Also, how exactly do you hold elections when a chunk of the country is occupied by a foreign army? I fthey hold and election and Zelensky wins again, Putin (and his proxies) will either A) Claim it doesn't count because not everyone got to vote or B) Claim that this amounts to Ukraine disclaiming the occupied territory since they weren't counted in the vote totals.
I'm playing a lot of Civ 7 right now. There are some legitimate complaints about the UI and the AI but honestly I think this is the best Civ on release since 4 at least.
The endgame needs to be to force Russia into a status quo antebellum peace - i.e. Ukraine returns the Russia it is occupying, and Russia returns the Ukraine it is occupying. Since Russia and Ukraine signed a treaty in 1992, it's easy to identify which bits of land are which. And Russia needs to understand that fi they won't accept this peace that the US will not only continue giving its cast-off munitions to Ukraine, it will also stop requiring that Ukraine not use them to strike into Russia itself. Russia's economy is falling apart, they've burned through most of their Soviet-era munitions and the people they can conscript without causing problems. By contrast, the US's contributions in treasure are minimal, and in bool are nil. This US can bankroll this conflict forever if it has to, but it won't have to because Russia will collapse if it keep this up for much longer. And then, as you say, re-evaluate every year or so.
After that, start inducting Ukraine into NATO so Russia can't try again without risking war with the US because there's no way Russia will want to do that.
I mean, on the facts he's simply correct - Ludwig mishandled the data.
Of course, that's not the same as saying people don't have reasons to be angry about the economy but that's a separate issue. The reason people feel bad about the economy is that while inflation has gone down, prices are still much higher than they were 5 years ago and wages are still catching up. But nothing Smith said contradicts that.
Noah Smith goes through a fairly thorough refutation of this in a recent post (it's item number 2): https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-things-978
It occurs to me that the Democratic Party could have tried to remove the President's tariff powers at any time in the last 4 years, but then I doubt action that reduces presidential power would even have occurred to them.
That's the thing, there's no incentive for foreign governments to risk their own agendas to dig the US out of a hole that their own institutions and voters couldn't be bothered digging themselves out of.
Can someone explain this for a foreigner? As I understand it, an amendment has either been ratified by sufficient states or it hasn't, and the President doesn't really have a role here?
Are there sufficient states to ratify or not? If so, why is this being announced by Biden, by tweet, now? If not, what the hell is he playing at?
Fixing the housing market would probably help. That's the main thing that leads people to actually suffer harm from new people entering the community. The best part is that the real regulatory problems are at the state level, so it doesn't matter that the Democrats are 0 for 3 in controlling the federal government.
I mean, the Supreme Court has essentially declared the President above the law, so this isn't a big shock. At least the conviction itself is still going to stand.
You do note that I acknowledged that could be the case, yes?
One of the many frustrations I have when discussing policy is that regulations are often treated as fungible. This is done on the left and right. Regulation is neither generically bad, nor generically good - you have to weigh the merits of each specific regulation. This is why "Texas underregulates in X way" is not a reasonable response to "unlike Texas, most states overregulate in Y way".
To be clear, there are lessons to learn from "it was just inflation". None of us have had much experience with high inflation in about 30 years, and the economic conditions are sufficiently different now that some of the old political rules don't seem to apply any more. Conventional wisdom in the 1950s and 1960s was that inflation was preferable to recessions politically, that doesn't appear to be true any more (probably because no-one is used to inflation any more).
What this tells me is that governments need to be more careful about running deficits, people might not vote against the deficit itself, but they will vote against its consequences.
I honestly don't know how this will work out for Syria (I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Julani, a guy who's name I only learned the other day), what I am happy about is that this represents a loss of geopolitical influence for Russia, something Putin actually cares about (unlike all the Russians that have died). I think Russia's defeat is important for maintaining peace around the world, and that's why I'm happy.
Hard for Russia to keep their favorite pet in power with all their troops (and money) being fed into the wood chipper that is Ukraine. Assad couldn't even rely on Wagner any more.
On the one hand, I consider this an egregious abuse of power. On the other hand, it's not hard to see why Biden did it. Beyond wanting to protect his son from Trump doing his best to invent crimes for his enemies, at this point why the hell should Biden do the right thing instead of the thing that's best for him? The American people clearly have no standards for the probity of their leaders, Trump is merely the most obvious example of this. I believe that every President post-Carter at least has done at least one thing that merited impeachment. Thus far Biden hadn't, at least as far as I'm aware, so why not drop to what is clearly the standard for American Presidents?
There are also risks in giving in to Russia's demands. There are well established international norms about what counts as a valid reason to nuke someone and providing arms to your enemy isn't on that list. If we let people have whatever they want just because they threaten to use nukes, we're encouraging nuclear brinkmanship and handing geopolitical power to people who already have far too much of it.
Refusing to take the threat seriously may be the less risky course.
On “From Fox News: AG Pam Bondi announces Epstein files will start to be released on Thursday the 27th”
Why am I suddenly reminded of Caesar being offered a crown?
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/17/2025”
I'm pretty sure hiring Swiss mercenaries is against international law, except for The Pope.
"
Also, how exactly do you hold elections when a chunk of the country is occupied by a foreign army? I fthey hold and election and Zelensky wins again, Putin (and his proxies) will either A) Claim it doesn't count because not everyone got to vote or B) Claim that this amounts to Ukraine disclaiming the occupied territory since they weren't counted in the vote totals.
On “Beware: Promises Being Kept”
Oh indeed, which is why peace has to come first, then NATO membership.
"
The timeline between Finland wanting to join NATO and Finland joining NATO was pretty short, I'd by happy with a similar timeframe.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Sizeable”
I'm playing a lot of Civ 7 right now. There are some legitimate complaints about the UI and the AI but honestly I think this is the best Civ on release since 4 at least.
On “Beware: Promises Being Kept”
The endgame needs to be to force Russia into a status quo antebellum peace - i.e. Ukraine returns the Russia it is occupying, and Russia returns the Ukraine it is occupying. Since Russia and Ukraine signed a treaty in 1992, it's easy to identify which bits of land are which. And Russia needs to understand that fi they won't accept this peace that the US will not only continue giving its cast-off munitions to Ukraine, it will also stop requiring that Ukraine not use them to strike into Russia itself. Russia's economy is falling apart, they've burned through most of their Soviet-era munitions and the people they can conscript without causing problems. By contrast, the US's contributions in treasure are minimal, and in bool are nil. This US can bankroll this conflict forever if it has to, but it won't have to because Russia will collapse if it keep this up for much longer. And then, as you say, re-evaluate every year or so.
After that, start inducting Ukraine into NATO so Russia can't try again without risking war with the US because there's no way Russia will want to do that.
On “From Politico: Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong.”
I mean, on the facts he's simply correct - Ludwig mishandled the data.
Of course, that's not the same as saying people don't have reasons to be angry about the economy but that's a separate issue. The reason people feel bad about the economy is that while inflation has gone down, prices are still much higher than they were 5 years ago and wages are still catching up. But nothing Smith said contradicts that.
"
Noah Smith goes through a fairly thorough refutation of this in a recent post (it's item number 2): https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/at-least-five-interesting-things-978
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
Good, glad to see some actual push-back from the legislature.
"
It occurs to me that the Democratic Party could have tried to remove the President's tariff powers at any time in the last 4 years, but then I doubt action that reduces presidential power would even have occurred to them.
"
That's the thing, there's no incentive for foreign governments to risk their own agendas to dig the US out of a hole that their own institutions and voters couldn't be bothered digging themselves out of.
On “President Biden Affirms the Passage of the ERA”
Ah, so this is a strange as I thought it was, thank you both.
"
Can someone explain this for a foreigner? As I understand it, an amendment has either been ratified by sufficient states or it hasn't, and the President doesn't really have a role here?
Are there sufficient states to ratify or not? If so, why is this being announced by Biden, by tweet, now? If not, what the hell is he playing at?
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/13/2025”
Fixing the housing market would probably help. That's the main thing that leads people to actually suffer harm from new people entering the community. The best part is that the real regulatory problems are at the state level, so it doesn't matter that the Democrats are 0 for 3 in controlling the federal government.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/30/2024”
I mean, the Supreme Court has essentially declared the President above the law, so this isn't a big shock. At least the conviction itself is still going to stand.
"
Great, sure and what does any of that have to do with environmental impact regulations specifically? Because otherwise, this all whataboutism.
"
You do note that I acknowledged that could be the case, yes?
One of the many frustrations I have when discussing policy is that regulations are often treated as fungible. This is done on the left and right. Regulation is neither generically bad, nor generically good - you have to weigh the merits of each specific regulation. This is why "Texas underregulates in X way" is not a reasonable response to "unlike Texas, most states overregulate in Y way".
"
How do environmental impact studies stop power plants from freezing?
Perhaps Texas is underregulated in some ways, and other states are overregulated in other ways?
On “From Semafor: Kamala Harris’ digital chief on Democrats ‘losing hold of culture’”
To be clear, there are lessons to learn from "it was just inflation". None of us have had much experience with high inflation in about 30 years, and the economic conditions are sufficiently different now that some of the old political rules don't seem to apply any more. Conventional wisdom in the 1950s and 1960s was that inflation was preferable to recessions politically, that doesn't appear to be true any more (probably because no-one is used to inflation any more).
What this tells me is that governments need to be more careful about running deficits, people might not vote against the deficit itself, but they will vote against its consequences.
On “Bashar al-Assad Flees To Moscow, Ending 50 Years of Syrian Dictatorship”
I honestly don't know how this will work out for Syria (I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Julani, a guy who's name I only learned the other day), what I am happy about is that this represents a loss of geopolitical influence for Russia, something Putin actually cares about (unlike all the Russians that have died). I think Russia's defeat is important for maintaining peace around the world, and that's why I'm happy.
"
Hard for Russia to keep their favorite pet in power with all their troops (and money) being fed into the wood chipper that is Ukraine. Assad couldn't even rely on Wagner any more.
On “Joe Biden Pardons Local Man”
On the one hand, I consider this an egregious abuse of power. On the other hand, it's not hard to see why Biden did it. Beyond wanting to protect his son from Trump doing his best to invent crimes for his enemies, at this point why the hell should Biden do the right thing instead of the thing that's best for him? The American people clearly have no standards for the probity of their leaders, Trump is merely the most obvious example of this. I believe that every President post-Carter at least has done at least one thing that merited impeachment. Thus far Biden hadn't, at least as far as I'm aware, so why not drop to what is clearly the standard for American Presidents?
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/18/2024”
There are also risks in giving in to Russia's demands. There are well established international norms about what counts as a valid reason to nuke someone and providing arms to your enemy isn't on that list. If we let people have whatever they want just because they threaten to use nukes, we're encouraging nuclear brinkmanship and handing geopolitical power to people who already have far too much of it.
Refusing to take the threat seriously may be the less risky course.
On “Paper: Inflation and the 2024 US Presidential Election”
"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose." - Jean-Luc Picard.
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