Thats actually good news.

Jaybird, DeSantis didn't even make it to New Hampshire by the will of Republican primary voters. Are you really saying that this kind of rhetoric (which I also find mostly stupid) weighed into their decision? They voted for Trump because they preferred him, not because online blue tribe hysteria forced their hand.

I think it goes without saying that the Democrats' fortunes will greatly improve if they come up with an answer to that question. They're in the wilderness for a reason.

However I don't think the swing-ish voters have read von Mises. I think there was a very understandable thermostatic reaction due to inflation with immigration and some cultural issues as auxillaries but there was no resounding mandate for this. People are about to get double forked here, and the promise that it's all going to be worth it because a bunch of factories are going to go up (where? when? for what? who knows) is a complete lie, if that's even what people are relying on, which I'm not entirely sure it is.

Sure, I'd support a more intelligent approach to this from the Democrats, same as the last 8 years.

I think what's frustrating me is our silence on the question of at what point more than a couple Republicans should start to break ranks. Given their stated desire to make America great again and all, and this plan's er- inconsistency with that.

Guys, this is bordering on autistic. The Democrats have made plenty of errors resulting in some real issues of credibility. But this idea that partisan mudslinging is the decisive consideration here strikes me as its own type of Twitter brain, where political junkies project their own obscure fixations into everything without even bothering to make a case for a connection.

You don't think it's worth mentioning that Trump is about to reward his working class supporters by pushing the prices of goods through the roof and destroying whatever retirement they have saved? Or driving us towards a recession where jobs and benefits will be harder for them to come by?

I don't think too many of them were following whatever MSNBC or pre-Elon Twitter was saying about DeSantis.

No disagreement from me on the big strategic picture.

But I still think it's worth making a stink about the bonfire we're throwing ourselves on with Trump in hopes that maybe he in all his fickleness pulls back some; maybe some credibility is salvaged for the day after he's gone. Because as much as I agree with you on the desirability of a responsible altering of course Trump may do enough damage to make that impossible for a generation. There's no 'oops just kidding' anymore, now that we've put him in charge twice.

If only indeed.

Sure but none of that excuses Trump from doing an objectively crappy job at whatever it is he's aiming for (assuming he's aiming at anything at all). The Europeans apparently already offered a bilateral 0 industrial tariffs deal that he's thumbed his nose at. Now we all know Europe is hardly the cause of the decline of the post industrial Midwest but it's a small win that doesn't threaten anyone, and probably helps some of our own exporters, yet he won't take it because he's an idiot. At what point does it become fair to judge him on his own performance?

It's all a question of what your goals are. We sold the American consumer market way short to China in the 90s. There's a (IMO good) case to be made for a correction and tariffs may well be part of it. What there isn't a good case for is cutting off our own supply chains in the Western hemisphere, risking our access to other developed economies with whom America is more than capable of competing fairly, or punishing a bunch of undeveloped African countries who sell us raw materials, plus some already marginalized colonies of photogenic flightless birds.

This probably explains at least some of my outdated thinking. I'm operating with a 13 or 14 year old 54" flat screen which still works so well I can't rationally justify replacing it, no matter how tempted I am every time I see all the shiny new ones in Costco.

America was engineered to select against ambient social pressure since the day the 1st Amendment was ratified.

Probably so. Of course I say this with the knowledge that I am very likely going to capitulate to my older son's requests to go see the Minecraft movie when he is on spring break. This leads me to believe that something will always be around just not anything close to what we've been used to.

Yea I agree. Either that or film makers need to re-orient how they're making and budgeting films. I came across this post on substack that I found interesting:

https://www.jeffrauseo.com/p/where-is-hollywoods-money-going-inflated-movie-budgets?

It may be that the entire ROI model needs to be reconsidered to keep both studios and theaters afloat.

That seems... highly unlikely.

Yea I would say very few movies benefit much from the big screen anymore, not with home set ups being so high quality amd affordable. Especially post covid that's what the theaters are up against.

Interestingly Nosferatu might be one where I'd argue it's worth the price of admission, given that half of the appeal is the atmospherics. My wife and I saw it at one of the places where you have a waiter and I didn't regret the decision. Could just be the concept having a special place for us. When we were still dating we saw a screening of the silent film at the American Film Institute with a live orchestra in the pit doing the music (on Halloween no less). It was really cool. I also saw the Witch which was Robert Eggers' first big movie in the theater and thought it benefitted a lot from the level of immersion. Conversely a few months ago my toddler mashed a bunch of buttons on the remote and ended up renting the early release of Anora for like $25. Since we had it we watched it but I don't think my appraisal would have been any different if I'd seen it in a theater.

If the critical concern is ability to smoke weed during the film it is now easier than ever to do it in your own home, where even an early release streaming rental is cheaper than a trip to the theater.

Also (and to your other point) if we're at a place where we're just tolerating the odor in public, well the parking lot is right there. Why would anyone invest in setting up a special accommodation? As best as I can tell there is very little, if any, policing around public consumption regardless of what the law says. I get whiffs occasionally just driving my kids to school at 7:30 in the morning on a weekday.

Obviously the solution is to make sure the Cambodians import the same number of Jordans they export to us. Fair and square.

That's hilarious. Also I appreciate the clarification that it was a parody (as far as we know). :)

Oh good lord.

Years ago when I worked in downtown DC I used to encounter a guy near Union Station passing out 'literature' on this sort of thing. I remember occasionally taking it to thumb through for laughs. In addition to chemtrails there were stories about fruit drinks turning children into lizard creatures and Jimmy Carter being secretly replaced with an android. There was kind of a sad story behind it. IIRC the guy's son had been killed in Iraq which I can only assume contributed to the break with reality he was experiencing.

In any case I miss the days when there was a little more distance between crazy street proselytizers and those in the halls of government.

He's looking for shapes in the clouds. Or maybe patterns in the entrails is the more appropriate metaphor.

LOL

I've come across a number of writers arguing that Trump's statements going back to the 80s suggest that this may be one of the few policies he actually believes in. Last time the remaining traditional Republicans floating around his administration were able to talk him back but now there's no one to do that and we are all going to suffer for it. I hope all the big business and wall street types that got on board and who are now taking a bath feel like the total moronic trash they are. The Mooch was right all along.

Good for you and really good thinking. I wonder how many people got wiped out because they never thought he'd actually do it.

Oh for sure, I'm in the same boat. Not planning on looking at my 401(k) until approximately 2029 but I've got at least twenty some working years still ahead of me, maybe more once social security is converted into an exotic reverse equity investment portfolio of some kind. Really tough morning though, and potentially many more to come for anyone who thought they were retiring in the immediate future.