According to the LA Times, come January, more than 80% of Americans will live in states with governments entirely controlled by one of the two major Parties. That means when all the new legislators and governors are sworn in, 39 states will be controlled by the same Party, a seven-decade high.
That means Americans will have to live with greater differences in their schools, workplaces, and doctors’ offices as they move cross state lines. A citizen’s right to carry a gun, to get an abortion, to join a union and the rate a minimum-wage job pays, will now depend almost entirely on whether their state is Blue or Red.
Can’t let Sunday go by without talking about Jack Smith, appointed special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland to carry forward the Trump Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago investigations.
It does have advantages: It makes it simple for the DOJ to refuse Rep. Jim Jordan’s demands for information about the various Trump investigations. You can’t subpoena a special counsel during an investigation.
Second, It ensures the continuity of any prosecution after 2025, no matter who is elected. That’s important since it’s possible that neither the stolen documents nor the coup attempt investigations may be completed by then. And it isn’t the first time a special counsel was appointed when Congress changed hands. Remember that John Durham became a special counsel in December 2020 as Bill Barr was deciding to leave as Attorney General, and the Congress was about to change hands in January 2021. That shielded Durham from political interference in case Trump lost the election. Durham investigated potential criminal misconduct that might have occurred during the Trump-Russia probe without success. His investigation continues today. On to cartoons.
Verbena and sunset, Anza Borrego SP, CA – November 2022 photo by Paulette Donnellon
We start Saturday with a reflection on the outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Many think that she ranks as the best House Speaker in modern times.
Wrongo remembers her for standing up to Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel during the debate over the shape of the ACA. There was much concern about how far the Democrats could go with the bill. Emmanuel wanted to tone it down to meet objections from the GOP and from moderate Dems.
Pelosi met with Obama and his aides and said that she wouldn’t support anything but the full monte. That caused the White House’s effort to find a more moderate way forward to crumble. And America made its biggest single step toward providing health insurance to all Americans.
At the end, It was Pelosi not Obama, who made it happen. It was her ability to deliver her caucus that gave Obama et.al a spine.
Wrongo recently learned that when Nancy Pelosi was a teen and her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., was mayor of Baltimore, she maintained his “favors book”. That explains much about her effectiveness when she finally got to Congress at age 47. At the point when she took office, she had five kids. Wrangling them, plus learning to keep a “favors book” was probably ideal preparation for being the first woman House Speaker.
This week, control of the US House has passed to the Republican Party. That means two things: First, that Republicans will now say that compliance with House subpoenas is mandatory, even though they purposefully ignored them for the last two years.
Second, Americans should prepare for investigations of the Biden administration by grandstanding GOP Congresscritters. James Comer (R-KY) held a press conference saying that he will be looking into Hunter Biden, his laptop, and his father. Comer, the incoming Oversight Committee chair, has said an investigation into Hunter Biden and other Biden family members and associates will be a priority. His idea is to try and position the president as having compromised national security.
If that seems to echo the FBI/DOJ investigations into Trump, well, that’s purely a coincidence. Be prepared to see absolutely nothing get done over the next two+ years that might improve the lives of the American people.
Let’s spend a minute on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Last March, the WaPo did a story on a security review it had authorized of the disk drive on the “Hunter Biden laptop”. The WaPo asked security experts Matt Green and Jake Williams to review the drive to see what they could authenticate. From the WaPo:
“In their examinations, Green and Williams found evidence that people other than Hunter Biden had accessed the drive and written files to it, both before and after the initial stories in the New York Post and long after the laptop itself had been turned over to the FBI.”
So people had kept adding content to the “laptop,” making it impossible to say what was on the “laptop” when it was originally provided to the Delaware computer repair shop.
More from the WaPo:
“Analysis was made significantly more difficult, both experts said, because the data had been handled repeatedly in a manner that deleted logs and other files that forensic experts use to establish a file’s authenticity.”
But according to the House Republicans:
You should read the entire story of the laptop in the WaPo. It details the laptop’s convoluted journey from Hunter to the FBI, while several other copies of its hard drive were made. They went to Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon. The WaPo reviewed one of the Republican copies, but not the one in the hands of the FBI.
What would a jury decide if this laptop was Exhibit A? Would they consider it to be tainted evidence? Seems like there are too many unknowns and too many people who had access to it.
But what will the House GOP grandstanders make out of it? Will laptop-gate be legitimatized by the media? And will many citizens fall for it just like they did with Clinton’s email server? The Right has lots of practice at turning complicated stories into political gold.
Time to move on to our Saturday Soother. Here on the fields of Wrong, nearly all of our yard work was completed before the first snowfall this week. Along with everyone in the northeast, our weather turned cold, and winter jackets are now hanging on the hook by the back door.
To ease into Saturday, start by brewing up a hot steaming mug of Villa Betulia Maragesha ($30/8oz.) from Colorado’s Corvus Coffee. The roaster says it has flavors of peach liqueur and strawberry syrup. Maybe that’s why it’s so expensive.
Now grab a seat near a south-facing window and watch and listen to the Adagio movement of the “Concierto de Aranjuez” by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo. Written in 1939, it is Rodrigo’s best-known work. Here it is played by Hauser on cello and Petrit Çeku on guitar at the “HAUSER & Friends” Concert in Croatia in 2018, along with Ivo Lipanovic conducting the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra:
Snow Geese, Skagit Valley, WA – November 2022 photo by Erwin Buske
Buckle up, America. Apparently, we’re gonna do it all over again. Trump is running, but who cares? The Democrats will beat him once again. The more he speaks, the more attention will be paid to his criminality, and the greater will be the demand on the Department of Justice to – you know, bring justice.
But the issue du jour (and du month) is the Georgia Senate runoff. Like Mark Kelly in Arizona, Georgia’s Sen. Raphael Warnock is running for his first full six-year term in the Senate. The Senate stands at D50 : R49 until Georgia votes. There are two reasons to vote for Warnock, one is tactical, the other, strategic.
First, the tactical: In a 50-50 Senate, the Parties will likely have equal representation on committees, based on a power-sharing agreement that Sens. Schumer and McConnell reached early in the current Congress. Winning Georgia means that the Dems won’t need a new power-sharing agreement, which McConnell will make more difficult this time. It would make it easier for Dems to control committees, and to confirm judicial nominees. And don’t expect a 51-seat Democratic Senate majority to eliminate the filibuster, because with Republicans controlling the House it won’t make much sense.
The 2024 election is a presidential election year. In the last two presidential cycles, only one Senator, Susan Collins (R-ME) prevailed when her state went for the presidential candidate of the other Party. In every other race, the same Party that won the state for the presidential election also won the Senate race.
“Unless Democrats win the [2024] presidential race in a blowout — something that seems unlikely in our closely-divided nation — the Republican presidential nominee seems very likely to carry at least 3 [GOP] states that have Democratic senators up for reelection in 2024: Montana, Ohio, and West Virginia. That puts Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and [Joe] Manchin (D-WVA) at a disadvantage. We’re not sure if we would start any of them as clear underdogs…but at best they would all start in Toss-up races.”
The Republican nominee, (whether Trump or someone else), should carry all of the states that Republican senators are defending next cycle, including the two most competitive states, Florida and Texas.
Even with the Republicans’ propensity to nominate bad candidates in winnable races, a problem they have had in 2010, 2012, and 2022, Republicans should be able to flip at least one Dem Senate seat in 2024. That’s what makes Georgia so important. If the GOP wins Warnock’s seat, winning one Dem seat in 2024 is all it would take to control the Senate.
But if Warnock holds, the Republicans will need two flips to win the Senate. Based on the three seats described above, that’s possible. But it’s harder to simply pencil in, since Democrats did so much better than expected last week. However, if Hershel Walker wins Georgia, Republicans have a much better chance to get a clear Senate majority in 2024.
So, Warnock winning is super important. Wrongo has engaged in conversations with a few readers about what the most effective way is to help Warnock out in Georgia. Remember that Georgia is a “strict voter ID” state. That means that being registered to vote in Georgia isn’t enough. A voter needs a proper ID as defined by Georgia law to cast a lawful ballot.
Wrongo recommends helping the good people at VoteRiders (www.voteriders.org), an organization that has helped millions of American voters get the ID they needed to vote. In Georgia, VoteRiders has identified 157,000 registered voters who do not have sufficient ID to vote. They have contact information for them as well.
VoteRiders is deploying its volunteers to assist in this effort. The more eligible voters in Georgia who are actually able to cast their ballot, the more representative of our democracy the Georgia vote becomes. And given the demographics of these registered voters without proper ID, the better Warnock’s chances will be. Warnock beat Walker by only 33,000 votes before the runoff.
You can donate here, and unlike campaign donations, this is tax-deductible.
Please also feel free to donate to Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign but do it directly at Warnock for Georgia, so he gets 100% of your precious dough.
“Massachusetts voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that will increase taxes on those earning more than $1 million a year…. The state’s constitution currently requires all income be taxed at uniform rates. The $1 million threshold will be adjusted each year to reflect cost-of-living increases.”
Fifty-two percent of voters approved the amendment which will add a 4% tax on annual incomes above $1 million, on top of the state’s current 5% flat income tax. It takes effect in 2023, and will fund public education, roads, bridges, and public transportation.
It’s expected the new tax will affect roughly 0.6% of Massachusetts households, according to an analysis from Tufts University. The new tax also applies to “one-time millionaires,” including people who make more than $1 million in taxable income from selling their homes or businesses. It’s estimated to bring in roughly $1.3 billion in revenue during fiscal 2023, according to Tufts.
Supporters applauded the new tax as a necessary step to address MA’s income inequality gap. The Economic Policy Institute ranks Massachusetts as the sixth-worst state in the country when it comes to income inequality.
It is true that the US is one of the most economically unequal nations in the developed world. Most of the income and wealth gains of the last decade have gone to the richest 0.1%—households with annual incomes of $2.4 million and wealth of at least $32 million.
So it isn’t surprising that a similar idea has floated around DC for some time. In October 2021, Biden introduced a “millionaire’s surtax,” bill that would raise taxes on all forms of income, including wages, capital gains, and dividends. It would have imposed a 5% tax on incomes above $10 million and an 8% tax on incomes above $25 million, raising $230 billion over 10 years from the wealthiest 0.02% of Americans.
Naturally, it didn’t pass.
So the effort moved to the states, with success in 2022 Massachusetts and failure in California, where its millionaire’s surtax was defeated, 59%-41%.
In some ways, the millionaire tax debate is emblematic of the nation’s deep political divide. Republicans everywhere only want to see taxes go down, and Democrats are seeking to raise them to fund long term problems like battling climate change and adding better infrastructure.
The GOP asks: If climate change is an existential issue affecting us all, does it make sense to address the issue by taxing only a handful of households? Your answer may be different from Wrongo’s who sees the question as a way to deflect the discussion into an endless loop of “whataboutism” regarding who pays taxes.
Republicans have refused to support carbon use taxes. They’ve refused to support cap-and-trade carbon taxes. Most of them deny that climate change is happening and refuse to pro-actively plan to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, here or anywhere else. So they aren’t engaging in a serious discussion when they ask the question.
Although efforts to raise taxes on millionaires have stalled in Washington, they haven’t gone away. That will happen if Republicans control the House in January 2023.
Time to wake up America! Deficits can grow to the sky at the national level but states have to balance their budgets yearly. That’s why some states are making the choice to raise taxes on millionaires, the very people who have gained the most in the past 50 years. Raising taxes is a must in most states for the remainder of this decade.
To help you wake up, watch, and listen to Molly Tuttle channel Grace Slick while covering the Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit“. Tuttle was just named the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year, so you’re seeing “White Rabbit” done as bluegrass, performed in October 2022 in Portland, ME:
Tuttle is an amazing performer. You can learn more about her here.
While we were focusing on the midterms, Biden flew to Egypt to appear at the COP27 climate conference where he took a brief victory lap before heading to Cambodia and then to Bali for the G20 summit (which Putin is skipping).
This particular climate conference is largely focused on what, if anything, the industrialized countries owe to poor nations that are suffering climate disasters which they did little to cause. The catch phrase for this is “Climate Reparations”.
It’s hard for America to be a global leader on climate given our internal political issues. We’re always going to be just a few Electoral College votes away from electing a climate denier. So the world can’t count on us. But America will never pay climate reparations. We must at least TRY to get clean water in US cities first.
Even after 157 years, we won’t really consider paying reparations to the descendants of our fellow citizens for the sin of slavery. The political will to pay reparations to brown skinned folks on the other side of the world will never be a majority view in America.
There was both good news and bad news about the 2022 midterms. The good news is that the outcomes were not as catastrophic as predicted. The bad news is that they were bad enough. While all the races aren’t finished and all the votes aren’t counted, we know the Senate will be controlled by the Democrats. It’s likely that the GOP will control the House. Still, it’s very clear there’s a very large segment of American voters who fail to read the writing on the wall about the threat of an authoritarian takeover of American democracy. Even though that writing is in large, blinking neon letters. On to cartoons.
The authoritarians are pensive:
The incredibly shrinking authoritarians:
The Georgia runoff doesn’t mean what you think it means:
Colorado River with the Fisher Towers and the La Sal mountains in background, UT – November 2022 photo by Benjamin Williamson Photography
Wrongo can admit to being anxious and a bit depressed during the two weeks leading up to the midterms. But it wasn’t the blowout that America’s BS pollsters and the slavish media had been predicting. So he’s feeling better.
While it’s still too early to know what the political landscape will be in 2023, we can be reasonably sure that the Republicans will control the House and the Dems the Senate.
If that happens, what should Biden’s strategy be? It’s likely that he will retool the White House into a more overtly political operation with a focus on 2024. Axios reports that Biden’s considering bringing on a business leader to improve Democratic relations with the business community. That becomes more important if the US is heading into a recession sometime before the 2024 presidential election.
The idea is for Biden to stay in front of any potential financial crises. His team wants to be sure he’s getting a 360-degree view of the economy, even if that means angering the Party’s progressive wing.
Biden also plans to sharpen the contrast between Democrats and Congressional Republicans. It’s certain that the GOP will at best, hold only a narrow margin in the House. Some Republican Congress Critters are already considering mounting a challenge to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as House Speaker.
That’s likely to leave Republicans with an unwieldy and possibly chaotic majority, which should give Democrats an opening to be on offense. If Democrats keep their minimal Senate majority, Biden could promote his agenda in the Senate and then continually ask why House Republicans are stalling it.
And when it comes to House Republicans spending time investigating the Biden administration, Biden and his team should use similar delay and deflect tactics as the Trump administration did.
The MAGA fringe in the House will also try to hold the country hostage to increases in the debt ceiling. It’s logical that a Dem + responsible Republican faction will work on a bipartisan basis to stave off the MAGA effort to burn up America’s credit rating.
Wrongo would urge the Senate and the House to try to get two big things accomplished in the lame duck session. It MUST complete its reforms of the Electoral Count Act. Over the summer, a bipartisan group of senators reached a deal to make it harder to overturn a presidential election. The proposal still needs to be approved by both chambers. The Senate proposal has the backing of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The House has passed a slightly different version, but if it doesn’t get done by January you can kiss these reforms goodbye.
Second, the Senate should attempt to use the budget reconciliation process to raise the debt ceiling to preclude House Republicans from threatening default on the national debt as pretext for extracting concessions on Social Security, Medicare, and possibly, Veterans benefits.
If Biden can have success with working across the aisle on the Electoral Count Act along with the budget and debt ceiling, that will position Democrats (and Biden) as the adults in DC politics. To the extent that inflation continues to fall, and we avoid a deep recession, Biden can claim the Democrats are doing a good job on the economy.
Since it’s Saturday, welcome to our Saturday Soother. Wrongo invites all readers to pause for a few hours, (or more) to recharge after escaping the phantom red wave. It is imperative that we prevent burn out because there’s much more to do before the new Congress is sworn in, in January.
For Wrongo, that means going outside and doing yard work, or simply wandering around the fields of Wrong.
Wrongo and Ms. Right started this early on Friday by taking a walk in a nearby town park. The leaves on the park’s trees are down, but the grass and plants remain green and the air was warm. Despite being a national holiday the park was nearly empty, making for a delightful escape.
To help you pause, grab a seat by a south-facing window and watch and listen to Telemann’s “Sonata in D major, TWV 44:1” played here by the Bremer Barockorchester (Bremen Baroque Orchestra). It was performed at the Unser Lieben Frauen Church in Bremen in October 2021. It features a very interesting performance on a 3′ long natural trumpet, which is valveless. Julian Zimmermann is the great musician making this solo trumpet performance:
Here are Wrongo’s hot takes on the midterms, with the understanding that it will be days (weeks?) before we really know all that happened:
The polls overcorrected for previous mistakes by being biased in favor of the GOP this time. Democrats outperformed their poll numbers by about 1 point. The evidence was there all along that there were alternative outcomes that were at least as likely, and that the vote differential between max D and max R would be at most, 3 points.
Abortion rights and election denial were both on the ballot. Despite the polling, results confirm that a woman’s right to choose was popular while election denial is a fringe belief. In Pennsylvania, exit polls found that abortion was the number one issue, outpacing inflation 36% to 28%. Both core Republican positions were rejected by most Americans.
2022 was as close to a perfect environment for a Red wave as we’ll likely see in the next few years. But as the Daily Beast says: “Republicans had hoped for a red wave. What they got looked more like purple rain.”
In every race where Democrats helped fund a MAGA candidate in a primary over a less crazy Republican, the MAGA Republican lost in the general election.
All the abortion rights state initiatives won. John Roberts is sitting at home, weeping bitter tears and saying to his fellow Justices: “I told you so”.
The Senate is looking like a 50/50 split again, assuming that Kelly wins in Arizona and Warnock defeats Walker in a runoff. Walker is the essence of the GOP experiment in candidate crapification: “Exactly how little can we offer you in a candidate and still have you vote for them?“
You’re going to have to reopen your wallets for Rev. Warnock again in November.
There’s an outside chance that Nevada may return Cortez-Masto to the Senate, making the Dem’s potential ceiling 51-49.
We need to remember that 2024 is a much less favorable environment for Democrats. So by then, it may become impossible to confirm another Democratic SCOTUS nominee, possibly for as long as the rest of the decade. That requires Dems to kill the filibuster.
The House will most likely flip to the Republicans by a small margin. Democrats are overperforming, but they need to sweep the remaining toss-up races in order to keep the majority. Dozens of House races, including in NY and CA, are too close to call.
Current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had predicted a 60-seat GOP surge. It will most likely be fewer than 10 seats. McCarthy’s going to spend the next two years trying to give a bath to a bagful of bobcats.
All of the House Republicans elected on Tuesday are committed to a decidedly different direction than that of Biden and the Democrats. There will be few opportunities for legislative consensus. And lots of opportunity for Republican grandstanding.
The governor races that Republicans had hoped to capture: New York, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Maine, all stayed Blue.
Florida is no longer a battleground state. And Iowa and Ohio seem now to be completely out of reach for Democrats. Texas stayed solidly Red for at least another cycle. But it appears that Michigan and Pennsylvania may have slipped into the Blue camp.
Closing thoughts: Biden defied expectations. He was set up to take the blame for a large midterm loss in both the House and Senate. That might have led for calls from within the Party for Biden to stand down in 2024. Limiting the Party’s losses may not improve his favorability ratings, but it makes attacks from within the Party difficult.
Second, regardless of your viewpoint on the quality of the Dems’ messaging, pundits in the media will make opposing arguments (e.g., Dems should be more moderate, Dems should be more liberal) and there will be at least some data points to support their views.
Third, Republicans are pointing their fingers at Trump for the GOP’s failure to live up to expectations. This is the third straight election in which Trump has cost the Republican Party winnable seats. Whether that emboldens Florida’s DeSantis to battle Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination remains to be seen. The best possible outcome would be that DeSantis actually takes on Trump. Imagine if he beat Trump to the nomination. Would Trump run a third party campaign?
It’s fun to dream about, even if it’s an unlikely prospect. Then again, let’s hope that Trump is indicted by the DOJ long before the 2024 nominating process gets underway.
Valley of Fire SP, NV – November 2022 photo by Carol Cox
It’s Election Day. Over the next few days, the mainstream media, and self-appointed pundits like Wrongo will try to make sense of what the vote tallies mean for America and for the two Parties. Regardless of the outcome, many things will be very different in 2023.
“Voting this year is not only political, it’s personal. To vote is to speak. To vote is to declare that you will not be written out of the definition of who can claim their right to this national identity. To vote is to fight. Voting is not the only way to fight, but it is one of our most powerful weapons. Wield it with power and determination. And leave no power on the table.”
The one overriding issue in this midterm election has been inflation. The media won’t let go of it, and the glare effect of inflation makes some voters think that the economy is also terrible. And it hangs over the closing arguments of all Democrats because the Republicans falsely say that the sole cause of inflation is that the Biden administration’s spending like crazy.
The truth is that about 54% of the current inflation rate is due to elevated corporate profits.
Prices are rising not just because of worker’s wages. The cost of labor is increasing at a slower rate than inflation. Raw materials are not the prime driver of increased inflation either. Companies are raising prices above and beyond costs because they can.
Unless companies can reduce their cost of bringing products to market, the only way to increase the firm’s markup is by increasing its selling price. Kevin Drum has helpfully taken a look at that for us:
The blue line represents the total cost of employing somebody, including all wages and benefits. Since 2020 it’s risen at less than the rate of inflation. The red line represents after-tax profits as a share of gross value added, (markup to economists). Before 2020 it rose roughly in line with inflation, but since 2020 it’s skyrocketed.
From Drum: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“Corporations are increasing prices…and blaming it on inflation. But it’s not because of inflation. It’s a cause of inflation. Prices are rising….mainly because companies are raising prices above and beyond that for no special reason except that they can. And all of us are paying the price.”
Economist Robert Reich points out that corporations can jack up prices today without losing customers because we’ve allowed virtual monopolies to develop in many US industries. Since the 1980s, he says, two-thirds of all American industries have become more concentrated. Some examples:
Foods: Four companies control 85% of all meat and poultry processing. Just one corporation sets the price for most of the nation’s seed corn. Just two giant firms dominate consumer staples.
Drugs and prescriptions: Big pharma consists of just five corporations.
Air travel:The airline industry has gone from 12 carriers in 1980 to just four today.
Banking: Wall Street has consolidated into five giant banks.
Broadband: It’s dominated by three cable companies.
The US House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy released an analysis last Friday that spells out how some corporations have enacted price hikes and are enjoying record profits. What’s worse, the CEOs of the big firms openly admit on earnings calls with investors that they use inflation as a cover to raise prices. Here’s what a few CEOs of major companies are saying:
Michael McGarry, CEO of PPG, in response to a question whether prices will go back down when input prices are lower:
“…we’re not going to be giving this pricing back….So we’re telling people, this is the new price. And if you don’t like it, please don’t place purchase orders.”
“…our Grocery Products pricing is very sticky and so the pricing that we’ve taken and that we’re in the midst of executing the additional price increase, that pricing will by and large stay.”
The inflation we’re experiencing is not due to wage gains, it’s due to profit gains from corporate pricing power.
It would be nice if the media reported on what’s really causing the inflation. Many people are going to the polls today thinking this is Biden policy-caused inflation rather than the reality of a corporate drive for higher profits.
Too bad so few Democrats are talking about this when they get hammered about inflation by their Republican opponents.
The Old Floral Hall, Covent Garden, Royal Opera House, London UK – October 2022 iPhone photo by Wrongo
We’re nearing the end of our week in London. Yesterday, we visited the Royal Opera House (ROH) in Covent Garden. We got to watch ballet rehearsals by the Royal Ballet Company which shares the ROH, and briefly listened in on a rehearsal by Lisette Oropesa who plays the title role in “Alcina” by Handel. Alcina turns her male lovers into plants, an idea that inspired much mirth from Ms. Right.
Wrongo saw Nureyev perform at the ROH in 1976, when he was working for the big American bank. That was ages before the remodel of the ROH which added a huge addition in 1997-1999. In the 1970s, the Old Floral Hall in the photo above was at street level. Now it has been refurbished, halved in size, and raised to the second floor inside the ROH addition. It is used as an event space and cocktail bar.
We heard over here about the good US economic news. And it wasn’t just about GDP growth. There was also good news on inflation. The Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) price index, which the Fed watches closely, increased by 4.2%, down significantly from 7.3% last quarter. And the CPI for the last three months rose by 0.5%, equating to an annual rate of 2%. If it were to keep up for the next nine months, that’s at the Fed’s inflation target. Pity that the media aren’t talking about this, but mostly about how the economy is still slowing.
One thing that caught Wrongo’s eye from abroad was Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government’s release of its 44th youth poll: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“A national poll released today by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School indicates that 40% of 18-to-29-year-olds state that they will “definitely” vote in the November 8 midterm elections, on track to match or potentially exceed the record-breaking 2018 youth turnout in a midterm election. Young voters prefer Democratic control of Congress 57% to 31% (up five points for Democrats since spring), but 12% remain undecided.”
John Della Volpe, Kennedy School director, believes we will see a Gen Z wave in November:
“Youth today vote at levels that far exceed millennials, Gen X, and baby boomers when they were under 30.”
In the 2020 presidential election, voters 18-29 voted in even greater numbers than in 2018: closer to 50%. Yet, if turnout by younger voters is in the 40% range, that’s not something to celebrate. It means that younger voters are leaving a lot of political power on the table.
According to the US Census, people over 65 outvoted them by over 15 points in 2018. Political power is right there waiting for people to grab it. That only will happen if more people turn to vote.
Wrongo got an email from his Democratic Congressperson Jahana Hayes, saying that she was trailing by one point in the highly respected Emerson College poll which says:
“The economy is the most important issue for 46% of Connecticut 5th District voters, followed by abortion access (16%), and threats to democracy (14%).”
Hayes is a first-term Representative who was comfortably elected in 2020. While the results are within the ± 4.3% margin of error in the poll, this isn’t a seat the Dems thought was in play. This is more proof that the Dems are flailing with their messaging on inflation and the economy, despite the fact that inflation is falling and the economy is still growing.
But we also have to remember that if the GOP takes the House, they’ll have absolutely no incentive to even try to help make economic conditions any better.
In fact, they are actually incented to try to make it worse. Why? Because the Democrats will still control the White House and may also control the Senate for the next couple of years. It’s a safe bet that Republicans will do whatever they can to increase the chaos on the economic front, so that they can continue to blame Democrats when Trump runs again in 2024.
But we really have no idea which Party will control the House and Senate, and we may not know for sure until a week or two after November 8.
With Wrongo and Ms. Right in London, you’re on your own for how to relax on this Saturday. To help with that, watch and listen to Sinfonity TV Guitar’s incredible performance of Bach’s “Toccata & Fugue”, recorded live in Segovia, Spain. To watch 15 rock guitar musicians playing it in unison is astounding. Take your collective hats off to the musicians who play it:
Sunset, Cranberry bog, Yarmouth, MA – October 2022 photo by Jean Burns
Wrongo and Ms. Right are leaving on Sunday for a week in London. We’re arriving there just as the horse race for whoever will become the UK’s next prime minister will be clear to all. We’re expecting it to dominate the British news while we’re there.
On September 10, Wrongo said he wasn’t a fan of the now departed Liz Truss. He also said it was hard to believe her effort to revive the zombie concept that is trickle-down economics would go well with the UK already in a recession. She lasted just 44 days in office. Here’s a hot take from England:
Seems like a lot of turmoil for a small, low growth, densely populated country.
Truss’s sin was simple. Her economic plan was designed to satisfy libertarian think tanks and fans of Ronald Reagan and Margret Thatcher rather than to be something workable. Republicans in America do this kind of thing because we can, since the dollar is the world’s reserve currency. That means we can go almost as far into debt as we want without the markets panicking.
But the UK doesn’t have that luxury. So there’s a limit to how many favors they can do to their own fabulously rich citizens.
The policy that got Truss thrown out of No. 10 Downing Street was a copy of the foundational Republican US domestic agenda, as practiced from Reagan to Trump. That is, cut taxes for the rich and corporations, then hope it eventually creates tax revenue before it forces spending cuts.
And the British financial markets seem to actually care about the well-being of their country’s economy. However, American markets seem to care only about maximizing share prices and the after-tax compensation of top-level executives.
US Conservatives were delighted when Truss became PM. On September 23, Larry Kudlow said on FOX:
“The new British prime minister, Liz Truss, has laid out a terrific supply-side economic growth plan which looks a lot like the basic thrust of Kevin McCarthy’s Commitment to America plan.”
Needless to say, like Truss, Republicans are also willing to do unfunded tax cuts and call it a growth agenda. They’re also willing to fail to extend America’s borrowing limit, in order to make their agenda happen. The GOP would try to hold the Democratic president hostage in order to share some political responsibility for that action, never mind that an American debt default would also hold a gun to the global economy.
That isn’t possible in the country that brought you Maggie Thatcher. They toss out their incompetent supply-siders. The elephant in the room of the UK’s chaos and crisis is 2016’s Brexit. Even though Brexit has brought about low GDP growth, it remains a hard right political project rooted in a mythical British past.
Brexit’s Tory supporters didn’t care about the hard economic evidence that Brexit would be an act of economic self-harm. And the political divisions Brexit caused in the Tory party remain a problem as they now seek to unite behind another sacrificial PM. From David Frum:
“The problem is that you’re not eligible for the captaincy unless you agree it was a brilliant idea to scupper the ship in 2016 – and can convincingly act baffled why it has been sinking ever since,”
If America still has the ability to learn, it would be great if they studied this Tory disaster.
It would be nice if American voters would really punish Republicans when they fuck up and tank the economy again. And not just by electing a Democratic president, as they did in 1992 and 2008 when the economy went south.
OTOH, if anything can get Joe Biden reelected, it’s a Republican-led Congress in 2023 and 2024. They will screw things up just as thoroughly as Liz Truss has screwed the pooch in Britain. Then, we’ll have to see if they’ll ever be blamed for it.
Enough foreign politics for today. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we consider raking the leaves that are suddenly carpeting the Fields of Wrong but decide to put it off until we return.
Let’s start by brewing up a big mug of Costa Rica Cerro Dragon Geisha Honey ($12.00/4oz.) from RamsHead Coffee Roasters of Bozeman, Montana. It is said to be an invitingly complex Costa Rica honey-processed cup with notes of tropical fruit, sweet herbs, and crisp cocoa.
Now grab a seat by a south-facing window and listen to Khatia Buniatishvili play Schubert’s “Impromptu No. 3 in G-Flat Major, Op. 90, D. 899”. It isn’t played in front of a live audience, so no coughing, etc.
Schubert wrote eight solo piano pieces called impromptus. An impromptu is a musical work, usually for a solo instrument, in this case, piano. Schubert composed this work the year before he died:
