The graph above is taken from the St. Louis Federal Reserve (FRED) and illustrates real final sales of domestic product. The difference between it and other measures of GDP is that it eliminates inventory fluctuations which provides considerable “noise” in GDP.

Notice the right-hand side of the graph, 2021 to present. That certainly looks flat to me, a sharp change from trend as the left-hand side of the graph from 2013 to 2019 shows. It’s quite a change.

I thought you might be interested in the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis (PDF) of H. R. 5376, the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022”, a cognomen worthy of P. T. Barnum. As I read the tables of information, like many act of Congress the spending is mostly front-loaded (take place in the first years) while the revenue is backloaded (takes place later). Their answers to Lindsey Graham’s questions (also PDF) are even more interesting:

Is the United States Currently in a Recession?

They say: ¡Quién sabe!

How Would Enacting the Bill Affect Inflation in 2022 and 2023?

They say:

In calendar year 2022, enacting the bill would have a negligible effect on inflation, in CBO’s assessment. In calendar year 2023, inflation would probably be between 0.1 percentage point lower and 0.1 percentage point higher under the bill than it would be under current law, CBO estimates.

Penn-Wharton’s assessment was that the affect on inflation would be immeasurably small.

What Is the Highest Amount of Income That People Qualifying for
Expanded Health Insurance Subsidies Would Earn?

They say:

• A 64-year-old would receive a premium tax credit if his or her income did not exceed $163,700 in that year.
• A 21-year-old would receive a premium tax credit if his or her income did not exceed $54,600.
• A family of four consisting of individuals ages 50, 50, 21, and 21 would receive a premium tax credit if their household income was
  no greater than $304,100.
• A younger family of four, consisting of people ages 24, 24, 5, and 5, would receive a premium tax credit if the household’s income was no more than $192,700.
• What Effect Would a New Alternative Minimum Tax on Corporations Have on Business Investment and GDP?

What Effect Would a New Alternative Minimum Tax on Corporations Have on Business Investment and GDP?

They say:

In CBO’s assessment, the proposed new corporate minimum tax would reduce the incentive for those large corporations to invest, primarily by limiting the tax benefit of accelerated depreciation and by decreasing the after-tax return on their new investment.

Given those assessments what would be a better name for the bill? I’m taking suggestions.

After reminding us of Sun Tzu’s remark: “All war is based on deception”, at Aljazeera Marwan Bishara observes:

In fact, both sides are propagating their own selective facts and myths, while censoring counterclaims, as each needs to maintain an appearance of progress in order to justify big sacrifices in blood or treasure. And both sides need to up the ante in order to harden public resolve behind their goals, which thus far have excluded any serious effort towards a diplomatic solution.

Russia hopes to degrade the morale of the Ukrainian resistance and deflate European support for a war that cannot be won, while the US wants to shore up Ukrainian and European enthusiasm for a winnable war, even if privately, US officials doubt Ukraine could recover all its occupied territories.

While the Russian media has little or no choice but to parrot the official line, Western media has a choice but chooses to trust NATO and Pentagon briefs and reports, regardless of their intentions. Take for example the declaration of an anonymous (why anonymous?) senior Pentagon official that: “Russia has committed nearly 85 percent of its military to the war in Ukraine” and “has removed military coverage from other areas on their border and around the world”; Russia “still has not figured out how to use combined arms effectively”; Russia is “taking hundreds of casualties a day”. Among Russia’s military fatalities have been “thousands” of lieutenants and captains, “hundreds” of colonels, and “many” generals.

Now I have no clue if any of this or other such claims are true, and nor I suspect do the officials propagating it or the journalists spreading it. But it is out there, shaping the opinions of the public, the elites and the experts, most of who believe Ukraine is able to pull off some sort of an upset if not an outright victory against its largely more powerful neighbour. But the Western and especially Anglo-American media seems to suffer from short, or should I say selective memory when it takes the official line at face value, as if the official deception during yesterday’s wars in Afghanistan, Iraq or Vietnam, has no bearing on covering today’s war in Ukraine.

I have no idea what is going on in the war between Russian and Ukraine. Neither, I believe, do most Americans. Even less so now that the war is no longer in the headlines.

He concludes:

Watching journalists and pundits in respected American and British journals exhaust the synonyms of fascist, evil and dangerous to describe Russia’s Putin, with little or no attempt at balance or objectivity, one is inclined to believe that Western media has largely been enlisted in NATO’s crusade against Putin’s Russia until victory. But what does “victory” entail here: liberating all of Ukraine? Or weakening Russia to the extent it no longer threatens other European countries?

The difference cannot be overstated, because NATO’s ultimate objective is to defeat Russia and deter China from following in its footsteps, regardless of the price for Ukraine. That is why both sides seem adamant to continue the fight regardless of the cost. Russia hopes time will force a weakened Ukraine and a wobbly Europe to blink first and eventually back down. And the US is keen on Ukrainians fighting on regardless of whether a “victory” is achievable, as long as the war exhausts the Russian military and weakens its economy. It is betting that Putin’s Russia will crack in Ukraine just as the Soviet Union imploded after a decade-long war against the US-supported armed uprising in Afghanistan. But then again, Ukraine is no Afghanistan; not in any relevant way, and Russia does not view it as a disposable geopolitical asset.

So even if Ukraine has in fact managed a surprise upset against the invading Russian forces and forced Moscow into an unexpected war of attrition, it remains far from certain that it could maintain its counter-offensive for another six months, let alone another six years.

As I see it the only outcome which assures victory for NATO and Ukraine is the collapse of Russia like the Soviet Union before it. I have no idea of how likely that is, either.

As you are presumably aware the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 began World War I. Why did Archduke Ferdinand go to Sarajevo in the first place?

Austria-Hungary had annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 and set up military units there. These troops were objects of considerable controversy. Serbian nationalists who called themselves the “New Bosnians” claimed that the troops were being used to harass and persecute Serbians. Ferdinand went to Sarajevo at the invitation of the governor to inspect the troops. The visit accomplished little if anything. It was just unnecessary and, clearly, an unappreciated risk.

As of this writing Speaker Pelosi has left Taiwan for South Korea, the next stop on her junket. Within hours of her departure, the Chinese sent a squadron of jet to the “median line”, the halfway point between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, and fired long-range rockets into the waters north, south, and east of Taiwan, some of them going over the island. Chinese state media claim that Chinese forces are engaged in a simulating of an air/sea blockade of Taiwan.

If that’s as far as these activities go, we should all breathe a sign of relief. They’re just a face-saving exercise.

All of this stuff seems far too risky to me with little being gained by it one way or another.

As of this writing China has not responded to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. I’ve already given my view: providing assurances of U. S. support to Taiwan is not within Speaker Pelosi’s remit.

I suspect that a lot of people in Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea are biting their nails about now.

Robert Crimo, III, presently under arrest for the killings in Highland Park on July 4th, has pled not guilty to all charges. Maher Kawash reports at ABC 7 Chicago:

WAUKEGAN, Ill. (WLS) — On Wednesday morning, the accused gunman in the Highland Park parade tragedy entered a not guilty plea on all counts.

Robert Crimo III, 21, had been indicted on 117 counts after he allegedly killed seven people and wounded at least 30 others.

Investigators have said Crimo planned the attack for weeks, maybe even months.

He is reported to have confessed to to the offenses previously. It will be interesting to see what sort of defense his attorneys mount. The only strategy I can see at this point is to deny everything and impel the prosecution to prove everything beyond reasonable doubt which, in the absence of actual eyewitnesses, may be harder than meets the eye. Maybe they’re hoping for some sort of deal to avoid a multi-million dollar months-long trial.

As this post is being written House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in Taiwan. Not coincidentally, Tom Friedman devoted today’s New York Times column to criticizing her visit:

I have a lot of respect for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But if she does go ahead with a visit to Taiwan this week, against President Biden’s wishes, she will be doing something that is utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible.

Nothing good will come of it. Taiwan will not be more secure or more prosperous as a result of this purely symbolic visit, and a lot of bad things could happen. These include a Chinese military response that could result in the U.S. being plunged into indirect conflicts with a nuclear-armed Russia and a nuclear-armed China at the same time.

And if you think our European allies — who are facing an existential war with Russia over Ukraine — will join us if there is U.S. conflict with China over Taiwan, triggered by this unnecessary visit, you are badly misreading the world.

His basic criticisms are:

• We should be courting China rather than antagonizing the Chinese. Pelosi’s junket antagonizes the Chinese.
• The war in Ukraine is not over. It is not even stable. Why take the risk of a two-front war?
• Pelosi’s visit provides President Xi with an opportunity to wag the dog and a Chinese attack on Taiwan now rather than when it is even better prepared is not in our interests.

My own view is that the House has no Constitutional role in foreign policy and the mere fact of the trip is creating foreign policy. The Senate’s Constitutional role in foreign policy is limited to advice and consent. Presidents have been too lax for too many years about Congressmen creating foreign policy.

Update

At 1945 James Holmes gives some pretty sage contributions to the subject:

Nancy Pelosi did not need to go to Taiwan. But having publicly broached the possibility of alighting in Taipei during her tour of Asian capitals, she must go. Otherwise, the U.S. House speaker will appear to have quailed before the bombast issuing from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officialdom since the news broke that she might visit President Tsai Ing-wen.

Pelosi would lose face were she to relent now. And America would lose face not just with China, but with allies and friends, by association. Its standing in the Indo-Pacific would suffer.

but I don’t think that he takes the position in which Beijing finds itself seriously:

Which is doubtless what Beijing wants to bring about through its huffing, puffing diplomacy. Never forget that the CCP regards peacetime diplomacy as war carried on through other means. The party wages “three warfares” on a neverending, 24/7/365 cycle, striving to shape the political and strategic environment in its favor through psychological, media, and legal means. It hopes bluster will deter the speaker from carrying through with her plans. One party-affiliated reporter, Hu Xijin, has even tried to define the visit an “invasion” of China, and espoused the use of violent force should U.S. fighters escort her plane to Taiwanese airspace.

And indeed, in recent months, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has displayed an increasing penchant for deploying violence to help Beijing get its way.

This whole affair may become a case of both the United States and the Chinese placing themselves into corners from which it’s hard to extricate themselves. Sort of double-reverse jiu jitsu. This is how great powers oops themselves into war.

We have now had Jack for two weeks. Puppies are a lot of work!

For the first week or so he spent most of his time sleeping but we are now starting to get some sense of his true personality. He is bright, friendly, very personable, and inquisitive.

The other dogs have not known exactly what to make of him but they’re beginning to accept him as a member of the pack.

As you are presumably aware yesterday the arch-terrorist and notional commander of Al Qaeda was killed by drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan.

I don’t intend to dwell on this subject and, while I do not dispute that he deserved killing, I suspect my views are out of the mainstream. I will air them here.

First, I think that the killing has almost no strategic significance. I thought the same about Bin Laden’s killing and I think my views have largely been borne out. Any notion of a cohesive “Islamist terrorism” is misconceived. I think that terrorism is endemic in Islam as it is in any sola scriptura confession without a magisterium in which the sacred book can be interpreted as condoning violence against non-believers. It’s impossible to prove a negative but I doubt that a single terrorism incident was deterred by Bin Laden’s killing and Al-Zawahiri’s killing will have less significance if anything.

I question the authority under which President Biden authorized the extrajudicial killing. Presumably, the Authorization to Use Military Force. That is getting pretty hoary at this point. I thought it should have been repealed by this time. Under the rule of law there really should be more process and oversight.

And I question the prudence of extrajudicial killings more generally. Should we condone the assassination of, say, Speaker Pelosi by the Chinese? I don’t think so.

Update

At Atlantic vis MSN Graeme Wood expands on some of the same thoughts I expressed above:

Zawahiri’s replacement will be younger and more energetic than the old doctor. I wish that younger man a short and skittish life. But the truth is that Zawahiri’s killing probably will not have much effect on global terrorism, because the younger jihadist generation has already ceased to regard him as a leader, spiritual or otherwise. Zawahiri’s crowning achievement, the September 11 attacks, was ultimately a one-off, and its plotters spent most of the rest of their lives on the run, or bored senseless in Guantánamo Bay. The jihadist movement that achieved something new was the Islamic State—which ridiculed Zawahiri, called him a goofball and a geezer, and set out on a path of wanton destruction against his orders. It mocked him for his deference to the Taliban and for swearing allegiance to its founder, Mullah Omar, who turned out to have been dead for years. Many of the possible successors to Zawahiri have already split off into other jihadist groups, and have long been trying to bring about carnage and a terrestrial paradise without al-Qaeda’s consent. They certainly will not seek the consent of his successor.

More interesting, I suspect, will be the attitude of the Taliban. They thought they had a country of their own, and that they would be left alone to rebuild it. They want money, and they want food for their starving people. But their critics have said that they are little more than terrorists themselves, and that anyone who claims they have softened in the past 20 years has been taken in.

If the Taliban did, indeed, promise the Biden Administration they would not play host to Al Qaeda, as has been claimed, they should pay a price for it. And at the least the Biden Administration has demonstrated that we are capable of doing that.