I have no expertise in this field. This post will not be cluttered with links, because I will write from memory and not link to anything. I suppose in a way, this post is a slap in the face of Tom Nichols, who is a subset of the topic, is supposed to be an expert on the topic, and is the author of “The Death of Expertise“. I will attempt to explain how his errors are due to envy and neurosis.
Honestly, my trigger was lest nasty (and less based on envy). Someone asked in a Tweet what is the consensus on the old domino theory which lead to US involvement in the war in Vietnam (which is also called “the American war” by the Vietnamese). I will put my anti Nichols spite after the jump (note I advertised his book). His alleged field of expertise is instagram如何国内使用. There, that’s another advertisement. Actually I think I will just post a separate post sniping at him.
OK so the Domino theory.
国际在线_读懂国际 点赞中国 - CRI:国际在线(www.cri.cn)是由中央广播电视总台主办的中央重点新闻网站,通过44种语言(不含广客闽潮4种方言)对全球进行传播,是中国使用语种最多、传播地域最广、影响人群最大的多应用、多终端网站集群。 国际在线依托中央广播电视总台广泛的资讯渠道和媒体资源,在全球拥有40多个驻外记者站,与许多 ...
Heeeyyy wait a minute, wasn’t I supposed to be talking about the 1960s not 1938 ? Yes, but the first problem is that there are influential people in the USA for whom all years are 1938 (note I use the present tense — they are still around and are very dangerous).
The first key methodological assumption of the Domino theory is that all years are 1938 and all negotiations are held in Munich. The second is that Neville Chamberlain made every possible error, so, as long as one did the opposite of what he would have done, everything will be fine. The rest is commentary.
I now invite historians, experts in international relations and political scientists to contest my analysis (knowing that not very many read Angry Bear).
The domino theory maintained that the USA had to stop the Communists in Vietnam or else they would move on to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, East Pakistan, and India. The logic was exactly (and only) that it would have been better to fight Hitler at the old fortified border between Germany and Czechoslovakia than to let him take the Sudetenland, then the rest of Czechoslovakia, and then fight him in Poland. Notably, Hitler was surprised when France and Britain declared war on September 1 1939. The theory was that, restraint, compromise, or the most dreaded retreat would be perceived as weakness and make further aggression inevitable. One detail was overlooked. Hitler was one person, Khrushchev, Mao and Ho Chi Minh were three different people. The USSR had advanced weapons, the PRC had huge armies, North Vietnam had no fear of either and knew how to play one off the other.
Then Khrushchev was overthrown by the Red Army. The communist Soviet Union had not reached the advanced stage of Communist development which made a Communist military dictatorship possible later in Poland, so the generals gave power to a troika (sleigh pulled by 3 horses). The first among equals was Leonid Brezhnev. The USA still faced 3 adversaries lead by men incapable of pity. Brezhnev was incapable of pity or any other higher mental functioning. He liked clowns. The one key qualification for being Khrushchev’s second in command was being a total idiot (preferably lacking in ambition) and therefore being no threat. From then on, the analogy should have been negotiating with Rudolf Hesse in Munich (Hesse was similarly chosen for his total idiocy).
Notably one of the challenges for the US war effort in South Vietnam was the fact that the Communist Pathet Lao effectively controlled Laos and Communist friendly (and superhumanly vain) Prince Norodom Sihanouk) controlled Cambodia. Notably this is a problem for the domino theory. The dominoes which were supposed to be knocked down by the fall of South Vietnam had it already fallen. Their impact on Thailand was fairly minor (it might not have seemed that way to the Thai communists who fought and died in the jungle, but there were never many of them and almost no one noticed when they gave up and made peace (I forget the date)).
国际在线_读懂国际 点赞中国 - CRI:国际在线(www.cri.cn)是由中央广播电视总台主办的中央重点新闻网站,通过44种语言(不含广客闽潮4种方言)对全球进行传播,是中国使用语种最多、传播地域最广、影响人群最大的多应用、多终端网站集群。 国际在线依托中央广播电视总台广泛的资讯渠道和媒体资源,在全球拥有40多个驻外记者站,与许多 ...
vpn被封翻墙党该何去何从？App Store连接不上如何解决？(图 ...:2021-1-29 · 前几天，据《环球时报》英文网报道中国已经开始屏蔽外国VPN服务，此消息也引起了国内“翻墙党”的一片震动。日前，工信部通信发展司司长闻库在接受采访时也被问到了这一问题，他回应称在中国发展互联网一定要按照中国的法律法规来进行，一些不良信息应该按照中国法律进行管理。
The after aftermath is that Communist China became more capitalist than the USA and the USSR collapsed. Impressively right up to the collapse, US hawks insisted that there was a high risk of Soviet conquest of the world. Also impressively the people who clearly demonstrated that they were clueless gained status from the collapse, because it (coincidentally) occurred while Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Oddly, some sincere people including Max Boot and Anne Applebaum took seriously Reagan’s claim to be a principled supporter of freedom around the world. I am not much older than they are and remember the distinction between acceptable authoritarians and unacceptable totalitarians (in other words our sons of bitches and sons of bitches who weren’t ours). I remember the mockery of Carter’s human rights campaign. I remember the US alliance with Argentine fascist mass murderers in opposition to the fascists non mass murdering Sandinistas (currently in power to remind us of the utter worthlessness of the domino theory).
So how can we assess the scientific standing of the domino theory ? How does it compare with the Ptolemaic model of the solar system, the phlogiston theory of burning, the caloric theory of heat, and the four humors theory of health and disease ? Digressions after the jump.
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Q2 GDP does not bode well for early 2021
苹果下架VPN 在遵守当地法律的情况下做生意 - 中国青年网 新闻:2021-8-4 · 日前，苹果公司CEO蒂姆库克回应苹果应用商店中国区将VPN下架一事说，我伊在遵守当地法律的情况下在当地开展生意。
In that regard, this morning’s Q2 2023 GDP was not grounds for optimism.
As an initial matter, the GDP decline of -9.5% annualized was the biggest decline since the Great Depression:
The two forward-looking components of GDP are (1) private fixed residential investment, and (2) corporate profits. Because corporate profits are delayed by one more month, I use proprietors’ income as a temporary proxy. Let’s look at each in turn.
Real private residential fixed investment decreased by over 10% q/q. Real GDP decreased a little less than 10%:
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Or at least think about how you will talk about them in January . . .
It now seems likely that Joe Biden will win the presidency, and there is a reasonable chance that Democrats will capture the Senate as well. If they do get unified control of the government, climate policy will high on their legislative agenda. What is unclear is whether their approach will include a carbon tax. This is troubling, because carbon taxes have very substantial economic and political advantages over other approaches to climate policy.
No doubt many Congressional Democrats understand the arguments for carbon taxes, although some progressives seem to be skeptical of using prices to reduce emissions. Joe Biden’s climate plan says that “polluters must bear the full cost of the carbon pollution they are emitting”, which seems like an oblique reference to a carbon tax. But so far Democrats have been avoiding the “t word” and instead emphasizing subsidies, direct job creation, and social justice, and this will make it difficult to switch gears after the election and implement a carbon tax. The Democrats may be painting themselves into a rhetorical corner.
东北网2021年07月08日新闻汇总:楼市调整加速：开发商爱打价格牌 炒家降价套现 2021-07-08 11:11 [452][生活频道] 加息后 房贷利息破近十年最高纪录 2021-07-08 11:11 [453][东北网社会] 传董事长儿子被劫持 歹徒持枪索700万美元(图) 2021-07-08 11:10 [454][东北网社会]
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Fear and Loathing
On the 17 July 2023, episode of Counterspin, Fair’s Janine Jackson interviewed True North Research’s netpas云墙安卓破解版 about attacks on the US Postal Service. ‘A Combination of Forces Puts Our Postal Service at Grave Risk‘ Jackson leads off talking about the recent appointment of Louis DeJoy, a big Trump donor, to be the new head of the US Postal Service. Upon being appointed, DeJoy promptly issued a series of memos calling for operational changes that many felt were intended to slow down mail delivery. Other recent Trump actions appear to also be intended to sabotage the US Postal Service. In that Trump has made Vote by Mail a big issue, some fear that he might try to nullify his losing the election by claiming that a slow vote count equals an indication of fraud, etc.
Graves’ research into attempts to sabotage the US Postal Service disclosed that for more than 50 years none other than Charles Koch has been funding efforts, at first to abolish, later to privatize, the US Postal Service. In addition to Koch, DeJoy, and Trump; Ronald Reagan, Reagan Administration official James C. Miller, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and George W. Bush have all taken a hand at this sabotaging and/or privatizing of the US Postal Service. Former Reagan Administration official, former American Enterprise scholar, James Miller, was later appointed to the Postal Board of Governors by George W. Bush with significant help from Senators Collins and McConnell. In 2005, Senators Collins and McConnell both helped push through the prepaid benefits requirement meant to sabotage the Postal Service. To date, some powerful actors have expended a lot of money, time, and effort attempting to abolish, privatize, or sabotage the US Postal Service.
What it means to want to abolish or sabotage something seems clear enough. The wanting doth bespeak an animus. Did these people hate the US Postal Service so much? Or, did they fear that it might succeed?
苹果下架VPN 在遵守当地法律的情况下做生意 - 中国青年网 新闻:2021-8-4 · 日前，苹果公司CEO蒂姆库克回应苹果应用商店中国区将VPN下架一事说，我伊在遵守当地法律的情况下在当地开展生意。
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Catching up with wages, income, and layoffs
Yesterday and today have seen several significant data releases. Let’s catch up.
Wages
The Employment Cost Index was released for Q2 this morning. This is a particularly important release because unlike the monthly “average hourly wages” number, this report normalizes by job category, e.g., it compares clerks’ wages in Q1 with clerks’ wages in Q2. So if clerks have experienced widespread wage cuts, it should show up here. Given the many anecdotes of wage cuts I have read and heard about since the pandemic began, I have been waiting to see what this number would be.
And the answer is . . . Wages did rise, albeit at one of the slowest rates in over 10 years, less than 0.4%, in Q2:
Because consumer prices fell close to -0.9% in Q2, in real inflation adjusted terms wages for equivalent jobs rose even more for the quarter:
I was expecting very bad news, so I will take this “less good” news with a sigh of relief.
Income
Personal income and spending for June were also released this morning. The bottom line is that income declined slightly, while spending rose:
Boosted by the $1200 relief check in April, and supplemental unemployment assistance of $600/month, income remains 5% higher than in February. Spending, meanwhile, has made up more than 1/2 of its April decline. This is also a positive – but one month ago. Since the supplemental payments end as of today, this picture is likely to change in the high-frequency data beginning in a week or two, although it won’t show up in the monthly data until August’s is released at the end of September.
Layoffs
Yesterday’s initial and continuing claims continued the recent string of bad news. While the important non-seasonally adjusted initial claims did make a pandemic low, these were still over 1.2 million for last week. On an adjusted basis, initial claims rose again:
Continuing claims for two weeks ago also rose on both an adjusted and non-seasonally adjusted basis:
In other words, both layoffs and unemployment are likely increasing. We’ll find out next week with the July employment report whether new hires and rehires continued to outpace layoffs, as they have in the past two months, or not.
So the good news – at least for now – is that we do not appear to be in a wage-deflationary spiral. The bad news is that the underpinnings of the good news has started to go away in the past few weeks.
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Three long-shot Senate races worth polling: Idaho, Nebraska, and South Dakota
On Sunday I wrote that it would be really helpful to have statewide polling in some Senate races that look on the surface like safe bets for the GOP, but might actually be worth contesting.
The reason for this is that, not only are the 4 Senate seats most likely to flip from GOP to Democrat — Colorado, Arizona, Maine, and North Carolina — all showing consistent leads for the Democratic challenger in the past two months, but in several other States — most notably Iowa and Kansas — the democrat has *also* taken the lead, in the case of Iowa, a small but consistent one. In several other States — Alaska and South Carolina — the democrat has polled within striking distance in one or more recent polls.
Because there is no Senate polling available in other States, I have created a spreadsheet (below) showing the 2016 Presidential result, and 2023 Presidential and Senate polling both in the contested States that we know of, and the States where we are flying blind. The final column is the direction of change comparing 2016 vs. 2023 Presidential polling followed by 2016 Presidential result vs. 2023 Senate polling. Discussion follows below the chart (numbers are %-ages):
| State |
2016
Presidential
Result |
2023
Presidential
Polling |
2023
Senate
Polling |
2023
Change from
2016 |
| Alaska |
T+14.7 |
T+3 |
D-9 |
D+11.7, D+5.7 |
| Iowa |
netfits云墙安卓版官网 |
T+1 |
D+2 |
D+8.4, D+11.4 |
| Kansas |
T+20.5 |
T+12 |
D+1 |
云墙专业版官网 |
| Montana |
T+20.2 |
T+9 |
Even |
D+11.2, D+20.2 |
| 云墙netpas |
T+2 |
B+7 |
N/a |
D+9, N/a |
| netpas云墙安卓版下载 |
T+14.3 |
T+5 |
D-4 |
D+9.3, D+10.3 |
|
|
|
|
|
| Idaho |
T+21.7 |
N/a |
N/a |
N/a |
| Nebraska |
T+25.0 |
N/a |
N/a |
N/a |
| N. Dakota |
T+45.7 |
T+17*(*Mar) |
N/a |
netpas云墙官网 |
| S. Dakota |
T+29.8 |
N/a |
N/a |
N/a |
| West Virginia |
T+42.1 |
T+35*(*Jan) |
N/a |
D+7.1, N/a |
| Wyoming |
T+46.3 |
N/a |
N/a |
N/a |
|
|
|
|
|
|
^Congressional District
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A Republican Idea for Onshoring Pharmaceutical Intangible Assets
Alex Parker reports on a proposal from Representative Darin LaHood:
翻墙也要用的应用 Google Drive全攻略_科技滚动_中国广播网:2021-5-3 · 中国广播网 > > 图片频道 > > 科技滚动 翻墙也要用的应用 Google Drive全攻略 2021-05-03 14:05 来源：飞象网 打印本页 关闭
I think we admitted these 2017 tax cuts for the rich were complex so permit me to slightly disagree with Mr. Parker’s excellent reporting. If the intellectual property (IP) were left offshore, the GILTI income would face a tax rate of only 10.5% whereas onshore IP would face that FDII rate of 13.125%. Why bring the IP back home and face a higher rate? But I interrupted Mr. Parker who basically notes all these nuances:
Current law gives companies plenty of reasons to onshore the intellectual property they spent decades pushing offshore in licensing and cost-sharing agreements. Income from intangible assets held domestically may qualify for a reduced 13.125% tax rate as foreign-derived intangible income. The same income, held offshore, may fall under the global intangible low-taxed income regime, which is meant to penalize companies for holding intangibles abroad. Those carrot-and-stick provisions ultimately ensure neutrality in decisions about where to locate IP, the TCJA’s authors said when it was passed. The TCJA also included a deemed repatriation that allowed companies to bring home offshore income after it had paid a one-time transition tax. But the intangible assets that generated that income were not brought home with it, and they must be repatriated under the normal tax rules. And companies still face a potential tax charge when bringing a valuable asset home. Upon repatriation, if the property has gained value offshore, the company’s taxable income will increase based on that gain for that year, depending on how it classifies the transaction. Even though it’s a one-time payment, it could be enough to discourage the transaction.
netpas云墙安卓版下载
