We do have a problem with executive power creep so like there’s a world where I’m on board for non-delegation but there just is a reality that some questions are too small, detailed, and nuanced to expect a new bill out of Congress each time.

So like setting new tariffs, should be a congressional action and it was improperly delegated. Determining whether a new ladder is safe for workers, can be delegated.

“Person who assaulted, charged with assault”

Why is this news?

Median earnings grew faster than inflation every quarter between Q2 2022 and Q4 2023, a year and a half straight. Ticked down in Q1 2024 but basically back to pre pandemic levels.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

It was always short sighted tax policy. We’re just living with the blowback.

But in 1954, apparently intending to stimulate capital investment in manufacturing in order to counter a mild recession, Congress replaced the straight-line approach with “accelerated depreciation,” which enabled owners to take huge deductions in the early years of a project’s life. This, Hanchett says, “transformed real-estate development into a lucrative ‘tax shelter.’ An investor making a profit from rental of a new building usually avoided all taxes on that income, since the ‘loss’ from depreciation canceled it out. And when the depreciation exceeded profits from the building itself—as it virtually always did in early years—the investor could use the excess ‘loss’ to cut other income taxes.” With realestate values going up during the 1950s and ’60s, savvy investors “could build a structure, claim ‘losses’ for several years while enjoying tax-free income, then sell the project for more than they had originally invested.”

Since the “accelerated depreciation” rule did not apply to renovation of existing buildings, investors “now looked away from established downtowns, where vacant land was scarce and new construction difficult,” Hanchett says. "Instead, they rushed to put their money into projects at the suburban fringe—especially into shopping centers.

http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/in-essence/why-america-got-malled

But Slightly More Rotting Corpse has the better environmental policy which we’ll need before the last remnant of Florida is fully swallowed by the sea in the next 4 years.

The “spandrel hypothesis” is the front runner explanation. Essentially we didn’t evolve to have chins but rather evolved other things that are helpful, and the chin is a byproduct of that other evolution. Not harmful so it didn’t get selected away, but not helpful.

The actual reason why is that everyone was expecting Hillary to win and she had vowed to “end private prisons.”

So everyone was calculating in a 90% or whatever chance Hillary wins, with some percentage chance she actually fulfilled her promise. Instead they got a 100% chance they would stay around for 4 years and probably get a tax cut. Pretty big adjustment is appropriate.

(Also old 2016 articles about Hillary are so quaint. They even mention Obama closing Guantanamo lmao)

Yeah the guy who was going to pass permanent corporate tax cuts and temporary individual tax cuts, funded by chaining individual tax brackets so taxes go up for individuals after 10 years, won. That’s great for corporate profits. And great for the 10% who own 90% of stocks.

It’s horrible tax policy and detrimental to the majority of Americans but it absolutely should make stocks increase.

Non-politicized decisions are wacky, the Sackler decision had Gorsuch and Jackson in the majority and Kavanaugh and Sotomayor in the minority.

“Coincidentally,” the abortion and gun rulings are all exactly the same 6-3 teams based on who appointed them.

It’s pretty much settled fact that this Supreme Court puts ideology over impartiality.

Dumb framing. They aren’t panicking, they’re framing the results so they can fit them to their narrative no matter what happens. Biden wins = he was on drugs, no way senile and incapable Biden could win otherwise. Biden loses = full proof he’s senile and incapable.

There’s no economic reason the nominal GDP of any country or the world in general has to continuously increase. The important metric is per capita production. As long as people get continuously more productive through innovation, standards of living will continue to increase.

At the national level, vying for long term economic power in the world, a higher and younger population is going to be a huge advantage very soon and countries should be trying to get as many immigrants in their borders as they can. But instead they are…going a different direction.

The one example I’m familiar with is a name brand ice cream company that produces the store brand ice cream too…in that case the recipe is different, cheaper ingredients to cut costs to the bare minimum. But using the machines for a higher volume saves money.

I’m sure ‘same exact item’ does happen too but just ‘same manufacturer’ doesn’t mean exactly the same item.

Can’t believe Harriet Tubman got all that infrastructure up.

I feel like weight class doesn’t do it. Women have higher body fat %. Is a welterweight woman athletically equivalent to a welterweight man? I don’t think so.

An 87 year old man using a slur, I feel like you get a slight pass sometimes for being old and not knowing a formerly-commonly-used word has become derogatory.

But he used it, got called out, issued an apology, and then used it again. Yikes.

Literally the only answer to this question, though. He can’t say he will pardon him, politically it would be terrible and it might impact the trial itself. And he can wait until after the election and pardon him then, even though it will mean he was lying now.

I don’t think this comment is particularly newsworthy.

In general, my take is that people should be entitled to a warning, but if they still want to do something to themselves that is a really bad idea and the impact is pretty much on them, well…

This literally is the status quo.

The problem is that the impact is not only on them. There are people who are immunocompromised, particularly the elderly and cancer patients undergoing chemo, and children too young to get various vaccines, and they rely on herd immunity to avoid getting these diseases that might kill them or get them seriously ill or complicate their medical situation. So it’s specifically societies most vulnerable populations that are harmed, which is bad, not to mention the possibility that with enough spread the viruses could mutate and get around vaccines which would threaten everyone else.

And then you have to weigh those real harms against…what, exactly? People just…don’t want to? Because of their incorrect belief that the vaccines are more harmful than helpful?

The government exists to handle externalities like contagion and pollution and caring for vulnerable groups. Arguably, we should be a lot harsher on requiring vaccinations, like how we were on polio. But we aren’t.

They passed a constitutional amendment in Florida to let felons vote, a couple years ago. The legislature tried to backpeddle it as much as they could in order to prevent black people from voting, but the main mechanism is forcing the felons to pay a bunch of money, which isn’t a problem for Trump.

Admitting a negative documentary impacted your decision making just invites more to be made. Obviously it was the reason. Obviously they’ll never say that.

I do like the idea of making Idaho more symmetrical.

Doesn’t seem like this would have much of an impact federally, it’s not like trying to form a new state where you’d get new Senators who agree with you. These people probably agree with Idaho Senators and not Oregon but their move wouldn’t change the composition.