Same with families. Parents can't teach their children everything they know, especially with today's workloads, so education depends a LOT on schools. and if schools aren't properly funded, or overseen, an awful lot can be missed.
Plus, the system of having state-set syllabuses is weird - what a child in Alabama learns can be totally different from that of a child in Maine.
The brains of a country are its bedrock - no education, no progress. And no prosperity. Your population can be as malleable as you like - but they are not going to produce new products that the world will flock to buy. Or new concepts that will lift The People out of ill health and poverty.
I often quote Joni Mitchell to make points: "You don't know what you got til its gone".
From your keyboard to….the American people. I respect your perspective. I hope it’s correct. I’ll send you a mea culpa around Thanksgiving!
Okay. Then we will either toast to the future or cry in our beer.😵💫🥂🍻
or move to another country
“Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers”
Drew Hinshaw, Joe Parkinson
The Wall Street Journal
https://apple.news/A0DUPUtsyRHaYj0JiJQQGHA
The problem is, as Catherine has stated before, that the President can't do much to bring the prices of food, housing, etc. down. President Knownothing doesn't have the big red inflation button he can unpush and make it all go away. (I mean, he could frickin' stop doing things that INCREASE prices, of course. But...) And no Democrat does either. So a win on affordability now could endanger Dems in 2028 because the silent majority won't see their prices fall immediately after the midterms. The focus should be on throwing the bums in jail (while the policy wonks behind the scenes repair our trading agreements with Europe and Canada and India and get prices moving in the right direction again).
This is where leadership is required. You're not factoring that into your calculus probably because we've all become accustomed to not having real leadership! The Constitution is a contract between we the people and those who govern. That contract is not being upheld. That is a severe problem. Affordability won't matter when civil society breaks down. Would you like my description of what that will look like? That's what will happen if we do not correct course. My countrymen must be led back to the Constitution. It's the one foundational thing we have in common.
Being nobly correct but losing is exactly what will cause the most suffering amongst those the nobility of Constitutional provisions are intended to protect. I share your desire 100% for candidates who, when elected, will honor the Constitution. Once IN a position of leadership, they can use that power of the bully pulpit. But in the campaign? They should not lie, of course, but if they spend more time on issues of salient interest, that only improves the odds that they will be able to address what we find most important.
The Constitution isn't some relic. It isn't fluff. It's the supreme law of the land that defines our system of self-government. All three branches are out of compliance with the Constitution. The administration is not upholding it. It's arguably overthrowing it. At stake are our liberties. This not about noble pretense. My countrymen need leadership to make them acutely aware of these stakes.
I saw a Documentary about Barbara Jordan. She had clarity and would even school her congressional colleagues about the Constitution. We need more like her.
Affordability got Zohran Mamdani elected. I’m not saying that constitutional rights aren’t also important.
Got the orange god king elected too1
The price of eggs!
And…”they’re eating the dawgs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets!”
That was crazy. But some believed it.
What's works for New York City does not necessarily work for the rest of the country. I suspect New Yorkers will eventually experience buyer's remorse.
Maybe, I don’t live there.
"Affordability" is coded language. When we speak of "affordability", notionally we're talking about just that; however, "affordability" is only relevant in a world where thee is at least some notion of (looks around to see if anyone is watching, then whispers)...equality, which is manifested through democracy.
Actually, we could replace the income tax with tariffs. All we’d have to do is reduce government spending by 600, 700, or even 1500%.
MAGA math.
Imagine the money we could have if we reduced the national debt by 400, 500 or even 600%! A lot of people say it would be the biggest amount of money ever had by anyone, ever.
Hasn't muskrat already accomplished this in a kabillion dollar sort of way ?
Unless The Dearest Donald collapsed and died during his SOTU, I couldn’t care less about it. Anything he said that wasn’t purely self-glorifying or purely cruel or purely mocking or purely ridiculous was some combination of the four.
Was anyone surprised—or even informed—by anything he said?
Then why waste time to give him the audience he craves?
Among his infinite bad characteristics, The Dearest Donald is an attention whore. In that regard big key to personal happiness is knowing what and whom to ignore. Obviously, we can’t ignore The Dearest Donald completely all the time, but we can ignore his television appearances. And who knows? If his “ratings”sink, he might be motivated to behave like a semi-normal human being.
I think it's too late for him to become a semi-normal human being. Is it possible for him to pretend to be a semi-normal human being and behave like one? Theoretically, I suppose, yes, but I think it extremely unlikely. His actions are driven by his malignant narcissism, his greed, his need for power and the need to support his fragile ego. The lower his ratings, the more his ego needs support and flattery from his toadies and himself, and the more he will feel compelled to lash out and go on extended Lies Antisocial rants.
It is beyond me that all but a couple of dozen Democrats chose to attend. They *still* don’t seem to get it.
If there was ever anything semi normal in the fat boy it is long gone.
I saw some viewer stats for the speech. Fox had by far the most viewers, nearly 10 million.
Catherine, Loved the joke at the beginning, a true classic. Excellent review and commentary on the Dunceman Donny's harangue. How'd this idiot get through high school? His understanding of math is baffling. The really funny part though is Republicans were standing, cheering and applauding every impossible number he threw out. The sad part is, there are too many Americans who aren't very good at math either. They're not very good at reading either. They're not very good at spelling either. And logic, reasoning and judgement are in the same boat. What we seem to excel at is being gullible. Maybe we should get serious about education, instead of constantly increasing our military capabilities, building ballrooms and chasing gold medals. If we want to solve any of our myriad of problems, we're going to have to find a lot smarter leaders than we have now.
Trump is the poster child for not allowing billionaires to exist. He is the product of a Daddy who bought his education for him. He couldn't pass a fourth-grade math or reading test.
I'm sure that he would ace it bigly, the doctors are all astounded !
LOL! Now, this comes from Michael Sheen's protrayal of Andrew and not the real Andrew, but when watching "A Very Royal Scandal", it struck me how Andrew has no self-doubt. He just believes his shit doesn't stink and he can never do wrong. You can't raise kids who think they are infallible!
"The Queen", "The Crown" et al all come off as comedies on some level. Intentional or otherwise.
Agreed. Of course I'm rather anti-monarchist as base, so I think the whole idea of someone growing up in such an atmosphere to be laughable to begin with.
It's probably not possible to have that level of privilege and maintain a connection to anything other than yourself.
None of this matters. The rubes love their führer, his approval rating has been above 41% for months (natesilver.net aggregate of polls). That’s higher than Biden, higher than trump’s first term. Schumer and Jeffries haven’t and can’t budge this. Time for a change.
But the top polls have DJT at 35- 39%
They want a saviour. And blaming all their woes on the brown man down the street is easier than taking responsibility for your own life.
Or recognizing the true culprits, wall street and the Epstein class .
I don't understand why, but these same people seem incapable of blaming the true culprits. They protect the Epstein class as if they're part of it. It's baffling!
I have a brother in law I don't associate with, retired living on a small amount of social security, he wants to BE Donald Trump.......
If I hear another liberal pundit say his poll numbers are “plummeting,” I will scream! What, from 42% to 40%?!
I have been saying this for 10 years, his base is immovable. I forget who the pundit was who said that he has a very high floor but it's true.
🌊
Seriously! Everytime I click on a video with "plummeting", it turns out he's at 39%. He's ALWAYS been at 39%.
It sickens me that 39% approve of this monster.
About the violence and gushing blood, someone said that violence is clearly his kink and I can't unsee that now. It turns him on. It tracks from what all his victims say. I can't even fathom what he's put people through.
How much time did he spend talking about himself? Just wondering…
Approximately a minute for every 2 pounds . 🍗🥓🍔🍔🍟🍟
I am very worried about Dems pushing affordability without a plan to address it so I look forward to your ideas. I think #1 has to be some kind of tax incentive to help people get out of the rent cycle. I had an idea, I don't know how feasible it is but it would be a 1 per lifetime federal income tax holiday where you get your entire federal income tax back with the idea to help people buy homes, get out of debt, or pay for college. It would be difficult to implement and could cause problems if too many people do it in 1 year so probably need a limit and or to means test it. I would be curious what you think.
It has the same problem a lot of these give money to homebuyers plans have: if you increase the amount of money set aside for people to buy homes and do nothing else, the price of homes spike as everyone bids over the same stock with more assets to do so.
The only real way out is to either build more houses (in places where people want to live) faster or convince people to ‘consume’ less housing, namely by getting people to live in larger family groupings.
Government can’t do much about the second one, but the easiest thing they can do to help homebuyers is to invest in construction and amend regulations to make the building of condo style living spaces on relatively small geographic footprints.
1 thing I wish someone would address is abandoned properties. Where I live in Delaware it seems like there are 1000s of abandoned properties that are just rotting away when they could be repaired or demolished to increase supply while improving property values for everyone else in the area. I see alot of new home and condos going up but prices aren't any better.
What I can't understand is why governments can't build using manufactured homes. They're tens of thousands $$$ less to build, and can be built within weeks anywhere in the world. Check out websites like Ellis Modular, and others that can do build employee housing in downright remote areas as well as cities etc.
I think we need to do something to incentivize new *home builders* to build more affordable housing. Every builder I know just wants to build McMansions because they pay the company the most when they sell. But first-time home buyers typically can't afford them. The United States is severely lacking in other types of homes, like split doubles and row homes. People need to start somewhere. A new couple with no kids or a single person does not need a 4-bedroom 4 1/2-bath with 3-car garage. We need to build more variety.
You're right, around where I live the last affordable housing was built in the 70s , since then it's been all rich peoples dwellings.
It's really shocking when you come to live in the Netherlands. There are all these different types of houses: condos, split doubles, rows. And there are places to live mixed in everywhere: apartments above shops, a grocery store on the ground floor of an apartment building. There's a housing crisis here too, but when they build, they build mixed dwellings, not just houses for the rich. Also every building that has luxury penthouses also has social housing in it. So we don't have trashy "projects" where poor people get neglected. They live in the same nice new building as the rich folks, just in the smaller apartments without a view.
He could remove some of tariffs affecting building materials.
Ah, meine leibe Frau, that would require an understanding of how the construction industry works which, despite his claims of being a "builder", he has no idea.
Yes, he’s just so awful. It’s hard to believe he still has fans. But he does!
Ugh. It’s a mess. I just hope that we can hold on for the next couple of years.
Don’t worry about where the $18t is coming from. DonOld will tell us in two weeks.
This is why you should be reading Catherine Rampell on The Bullwark:
Also in the speech, Trump said Vice President J.D. Vance would be in charge of a new “war on fraud.” Psst: The call is coming from inside the White House.
He claimed that “affordability” problems were either created or imagined by Democrats, and naturally, that they have all been solved since he took office
Trump promised that his tariff revenue would be used to defray other American expenses—specifically, that it would “substantially replace” income taxes. This is a mathematical impossibility.
He said he “lifted 2.4 million Americans, a record, off of food stamps.” These people weren’t lifted up so much as kicked off
As far as I'm concerned, DJT should keep saying what he keeps saying: the economy is great. Nothing like telling people believe me than how you are really doing. That dog will bite Trump.
Where is Cujo when we need him ?
WOOF ! ! GRRR ! !
Wanted to say “all of the above” for voters defecting.
The graph adds up to about 60 - 70 minutes of total time. I'm curious what the other 40 - 50 were? Did people really sit through close to an hour of hemming hawing and bloody gore? Eep!
A lot of time gets used in endless displays of Congresspeople getting to their feet and clapping. I would like to see a president get up there and say, "Please, no clapping until the end, we want to help our poor audience get to sleep on time." Then speak breifly and pithily.
It was a workout plan for congressional Republicans stand/clap/sit/stand/clap/sit…. I was impressed they made it through.
A few comments...
1) Here is just one more example of the asymmetry in today’s politics. Remember how Biden was roasted when he said that the economy wasn’t that bad? Now Trump is saying basically the same thing, and the blowback is much more muted. But at least it appears to be affecting voting patterns.
2) I know it’s old news, but isn’t it truly amazing that Trump would (again) cite gas prices that he claims are much lower than they really are. Since it’s not hard to find out the truth, it just shows (once again) that so many people just want to be misled (or they don’t care about the truth which is really about the same thing).
3) A few comments on the Guerrero interview:
a) Construction execs didn’t expect immigration enforcement to go “quite this far, especially in South Texas”. That seems like a clear admission that they believe that Trump is primarily interested in punishing his perceived enemies. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the claim that Trump is working for all the American people.
b) Guerrero seems like a really decent guy, but his defense of Trump’s construction history is a little short-sighted. Apparently, he’s forgotten about all those bankruptcies (also, it seems like a pretty insignificant reason to vote for someone). But perhaps it’s that Trump can get stuff built, he just can’t run them profitably.
4) CR – Here’s a question for you: Has Trump ever published some “success criteria” for his tariffs? For example, I believe he has said that his tariffs will bring back manufacturing jobs; but has he actually put a number on that? Same with the revenue? Has he ever put a number on what he expects the U.S. to collect? Same with the unemployment rate? Or the trade deficit?
The reason I’m asking is because it seems to me that it’s a principle of Business 101 that you have to try to quantify what the impact of some business plan is. You can’t just say “things will be better”. Without that quantification, no one has any idea if a given plan is a success or not (I realize that Trump will claim it’s a success regardless of any numbers, but I was wondering if there were some predictions that we could use to evaluate his tariff plans).
I can’t remember any specific claim that Trump has made (even the ridiculous claim that the tariff revenue would allow us to get rid of the income tax), but maybe he has.
As far as his Billionaires build their own energy source, When I heard that last night, my thought more than a few public utility companies would have a word or two to say about that. Those companies that are publicly traded care only about their bottom line, not their customers and I'm pretty sure they see those sites a win/win revenue stream.