The key to comedy?

by liberal japonicus

The report that Politico was given documents from the Trump campaign that were hacked by Iran, including a 270 page(!) dossier on JD Vance has me retell this joke:

A: Ask me how I became the greatest Iranian comedian?

B: Ok, how did you become...

A: Timing!

The Politico article reports that they received the hacked materials on 22 June and sat on them for two weeks. Biden withdrew as a presidential candidate on 21 June. Feel free to discuss this and other campaign related topics.

Comments

[bobbyp]

Say it. Say it in a tone of contemptuous dripping sinister innuendo, "Trump's e-mails".

[wj]

It is entirely possible for both of these things to be true:

1. The Trump campaign's servers were hacked. (Although all Microsoft has confirmed is an attempted hack)
2. Internal documents from the Trump campaign were sent out (by a disaffected staffer, perhaps?) to Politico. And, apparently, to the Washington Post.

And personally, that's the way I'd guess it happened. Although it is also possible that what we're seeing is an attempt to pressure Vance off the ticket (it was his vetting document, after all), plus some other stuff for verisimilitude.

[nous]

Did not know that Kellyanne Conway was Iranian, but she really does not like Shady Ruxpin.

[wj]

What is rather amazing is how, three weeks later, the Trump campaign is still flailing around, trying to figure out how to deal with Harris as an opponent. I mean, stunning incompetence is one thing; what we've come to expect from anyone around TCFG. But this still seems exceptional.

If I had to guess, I'd say that nobody there dares to make a major decision like that without Trump's approval. And he's reached the place in his decline that he can't make the adjustment. He's still spinning fantasies about Biden reclaiming the nomination at the convention, so he can run the campaign he expected.

[Girl from the North Country]

Say it. Say it in a tone of contemptuous dripping sinister innuendo, "Trump's e-mails".

It's "But his emails!", and should be said in a tone of self-righteous indignation.

I smell a rat, which is not conclusive since they are all rats. It could be a way to get rid of Vance, of course. Chez hilzoy she reposts someone called Cathy Gellis recommending a piece on this at emptywheel.net, and saying that although she doesn't agree with all of it, nevertheless "Trump does not firewall his life (and criminal issues) off from his campaign. Which makes whatever trove the hackers were able to get esp. dangerous to him, and potentially the country."

[GftNC]

Say it. Say it in a tone of contemptuous dripping sinister innuendo, "Trump's e-mails".

It's "But his emails!", and should be said in a tone of self-righteous indignation.

I smell a rat, which is not conclusive since they are all rats. It could be a way to get rid of Vance, of course. Chez hilzoy she reposts someone called Cathy Gellis recommending a piece on this at emptywheel.net, and saying that although she doesn't agree with all of it, nevertheless "Trump does not firewall his life (and criminal issues) off from his campaign. Which makes whatever trove the hackers were able to get esp. dangerous to him, and potentially the country."

[Michael Cain]

Over the last few days quite a few of the traditional media have done pieces about Walz's accomplishments as a "climate warrior" in Minnesota. The general tone of all of the ones I read is quite complimentary. I don't know if this is a sign of anything -- like the MSM is going to talk policy? -- but I'm encouraged.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Trump blaming "Iran" for the hack is disingenuous, since Iran is now in cahoots with Russia, just as Trump has been.

BTW, this hack, like many before confirms my extremely low opinion of Microsoft.

[CaseyL]

Michael - "Traditional media" - I like that. It's like "tradwife," meaning an ersatz throwback to a time that never really was.

The TradMedia is more of a detriment than an asset now. The way they treat Trump versus Harris is stunningly slanted to favor Trump and disfavor Harris.

Entire stories that should be investigated further are mentioned and then quickly memory-holed, like the $10 million bribe Egypt paid Trump in 2016.

Or the way the TradMed dutifully takes its framing from whatever sewage Trump and the GOP are currently spewing, such as the non-existent "controversy" over Walz's military service.

Or, and this one really makes me want to throw something, the NYT has published not one, but TWO articles on how Harris not choosing Shapiro as her running mate has upset Jewish Democrats. A complete fabrication.

[nous]

BTW, this hack, like many before confirms my extremely low opinion of Microsoft.

Eh, my bet (assuming it did come from outside) is that someone there was spearphished.

"Hi Patsy, it's Don Jr. You have minute to check something for me?"

[wj]

Trump blaming "Iran" for the hack is disingenuous, since Iran is now in cahoots with Russia, just as Trump has been.

I don't think TCFG indulges in "the friend to my friend is my friend." First, he's way too transactional for that. Second, I don't think he has the concept of "friend" -- certainly he doesn't have any. Temporary allies, sure. Loyal (perhaps) subordinares, possibly. Bigger mob bosses (e.g. Putin) who he must bend a knee to? That also. But friends, no.

So it's entirely likely that he would ignore their mutual alliance** with Putin, and attack Iran at the first opportunity. Certainly the Iranians think so. Thus, nothing unlikely about Iran hacking Trump. Whether to keep him out of office somehow, or to look for leverage against the chance that he win.

** In Iran's case, an alliance of convenience, at best. A way to get big bucks for mediocre arms sales. In Trump's case? Could be anything from simple hero worship to bribery to blackmail to who knows what.

[wj]

As nous points out, even with the best security in the world, there's no protection against stupidity. Which TCFG and his minions have a superabundance of.

[liberal japonicus]

In case you didn't click, the Daily Beast link notes this 2020 gem

https://www.vox.com/2020/12/16/22179065/trump-twitter-password-maga2020-dutch-gevers

[nous]

ICYMI - ProPublica has published the Project 2025 training videos, and parts of them are very weird in that fixated, detached from reality way that you get from the Culture Warriors that never leave their bunker.

They have to eradicate every mention of Climate Change in the federal government because it's a Trojan Horse for eugenics?

What?

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-project-2025-secret-training-videos-trump-election

The ProPublica framing makes much of the connections between the people involved and Orangina's last administration, but this is Heritage Foundation trying to build a project that is ready to go for whoever is the next conservative president. They'll change the name if they lose in November, but the project won't go away until Democrats remove the institutional vulnerabilities the GOP seeks to exploit.

[bobbyp]

...but the project won't go away until Democrats remove the institutional vulnerabilities the GOP seeks to exploit.

1. Expand the Supreme Court.
2. Reconfigured Court rules Electoral College unconstitutional since it conflicts with equal protection under the law.

Well, a guy can dream, no?

[wj]

Court rules Electoral College unconstitutional since it conflicts with equal protection under the law.

Technically, it wouldn't be ruling it unconstitutional, per se. Since, after all, it is mandated in the Constitution. Rather what they would be ruling is that "Equal Protection" (i.e. the 14th Amendment) constitutes an amendment to Article Ii, Section 1. (Even if nobody noticed for over a century.)

[russell]

Rather what they would be ruling is that "Equal Protection" (i.e. the 14th Amendment) constitutes an amendment to Article Ii, Section 1.

We'd need a very different SCOTUS to make that happen, but it works for me.

[bobbyp]

Thanks, wj. I would only add that if the Court can write the 2nd, 8th, and 14th Amendments out of the Constitution, it can apply this "principle" to other language in the document as well.

stare decisis!

Some (you know the type) might say this is "politicizing" the Court. My response is, "Well, yeaaah." Apparently a lot of people are not aware of just how "political" (in the bare knuckled sense of the term) McColloch v. Maryland was.

[wj]

Getting rid of the Electoral College is politicizing the Court? Only if you concede that your party is incapable of winning the popular vote. (Which, on the evidence, it is these days. But ignore that detail.)

What that says is that the people don't want what you're peddling. If you're enamored of "run the country like a business" (a bad idea, but that's irrelevant just here), the obvious business decision is to change the product to something which will sell.

Suggestions available on request. Including suggestions on how to be a viable center-right party: No need to become flaming liberals; just to stop being flaming reactionaries.

[hairshirthedonist]

Inflation is cooling, job numbers are looking good, consumer spending is higher than expected, and the stock market is reacting very positively to all of it.

Assuming those trends continue, when does the "bad economy" narrative of the tRump campaign become passe, at least with non-cult members?

[As an aside, one of the things that's always bugged me about the tRump phenomenon, the attendant yearning for authoritarianism (or even fascism), and comparisons to the rise of Hitler is that so many tRump devotees are driving around in big, expensive pickup trucks or tooling around in expensive (they don't even have to be that big) boats with their big flags flying (sucking up even more gas because of the drag - gas that's so expensive because of Biden!), while people in Weimar Germany had to pay a wheelbarrow full of cash for a loaf of bread.

Miles from my house a couple summers ago, there was a boat-based tRump rally on the Delaware River. Life is so hard when you have have to have a big party in the river on your boats! We have to break this oppressive system!]

[CharlesWT]

Inflation is cooling, ...

Yes, but there's Long Inflation. That inflation hangover you feel every time you have to pay 50% or more for something than you paid a few years ago. The price of everything didn't go up by 50% or more. But you feel the jolt when you buy the items that did.

[hairshirthedonist]

But you feel the jolt when you buy the items that did.

Sure, but how many people are going to vote for a wanna-be dictator over it when things are generally going pretty well otherwise? (Let's not even get into the so-hard-to-understand fact that recent inflation is a global phenomenon and that the inflation the US has been, relatively speaking, unremarkable at worst while, at the same time, economic growth and employment have been exceptionally good in comparison to those in other OECD nations.)

[Girl from the North Country]

God, hsh, I hate to harsh your mellow (or your sterling attempt at a mellow), but the US populace is rather famous for not considering global phenomena. If a tree falls in any forest not in the US of A, there is nobody there to hear it, so it didn't happen.

I think and hope to God she wins, but I very much doubt it will be even slightly on the grounds that inflation has been a worldwide (particularly bad in the UK) phenomenon.

[Hartmut]

The avarage USian is not aware of those things, often considers areas outside the US as per definition hellholes not worth living in and gets bombarded with a constant barrage of deliberate misinformation from people who know better and have learned that they could persuade millions that Saddam nuked the US, Clinton destroyed the economy, Dubya rescued it, Obama was responsible for 9/11 and Biden for COVID etc.

[Bobbyp]

Inflation hurts lenders (generally rich scum). It helps regular folks who are in the throes of paying off debt to rich scum. One should always put these things in perspective.

[wj]

Inflation hurts lenders (generally rich scum). It helps regular folks who are in the throes of paying off debt to rich scum.

There is the detail that inflation means that the prices paid by those regular folks are going up. Inevitably, they go up faster than the wages those regular folks get paid.

[hairshirthedonist]

I did introduce global inflation with "Let's not even get into the so-hard-to-understand fact" for a reason.

[Hartmut]

And then there are such insidious things like rate adjustment, so lenders get hurt less.

[Girl from the North Country]

hsh: fair enough, you did indeed.

I probably went off on one, as they say round these parts, because that particular quality of the US electorate en masse (or, if you prefer, regular folks, as opposed to wonks like ObWi, LGM etc) is a rather difficult one for much of the rest of the world to stomach. I guess that's American Exceptionalism for you. But I know you know all this.

[hairshirthedonist]

I get your frustration, GftNC. I share it. I think part of it is that disingenuous politicians and media “personalities” pretend there’s no larger world out there in spite of knowing better as a means of manipulation. That or they say, “But they aren’t like us. That can’t work here” when discussing successful policies in other countries.

[wj]

American insistence on learning the hard way, rather than from others' experience, is a frustration for many of us.

[nous]

American Exceptionalism means pretending that we have the best form of government despite that form of government having failed everywhere else we have ever tried to export it. Even our own nation building people who get tapped to rebuild the countries whose governments we have toppled don't try to set anyone up with a US style constitution.

We'd have also changed it to something that works long ago if it wasn't for the fact that Jesus gave it to us, and that he warned us never to change it or he wouldn't bother coming back.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Much of the "late 18th century nonsense" in the US constitution is dealt with by "customs", rather than legislation or amendment.

Trump showed, with crystal clarity, the weakness of that approach; there were previous hints (Dubya/Cheney and the 12th Amendment), but Trump really dialled it up to 11.

[Girl from the North Country]

There are lots of aspects to American Exceptionalism, as far as I can see, and they're all Exceptionally annoying!

[hairshirthedonist]

Not only are we (Americans generally) myopic about the world at large, we have a narrow view of what it means to be American (you know, like, the real kind).

On another note, listening to coverage of the campaign, it struck me after hearing talk about tRump being unable to stay on message, discuss policy, and spend less time on personal attacks, that he's become beholden to his core supporters in the same way the GOP has become beholden to him. His core supporters want the personal attacks. That's what gets them fired up.

The problem is that when he ran the first time, successfully, a lot of people voted for him out of a generalized desire for something new and different. He's not new and different anymore. He's the same guy saying the same crap since 2015. He's not going to get those "soft" Trump voters, some of whom probably weren't that crazy about him in the first place but figured he'd be constrained and would grow into the job, becoming more traditionally presidential. So much for that!

He certainly can't afford to lose his core supporters, but to keep them, he's going to be forced to turn off the people who are on the fence and getting increasingly tired of his schtick. Avoiding that would require some sort of finesse that I doubt he possesses, if such a thing exists at all.

[Michael Cain]

There are lots of aspects to American Exceptionalism, as far as I can see, and they're all Exceptionally annoying!

It's almost like a... super power! More seriously, large population, continent-spanning west to east, only two other countries on the continent, an ocean on either side so we've not fought a war on our own land for a long time... It's been generations since we seriously had to worry, or even think, about getting along. Of course we're annoying.

[nous]

I don't think Orangina is capable of staying on message. He's too addled to do anything but chase thought bunnies through the grass. And whenever he becomes afraid that he's lost his listeners, he goes back to his repertoire of zingers for some instant gratification. Reminds me of my dad in his last years, taking five minutes to tell the same one minute joke he told you yesterday.

He's too far in decline to hold it together any better. Only his vast privilege and GOP desperation keeps him going.

[Michael Cain]

Reminds me of my dad in his last years, taking five minutes to tell the same one minute joke he told you yesterday.

While I was the primary caregiver as my wife's dementia progressed, I learned to simply answer the question, "What time are we leaving?" every ten minutes without seeming irritated. Sometimes more often than that shortly before we put her in care.

Just based on seeing the different people in the care facility where she lives, and keeping in mind what a nurse told me once -- "Everyone's cartilage fails in much the same way; everyone's brain fails differently." -- I'm convinced that Trump's brain is failing. Particular skills and habits of long standing may persist longer. From what I have read, even near the end of Reagan's second term, if Nancy gave him his lines, he could still put on the appropriate expression, hit his mark, and deliver those lines.

I am less convinced that the tradmedia will report what's obvious.

[bobbyp]

Inevitably, they go up faster than the wages those regular folks get paid.

Inevitably, this is not inevitable.

https://www.epi.org/blog/average-wages-have-surpassed-inflation-for-12-straight-months/

[Hartmut]

Which, as many a very serious economist will tell you, is a very bad sign and against the natural order of things.

[Bobbyp]

Yes, Hartmut, a real economist would abjure terms such as “inevitable” and fall back on “it depends” or at a bare minimum invoke ceteris paribus.

[wj]

a real economist would abjure terms such as “inevitable” and fall back on “it depends”

Not to mention that even a non-economist would hopefully understand the difference between "overwhelming likely" and "inevitable"

[Tony P.]

I have a question about inflation.

"Market Basket" is a family-owned regional chain of supermarkets in MA and NH whose motto is "More For Your Dollar". They're big enough to have a number of store-brand products, many of which are better-quality than the national-brand equivalents and cheaper to boot. One example is their 5-pack of croissants. These come from a bakery in Maine.

Before the pandemic, a croissant 5-pack was $2.99 at Market Basket. Early in the pandemic, they disappeared for a few weeks. They were $3.49 when they reappeared on the shelves. Later in the pandemic, they went up to $3.99 and then vanished again. They came back at $4.49 and have been there for about 3 years now. So, the price went up $1.50 on a $3 item, which is 50% "inflation" if you're an economist.

I'm not an economist. I look at that extra $1.50 and ask whose pocket it went into.

Arthur T. Demoulas, CEO of Market Basket (whose employees went on strike when his cousin Arthur S. Demoulas tried to force him out) would surely say "I had to raise the price because the bakery raised its price 50% to me." The bakery owner would surely say "I had to raise my price because my costs went up 50%." His suppliers would say "Our costs went up 50%" and so would their suppliers.

I am practically certain that what did not go up 50% is the wages of the workers at any of the firms along the supply chain.

As a not-economist, I say the original $2.99 evidently covered the wages of all the workers and the profits of all the owners in the entire supply chain. If every worker's wages -- and every owner's profits -- went up 50%, that would account for the $1.50 increase.

To avoid mathematical sophistry from economists or Free Market apologists, remember: you can think of the original $2.99 as a pizza cut into many slices; you can make the whole pizza 50% bigger by making every individual slice 50% bigger; it's not complicated.

But I repeat: no report I have heard or read suggests anything remotely like a 50% wage increase for every farmer, trucker. miller, baker, stocker, and cashier involved in selling me a 5-pack of croissants.

The pizza grew 50%, but the workers' slices didn't. So which slices did?

--TP

[JanieM]

TP -- I'm not an economist either, and I'm perfectly ready to believe that owners/stockholders took the extra $ at every step of the way. (But as an aside, isn't Market Basket employee owned? Okay, Wikipedia says it's not that simple....)

But what about materials costs? What about fuel costs for transporting materials and products?

Also, what about the mess that supply chains have been in since covid started? (Things are better than they were, but not to pre-covid levels as far as I can tell.) It seems like unreliable supply chains would also end up costing $. Inefficiencies aren’t cheap….

A long time ago I read something by (probably) Stoneyfield Farms in response to customers asking them why they were still using plastic containers for their yogurt products. They said they had had some sort of eco firm's evaluation and found out that whatever their other options for container materials were, those materials would be so much heavier than the plastic that the fuel cost for transporting the product would be environmentally worse than the plastic.

*****

Pause to ask DuckDuckGo, which I’ve been experimenting with in place of Google. Turns out you can find almost anything online except the answer to the question of which 1950s children’s cartoon ended with the tag line “Pop goes the fil-m, good night!” – which I have been searching for since search engines were invented.

This appears to be the Stoneyfield Farm study…not a “firm” but a university study. Also not exactly as I remembered it, but in line with my basic point that “it’s complicated.”

[JanieM]

fuel cost -> fuel needs (to be more logical)

[Tony P.]

JanieM: But what about materials costs? What about fuel costs for transporting materials and products?

Janie, materials and fuel costs were already covered by the $2.99/pkg, right? They were 2 of many, many slices of the original pizza.

And not to get too Marxist or anything, but "materials" and "fuel" cost what they cost because workers get paid to produce or extract them and owners take a profit on them. It's pizza slices all the way down.

If the retail price increases $1.50 because the entire increment goes into the pockets of 1 or 2 of the original suppliers, so that everybody else in the chain (workers and owners alike) are now collecting no more than they were collecting originally, the arithmetic can make sense. But is that empirically the case?

BTW, pick a number: what fraction of the original $2.99 was going to, say, "fuel costs"? Suppose, it was $1.00 to be very generous about it. So the extra $1.50 all going to "fuel costs" would be a 150% increase for that slice. Maybe oil-field roustabouts have seen that kind of increase in wages, but I doubt it.

--TP

[wj]

Tony, let's try this: nobody along the supply chain, neither owners nor employees,** got more money from the price rise. The entire increase was from increased fuel costs.

I have no idea if that was actually the case. But the arithmetic works every bit as well as yours.

Just an example of the risks of simplistic analysis.

** If you want to argue that oil company owners/executives/workers got the money, that's a different discussion.

[JanieM]

Maybe oil-field roustabouts have seen that kind of increase in wages, but I doubt it.

Maybe -- just as an exaggerated/fantastical example to make the point -- fuel has gotten harder to extract so it takes 5 roustabouts where before it took 2. Or maybe they're all so sick with long covid that their work is much less efficient than it used to be, or it's being done by less experienced replacements.

Maybe the wheat crop was bad because of climate change.

Maybe this, maybe that.

I'm as ready as the next person -- actually, far more ready than most people -- to expect and disapprove of greed and gouging that only line the pockets of the owners. But I agree with wj that your analysis seems oversimplified.

[Tony P.]

It's not the Earth that gets dollars for its oil, right? It's people: owners, workers, and ... who else?

So I don't think it's a different discussion, TBH. It's still the same question: who got the extra $1.50, and what policies, laws, principles or dogmas allowed them to do it?

"Who" is an empirical question for econometrics, of course, and I would happily accept statistics showing that everybody in the chain got a 50% raise, Arthur T., ADM, and Exxon included. But I'm not holding my breath.

--TP

[wj]

Or it could be as simple as supply routes being changed; part of the generally buggered supply chains. Additional drivers required for the additional mileage. Not existing guys getting more; just guys whose regular jobs got cut, managing to stay afloat.

As Tony says, an actual economic analysis would be interesting. Maybe even enlightening. But absent that, anybody's theories are raw speculation, informed by their personal prejudices. One of those theories may chance to be correct. But that's still chance, not reason.

[CharlesWT]

Some employees are being paid more due to labor shortages in some parts of food production.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

The "week or two that the croissants disappeared from the store" might be a clue.

As in "bakery shut down, had to find another" or "the croissant machine busted, had to make them by hand".

Hard to tell, when the only info you have is "price and availability".

[Michael Cain]

At one point in the last few years, there was "the great cream cheese shortage." The cream cheese section of the local groceries here were essentially empty for several weeks. The causes of the shortage were (a) a fire shut down the largest factory in the Midwest, (b) a water shortage for a large factory in New York forced it to drastically reduce production, (c) the raw plastic for containers is imported and the overseas factories for that were operating well below capacity, and (d) businesses for whom cream cheese is an ingredient were willing to pay a premium to maintain their supplies.

There was a time around 1990 when the price of plastic-cased integrated circuits doubled overnight, and then doubled again. The only factory in the world that produced the proper plastic resin was in Japan and burned down.

[GftNC]

Wow, this woman sounds extremely inspiring. What, if anything, do you tech types think of this - which is to say, do you think this can be applied elsewhere?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/17/audrey-tang-toxic-social-media-fake-news-taiwan-trans-government-internet

[JanieM]

@Michael: There was also the baby formula shortage.

At least two things that I used to buy regularly at the grocery store disappeared almost as soon as covid arrived, and never came back. One I can get elsewhere, the other doesn't seem to be available anywhere.

*****

On the TP side of the argument: long ago when my paid work involved programming related to payroll, I had to do an annual update for a huge multinational company, the name of which I can't say but which everyone would recognize. All pay grades got raises every year, but every year the higher grade, higher paid people got bigger percentage increases than the lower grade people.

This is one of the central stories of our era, and it is illustrated by this graph, which I made when I was first reading ObWi and have given to hundreds of people since. (The graph shows US after tax income in several slices of the population. Never mind the gory details; basically it shows the rich getting obscenely richer while the poor stay static.)

What I was reacting to last night in TP's original comment was what I saw as oversimplification. My guess would be that Market Basket employees are paid higher hourly wages than they were before covid, AND that the owners got a bigger proportional share of that $1.50 per packet of croissants than the hourly employees did, and that the same goes for most or all of the businesses in the supply chain. But as Michael’s stories illustrate, I doubt that wages and profits tell the whole story in all cases. Then again, we do know that there has been price gouging, and yes, we can guess where most or all of that money went.

“The whole story is long and complicated.” – my favorite fortune cookie fortune ever. (Mostly as applied to my own life.)

[Tony P.]

GftNC,

That does it. I have now subscribed to The Guardian.

JanieM,

My original comment was not, strictly speaking, an argument. Read literally, it was a factual question (who got how much of that $1.50 increment?) that presumably has an empirical answer. But you're right: I was obviously hinting at something very like "higher paid people got bigger percentage increases", wasn't I?

Still, I have to defend myself against the characterization that I am "oversimplifying". I'd prefer "focusing". In fact, I'd argue that characterizing "inflation" with a single economy-wide number is more of an over-simplification -- or at least an over-generalization.

Maybe a Market Basket Croissant Case Study would be too narrowly focused to reveal anything about the phenomenon we call "general inflation", but surely a competent accountant could track down who was getting how much of the original $2.99/pkg, and who's getting how much of the final $4.49/pkg, in a straightforward way. S/he would need access to the books of every enterprise in the supply chain -- which is more like a branching bush than a single, linear strand of course -- but s/he could literally follow the money into various pockets. I grant that such an exercise may not be worth the bother, since generalizations and guesses are so easy to come by.

I can't find it now (maybe someone with better google-fu can help) but I remember at least a headline many months back purporting to attribute 40% of "inflation" to labor costs, 60% to profits -- or something like that. I should hope people who put out numbers like those are capable of doing the kind of case study I'm describing. I'd have more faith in their generalized pronouncements if they could, anyway.

BTW, "Forecasting is difficult, especially about the future" is my favorite cookie fortune of all time, specifically because it came to me with the Chinese take-out lunch we were having (at DEC) during an all-day "planning meeting" :)

--TP

[Girl from the North Country]

Excellent, Tony P! Only the best people, etc etc.

[CharlesWT]

Let's not even get into the so-hard-to-understand fact that recent inflation is a global phenomenon and that the inflation the US has been, relatively speaking, unremarkable at worst while, at the same time, economic growth and employment have been exceptionally good in comparison to those in other OECD nations.

What’s the best explanation for why inflation has fallen so much more in the United States than any other G7 country?

"The combination of aggressive monetary policy, energy market dynamics, supply chain recovery, labor market stability, and credible policymaking has allowed the United States to achieve a more pronounced inflation decline than its G7 peers. While other G7 countries have faced similar challenges, the unique characteristics of the U.S. economy and policy response have contributed to its relatively stronger inflation performance."
Inflation Comparison

[nous]

Of course there is also this...

https://apnews.com/article/red-sea-houthi-attacks-shipping-inflation-124d5445bec8ce6864112e3095646308

The whole Israel/Palestine issue is disrupting shipping between Europe and Asia. Meanwhile, none of the trade routes between North America and Europe or Asia are similarly threatened.

And then there's also the whole invasion of Ukraine and what it has done to fossil fuel prices in Europe. Puts the whole of the continent at a bit of a disadvantage, and reliant upon the US for raw materials for plastic manufacturing. It's boom time for the Motherfrackers as a result.

Leave it to AI to garbage-in a healthy dose of exceptionalism in its analysis. The finance bros are nothing if not self-congratulatory whenever fortune smiles upon their business wagers.

[wj]

The finance bros are nothing if not self-congratulatory whenever fortune smiles upon their business wagers.

If their bets pay off, it's brilliance on their part. If they don't, it's bad luck.**

** Well, except when they decide it's some kind of conspiracy against them by who-knows-who.