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Made in America
“I saw a book sitting in a bookstore over the weekend: Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S.A. (And How It Got That Way) . I’m heavy on unread books right now, so I didn’t buy it. But I got to wondering about it later, so I went looking for a book summary. I…”
Dropping Mics
We don’t need to actually be right. We just need to feel like it.
There is no one truth about anything. Everything is filtered.
“As I write this, America is embroiled in the Ukrainian impeachment crisis. The claim is that Donald Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in exchange for a political favor – he wanted them to investigate Joe Biden’s son, who is (or was) likely to be Trump’s democratic opponent in the 2020…”
“At its absolute core, the difference between conservatives and liberals seems to boil down to one thing: liberals believe that society can be fixed by grand architecture, while conservatives believe it can only be fixed by individual action. Call it the difference between ‘top-down’ and…”
“I have a theory: the U.S. economy requires a significant number of Americans to be stupid with money. If we ever all got our crap together and started managing our personal budgets responsibly, the economy might fall apart. Consider this article from Bloomberg this morning: Americans Can’t Help…”
“Reading a book called Rise of the Robots about the increasing role of automation in our lives. The author takes a bit of a detour in the chapter on health care to discuss how the markets are broken. I’m not sure how related to automation this is, but he makes this interesting point: …every other…”
“There’s a constant debate in this country about the appropriate size, scope and strength of government. This debate has raged since all the country was founded and shows no signs of letting up. Conservatives think all forms of government should be smaller in scope. And while Liberals don’t…”
“One of the defining characteristics of your political view is how you think a government should balance charity against personal responsibility. Charity is the government giving aid in the form of social programs for the economically challenged: welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, mortgage debt relief,…”
“One would hope that politicians always act in ways which they think will directly benefit the country. But, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they do things that actually go against their better judgment. Sometimes they do this in a specific situation, and sometimes they just adopt long-term…”
“We’ve talked a bit about the ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ labels, but you might be wondering why they matter. Indeed, why wouldn’t a politician just eschew labels and say ‘I’ll do what’s best for the country in all situations’? Wouldn’t that be great? The problem is that politicians have to get…”
“When discussing labels like ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal,’ it needs to be acknowledged that there are different contexts in which they apply. People can be both conservative and liberal at the same time, about different things. There are three major contexts in which you might apply these labels:…”
“What can get mystifying about politics is that opposing politicians can have such different opinions about political issues. It seems like they can never agree about what to do about a given situation even though both sides are presented with the same facts. A large part of politics is about…”
“Your personal political philosophy is highly influenced by how you view the way individuals relate to their larger community. For example: Conservatives view the individual as the prime mover. The individual is the engine of the economy and the engine of the community as a whole. Liberals view the…”
“I own 25% of Blend Interactive , which is a significant percentage. This chunk of ownership binds me to this company, in the sense that I see the company as a sort of extension of myself in many ways. I’m not a minor owner – I’m a significant part of the day-to-day operations, and my input goes a…”
“When I was in my first political science class at Augie , I remember the first paragraph of the text tried to define ‘politics.' It went something like this: Politics is what happens when people are forced to live together. This is true, but the base definition is even deeper. I’m convinced that…”
“I saw two animated statistical graphics recently that reinforced and sharpened a belief that I’ve had lurking in my head for years. Links to the graphics are below (I would embed, but they’d both be useless unless full-size): Percentage of adults with less than a high school diploma (1970-2012)…”
“I enjoyed this post and agree with it in large part. Why I am a Beautiful Christian Democrat At some point – the 1964 Republican Convention, say some – the Republican Party established itself as the Christian face of American politics. What followed was a general ostracizing of Christian Democrats,…”
“The Neal Boortz Commencement Speech : This supposed commencement speech by Neal Boortz is incendiary as hell, but I appreciated for articulating a point that I find very true: the difference between a focus on the group and a focus on the individual. Liberals feel that their favored groups, have…”
“I just finished Ron Paul ‘s book Liberty Defined . it’s a collection of essays on ‘50 essential issues that affect our freedom.’ There’s everything from Abortion to Zionism (yes, it’s in alphabetical order), with all sorts of other stuff in between – the CIA, torture, moral hazard, envy, unions,…”
“I’m learning the difference between the statutory tax rate and the effective tax rate. it’s an important distinction. The statutory tax rate is the tax imposed by law (by ‘statute,’ hence the name). This is expressed as some percentage. The effective tax rate is what percentage of our income we…”
“Americans don’t really want spending cuts : This article is brutally honest, in two places. First, this is an important point to note: Any truly meaningful debt reduction plan must include Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Why? For the same reason criminals rob banks: That’s where the money…”
“I try to give all political opinions a fair shake, but there is one conservative assertion that just makes me hang my head with embarrassment. This is the assertion that cutting taxes actually increases government revenues. No, it doesn’t. Not at the present rate of taxation, anyway. And now I have…”
“Economic Inequality and Political Representation : Here’s some light reading for the weekend. I examine the differential responsiveness of U.S. senators to the preferences of wealthy, middle-class, and poor constituents. My analysis includes broad summary measures of senators ‘ voting behavior as…”
“I find this really interesting. Bush explains 9/11 classroom reaction Former President George W. Bush says what some people took as his apparent lack of reaction to the first news of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was actually a conscious decision on his part to project an aura of calm in a crisis….”
“A bunch of Democratic senators are on the the run from Wisconsin so they don’t have to vote on what appears to be a union-busting bill sponsored by the governor. According to this CNN article , this isn’t the first time Democrats have done this: The catch-me-if-you-can tactic was pioneered by Texas…”
“This is a really interesting point in a really interesting article. Over the last few decades (and someone would say since the 60s), the Republican party has become the ‘Christian’ party in politics. Walking Away From Church During the 1980s, the public face of American religion turned sharply…”
“This is such a loaded phrase: ‘Tax cuts for the wealthy.’ Every election season, it’s thrown around like a weapon. And it’s never questioned – it’s constantly accepted as patently bad, even downright evil. If any politician had anything anything to do with ‘tax cuts for the wealthy,’ they should be…”
“(This post is going to make some people hate me. I’m sorry for this in advance.) I’ve come to some peace about climate change. I wasn’t obsessing about it before, but I do think about it quite a bit. The debate rages over the source of climate change – is it something we’re doing, or something…”
“Why Are the Bush Tax Cuts Expiring in the First Place? : Here’s why Bush’s tax cuts are set to expire – the income tax cuts and the estate tax cuts. If Republicans love their tax cuts so much, why didn’t they enact them for perpetuity? Because they didn’t have enough votes, thanks to an obscure…”
“I get annoyed when people ‘applaud’ the Supreme Court for decisions, or vice-versa. John Thune just did it on Facebook: I applaud the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in McDonald v. Chicago. The decision affirms that Second Amendment protection for individuals’ right to bear arms also extends to…”
“Marriage is a bundle. It is, all at once, a contract, a romance, and a spiritual institution. But I don’t think it’s going to stay this way. Marriage is actually three structures, layered on top of one another. As it’s most basic level, marriage is a contract . When you get married, you are…”
“I don’t want to get too political, but Here’s my feeling on the process Congress is going through right now to get this health care bill passed. This is a huge bill, both in raw dollars and in the way it will change the relationship of the citizen to the state. it’s probably one of the most…”
“I’m more than a little amazed that I stumbled on this article. A divided island: the forces working against Haiti: For years, I have wondered about this very question: why has the Dominican Republic done fairly well, while Haiti is a trainwreck, given that they share the same island? Last year I…”
“The O’Reilly Procedure : Ebert writes about a pet peeve of mine – political commentators, both on the right and the left. They drive me nuts. Ebert discusses Bill O’Reilly in particular. Understand that Ebert is a self-admitted liberal, but his points hold true for about anyone. I am not interested…”
“I’ve been reading the Wikipedia article about Kwame Kilpatrick , the disgraced mayor of Detroit. I’m honestly wondering if there has been a more blatantly corrupt and dishonest politician in recent history. This guy was just unbelievable. I’ll give you the top level summary of what has been an…”