1.31 The Polar Vortex comes to New York
1.31 George Will in the Post: “[Klobuchar‘s] special strength, however, is her temperament. Baseball, it has been said, is not a game you can play with your teeth clenched. That is also true of politics, another day-by-day game with a long season. It requires an emotional equipoise, a blend of relaxation and concentration, stamina leavened by cheerfulness. Klobuchar laughs easily and often. If the nation wants an angry president, it can pick from the many seething Democratic aspirants, or it can keep the president. If, however, it would like someone to lead a fatigued nation in a long exhale, it can pick her.”
1.31 Axios: Coups are becoming far rarer — particularly in Latin America, where there hasn’t even been an attempt in nearly a decade, according to data compiled by Jonathan Powell of the University of Central Florida and Clayton Thyne of the University of Kentucky. Coups have become almost extinct in Latin America since the end of the Cold War,” Powell says. They’re also becoming extremely rare in Africa.
1.30 Polar Vortex in the midwest. Chicago is -19. Snow squall zips up the Hudson
1.29 Robert Samuelson in the Post: “Government priorities have shifted dramatically from defense to health care and retirement. Though well known, the scale of this transformation is still startling. In 1969, defense represented 45 percent of federal outlays; Social Security and health benefits were 19 percent. For 2019, defense’s share is 15 percent and the health care/Social Security share is 49 percent. By 2029, the defense share is projected at 11 percent, the health care/retiree share at 56 percent.”
1.29 Axios: “70% of Americans think the economic system is skewed toward the wealthy and the government should do more to fix it — and they’re ready to vote for a 2020 candidate who agrees, according to a new Axios/SurveyMonkey survey. Why it matters, from Axios’ Dave Lawler: That’s a big number. It bolsters Elizabeth Warren‘s “wealth tax” focus, and gives you a sense of where the 2020 conversation is going. By the numbers: 89% of Democrats say economic unfairness that favors the wealthy is a bigger problem than overregulation; 68% of independents agree; But 77% of Republicans say overregulation of the free market is a bigger problem than economic unfairness.”
1.28 Michael Gerson in the Post: “Who can take Trump seriously as a manager? He has a talent for weeding out the talented and responsible. He is a world-class nepotist. He is incapable of delegation or of taking conflicting advice. He is unreliable in dealing with his allies. He is capable of taking several conflicting policy views on the same topic — be it health care, or the “dreamers,” or gun control — in a matter of days or hours. He often has no clear goals. He has no attention span and is consistently ignorant of details. He is prone to vicious and public abuse of rivals and of employees.”
1.28 Dr. Strongwater: “You’re going to live as long as everybody else.”
1.27 Kamala Harris announces that she is running for president: “America, we are better than this.”
1.26 Vice
1.25 Trump caves, reopens the government without any money for a wall
1.25 Nathan Gardels in the Post: “The paradox that progressives like Ocasio-Cortez need to face is that the more dynamic this new economy becomes, the stronger a redefined social contract must be to cope with the gaps in wealth and power that are emerging. Fixating on the idea of redistributing wealth through the state after it is already created is not only old hat, but in and of itself will not significantly close the social chasm as it did in earlier times. Progressives should instead focus on enhancing assets of the less well-off in the first instance instead of trying to heal inequality by focusing on redistributing the wealth of others with better opportunities after the fact. Since income through employment will diminish and perhaps even largely disappear where tasks are routinized, more of people’s incomes in the decades ahead should be drawn from an ownership stake in the robots and systems that displace them. All working-age citizens should hold an equity share in the growing wealth of companies where intelligent machines drive productivity gains. One way this can be done is through national savings accounts, in which all can participate, that are invested in mutual-fund type instruments mixed with diversified venture capital pools. Some, like former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, go further. He proposes a “dividend” for all citizens, established by providing them with a share of initial public offerings in the stock market, especially from companies that commercialize publicly funded research and development. And there are many other ways to supplement such schemes. One can envision, to take but one example, a distributed share in ownership of self-driving Uber-like services for residents of the communities where they operate, self-administered through blockchain technology. Everyone online should also be compensated with royalty payments by the large information conglomerates that use their personal data. If the greatest social fracture is between those who own capital and those who have to live off labor alone, then the answer to inequality is augmenting the capital of those who have gotten the short end of the stick. That suggests the primary policy response to inequality in the future economy should be fostering “universal basic capital” instead of a relying mostly on transfer payments of redistributed wealth. Increasingly, a return on capital ought to supplant sole dependence on wages and salaries. In short, the best way to deal with inequality is to spread the equity around. Instead of paying exorbitant taxes to fund the income of others, everyone would, in effect, be paying themselves.”
1.25 Washington Post: “Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee will release a report today finding that Americans have fewer people around to help provide care as they age compared with two decades ago. It says Medicare and Medicaid spending projections may be too low because they fail to take into account the declining social networks of aging baby boomers. The study found adults from ages 61 to 63 are now less likely to be in close geographical proximity to their loved ones. Seventy-five percent were married or cohabitating in 1994, compared with 69 percent in 1994. The share of adults attending church at least three times a month fell from 56 percent to 41 percent, and the share of those with a child living within 10 miles fell from 68 percent to 55 percent during the same time frame. The report also found declines in the share of adults with a good friend or a relative living in their neighborhood. This weakened network could translate to a heavier burden on Medicaid and Medicare if more adults seek formal paid rehabilitation, long-term care and hospice services as a result, the report says. “That generation is going to have many fewer friends and children and spouses and people from church to care for them as they get old,” said Robert Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard University.”
1.25 Tom Verducci in si.com: “There is no better example of how a team leverages the gig economy than the Los Angeles Dodgers. They have won two consecutive National League pennants without any player starting 140 games in a season and without any pitcher throwing more than 175 innings in a season. In five offseasons under Andrew Friedman, they have not signed any of the 20 free agents who signed for more than $80 million. What they have done best is to tap into a growing supply of players to divide up the work, especially by leveraging the 10-day DL to rotate players. Only six teams in Dodgers history used more than 50 players to get through a season. Four of those six teams occurred in the past four years: 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018—all four seasons under Friedman. And in each of those past four seasons the Dodgers won the NL West and drew more than 3.7 million people. Disruptive and successful, the Dodgers are the Uber of Major League Baseball. They are masters of the growing gig economy.”
1.25 Roger Stone indicted
1.24 Warriors skip White House, visit Obama
1.24 White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett on the impact of the government shutdown on the growth rate of the economy: “If it extended for the whole quarter, and given the fact that the first quarter [growth rate] tends to be low because of residual seasonality, then you could end up with a number very close to zero in the first quarter.”
1.24 Sen. Michael Bennet: “How ludicrous it is that this government is shut down over a promise the president of the United States couldn’t keep! And that America is not interested in having him keep. This idea that he was going to build a medieval wall across the southern border of Texas, take it from the farmers and ranchers that were there, and have the Mexicans pay for it isn’t true. That’s why we’re here.”
1.23 George Will in the Post: “Back in the day, small rural airports had textile windsocks, simple and empty things that indicated which way the wind was blowing. The ubiquitous Sen. Lindsey O. Graham has become a political windsock, and as such, he — more than the sturdy, substantial elephant — is emblematic of his party today. When in 1994, Graham, a South Carolina Republican, first ran for Congress, he promised to be “one less vote for an agenda that makes you want to throw up.” A quarter-century later, Graham himself is a gastrointestinal challenge.”
1.23 Luke Savage in Jacobin: “It says a great deal about the state of American liberalism that a screenwriter best known for crafting middlebrow dramas famous for their circuitous dialogue remains a house intellectual — none of it good. Perhaps better than any other cultural artifact, Sorkin’s The West Wing chronicled the moral and intellectual decline of a post–New Deal Democratic Party, reveling in its shift to a vacuous center characterized by deficit hawkishness, technocratic proceduralism, and smirking, credential-obsessive Ivy League pretension. Serving as a morale booster for Bush-era liberals, the saga of the fictional Bartlett administration ultimately reflected and informed the politics of the Obama presidency and the world views of some of its most influential partisans and operatives. Its absurdity notwithstanding, the West Wing creator’s patronizing intervention is yet a further illustration of how deeply embedded the discredited politics of the 1990s remain in the liberal imagination, even — especially — amid the ongoing nightmare of the Trump presidency. In no more than thirty seconds, Sorkin’s flourish managed to evoke virtually everything wrong with DNC liberalism in the twenty-first century: from its reflexive condescension toward the young and the vulnerable (note the pejorative reference to “transgender bathrooms”) to the various ways it fetishizes personality over program, delights in punching left, and elevates intelligence over ideology.”
1.23 The United States has more guns than people, and almost 40,000 people died of gun violence in 2017 — the highest level in half a century. Nearly two-thirds of gun deaths are self-inflicted; according to the gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety, “The U.S. gun suicide rate is eight times that of other high-income countries.” Meanwhile, “the U.S. gun homicide rate is 25 times that of other high-income countries.” Citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the group notes that “firearms are the second leading cause of death for American children and teens.”
1.23 Pelosi refused Trump access to the Capitol to deliver the State of the Union address
1.23 Washington Post: Sobering quotes from the National Intelligence Survey:
1. “Traditional adversaries will continue attempts to gain and assert influence, taking advantage of changing conditions in the international environment — including the weakening of the post-WWII international order and dominance of Western democratic ideals, increasingly isolationist tendencies in the West, and shifts in the global economy.”
2. “Russian efforts to increase its influence and authority are likely to continue and may conflict with U.S. goals and priorities in multiple regions.”
3. “No longer a solely U.S. domain, the democratization of space poses significant challenges for the United States. . . . Russia and China will continue to pursue a full range of anti-satellite weapons as a means to reduce U.S. military effectiveness and overall security. I
4. “The ability of individuals and groups to have a larger impact than ever before—politically, militarily, economically, and ideologically—is undermining traditional institutions.
5. “Increasing migration and urbanization of populations are further straining the capacities of governments around the world and are likely to result in further fracturing of societies, potentially creating breeding grounds for radicalization. Pressure points include growing influxes of migrants, refugees, and internally displaced persons fleeing conflict zones; areas of intense economic or other resource scarcity; and areas threatened by climate changes, infectious disease outbreaks, or transnational criminal organizations.
6. “Advances in nano- and bio-technologies have the potential to cure diseases and modify human performance, but without common ethical standards and shared interests to govern these developments, they have the potential to pose significant threats to U.S. interests and security. In addition, the development and spread of such technologies remain uneven, increasing the potential to drastically widen the divide between so-called ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’”
7. “Despite growing awareness of cyber threats and improving cyber defenses, nearly all information, communication networks, and systems will be at risk for years to come.”
8. “Many adversaries continue to pursue capabilities to inflict catastrophic damage to U.S. interests through the acquisition and use of [weapons of mass destruction].”
9. “Continued federal budget uncertainty strains the [intelligence community’s] ability to make deliberative and responsive resource decisions.”
10. “There will likely be demand for greater intelligence support to domestic security, driven in part by concerns over the threat of terrorism, the threat posed by transnational illicit drug and human trafficking networks, and the threat to U.S. critical infrastructure. Intelligence support to counter these threats must be conducted … with adequate protection for civil liberties and privacy.”
1.22 Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez and Roy Halliday are elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Fun Fact #1: Rivera pitched the ninth inning more times (981) than any pitcher in any inning since 1908, and it’s not even close. (Second place: Nolan Ryan, with 774 times pitching the first inning). Fun Fact #2: Rivera faced 527 batters in the postseason. Fewer men scored an earned run off Rivera in the postseason than have walked on the moon.
1.22 Albany
1.22 Sebastian Buckup, the director of programming at Davos, addressing The theme of this year’s conference “Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”: we live in “an era of fortresses and walls. . . . If we only respond to an accelerating world by reinforcing walls, we risk ending up trapped in our fortresses. However, if we respond to an accelerating world by trying not to order it, we then surrender to chaos. … New powers, problems, and technological possibilities are pushing hard against structures that were built for other purposes and other times. We need a new architecture—but where to start?”
1.22 Oxfam found that last year just 26 people owned the same amount of wealth as the poorest 3.8 billion people. This figure is down from 43 the year before. The organization’s report, The Public Good or Private Wealth?, published Sunday, found that the wealth of billionaires has increased by $900 billion in the last year, or $2.5 billion a day. This bonanza has not been felt by the poorest half of the world, which saw its wealth decline by 11 percent.
