Politics Random, Random

[skatingfan]

I think it's just a matter of this being the time of year when bird flu cases spike, and so it has a certain seasonal relevance that leads to agencies talking to media, and media publishing stories.

[ti-amie]

I am missing something. The egg/avian flu connection has been a thing for some time now, as have high egg prices. Now the USDA is talking about it as if it's a new thing?

I am missing something. (It was worth repeating.)

One of the things people who voted for that man say is that they did so because of the price of eggs.

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

Problem is that he is a beacon for the bunch of alternative-medicine lunatics in the world.

[mmmm8]

In general we should remember that there is no such thing as Homo Economicus. People don't vote merely with their wallets.

I thought you were going to say there's not such thing as a purely rational human. All basic economics ideas are based on the fact that there is a rational actor. If that were true. high school economics is where that discipline woudl begin and end...

[mmmm8]

Sometimes I think there's a just a secret cabal of VPN developers that actually run all these nationalist and puritan propaganda legislative campaigns in so many places. I think at least a 35% (probably closer to 75%) of Russians use VPN, and what a great opportunity in Indiana!

[mmmm8]

I read something today that said every highschooler should be required to take a basic Economics course but that man has nominated ex WWE exec Linda McMan as education secretary so we're more likely to see more high schoolers learning how to wield a steel chair than understanding how tariffs work.


Everyone should also work retail once. That's been a pipe dream of mine for a long time.

We don't need basic economics courses. We have Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

It's funny except Ben Stein in real life has embraced and propagated some pretty BS economic theories, has said some pretty horribly racist stuff, doesn't believe in evolution and has worked for (and since defended) Nixon and initially endorsed Trump in 2016.

(It's ruined his character for me, and it's an amazing scene).

[ti-amie]

Today's top FAFO news. Note the date.



What Project 2025 could mean for Social Security
By Catherine Stoddard Published July 10, 2024 2:24pm EDT

Project 2025 and Social Security

Project 2025’s ‘Mandate for Leadership’ calls for a number of changes to the federal government, but it does not specifically address any changes to the Social Security program.

"Mandate for Leadership does not advocate cutting Social Security," Project 2025 posted via X on July 9.

That said, it has long been a GOP-backed ideal to raise the retirement age for U.S. citizens.

An article published on the Heritage Foundation’s website last month titled "Should the Social Security Age Be Raised? Yes.", author Rachel Greszler, who is also a senior research fellow at the Roe Institute, suggested that the retirement age be raised to 69 or 70.

"To restore Social Security’s intent, policymakers should gradually increase the normal retirement age from 67 to 69 or 70—moving the age up by one or two months per year—and index it to life expectancy," Greszler wrote.

Separately, in March, the Republican Study Committee, the largest group of conservatives in the House, proposed raising the retirement age and a restructuring of Medicare.

Under the RSC plan for Social Security, it would make "modest changes" to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy while calling for lower benefits for the highest-earning beneficiaries.

According to the budget proposal, the RSC argues that "with insolvency approaching in the 10-year budget window, Congress has a moral and practical obligation to address the problems with Social Security."

Specific to federal employees, Project 2025 does call for reforming retirement benefits.

The initiative suggests lowering the amount given in government pensions, "it still remains much more generous, and other means might be considered in the future to move it even closer to private plans."

https://www.livenowfox.com/news/project ... retirement

[ti-amie]

The leopards may have slim pickins' here because corporate farming has replaced individually owned farms. They'll set up their own slave markets and get workers from them.

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

Trump and his allies see a role model in Argentina’s Milei
The chainsaw-wielding libertarian’s record of slashing government spending has won him admirers in Trumpworld.


Argentine President Javier Milei, center, appears at Mar-a-Lago on Nov. 14 with, from left, Argentine Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, President-elect Donald Trump and Argentine Secretary General of the Presidency Karina Milei. (Argentinian Presidency/AFP/Getty Images)

For the American right, there’s a new icon on the bloc. The week after Donald Trump’s election victory, Argentine President Javier Milei appeared at a black-tie bash at the President-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was received with the same effusive enthusiasm that he himself took to the proceedings.

Milei — a colorful showman who came to politics after building his celebrity as a loudmouthed, strangely coiffed television pundit — was the first world leader to meet Trump in person after the Nov. 5 election. He beamed through photos with Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk. He danced and jerked his arms about to the disco song “Y.M.C.A.” In a short speech, the libertarian economist exulted in Trump’s win, saying “the forces of heaven [were] on our side.”

Trump’s first term overlapped with that of Brazil’s hard-right firebrand former president Jair Bolsonaro. The duo had an ideological affinity, anchored in a shared contempt for their countries’ perceived left-leaning political and cultural establishments. They vowed to tear it all down; their opponents saw them as dangerous demagogues harnessing societal polarization to subvert their nations’ democracies.

The political landscape of the hemisphere has further shifted ahead of Trump’s second term: Bolsonaro, though out of office and entangled in prosecutions of his and his supporters’ alleged attempts to overthrow a 2022 election defeat, remains an influential figure in Brazil, and his allies represent a major electoral bloc. Republicans also have the example of El Salvador’s wildly popular President Nayib Bukele, the “bitcoin bro” strongman who has presided over a comprehensive — and highly popular — crackdown on gang violence in his impoverished nation, defied the constitution to serve beyond its one-term limit and jokingly described himself as the world’s “coolest dictator.”

And they have Milei, who emerged from the fringes of Argentine politics in bolsonarista fashion, chainsaw in hand, to surge to power a year ago. Since taking office in December, he has moved quickly and radically, slashing public spending, erasing several governmental ministries and deregulating broad swaths of the economy. His zeal has won admirers in Trumpworld, where Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, tasked with leading the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” — in reality, a nongovernment advisory board — are keen to follow Milei’s example. Ramaswamy, pushing for mass federal layoffs, has called for “Milei-style cuts, on steroids” as Trump and his allies act on their long-held desire to dismantle the administrative state.

Never mind the vast differences between the contexts in each country. Milei’s ascent followed decades of economic dysfunction in Argentina, cycles of hyperinflation and sclerotic governance. Trump seems to have successfully convinced a segment of U.S. voters that similar crises exist in their own country, though the data and evidence indicate otherwise. What’s more real is their shared political animus — deep anger and grievance against a supposedly leftist status quo, and a radical vision to turn the tables. In that project, they have the support of a cast of powerful financial elites, including prominent Silicon Valley would-be oligarchs.

Musk, Milei told a podcaster recently, is “a great fighter for the ideas of freedom. He’s helping the world nowadays wake up once and for all and become aware of the socialist virus. That in itself makes him a hero in the history of humanity.”

That affinity could shape Trump’s dealings with the hemisphere in the years to come. “Trump’s close relations with these presidents and politicians will be ideological and personal, shifting White House policy to partisan support for outsider, nationalist populists inspired by him,” wrote Christopher Sabatini, a Latin America specialist at the Chatham House think tank. “In Latin America and the Caribbean, a region scarred by U.S. meddling, Washington’s intervention will now likely be in the service of a personalistic and narrowly ideological vision.”

Milei’s own record is still up for debate. His methods have undoubtedly had an effect. “Inflation is tumbling, just as he promised, from a peak of almost 300 percent; a long-running budget deficit has turned into a surplus; government bonds, once seen as almost certain to sink back into default, are rallying; and the long-moribund economy is finally starting to rebound,” Bloomberg News reported this month. “Not bad for an outsider with an agenda so radical that people were speculating openly a year ago on how many months he’d last before having to surrender power.”

Milei himself is bullish. “What lies ahead in 2025 is more of what we’ve already done: strict fiscal balance, no money growth and deregulation,” he wrote in the Economist. “Argentina has suffered from an overdose of deficits, money-printing and useless regulations. All that needs to go.”

But more than half of Argentina’s population finds itself in stifling poverty, with millions affected by Milei’s cuts. State welfare has dried up, pensions are frozen and soup kitchens shuttered. Poverty in the country is at its highest rate in two decades. “This new economic program is not protecting the poor,” Kirsten Sehnbruch, an expert on Latin America at the London School of Economics and Political Science, told the Guardian. “The jump is absolutely horrendous.”

Opinion polls show support for Milei is holding. It’s unclear, though, what sort of dividend Trump’s presidency may yield for Milei. Deeper U.S. economic engagement is unlikely. “There’s a pretty high threshold for U.S. companies to have confidence in Argentina,” Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America program at the Wilson Center, told the Wall Street Journal. “And a friendship between the Argentine and U.S. presidents is not nearly enough to move the needle on investment decisions.”

And Trump’s sweeping tariffs would cut against Milei’s laissez-faire principles, and almost certainly damage Argentina’s struggling economy. Their evolving bromance may prove to be more about style and optics than policy.

“Another four years of Trump will likely deepen internal division in the Western Hemisphere between hard-right populist and centrist and leftist leaders,” Sabatini concluded. “But it will probably fail to advance any consistent force globally, in relation to Trump’s inchoate, transactional and partisan world view.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... ier-milei/

[mmmm8]

They sure didn't care about people hating Jews, though. The fascist messaging wasn't subtle. Just like the current sexist, racist, xenophobic (and antisemitic) messaging isn't subtle.

I don't have the same issue with German soldiers who fought in WWII. They didn't really have a choice (and many were teenagers). But voters, yeah.

[mmmm8]

Millei is trying to fix a fledging economy that has failed many times over under other methods. Trump's going to destroy a (relatively) functioning one.

[ti-amie]

Trump Pledges Tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China
President-elect’s plans come after tough economic rhetoric on the campaign trail
By Natalie Andrews and Andrew Restuccia

Nov. 25, 2024 7:23 pm ET

WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump pledged that soon after taking office he will slap steep tariffs on Mexico and Canada, two of America’s closest allies, as well as China, the clearest indication since his election victory that he plans to follow through on the tough campaign rhetoric that helped propel him to the White House.

Posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump said that on the first day of his presidency he will charge Mexico and Canada a 25% tariff on all products coming into the U.S. He added in a separate social-media post that he would impose an additional 10% tariff on all products that come into the U.S. from China. That would come on top of existing tariffs the U.S. has already imposed on Chinese goods.

“This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” Trump wrote, referencing his proposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

Doing so would likely upend the trade agreement that Trump negotiated with the two neighboring countries in his first term, known as USMCA. U.S. goods and services traded utilizing that trade agreement totaled an estimated $1.8 trillion in 2022, according to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which oversees U.S. trade agreements.

Updates to follow as news develops.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/tru ... a-3c62b1f7

[ti-amie]

Again...



Word was she charges $250k minimum to appear with her "husband". I wonder what she will charge now?