The Republicans on the Court are there to end Roe v Wade, that much is certain. And I believe they will do that as soon as they get a chance, the only one who might balk is Roberts, and the main reason I suspect he might is that it doesn't matter if he does or not. However, I have difficulty believing that they will choose a method that will create Constitutional chaos, especially chaos that won't straightforwardly benefit Republicans.
I believe the reason they are hold off on striking it down now is because to do what they want to do (strike down the law, while also ruling there is no Constitutional right o an abortion) they need to deliver a full ruling, not a summary judgement.
Yeah but Stringer Bell was a drug dealer, not an insurrectionist - the difference is that drug dealers actually have to worry about suffering consequences for their actions.
The thing is that this law isn't designed to succeed, its just a vehicle to give the Supreme Court a pretext to overturn Roe v Wade. I fully expect the court will rule that Abortion isn't a constitutional right, but the lawsuit bounty in the Texas law make it unconstitutional anyway and strike it down. At that point Texas will pass a law that makes abortion straightforwardly illegal and the door to liberal retaliation will be firmly closed.
That's an odd statement to make in a context when you're asserting a large corporation should be supported and protected at all costs, while the "market fundamentalists" are saying it should die.
Nothing you've outlined here strikes me as untoward in any way Dennis.
You're probably right that Lampert never meant to save Sears. But some private equity firms are like that - they specialise in breaking companies down instead of building them up. Salvage is a necessary part of the process - not every business can be saved.
There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of Private Equity Investors, let's call them fixers and wreckers. Fixers buy ailing companies they think they can improve, attempt reforms and if they succeed the business improves, its share price rises and they can sell it at a profit. The wreckers are less optimistic, they buy a company and break it to bits - spinning off any profitable divisions, and liquidating the rest as efficiently as possible i.e. they deliberately kill the company, but really its a coup de grace.
So why don't I think a fixer could have saved Sears - the best evidence is that none of them tried. Fixers can afford to bid more for a company than wreckers can sicne they expect to leave the company worth more than the assets that comprise it, while wreckers won't get more than the value of its assets, and in practice get somewhat less (liquidation destroys some value no matter how careful you are). That means that fixers outbid wreckers - if a wrecker wins the bidding its because no fixer was willing to bid against them i.e. no fixer though they had a reasonable chance of fixing the company.
You assert that Sears could be saved, but your evidence is scant - just because it can succeed in other countries doesn't mean it can succeed in the US - every country is different and a model that works in one place and time won't necessarily work in others. Meanwhile, all the people with the resources and expertise to rescue Sears passed on the chance. Maybe you're right and they are all wrong, but that's not the smart way to bet.
I get Sears means a lot to you, but nostalgia is a poison, and its one that will kill us all if we keep consuming it at the rate we are now. Creative destruction allows new ideas to flourish, and it allows new up-and-comers to topple old powers and established monopolies. A world without it would not only be less prosperous but also more unequal.
Of course, it's worse than that implies because Congress would only be deterring itself.
Congress can control debt by raising taxes or cutting spending, but that will make people unhappy, so instead it pretends to take action by setting a limit that is mathematically impossible to obey, given the budgets it has passed.
I played through Gloomhaven with my D&D group a few years back. I actually tried to re-run it solo during last years' lockdown, I didn't get far because managing all the but by yourself is just too much work.
Needless to say, I picked the electronic version up as soon as it left Early Access.
Unfortunately Dune isn't being streamed down here and the theatrical release was postponed until early December due to our COVID outbreak (Aucklanders can't even go to the movies right now), so I'm going to have to wait another month or so before I can see it. Still, I'm glad to hear it landed well with a fan of the series.
I don't really see how spreading out the Federal Government helps here Bryan. DC doesn't contain a large number of would-be corruptors by some cosmic accident, it has them because that's where decisions are made about government spending. If you move the decisional authority the swamp will follow.
To me one of the important aspects to reducing corruption is understanding that it's not money that creates corruption it's discretion. Tax brakes that are offered to "economically important" companies invites corruption in a way that lower taxes across the board does not. The same can be said of may issue vs shall issue permitting or highly restrictive regulations with discretionary exemptions vs less restive rules that apply equally to everyone.
I guess I advocate for your option 2 (pump the water somewhere else), and for me transparent, legible rule-based programmes are a sort of reservoir that can take the water without creating a wetland.
It's one of those really interesting cases that rides the line between utopia and dystopia. So far I'm early in the game, so All I've done is taken over some primitive Feudal worlds, and I'm sure they appreciate the change, but at some point I'll be taking over less awful regimes.
Stellaris has released a new patch, so I'm back playing that. This time I decided to try an empire type I haven't tried before - Rogue Servitors. The basic idea is that a species developed robots to take care of all their needs and it reached the point where the robots now do everything, including making all the decisions. So it works a lot like a regular machine empire, expect you have these "bio trophies" working in special sanctuary building that give you bonuses. It also means that if you conquer another empire you can put all their population into sanctuaries too.
Politicians are used to being able to define their own reality - they can declare something to be so and the apparatus of government is largely required to go along with it. The difficulty is that some things can't be simply ordered to go along with the leadership's vision. Sometimes its hard fiscal constraints, like when a country exhausts its ability to borrow, but sometimes its a force of nature that no government can command. The true test of a government's competence is how it handles these issues.
You can see it with COVID, some governments have stubbornly refused to acknowledge that they have to change anything and we can see the terrible result of that folly. Climate Change is another such test, nature will not bend to political will, so our political will has to acknowledge the reality of that or the consequences will be dire.
New Zealand (apart from Auckland) is back to Level 2, so I'll be going back into the office part-time from next week. Also my gaming group can start meeting again (except for one of us, who is still working weekends right now due to COVID stuff), so we'll be getting together to play board games tomorrow.
The whole vaccination process was quick and practically painless. I got in line with a few minutes to spare before my appointment time and within a couple of minutes I was being given the briefing so I could give informed consent (no physical paperwork during Alert Level 4 as there is too much infection risk from handing people things). This only took about a minute, then I had to sit on a well-spaced chair until 15 minutes was up. They then called out my name and I left.
I largely dodged side-effects too. My arm was sore (it's almost entirely gone now, a bit over 30 hours later), and I think I felt a little feverish yesterday afternoon, but that was it.
Now all I have to do is wait 6 weeks for dose number 2.
I agree about the pretext of it - we have restrictions on evictions too, but only at the alert levels where's you're supposed to avoid leaving your home.
It looks like an approach to solving economic and social problems that you see in many countries but seem especially popular in the US - pick a group of people tangentially related to the issue you want to solve and declare they are now responsible for fixing it.
Good to know. Because all the takeout places have been closed due to lockdown I've been doing more meal prep than usual (I'm making Chilli Con Carne in my slow cooker right now - enough for 6 meals). So I'll have a few things I can eat with no hassle.
And if it turns out I'm in no fit state to work on Monday - that's what sick leave is for.
I'm pleased to say my weekend plans will include getting my first dose of Pfizer - Vaccinations opened up for 30-39 year olds this week, so I'm all booked and ready to go.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “From the Wall Street Journal: California’s Gavin Newsom Favors Gun Suits Modeled on Texas Abortion Law”
The Republicans on the Court are there to end Roe v Wade, that much is certain. And I believe they will do that as soon as they get a chance, the only one who might balk is Roberts, and the main reason I suspect he might is that it doesn't matter if he does or not. However, I have difficulty believing that they will choose a method that will create Constitutional chaos, especially chaos that won't straightforwardly benefit Republicans.
I believe the reason they are hold off on striking it down now is because to do what they want to do (strike down the law, while also ruling there is no Constitutional right o an abortion) they need to deliver a full ruling, not a summary judgement.
On “From The Guardian: Capitol attack panel obtains PowerPoint that set out plan for Trump to stage coup”
Yeah but Stringer Bell was a drug dealer, not an insurrectionist - the difference is that drug dealers actually have to worry about suffering consequences for their actions.
On “From the Wall Street Journal: California’s Gavin Newsom Favors Gun Suits Modeled on Texas Abortion Law”
The thing is that this law isn't designed to succeed, its just a vehicle to give the Supreme Court a pretext to overturn Roe v Wade. I fully expect the court will rule that Abortion isn't a constitutional right, but the lawsuit bounty in the Texas law make it unconstitutional anyway and strike it down. At that point Texas will pass a law that makes abortion straightforwardly illegal and the door to liberal retaliation will be firmly closed.
On “The Creative Destruction of Sears”
That's an odd statement to make in a context when you're asserting a large corporation should be supported and protected at all costs, while the "market fundamentalists" are saying it should die.
"
Nothing you've outlined here strikes me as untoward in any way Dennis.
You're probably right that Lampert never meant to save Sears. But some private equity firms are like that - they specialise in breaking companies down instead of building them up. Salvage is a necessary part of the process - not every business can be saved.
There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of Private Equity Investors, let's call them fixers and wreckers. Fixers buy ailing companies they think they can improve, attempt reforms and if they succeed the business improves, its share price rises and they can sell it at a profit. The wreckers are less optimistic, they buy a company and break it to bits - spinning off any profitable divisions, and liquidating the rest as efficiently as possible i.e. they deliberately kill the company, but really its a coup de grace.
So why don't I think a fixer could have saved Sears - the best evidence is that none of them tried. Fixers can afford to bid more for a company than wreckers can sicne they expect to leave the company worth more than the assets that comprise it, while wreckers won't get more than the value of its assets, and in practice get somewhat less (liquidation destroys some value no matter how careful you are). That means that fixers outbid wreckers - if a wrecker wins the bidding its because no fixer was willing to bid against them i.e. no fixer though they had a reasonable chance of fixing the company.
You assert that Sears could be saved, but your evidence is scant - just because it can succeed in other countries doesn't mean it can succeed in the US - every country is different and a model that works in one place and time won't necessarily work in others. Meanwhile, all the people with the resources and expertise to rescue Sears passed on the chance. Maybe you're right and they are all wrong, but that's not the smart way to bet.
I get Sears means a lot to you, but nostalgia is a poison, and its one that will kill us all if we keep consuming it at the rate we are now. Creative destruction allows new ideas to flourish, and it allows new up-and-comers to topple old powers and established monopolies. A world without it would not only be less prosperous but also more unequal.
On “Stopgap Spending Measure To Avoid Government Shutdown Agreed On”
Of course, it's worse than that implies because Congress would only be deterring itself.
Congress can control debt by raising taxes or cutting spending, but that will make people unhappy, so instead it pretends to take action by setting a limit that is mathematically impossible to obey, given the budgets it has passed.
It's a ludicrous abdication of responsibility.
"
Let me take this opportunity to once again say that the very concept of the debt ceiling is absurd.
On “Make Truth Self-Evident Again”
Indeed, I find the assertion that young liberal Americans are especially disconnected from reality … interesting, given current events.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Extrovert Overload”
My feeling about the WoT books is complicated. The story has good bones, but there's a lot an adaptation can improve on.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Gloomhaven (Steam Edition)”
I played through Gloomhaven with my D&D group a few years back. I actually tried to re-run it solo during last years' lockdown, I didn't get far because managing all the but by yourself is just too much work.
Needless to say, I picked the electronic version up as soon as it left Early Access.
On “Dune: What I’d Wanted For Almost 35 Years, Finally Here”
Unfortunately Dune isn't being streamed down here and the theatrical release was postponed until early December due to our COVID outbreak (Aucklanders can't even go to the movies right now), so I'm going to have to wait another month or so before I can see it. Still, I'm glad to hear it landed well with a fan of the series.
On “Remains of Brian Laundrie Found and Identified”
I mean, say what you will about Hitler, but he did kill Hitler.
On “And the Nobel for Economics Goes To…”
This was a good choice, Card has been doing great work for years and Natural Experiments are a massively useful innovation in empirical economics.
On “Weekend Plans Post: On the Clothes that Spark Joy”
I got my second Pfizer dose on Wednesday, so I'm still mostly counting down until 2 weeks have passed.
On “Government and the Principles of Swamp Drainage”
I don't really see how spreading out the Federal Government helps here Bryan. DC doesn't contain a large number of would-be corruptors by some cosmic accident, it has them because that's where decisions are made about government spending. If you move the decisional authority the swamp will follow.
To me one of the important aspects to reducing corruption is understanding that it's not money that creates corruption it's discretion. Tax brakes that are offered to "economically important" companies invites corruption in a way that lower taxes across the board does not. The same can be said of may issue vs shall issue permitting or highly restrictive regulations with discretionary exemptions vs less restive rules that apply equally to everyone.
I guess I advocate for your option 2 (pump the water somewhere else), and for me transparent, legible rule-based programmes are a sort of reservoir that can take the water without creating a wetland.
"
Thomas being a hypocrite doesn't mean his stated argument is wrong.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: The Dark Dice of Tharsis (and Yahtzee theory)”
It's one of those really interesting cases that rides the line between utopia and dystopia. So far I'm early in the game, so All I've done is taken over some primitive Feudal worlds, and I'm sure they appreciate the change, but at some point I'll be taking over less awful regimes.
"
Stellaris has released a new patch, so I'm back playing that. This time I decided to try an empire type I haven't tried before - Rogue Servitors. The basic idea is that a species developed robots to take care of all their needs and it reached the point where the robots now do everything, including making all the decisions. So it works a lot like a regular machine empire, expect you have these "bio trophies" working in special sanctuary building that give you bonuses. It also means that if you conquer another empire you can put all their population into sanctuaries too.
On “Climate Solutions For The Normal Situations of Normal People”
Politicians are used to being able to define their own reality - they can declare something to be so and the apparatus of government is largely required to go along with it. The difficulty is that some things can't be simply ordered to go along with the leadership's vision. Sometimes its hard fiscal constraints, like when a country exhausts its ability to borrow, but sometimes its a force of nature that no government can command. The true test of a government's competence is how it handles these issues.
You can see it with COVID, some governments have stubbornly refused to acknowledge that they have to change anything and we can see the terrible result of that folly. Climate Change is another such test, nature will not bend to political will, so our political will has to acknowledge the reality of that or the consequences will be dire.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Study Group”
New Zealand (apart from Auckland) is back to Level 2, so I'll be going back into the office part-time from next week. Also my gaming group can start meeting again (except for one of us, who is still working weekends right now due to COVID stuff), so we'll be getting together to play board games tomorrow.
On “Weekend Plans: The Trip To In-N-Out Burger”
I'm down to Alert Level 3, so I can get takeout again. I order a burger on Thursday and it was great.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Third Gate of Summer (Edit: It is the weekend *BEFORE* the third gate of summer)”
The whole vaccination process was quick and practically painless. I got in line with a few minutes to spare before my appointment time and within a couple of minutes I was being given the briefing so I could give informed consent (no physical paperwork during Alert Level 4 as there is too much infection risk from handing people things). This only took about a minute, then I had to sit on a well-spaced chair until 15 minutes was up. They then called out my name and I left.
I largely dodged side-effects too. My arm was sore (it's almost entirely gone now, a bit over 30 hours later), and I think I felt a little feverish yesterday afternoon, but that was it.
Now all I have to do is wait 6 weeks for dose number 2.
On “Why SCOTUS Ended the Eviction Moratorium”
I agree about the pretext of it - we have restrictions on evictions too, but only at the alert levels where's you're supposed to avoid leaving your home.
It looks like an approach to solving economic and social problems that you see in many countries but seem especially popular in the US - pick a group of people tangentially related to the issue you want to solve and declare they are now responsible for fixing it.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Third Gate of Summer (Edit: It is the weekend *BEFORE* the third gate of summer)”
Good to know. Because all the takeout places have been closed due to lockdown I've been doing more meal prep than usual (I'm making Chilli Con Carne in my slow cooker right now - enough for 6 meals). So I'll have a few things I can eat with no hassle.
And if it turns out I'm in no fit state to work on Monday - that's what sick leave is for.
"
I'm pleased to say my weekend plans will include getting my first dose of Pfizer - Vaccinations opened up for 30-39 year olds this week, so I'm all booked and ready to go.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.