The graph above from the St. Louis Federal Reserve illustrates the annual percent change in real gross domestic product. The way I read it with the exception of recessions (including the brief COVID-related recession) it’s noisy but it has been essentially flat.
That is exactly what you’d expect as services become an increasing component of the economy. Unless those providing services provide more of those services or the number of service-providers increases, there is unlikely to be a lot of GDP growth.
The news story of the day, of course, is the six young Israelis killed by Hamas. James Joyner has a post on the subject at Outside the Beltway:
Hamas terrorists murdered these hostages. Quite obviously, it is they who bear full responsibility.
Could Netanyahu have secured their return in exchange for ending the war effort? Maybe. But his negotiating partners committed the largest terrorist attack in Israeli history and the largest on a per capita basis in the modern era. On what basis can one negotiate in good faith with them? There is no politically saleable outcome in which Yahya Sinwar and architects of the October 7 massacre remain at large.
My heart goes out to the families of these young people.
If you have a solution for the situation in Gaza, please produce it. I’m at a loss. I think that practically everyone here in the United States is imagining a different Israel and a different Gaza than the ones that actually exist.
I haven’t commented on this in the past but there is something that has visibly changed here in Chicago over the last several months. There are beggars at almost every major intersection. They are overwhelmingly Hispanic and most are children.
I’m sure that everyone has their own explanation for it but here’s mine. I think these are kids who’ve been brought into this country by coyotes, in some cases masquerading as parents. Now the coyotes are insisting that they be paid back.
At Foreign Affairs Stephen Biddle, as puzzled about Ukraine’s strategic objectives as I, counsels against overestimating the effects of deep strikes into Russian territory:
Of course, conducting more extensive deep strikes would help Ukraine. Damaging factories or infrastructure inside Russia might help boost Ukrainian morale, for example, as a small U.S. bombing raid against Tokyo in 1942 did for American morale in World War II. But now, as then, the capability will not transform the military situation on the ground.
With that in mind, Kyiv’s partners should now ask whether the modest military benefits are worth the escalatory risk. The answer will turn on assessments of the likelihood of expanding the conflict and on the risk tolerance of Western governments and publics. The latter is ultimately a value judgment; military analysis alone cannot dictate where to draw the line. What it can do is forecast the battlefield consequences of policy decisions. If the West lifts its restraints on Ukrainian deep strike capability, the consequences are unlikely to include a decisive change in the trajectory of the war.
I can’t help but wonder whether shoring up the motivation of Ukraine’s western supporters might not be Ukraine’s strategic objective in deep strikes into Russian territory.
Well, I was wrong. Recently, I asserted that by and large Democrats don’t believe in markets. As it turns out a recent poll conducted by the U. S. Chamber of Commerce found that Americans, generally, have an overwhelming belief in markets and Democrats in particular believe in markets 2-1:
In a new poll conducted on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a majority of American voters reported they are concerned about state governments micromanaging private business in a way that could hurt taxpayers. Fifty-four percent (54%) of all voters indicate they are more concerned about government micromanaging private business versus allowing business to make decisions they think are best for their customers — even if they don’t align with the personal views of the respondents (46%).
“This poll underscores the growing disconnect between the American electorate’s support for the free market and efforts by government officials to micromanage business decisions,” said U.S. Chamber Executive Vice President, Chief Policy Officer, and Head of Strategic Advocacy, Neil Bradley. “The costs of greater political interference in the free market will be borne by taxpayers as these efforts increase the cost of government and reduce wages for workers.”
…the system of voluntary and contractual exchange of otherwise contestable and privately owned property titles that permits capital accumulation, eschews top-down planning, and defers to social processes over state planning
I suspect that both “overreach” and “micromanage” are meaningless. What is overreach to me may not be overreach to you. Same with micromanagement.
Consider the growth in government as a percentage of national GDP over time:
In 2021 that had declined to 41% and by 2023 to 37%. I would suggest that for “believing in markets” to mean anything you must believe in an absolute limit to the percent of GDP represented by government at all levels.
… policymakers should bolster support for child care financial assistance programs such as child care subsidies and child income tax credits; universal preschool; early childhood education programs such as Early Head Start and Head Start; programs that help nurture healthy family dynamics such as early childhood home visiting programs funded by the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program; and services and support for family caregivers like Healthy Start Programs and the Lifespan Respite Care Program.
and
Establish a national paid family and medical leave program and ensure all workers have paid sick time… Invest in social infrastructure at the local level to bring parents and caregivers together… Address the economic and social barriers that contribute to the disproportionate impact of mental health conditions for certain parents and caregivers. Priorities should encompass poverty reduction, prevention of adverse childhood experiences, access to affordable neighborhood safety, and improving access to healthy food and affordable housing. Policymakers should also prioritize programs that support eligible households in gaining access to crucial services and supports, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicaid, Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) benefits, child care support, and home visits, among others…
My primary objection to the progressivism which in its present form includes a majority of Democrats is that it is not self-limiting.
That’s my challenge to the progressive Democratic leadership: how much should the government spend? What are the limits?
Such ratings are bound to be fraught, influenced as they are by recency bias, ideology, partisan preference, and just plain personal taste. I suspect that some of Dr. Graboyes’s dissatisfaction stems from the peculiarly high ratings in the PGP of Clinton, Obama, and Biden along with the lower ratings of recent Republican presidents with Trump at the very bottom of the pack.
I actually prefer Dr. Graboyes’s “tier” system (top tier with at least one major, distinctive accomplishment; second tier in which the positive accomplishments outweigh the negative, etc.) to absolute ratings (first, second, third). His top tier presidents are Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Polk, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, Reagan) while his bottom tier consists of Pierce, Buchanan, A. Johnson, Wilson, Hoover, and Carter.
I think that both the PGP and Dr. Graboyes have more of an appetite for American Empire than I. Is it possible for the United States to be secure and promote international institutions without American hegemony? We’ll never know because that’s the policy we’ve been pursuing for the last 40 years. Maybe there’s a better description of our official policy of “military primacy in every theater” than “American hegemony” but that’s how it looks to me. The irony of such a policy is that neither of our political parties are willing to admit the implications of such a policy.
Anyhow I found the post interesting with some fun graphics. Produce your own rankings as you will. My pick for the greatest president of the post-war period would be Eisenhower and the worst Carter.
I have found Axios to be an increasingly interesting site. The graph at the top of this page was sampled from the linked post there. As the Democratic National Convention recedes into memory I think it’s worth thinking about what it all meant a bit.
I think it’s interesting and revealing that viewership of both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions have declined so much since 2008. They’re down about 40%.
I think there are multiple things going on. For one thing you can only claim historic milestones so many times before it all becomes so much noise. Barack Obama’s nomination was historic. So was Hillary Clinton’s but Sec. Clinton’s was nearly an anticlimax. The Clinton Administration had been almost 20 years before after all. The reality of the 2024 DNC despite all of the media hooplah was that Democrats couldn’t muster much more enthusiasm for watching it than they did in the middle of the pandemic.
I think it’s generational change and it’s not just politics. The viewership among young people for watching the Super Bowl has declined over the last 10 years. Televised national conventions may not be as effective a way of reaching people as they were in second half of the last century.
Axios suggests the conventions invite Internet influencers. I suspect the events themselves are less interesting than they used to be.
Yesterday Mamie, Rainday’s Put the Blame on Mame, one of our Australian Shepherds, was awarded her AKC Detective Scentwork title. That took a lot of time, dedication, and hard work, something Australian Shepherds excel in. Congratulations, Mamie!
In a Detective Class competition an unknown number of “hides” in a variety of environments are found by the dog. The intent is to emulate as closely as possible the work of a true detection dog.
I’ll try to update this post with a picture of Mamie at work.
Writers are struggling for analogies for Kamala Harris from American history. In some sense she seems to be channeling Hubert Humphrey (an odd pick), the last Democrat to be thrust into Democratic frontrunner status after the sitting president removed his name from candidacy.
Here’s a comparison that may not have occurred to you: Gerald Ford. If she is elected president she, like Ford, will have done so without ever having won a vote in a primary. That’s a comparison I doubt the Harris campaign would like. Ford lost to Carter when he actually ran for re-election after becoming president when Nixon resigned.
As the Republican Party embraced Donald Trump in 2016, the Democrats began to move to the left by associating their party with a series of views on crime, immigration, free speech, race and sex that are far from those of the median voter. These unpopular views are amplified by Democratic-leaning media. That’s why the Democrats have failed to establish themselves as a unifying party that can consistently beat the Trumpified GOP.
Now they have to defend the record of an unpopular administration. They can ill afford to be dragged down by radicalism on social issues. It would make sense to jettison most of this radicalism and adopt moderate, centrist positions. Will they?
Kamala Harris’s nascent campaign has been widely lauded for its strategic savvy. But it has been short on substance, leaning heavily on “vibes,” “memes” and pent-up partisan enthusiasm. Could there be a place in this emerging campaign for anything potentially controversial within the party, like a decisive turn away from cultural radicalism?
The balance of the op-ed provides examples of how that might be accomplished. Frankly, I doubt it.
The Harris campaign is in something of a pickle. They can’t run on her record, particularly if the economy continues to slow down. They can’t run on her principles and ideas because to the extent that she has any they appear to conflict with the views that the the “median voter” holds. They may not even be aligned with the views of the median Democratic voter. To date the campaign has been sufficiently content-free it’s hard to tell.
What I suspect they will do is suggest that the vice president holds views different from those she may actually hold (without actually saying so) and continue to run on “vibes” and identity (another form of “vibes”). If they can do with, castigating Trump all the way, for the next two months, they’ve got it made.
