Sep
13
2024

I Found a Pony in This Room Filled With…

… well, you know what. (If you don't here you go.)

And the pony is: I'll take some cheer knowing one of these guys will lose. Remy you're with me on this, right?

Ah, I knew you would be! Also, Veronique de Rugy has a Fitting H. L. Mencken Quote on the Debate, one we've deployed here a number of times:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Downside: they're taking the rest of us with them.

Of all people, George F. Will finds his "optimum" pony: Post-debate, the optimum 2024 political outcome comes into view.

Hours before Tuesday’s debate, the Congressional Budget Office released a report that, were the CBO not scrupulously nonpolitical, would have seemed impertinent. It presented, in the bland language of a weather report, data that the debate moderators evidently considered too trivial to mention, a gross misjudgment for which both candidates probably were grateful.

Without saying so, the CBO report implicitly forecast stormy political weather. It said that in August the government added $381 billion to the nation’s debt, and that by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, the one-year deficit will exceed $2 trillion. Predictable developments (debt service, which already exceeds defense spending, precluding proper defense and other spending) and divisive choices (about pruning the entitlement state and addressing national security needs) within a decade will convulse U.S. politics.

But through the rhetorical fog in Philadelphia, one could glimpse a tantalizing possibility, a precondition for coping with the coming turbulence. The restoration of normal politics will require two things: The removal of Donald Trump — that Krakatau of volcanic, incoherent, fact-free bombast — from public life. And the rekindling of an irrepressible conflict.

It is between progressivism, of which Kamala Harris is full to overflowing, and actual conservatism, about which Trump is contemptuous. As he ages, he mimics progressivism’s politics of throwing government’s weight around.

GFW pins his hopes on President Kamala being routinely constrained/frustrated by a GOP-controlled Senate. Not great, but probably the best we can hope for.

Also of note:

  • The miracle of misleading labels. It's so simple! And Daniel Shuchman finds bipartisanship: Trump and Biden Agree: Just Call Debt 'Wealth' Instead!

    Amidst campaign discord, a bipartisan idea is emerging: America can set aside taxpayer dollars for special projects and brand it a national "wealth fund" to help improve public perception of the national debt and deficit spending.

    Speaking at the Economic Club of New York last Thursday, former President Donald Trump asked, "Why don't we have a sovereign wealth fund? Other countries have wealth funds. We have nothing." He suggested that this new account would be capitalized with "tremendous amounts of money" that the federal government would take in by imposing tariffs and "other intelligent things," and that the United States would have the "greatest sovereign wealth fund of them all." How big might it be? Trump did not specify, but said he would consult with billionaire hedge fund manager and adviser John Paulson. In a separate interview, Paulson said, "it would be great to see America join this party and, instead of having debt, have savings."

    An appealing aspiration to be sure, though scarcely conceivable in the foreseeable future. He referenced Norway's $1.7 trillion wealth fund as a potential goal. That may sound like a lot of money—until one considers that the U.S. federal government spends that much in just four months. It is hard to fathom how it would be the basis of a long-term and meaningful store of national wealth in the context of the U.S. economy. (Norway has a population of just 5.6 million, so it's very meaningful there.)

    A fund that size would amount to barely 4 percent of the accumulated $35 trillion U.S. national debt. Trump predicted that the proposed wealth fund would "return a gigantic profit," which would help pay down the debt. That profit would have to be gigantic indeed—on the order of a 20-fold return, and soon—to offset our national debt. And that's assuming the debt didn't continue to increase in the meantime due to our structural deficits, currently running in the range of $2 trillion annually. We are effectively adding more than an entire Norwegian wealth fund to the national debt every year. In the annals of investing history, it would be a pretty impressive achievement for a pool of capital to appreciate at a rate sufficient to offset our preexisting and accumulating debt, if not totally unprecedented at this scale.

    Uncle Stupid as a savvy investor? No, no, no.

  • Obfuscate the actor! Arnold Kling comments on a long-standing Pun Salad gripe: Policy and the Passive Voice.

    In passive voice, it is easy to say “All illegal immigrants should be deported.” But in active voice, that means sending government agents in uniform to knock on everyone’s door, demanding proof of citizenship from those inside. Your door and my door would be knocked on, because until they try everyone’s door, the agents have no way of knowing which residences house illegal immigrants and which do not.

    In passive voice, it is easy to say, “Misinformation on social media should be banned.” But in active voice, that means assigning specific individuals to sift through social media content and determine what is misinformation. Presumably, they will need help from software, but specific people with specific ideas will have to design that software. The people writing the software and making the decisions will be ordinary humans, with their flaws and biases.

    Or, given that previous item about the "sovereign wealth fund": "Funds would be invested in…" invites much less scrutiny than "Government employees will invest in…"

  • I am old enough to get the reference. Tyler Cowen titles his post Strawberry Alarm Clock! And leads off with this tweet:

    That deserves a "Whoa!" Especially from a guy who didn't actually get his PhD in physics. (Came close, though.)

    Could turn out to be big news, could be the biggest news of the freakin' decade, … or it could be hype. See what you think.

  • I know what I'll be doing October 16 at 6pm. I'm going to see Bryan Caplan, who's scheduled as part of a panel discussion at the University of New England campus in Biddeford, Maine. Closer than Portland! Free (yay!) and open to the public (which is me)!

    I've been posting Caplan's stuff since 2005, when this blog was a young 'un.


Last Modified 2024-09-14 5:19 AM EDT