Cats, charts, and politics
Good ol' Larry Agran has been part of progressive Irvine politics for more than 40 years. With the exception of a hiatus during the 90s, he's been either mayor or a city council member practically the entire time. This year, at age 77, he's running for city council yet again. Naturally I voted for him.
Now get out there and vote if you haven't already! Democracy may or may not depend on it, but a non-lunatic government sure does.
This doesn't inspire confidence:
On Monday, the Justice Department announced that it would send federal monitors to 64 jurisdictions nationwide to monitor how elections are being conducted. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties were all slated to receive federal monitors from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. But Brad McVay, the chief counsel for the Florida Department of State, said in a letter issued late Monday that those monitors would not be allowed inside polling places under Florida law.
....Separately, Missouri officials on Friday denied the Justice Department’s request to conduct routine inspections under the Americans With Disabilities Act and Voting Rights Act at polling places on Election Day. Secretary of State John Ashcroft (R) reiterated that stance in a meeting Monday....He compared Justice Department officials from the U.S. attorney’s office from the Western District of Missouri to “jackbooted thugs.”
As for John Ashcroft, he generally goes by the name Jay. He's the son of the real John Ashcroft, upholding the family tradition.
Remember a decade ago when we were all obsessed with leverage? Whatever happened to that, anyway? According to the Fed's latest report, our nation's big banks are doing fine if you look at the usual measure of leverage that uses risk-weighted capital. On the other hand, if you use a plain-Jane measure of tangible assets, things are looking a little dicey:
There's also this:
None of this is in disaster territory. Capital ratios are still well above their 2008 levels, and there are no financial disasters on the horizon. Still, if we move into recession and there's another couple of years of this, things could get a little precarious. Let's all hope the Fed is keeping a close eye on it.
So much rain here in Southern California. So much.
But don't let that stop you from voting, you over-coddled snowflakes. As my mother used to say, a little water never hurt anyone.¹ SO GO VOTE.
¹Exceptions: wicked witches, people sleeping with the fishes, fake mermaids.
Over at National Review, Andrew Stuttaford admits that a recent column by Tim Bond doesn't "inspire confidence." But he really likes this part:
According to the BIS [the Bank of International Settlements], since the start of this century, advanced economy non-financial debt (that is debt owed by governments, business and households) has risen by 86 percentage points of GDP to just shy of 300 per cent of GDP. The world has never been as levered as it is today.
This is under the headline, "The Great Unraveling (2)." But let's take a look at the BIS data:
First things first: how do you like the chart? Once in a while I come across something where the data is noisy and it's better to show a trendline instead. But I hate to get rid of the raw data itself, so this time I just faded it out a lot. It's still there if you're interested, but it doesn't make it impossible to pick out the trends.
Now on to the data. As you can see, household debt is down. No problem there.
Corporate debt is up, but not by much. It doesn't really look like a problem either.
So there's really nothing here at all except for one thing: the stale old conservative bugaboo of government debt. The problem is that conservatives have been hollering that rising debt will destroy the West for decades and decades. Literally. Here is a review of Our National Debt from 1949:
The peace of mind of a conscientious American must be disturbed every time he is reminded that his government is 250 billion dollars in debt. He must be shocked by the frequent announcement that every newborn baby is burdened, not with a silver spoon, but with a debt of $1700....The [Committee on Public Debt Policy] believes that the challenge can be met...but these hopeful prophecies are voiced in the tone of a leader summoning his people to an uphill struggle which will demand all their courage, wisdom, and devotion.
The reviewer is none other than James Tobin, who thinks the Committee is overreacting. Nevertheless, this was the kind of thing that greeted the public with regularity.
I'm not really in favor of ignoring the national debt and letting it rise without restraint. Still, after 70 years of being wrong about this it strikes me that it's now conservatives who bear the burden of proving their case. There's a limit to how long you can cry wolf before you need to show receipts, especially when it's your own tax policies that have been largely responsible for the problem you're so distressed about.
I could use some help here. This is a mural painted on an apartment building in Les Andelys, France, and by American standards it looks a little problematic. But maybe it has a different meaning in France. Are these random characters, or do they represent something well known? Any ideas to share?
Here's a telling tweet from Paul Waldman about yesterday's stump speech by Republican Blake Masters in Arizona:
And here comes Blake Masters! On the stump he's solid if less than spectacular. Most of his speech is about how Mark Kelly and Joe Biden are in cahoots to destroy America. "So much of it looks intentional" he says. pic.twitter.com/ZhfOOx7yXc
— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman1) November 7, 2022
"So much of it looks intentional," Masters says to a cheering crowd. And with that we see the big difference between conservatives and liberals these days. Maybe we both hate each other equally. Maybe we misunderstand each other equally. Maybe we fear each other equally. But we liberals, no matter how misguided we think the MAGAnauts are, don't think they're deliberately trying to destroy the country out of sheer malice.
Many conservatives do. They believe that liberals hate America because it's the root source of racism, militarism, gun culture, Christian nationalism, greed, police violence, and more, all of which means it needs to be taken down a peg. So things like terrorism, high inflation, and the explosion of fentanyl aren't merely problems to be solved, but problems that liberals have deliberately spawned and secretly bankrolled as a way of weakening and eventually bringing down America as a world power.
This is the great fear. Not merely that liberals are wrong and need to be opposed, but that liberals are steadily and purposefully trying to destroy the soul of the country. This is why they fight back so viciously. You would too if you believed this.
Here is the Wall Street Journal commenting yet again on the economy:
As the holidays approach and America’s full-time workers feel pinched by inflation, some are turning to second jobs to supplement their incomes. The October jobs report shows the number of Americans working part-time jobs in addition to their full-time jobs has increased 6%, year-over-year, to 4.5 million people, according to statistics from the Labor Department.
Nearly three-quarters of workers said they need additional work to make enough income due to inflation, according to an October survey of more than 1,700 U.S.-based employees by job search website Monster.com. A separate survey of more than 4,700 people conducted by Prudential Financial Inc. found 81% of Gen-Z and 77% of millennial workers said they have pursued gig work or are considering additional side work this year to supplement their income.
Part-time work increased 6% in October! Let's take a look at that:
First off, the number of people taking part-time jobs increased 8% in June, 10% in July, 10% again in August, and 10% yet again in September. The 6% increase in October is, if anything, an indication that the number of people looking for side hustles is easing.
And then there's this:
The number of people with multiple jobs is going up, as it always does during economic expansions, but is still well below its pre-pandemic trendline.
Why does the Journal do this? They are constantly either misrepresenting statistics or else not bothering to present them at all, relying instead on idiotic surveys from the likes of Monster.com that mean nothing at all. In what world of honest journalism do you write that the number of workers with multiple jobs has gone up 6% without (a) noting that this is below the recent average (b) the previous three months were all at 10%, and (c) we're still way below our pre-pandemic level?
Or they could have put up a chart. They have a whole department for that. But that would have given the game away instantly.
Everyone at the Journal who touched this article knew this. Everyone. The article is worded too carefully to draw any other conclusion.¹ But by god, they wanted a trend piece, so they got it. And if they had to do it by deliberately misleading their readers, so be it. Disgraceful.
¹There is never any flat statement that the number of part-time workers is at a record level, or even that it's up from normal. Merely a carefully curated set of statistics designed to give a strong implication. Take it from me, that doesn't happen by accident.
For all of you traditional Tuesday voters—the ones in California, anyway—here's a repeat of my recommendations for how to vote on all of our ballot initiatives. Keep in mind a couple of things:
That noted, here are my recommendations:
Proposition 1: YES. This initiative places certain abortion and other reproductive rights into the California constitution. I doubt it makes much difference, but you never know. And to me it qualifies as something I'd like to have locked in forever.
Proposition 26: NO. This is one of a pair of initiatives regarding sports gambling. Prop 26 adds sports gambling, dice games (such as craps), and roulette to the menu of games allowed at tribal casinos. Four privately owned horse racing tracks (Santa Anita, Del Mar, Los Alamitos, and Golden Gate Fields) would also be allowed to provide in-person sports gambling. This is the last thing that needs to be locked in forever via constitutional amendment, and my preference anyway is for California to simply legalize online sports gambling with no strings attached.
Proposition 27: NO. This one allows online sports gambling, but only if it's affiliated with a California tribe. That's completely ridiculous.
(Note that these two propositions are sponsored by different tribal groups, which has turned them into wars between big and small tribes. Also, both allocate some of the profits to various good causes, which is getting a lot of attention even though it's hardly a central issue. One thing they have in common is that both initiatives provide money to problem gambling programs, which is pretty damn cynical if you ask me.)
Proposition 28: NO. This proposition requires the state to provide funding for arts education that's equal to at least 1% of the funding required for public schools. It's the worst kind of ballot box budgeting.
Proposition 29: NO. This is the third time that health care unions have placed a measure on the ballot requiring dialysis centers to have physicians or physician-equivalents on the premises during all opening hours. It's unnecessary and everyone knows it. Are they ever going to give up on this?
Proposition 30: NO. California has a goal of selling only electric vehicles by 2035:
For cars in general, California's goal is to have 100% of sales of new cars be electric by 2035. A complete switchover probably won't happen until 2050 or so as older cars bought before 2035 are gradually junked and replaced with new electric cars.
However, the goal is far more stringent for rideshare companies: their fleets are required to actually complete 90% of the switchover by 2030. But where will the money come from to do this?
Prop 30 adds a 1.75% tax on income over $2 million, with the money dedicated to helping people and businesses make the switch to electric.¹ It's primarily funded by Lyft, which wants public money to fund electric rideshare vehicles instead of paying for them themselves. In addition to this sketchiness, California is already pushing the limits of taxing the wealthy and probably needs to stop. Then again, California's wealthy are pretty damn wealthy, so they can probably afford it.
¹It would also fund charging stations, and a bit of the money would go to wildfire prevention, which is getting a lot of play in ads even though it's only 20% of the program. Also worth noting: California already has a program to help low-income drivers buy new low-emission vehicles.
Proposition 31: YES. This is a referendum on a law passed a couple of years ago to ban the sale of flavored cigarettes. The law itself seems sensible to me, since flavored cigarettes are largely used to hook children, and in any case it's a law, not a permanent part of the constitution. Funding for the opposition comes, naturally enough, from Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds.
Over at Vox, Michael Bluhm interviews Jordan Schneider about President Biden's recent decision to ban exports of advanced computer chips to China. This is a very big deal that's gotten less attention than it deserves, something that Schneider calls "a point of no return for the relationship." And like everyone, he wonders how China will respond:
They could double down on manufacturing lagging-edge tech, which means well-established technologies that are still widely used in countless products. They could try to punish the US by retaliating against leading electronics firms. They could retaliate directly against the semiconductor supply chain by making moves on the rare earth minerals necessary to make chips, or on packaging — areas where China has a considerable place in the global market. They could do something as escalatory as a cyber-attack on some leading-edge American chipmaker.
But I'm also curious about this:
The new export controls ban the export to China of cutting-edge chips, as well as chip design software, chip manufacturing equipment, and US-built components of manufacturing equipment. Not only do the prohibitions cover exports from American firms, but also apply to any company worldwide that uses US semiconductor technology — which would cover all the world’s leading chipmakers. The new rules also forbid US citizens, residents, and green-card holders from working in Chinese chip firms.
I assume the Biden folks conferred with our allies about this, and I can't say that I've heard about any serious pushback from them. Still, as with so many other US sanctions, I wonder how long it's going to be before our allies get weary of this. Is there going to come a point where foreign companies tire of using American tech for fear that their sales to a major market could be cut off anytime at the whim of a US president? Why should the US be able to dictate the conduct of foreign commerce to all of its supposed friends?
This is hardly a new concern, but in the past it's usually been about small countries like Iran or Cuba. China is a whole different order of magnitude. Europe is already paying the lion's share of the price for US sanctions against Russia, and if China becomes a routine target it could cause problems on a much larger multilateral scale than ever before.