Weekend Open Thread

5 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

1. Following standard Reagan Quackonomic theory, Trump's pick for Treasury Secretary is determined to cut taxes for the wealthy until the National Debt is eliminated!

   This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he said then.As of Nov. 8, the national debt stands at $35.94 trillion, with the Trump and Biden administrations having added to it. Trump’s policies added $8.4 trillion to the national debt, and the Biden administration increased the national debt by $4.3 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog. 

   Even as he pushes to lower the national debt by stopping spending, Bessent has backed extending provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which Trump signed into law in his first year in office. Estimates from various economic analyses of the costs of the various tax cuts range between nearly $6 trillion and $10 trillion over 10 years. Nearly all of the law’s provisions are set to expire in 2025.

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   1. My grandpa used to lecture me about Reaganomics and likely impacts on the debt. Oddly enough, the debt tripled during RR's tenure and he had to raise taxes like 11 times to make ends meet. From his former budget director David Stockman:

      The penitent Stockman says that early on he should have worn a sign saying "Stop me, I'm dangerous." The cynical Stockman describes his position in 1984 as "a dutiful loyalty to nonsense." In the end, for all his penitence, Stockman says, "I never gave up my supply-side ideology. . . . I just put it in my safe, along with other intellectual valuables. It was simply not operationally relevant in the world of democratic fact." In other words, his theory is perfectly correct. It is the facts that are misleading.

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2. There's NIMBY and then I learned a new one today – BANANA.

   BANANA is build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything. This really does unfortunately describe an annoying subset on the far left.

   Latest post – https://liberalandlovingit.substack.com/p/intro-to-the-electrical-grid?r=lqubq

    

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   1. NIMBYs and BANANAs are not so much the far-left, rather they are us: Liberals, Middle-Class, town-people and environmentalists.

      Housing is expensive because we don't have enough houses. Zoning actions to upgrade density are fought tooth-and-nail by home-owners and neighborhood activists.

      Transit systems and expansion of the trains are necessary for improving the environment, but Real Estate interests and car owners want parking lots, and heaven forbid government easements that take over private property.

      Wind Farms and Transmission lines to cities are prohibited by zoning laws and private land ownership.

      What you are really asking for is that we, as a democratic society, agree to gore some dearly-loved oxen… always somebody ELSE's oxen.

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3. Worth noting after the inflation-based reasons for voting in 2024.

   • Experts say bird flu, not new cage-free law, to blame for egg shortage at some Colorado grocery stores

   Bill Scebbi, executive director of the Colorado Egg Producers, …. said the bird flu outbreak is to blame for empty shelves – not the cage-free law.

   “Farms have had to decrease their flocks by over 100 million hens. When you take that many hens out of the system, you don't get eggs. That's just the bottom line,” said Scebbi.

   While supply seems to be down, prices appear significantly higher. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows egg prices increased 39.6% in September 2024 compared to September 2023 — the largest increase of any food tracked.

   • USA Today: How much does a Thanksgiving dinner cost in 2024? Thankfully, less than last year.

   For the second year in a row, the cost of buying Thanksgiving dinner has decreased from the year before, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual report released Wednesday….

   The American Farm Bureau Federation has given the same shopping list to volunteer shoppers from all 50 states and Puerto Rico since 1986 to calculate the average cost of Thanksgiving dinner. Along with turkey, the list includes cubed stuffing, sweet potatoes, dinner rolls, frozen peas, fresh cranberries, celery, carrots, pumpkin pie mix and crusts, whipping cream and whole milk.

   More than half of the items dropped in price since last year, leading to an 8.7% decrease from 2023. Aside from fresh cranberries, all the items that increased in price were processed foods: dinner rolls, whipping cream and cubed stuffing.

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