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April 12, 2025 12:36 AM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 30 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“All things can corrupt when minds are prone to evil.”

–Ovid

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30 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Sarah Palin once warned about "death panels," but of course Dems were too wimpy to actually put them into action. Not so with the 47 administration and the new folks in charge of Social Security:

    The effort hinges on a surprising new tactic: repurposing Social Security’s “death master file,” which for years has been used to track dead people who should no longer receive benefits, to include the names of living people who the government believes should be treated as if they are dead.

    Between this and deciding official Social Security communications will all go out via Elon's twitter, I'm making semi-serious plans to sell my plasma or go all Breaking Bad for income, instead of expecting the Social Security that I've paid into my entire working life.

  2. One thing “good people on both sides” can all agree on:  Tariffs — It’s Dr. T****’s Miracle Ivermectin Cure All for every imagined economic woe.

    Cuz’ sometimes you just gotta’ take that vaccine medicine, America!

  3. WOTD: “Capital Flight”

    Usually higher tariffs make the guilty country’s currency go up, mitigating the tariff somewhat. In this case, investors are fleeing dollar assets. 

    They must know something… or fear something.

  4. Back in the early 90s when I was at Microsoft I was sent to the Far East to help them get the Chinese, Japanese, & Korean versions of Windows shipped.

    We had a couple of meetings with people from all three countries in Tokyo. At every meeting the people from the three countries would group at equidistant spots as far away from each other as possible. They would crowd together so that there was space between them and the other two countries. That's how much they each disliked the other countries.

    Which makes this almost unbelievable. China, Japan, South Korea will jointly respond to US tariffs, Chinese state media says

  5. I wonder what Tim Cook had to pay/promise Trump to get this deal:

    The Trump administration announced late Friday night that smartphones, computers and other electronic components are exempt from reciprocal tariffs, days after the United States imposed the highest levies on foreign goods in a century.

    For makers of electronics, particularly Apple, the break on tariffs is likely to be a huge relief. Apple has faced the prospect of a new import tax of roughly $700 or more on each $1,000 iPhone imported from China, based on tariff rates the White House increased to at least 145 percent.

  6. I posted the below on http://www.reddit.com/r/ColoradoPolitics and it was removed. Apparently they don’t allow compliments of the state administration. So I’m posting it here:

    The PUC has been great on CORA requests

    Hi all;

    I can’t speak for other departments or other’s experience with the PUC. But they have been really good on my requests. Very responsive and when they didn’t have something, suggesting other avenues.

    We spend a fair amount of time complaining when the government is not what we want. I figure we should also call out when they execute well.

    – dave

    1. Responsiveness to the citizenry is another of our democratic governance expectations.  Yet it builds nothing (except trust) and is but one more reason why a properly functioning government cannot and should not be held to the same “efficiency” expectations of business.

      On the other hand, I do sometimes often wish businesses were required to comply with this same level of open records and public disclosure.

        1. What we ended up doing at Windward (my old company) was every April 1 we had a 5% increase. It was listed on the pricing page so everyone knew exactly what it was. I selected 5% because salaries in high tech we're going up 7% – 12%/year but inflation was only 1% – 2%. So split the difference.

          And when COVID hit we did not increase that year. No one complains when you change it on them to less 🙂

      2. Businesses have competitors. The government does not. So there’s things we need to keep quiet until we release them. There’s marketing campaigns we run that are very successful and will be less so if everyone does them. The list goes on…

        Also, the people working at a company want to feel confident the business is on the right track and we’re going to be successful. We were pretty transparent internally and after I sold the company I had a number of employees tell me they appreciated the transparency, but we’re nervous when we told them of concerns, etc.

        So it’s a fine line to walk.

        1. I was mostly kidding about voting on business price increases. But some business sectors are less competitive than others. When everyone who wants to drive must have auto insurance, there's less incentive for the entire auto insurance industry to keep prices low. There might be differences between individual companies, but we're getting pitched to by cute little Geico lizards with a British accent, and all the big companies are spending billions on these slick ad campaigns that don't really tell us anything except how the company wants to do branding. I could try harder to learn the industry, but I'll guess that most of us just get our bills without really understanding why the price went up. At least with TABOR someone has to make a case as to why they want to raise our taxes before it happens, what's left of the press will usually cover the issue and try explaining, and most levels of government have budget documents that are easy to find online (admittedly not always so easy to understand, though).

          1. Insurance is a weird one to pick. I haven't read anything about there being so few companies that there's price collusion. So it's not a monopoly issue. And we all need food too but there's significant competition there in a very low margin industry.

            For some industries it could well be that they all are reasonably well run and they all then have ths same costs and therefore end up with similar prices.

            1. Well, Dave hath spoken, but maybe this story says different:

              But the real out-of-control price in the economy, relative to anything else, remains auto insurance. There’s been a 22.6 percent increase in car insurance costs over the past year, the fastest increase in half a century.

              I never used the word "monopoly," but I did say there's a situation where anyone who wants to drive has to buy insurance. There is price competition between individual companies, of course, but consumers don't have a legal choice not to participate. And a small number of corporations pretty clearly dominate:

              Geico, a leading car insurance company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, is on a path to record profits, thanks to both higher premiums and fewer claims. Profits are way up for Allstate and Progressive as well.

              And if you really want to drag food into this, sure it's not a technical monopoly but there are super-dominant forces when it comes to market share and pricing:

              The Federal Trade Commission recently put out a report confirming what many suspected about the role of profiteering in driving up food prices and aggravating shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic.

              The report, released two weeks ago, analyzed a combination of public data and information that the FTC requested in 2021 from Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Associated Wholesale Grocers, McLane, Procter & Gamble, Tyson Foods, and Kraft Heinz.

              The agency found that, across the economy, food retailers’ profit margins rose between 2020 and 2023 and remain elevated today, suggesting that companies used the temporary rise in the cost of their inputs as a pretext for jacking up not just prices but profits. The report also reveals how the biggest grocers commanded a larger share of scarce goods from their suppliers to the detriment of smaller retailers.

              There's been a very well-publicized recent legal battle over trying to prevent Kroger and Albertsons from merging. Again, it wouldn't have been a technical monopoly if it happened, but it would have given the new giant plenty of competitive advantages, especially in areas that don't have other grocers.

              Both of the stories I linked here are from 2024, and it seems obvious that 2025 economics will have its own impacts on a whole bunch of private and public corporations or entities. They might make normal observations into quaint moot points.

              But corporate dominance aside, part of this whole thread has been about responsiveness to the citizenry, or transparency. A lot of people don't feel they get it from some private sector corporations – why did my auto insurance go up 22%, why did my health care needs get denied, why am I spending 50% of my income to rent a small corporate-owned apartment, why is it tougher to feed my family? For the most part, they just get the bill or the decision – no hearings, no writing your congressperson in advance of the price hike, no explanation up front. I'm not even opposed to increasing prices when it's called for, but a whole bunch of people have started to understand that the power dynamics are out of whack.

                2. One approach is to develop some option that provides price transparency. 

                  Browsing NYT, I came across an article on Quince, a "luxury on a budget" company. "Every listing on the Quince website includes a comparison chart" showing "various line items such as materials, packaging, and credit card fees to support how Quince arrived at the total cost." 

                  Seems to me a "public corporation" of some sort, providing a required service or good along with clarity of the relevant costs, would allow consumers to understand more (and have a potential alternative to) commercial options.  If our governments require car insurance, a public option with premiums covering all the "usual" elements of insurance including the established corporate taxes would be a possibility.  It would also simplify regulation, imposing a visible "invisible hand" of competition.

                  1. Thanks JiD, I just checked out the Quince story and it was interesting. Despite the way it probably seems, I don't always want to blame others and maybe mostly in private I blame myself a lot. I'd guess we could all look deeper at the businesses we do business with, at least to check out the financials, and I for one would benefit from more time on business news and a little less on horse race politics. But I'll still say that a lot of bill increases are just unexpected and unexplained shockers for many of us.

  7. PUC Commissioners ex-parte communication

    Do the Commissioners have to track/show any/all communications they have with each other and/or with staff? I've asked for a listing of their Zoom/Teams meetings but the CORA request on that said they don't have that. They do have a list of all meeting agendas but that seems to be it.

    ??? – thanks – dave

  8. I guess the next step is to create a 1Km zone that has anti-personnel land mines backed up by a series of concertina fences with guard towers….and give the US Military Free-fire zones.

    It worked for the East Germans.

    Trump authorizes US military to take control of land at US-Mexico border
    Order allows armed forces to take ‘direct roll’ in securing southern border, which Trump memo says ‘is under attack’
    Donald Trump has authorized the military to take control of land at the US-Mexico border as part of the president’s broader efforts to crack down on undocumented immigration.
    The authorization came late on Friday in a memorandum from Trump to interior secretary Doug Burgum, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem and agricultural secretary Brooke Rollins, outlining new policies concerning military involvement at the US’s southern border.
    The memorandum, entitled “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions”, allows the US’s armed forces to “take a more direct role” when it comes to securing the boundary in question.
    The memorandum added that the Department of Defense should be given jurisdiction to federal lands, including the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60ft-wide strip that stretches over California, Arizona and New Mexico. Doing that would give troops stationed there the legal right to detain immigrants accused of trespassing on what in effect is an elongated base – and unauthorized immigrants would be held in custody until they could be turned over to immigration agents.
    Military activities that could be carried out on federal land include “border-barrier construction and emplacement of detection and monitoring equipment”, according to the memorandum.

  10. Jamelle Bouie in the NYTimes nails it on the head. Figuring out what drives Donald Trump is not complicated. TrumpWorld is a zero sum quest for domination. In order for him to win, you must become the loser.

    It is a fool’s errand to try to rationalize President Donald Trump’s obsession with tariffs.

    The fundamental truth of Donald Trump is that he apparently cannot conceive of any relationship between individuals, peoples or states as anything other than a status game, a competition for dominance. His long history of scams and hostile litigation — not to mention his frequent refusal to pay contractors, lawyers, brokers and other people who were working for him — is evidence enough of the reality that a deal with Trump is less an agreement between equals than an opportunity for Trump to abuse and exploit the other party for his own benefit. For Trump, there is no such thing as a mutually beneficial relationship or a positive-sum outcome. In every interaction, no matter how trivial or insignificant, someone has to win and someone has to lose. And Trump, as we all know, is a winner.

  11. Trump-corrupt certified. (Dave Barnes, feel free to trademark this 🙂 This is the waste, fraud and abuse they can support! Wanna grift under Trump? Get in line and pay up!

    Medicare spends billions for “skin” bandages, and doctors get a cut

    Partly because of these financial incentives, many patients receive the bandages who do not need them. The result, experts said, is one of the largest examples of Medicare waste in history.

    Private insurers rarely pay for skin substitutes, arguing that they are unproven and unnecessary. But Medicare, the government insurance program for seniors, routinely covers them. Spending on skin substitutes exceeded $10 billion in 2024

    On Friday, the Trump administration announced that it would delay a Biden-era plan to restrict Medicare’s coverage of skin substitutes, saying that it was reviewing its policies until at least 2026.

    Last year, a leading seller called Extremity Care hired one of Trump’s top fundraisers, Brian Ballard, as a lobbyist and donated $2 million to a super political action committee that supported the Trump election campaign.

    See, getting rich isn’t that hard under Trump’s regime.  You just need to know whose palms to grease.

     

    1. Pikers … there's real money to be made.  KFF reported last week:

      On Monday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published the Calendar Year (CY) 2026 Medicare Advantage and Part D Rate Announcement, finalizing payment policies for 2026. The expected effect of the policies included in the Rate Announcement, as well as underlying assumptions about economic conditions and Medicare Advantage enrollment and coding patterns, is a 7.2% increase in the payments to Medicare Advantage plans. This increase is larger than the 4.3% increase in Medicare Advantage payments that was projected in the Advance Notice released in January. The increase translates into an additional $35 billion to Medicare Advantage plans in 2026 compared to this year (those estimates include the impact of risk code trends, which add an additional 2.1% or $10 billion to the $25 billion reported in some places).

  12. Truly scary stuff:  

    Joyce: Earlier this week, you posted on Threads that “Not one reporter asked about the Executive Orders targeting Chris Krebs & Miles Taylor during today’s Cabinet press conference. Not one. A sitting president abusing & using the power of DOJ to punish former officials who spoke out against him? That’s the stuff of banana republics. I waited. And waited. But the question never came. Why? Has the fear they want to instill already taken hold?” How concerned are you that Trump has created a culture where the last guardrails, including the press and lawyers, are becoming afraid to check him?

     

    The only thing a president can do in an executive order is order an executive branch agency to take or withhold specified actions. Trump has wielded them in an aggressive way, for instance, in an EO designed to suppress voter participation, directing executive agencies to withhold funding from states that don’t fall in line with his plans. But this use of EOs to target individuals Trump has decided are enemies because they didn’t support his fake narrative of voter fraud when he lost the 2020 elections is entirely new. There is no possible way to justify it as democratic. It is paradigmatic of a president who has set his sights on being a dictator.

    1. I wonder if the Trump DOJ will pursue this, and the increasing violence to come, with an even hand, regardless of the victims political persuasion and position.

      I have doubts.

  14. Remember the insecure Signals Chat. From Heather Cox-Richardson.

    It was just 20 days ago—on March 24—that editor in chief of The AtlanticJeffrey Goldberg reported that the most senior members of the Trump administration discussed a military strike on the Houthis in Yemen on an unsecure commercial messaging app and that they included him on the chat.

    Their Signal chat, which Goldberg published later in response to the administration’s insistence that there was nothing classified in the chat, showed that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had posted precise details of the munitions and planes involved in the strikes. It showed that neither President Donald Trump nor the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—a Biden appointee—was on the chat, and that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller apparently made the decision to strike based on his interpretation of what President Donald Trump wanted. In violation of the Presidential Records Act, the app was set to delete the messages. There was apparently no larger strategy or diplomatic plan other than to strike, and participants greeted news of the collapse of an apartment building into which a Houthi leader had allegedly walked with emojis of fists, fire, and a U.S. flag.

    This extraordinary lapse in national security protections would normally have defined an administration and caused a number of resignations, but the White House called the case “closed” on March 31. And there was more: On April 2, Dasha Burns of Politico reported that the team working with national security advisor Mike Waltz regularly used the unsecure Signal app to communicate about issues involving Ukraine, China, Gaza, the Middle East, the U.S., and Europe. The officials to whom Burns spoke said they had personal knowledge of at least 20 such chats.

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