Hodad

A target like shooting an arrow haphazardly up into the air and claiming the air is the target? Okay The point remains, that that kind of unfocused protectionism hurts Americans without yielding the promised gains. Economics isn't new and protectionism isn't new. It's been tried many times before. No mystery there.

Ah, the erudite, nuanced commentary we've learned to expect from you.

The "yen" is too broad a target. Which makes the real target American consumers, who paid hundreds of billions more to maintain the same standard of living. Those of you whining about inflation should take note. They were too broad and too shallow to have ever done much. They made your TVs more expensive, but not so much more expensive that an American-manufactured brand can rise up, buoyed by the advantage. Do you see the difference? We have a nascent EV industry in the US. China can scale production quickly and cheaply enough to hurt or even kill it. A focused tariff would be one strategy for protecting it. -- Protectionism that tries to protect everything just ends up harming everyone.

I do. As it turns out, treating every chain email, tweet and random YouTube video as if they are as credible as experts is a very fast way is a good way to form bad judgments--and look like a complete fool to boot.

I take it that logic is not your strong suit. lol. No, citing authoritative sources as reason for action is not fallacious. The "argument" is that if you go and see 10 doctors and they all tell you that your cholesterol is dangerously high and you better adjust your diet, you should adjust your damn diet. Or, you could play the fool and pretend like those are just 10 random opinions because you don't recognize the value of authority. Really dumb, but go for it in your personal life. Just don't expect policymakers to be as shortsighted. Except that they are.

Yes, if a graph is from an authoritative, primary source it's exactly as trustworthy as the data underneath it. If you reject that there are authoritative sources of data and wanna wallow in solipsism that's on you, but don't go opining about it.

To have the desired effect, Tariffs have to be focused and strategic. You have to want to adjust specific consumer behaviors. The problem with Trump's tariffs were that they were neither of those things. Like his tax cuts, they were pushing on the wrong levers, so they cost Americans money without moving the needle economically.

Maybe. Nobody is going to fact check that yarn-on-the-wall conspiracy. Let's stipulate that the facts are accurate, if not the implications. What the author misses is that gender inclusion policies at those institutions are not rare or special. They didn't indicate anything, because most of the big companies in the Western world have the same policies. Pick a few big companies--particularly public companies--and search "gender inclusion policy" and chances are you'll find something very similar. Black Rock (or whichever) isn't mastermind a conspiracy. Rather, like everyone else, they're just doing good business. Strong diversity positions attract better talent, retain better talent and have less friction in the workplace, because everybody knows you have to treat all people with decency and respect. They have a lot more to gain through inclusiveness than exclusiveness. Oh, and as far as makeup and fashion for men, there's huge and only partially activated market. We spent the last 100 years convincing women that natural wasn't good enough and that they needed to buy and use all kinds of crazy stuff. Now it's the men's turn.

WTF is wrong with you? It's from the St. Louis Fed. I gave you the link. Graphs are just visual representations of data. The numbers are what they are. They look how they look. This is why you have no business debating the economy. You won't know anything. You apparently can't learn anything. 🤷‍♀️

It's a single line, on a single graph. A literal child, even a toddler, can look at it and tell you which parts are higher and lower.

My favorite is when Fox News helped conservative America discover U6 unemployment for the first time. Suddenly that was the "real" unemployment number and the media was cheating for Obama by using U3, which, of course, is what's been used almost universally for unemployment figures, unless some specific alternative is called out. And the #3 crowd (despite being wrong about "real" jobs) should be loving Biden, but they won't.

That's an absurd misapplication of "appeal to authority." It should be pretty obvious that people utterly lacking the intellect, training, or time to do their own scientific research on a specific subject MUST rely on authority to inform any decision. Indeed, one would have to be a brainless fool to ignore authority in the acquisition of knowledge. That's would negate the entire competitive advantage of written and oral knowledge transfer.🙄 Aside from that, what you claim is regarding AGW consensus is patently false. There IS an overwhelming consensus on human-driven climate change across all sciences, but especially scientists in the field. There is not a single major scientific body on the planet that rejects the premise. Since 2007, when the American Association of Petroleum Geologists released a revised statement, no longer does any national or international scientific body reject the findings of human-induced effects on climate change. And there is only one non-committal body. Yes, that's right. The Petroleum Geologists moved from "nope" to "no comment." 🙄 Every other body accepts AGW as fact. And the actual research leaves no question. More than 99.9% of studies agree: Humans caused climate change You can be a flat-Earth kook, rejecting all science and sense. That's your prerogative. But you can't successfully pretend that the scientific question isn't settled. It is. Humans are driving climate change. The "if" is over. The details of how much, how bad, how soon, and what we can and should do about it are less settled to varying degrees, but everyone knows it means getting to carbon-neutral or negative ASAP.

That's a great list. That info is freely available to anyone at FRED. This is, generally speaking, a very healthy economy, both in absolute terms and certainly in relative terms. One can cherry pick a weak spot here or there, but people mindlessly repeating that the economy is awful are just blind to the facts that show otherwise.

Lol. No, you haven't. You've shown that a handful of people (a tiny minority) held that opinion of a paper from 30 years ago. That's fine. They were entitled to that opinion. And indeed, that's a self-correcting feature of science. But in this case their objections were not meaningful to the rest of the community and the consensus now approaches unanimity. You're busy boasting about climate change response being "over" while countries and corporations around the world are actively investing in mitigation strategies. You will likely be dead by the time things get really bad, but your kids aren't going to thank you. They'll wonder how their crazy old dad thought he knew better than the entire scientific community and why you didn't do more. And you are entirely clueless about economic data. I could give you all the charts and figures in the world and you'd be helpless to evaluate them. That's why you're linking to articles that directly contradict the point you'd like to make. That's not really my problem. You don't vote here. Laypeople are still shaken from the pandemic economy. Their view of the economy is emotional, like you. We'll see how many can catch up to the economic reality before the election.

Lol. This is a lot like the climate change conversation. You have your dogmatic religious beliefs, and no amount of facts can change you mind. A true zealot has no need of economists or climatologists. His feelings are more important than facts!

And if wages and job growth are outpacing inflation, inflation becomes a moot point. If goods are services are going to increase in price 5% next year but my salary will increase 10%, am I better off or worse off?

1. What an amazingly misplaced sense of self importance for an ignorant layperson to simple wave your hands and dismiss the overwhelming scientific consensus. -- And the word you're looking for is "moot." 2. You've literally posted an article about how American's negative sentiments are out of line with a robust economy. Which is what I've been telling--and showing with data--all along. 🙄 American economic pessimism has been bafflingly persistent despite major indicators showing that the economy is actually strong. Unemployment is low, inflation is significantly down from its 2022 peak (if sticky and ticking up in the last month), wages are up, the stock market is hitting new all-time highs, and it looks like the Federal Reserve might be able to keep the US out of a recession. Nobody said it's a perfect economy or the best ever, but it is worlds better than what he inherited from Trump and in nearly every way equal to or better than Trump's pre-pandemic economy. In other words, an amazing recovery.

Dude, you're a nut if you think that a bully getting verbally trolled is some kind of evidence of intolerance. I suppose next you'll tell me that the Black protestors at the lunch counters were bullying business owners. Or Rosa Parks was bullying a bus driver. So mean! Like I've said many times, tolerance does not mean tolerating intolerance. These people are saying Marginalized people can--and should--stand up for themselves against abuse and exclusion. And FFS, does it get more "snowflakey" than pretending the equivalent of a prank call is evidence of "gay thugs." GTFO. I'm not ignorant on christian views of homosexuality. But I think most so-called christians are ignorant of the alleged views of the Christ figure, who said nothing at all about homosexuality, and who was in the stories tolerant and inclusive of even those who may have "sinned." The Christ character could make bread for sinners, but this "christian" baker wouldn't sell those he judged a cake. 🙄

Illegal immigration is not any sort of economic metric. Neither are gas and food, aside from the fact they show up to some degree in actual metrics, inflation being the obvious example. Gas prices are the product of a global oil market, and adjusted for inflation they are not historically high. In fact, they are the about the same/less than they were in 2017 and 2018 under Trump. Food (and gas, for that matter) are compound answers starting with a war in Europe's breadbasket and a global supply chain that's still all jacked up from the pandemic. But because it's a strong economy job growth is high, unemployment is low and companies are competing for scarce talent. As a result, wages are growing faster than inflation. Gas and food cost more, but Americans have more to spend. And we're closing in on negating the "damage" from peak inflation. You're 0 for 3 on identifying metrics--well, maybe partial credit for identifying items within inflation. But their effects are being exaggerated for political drama. Any way you want to slice it, the economy is miles better than what Biden inherited. Oh, and BTW, foreign military aid is mostly arms and equipment. It has the same sort of stimulating impact on the economy that war does, though clearly in a smaller scale.

Lol 1. Do you have a relevant point to make? We need LDCs to skip steps of industrialization, so the Western world subsidizes better tech. International carbon markets are part of the Kyoto protocol. Polluter countries pay LDCs not to pollute. Which in turn helps then skip less efficient stages of growth. They can be owners or stakeholders in their own infrastructures. 2. The economy is thriving. Jeebus, look at any data. You look like a fool, standing outside on a balmy day, complaining about the cold. -- And WTF? in your warped little mind does the SPR level have to do with record high domestic oil production? Two different things entirely, like your salary and your bank balance. Once again, try data. What aspect of the economy do you want to jump start? Jobs? Wages? The stock market? Manufacturing? GDP growth? What exactly are you whining about? Trump left office with the economy in shambles, and all of those metrics have improved dramatically while Biden has been in office. Most of them are as good or better than pre-covid Trump. And again, starting from a point of extreme hardship. Trump started high and ended low. Biden started low and is climbing steadily. There really isn't much to complain about. And more to the point, Biden has actually made some real fundamental investments in the future of the economy, in the base and middle of the economy, rather than just coasting and feeding the rich.

Yep. And if Musk lends the guy a megaphone X will face social and commercial consequences for his part. Rightly and naturally.

Yes, Coal is undeniably gross and harmful in many direct ways, short and long term. Coal may be "cheap" but the cost is high. The externalities are off the charts. It's a case of penny wise and pound foolish. The whole principle--many decades old now--behind funding new technologies in developing countries is that they won't have to go through every stupid, wasteful phase of growth. They don't need to start with the pony express, move to telegraphy, then phone lines then internet and mobile phones. We've already done that work. Africa will skip directly to cell towers and internet over the top. The exact same thing is true with power generation. They can skip the wasteful ugly stuff and build directly into a renewable-heavy energy infrastructure. -- And we help pay for it so that they don't fill OUR air atmosphere with CO2 and particulates the way China does. Win-win. And, as you've been correctly told dozens of times, the economy is robust by any measure and more oil is being pumped out of the ground than at any point in history. We're net oil exporters. There is no domestic shortage.

Yes. Full points for patience and self-restraint. I have gone through charitable phases over the years. I even started here very politely. I know, in principle, why one doesn't wrestle with pigs. But just in principle. 🤣

It's not. Climate deniers (Nationalist, as a prime example) pretend that someone wants to flip a switch and turn off all fossil fuel usage and then we'll all try to chaotically figure out how to replace it. That's a very dumb idea. Which is why nobody has ever proposed it. It's why every country has phased carbon targets. It's why they phase out the worst offenders (coal) first. It's why the transition takes time. Germany didn't make a choice between coal and freezing. They made a choice to get off coal as quickly as they could replace it with less harmful alternatives. Freezing was never on the table as an option. And getting off coal--and eventually all fossil fuels--means alternative energy, not "no energy."

You've been overcome by an admirable fit of generosity, but I haven't been so lucky, lol. Sticking with "shamefully dishonest."