Random notes

Got home at 3am, another Logan airport nightmare.  Lots of catching up to do.  Here are a few items of interest:

1.  Fiscal back-up?  David Beckworth had a piece in the Financial Times, Alphaville:

As noted above, a NGDP growth path target should create its own self-fulling expectations of stable demand growth. One way to reinforce this tendency and insure against central bank incompetence is to have the U.S. Treasury Department provide an automatic backstop for the spending target. This would make the system foolproof.

The way it would work is that once a year the Treasury Department would check to see if the Fed was keeping total dollar spending on target. If it fell below target, the Treasury Department would automatically deposit bonds at the Fed and send the new money created by those deposits directly to households. It would continue to do so until spending got back up to its targeted growth path.

If total dollar spending were above target, the Treasury Department would again deposit bonds at the Fed. But this time the Fed would be required sell the bonds to the public, which would take money out of circulation. The Treasury Department and the Fed would continue doing this until spending fell back down to its targeted growth path.

The Treasury backstop would further reinforce the public’s expectation that the NGDP target would be hit at all times. With this expectation, however, the Treasury Department would rarely if ever need to provide an actual backstop. The target, in other words, would become a self-fulling outcome where the public did the actual heavy lifting by adjusting their spending patterns.

The Treasury backstop would also provide a strong incentive for the Fed to do its job well. The public humiliation of having someone else doing their job would make Fed officials work very hard to stabilize spending the first place. This would reinforce the credibility of the target.

I’m generally skeptical of fiscal stimulus.  But I think this plan might work, with one modification.  If at any time the Treasury had to come in and rescue monetary policy, and the Fed was not 100% out of ammunition at the time, then the entire FOMC would be immediately fired, with no pension, and replaced with new people.  That’s the sort of compromise monetary/fiscal coordination I could support.

What would it mean to not be out of ammo?  In my view it should mean that interest rates on reserves are above negative 10%, and the Fed does not own some marketable investment grade bonds, somewhere in the world, that are being actively traded.  The Treasury may prefer a different set of criteria.  But wherever the Fed’s boundaries are, they need to be clearly spelled out.  Ambiguity hurts the effectiveness of monetary policy.

I agree with David that this plan (with the modification I suggest) would eliminate the need for the Treasury to intervene. The Chuck Norris effect would be enough.  David’s much wiser than me, realizing that self-indulgent tirades against the stupidity of helicopter drops are foolish, and that one can win more friends through policies that provide the reassurance of fiscal backup, without actually needing that backup in 99.999% of the cases.  That’s why he gets invited to write for the New York Times.

I’m very pleased to announce that David Beckworth will be joining the Program on Monetary Policy at Mercatus during the first half of this year.  He has lots of exciting plans, including podcasts involving interviews with monetary policy experts.

2.  Profiles in cowardice:  Chris Christie:

He said on “Morning Joe” afterward that Bush “had a chance to take on Donald Trump on Saturday night, and I don’t think really effectively delivered that punch.”

Could you? I asked Christie.

“Of course I could,” the New Jersey governor responded, mildly annoyed at even being asked about the limits of his sparring talents.

So why hadn’t he?

“I do so at a time and place of my choosing. There’s no need for me to do that now,” Christie said.

The next day, Christie dropped out. And the Republican Party said goodbye to the only presidential candidate with the combination of quick wit, charisma and gravitas necessary to stand up to Trump one on one.

Whenever I don’t know a person’s motives, I always like to assume the best.  Since I don’t know Christie’s motives for not going after Trump, I am going to assume the least bad interpretation, cowardice, and not something far worse, like hoping for a VP slot, or secret sympathy with his demagoguery.  If you think I’m being too kind to Christie, explain why.  If you think I’m being too mean, just go away.

3.  Banning bad commenters:  I’ve always had an uncanny ability to predict a person’s character just based on their name.  I know this seems hard to believe, but you’ll just have to take my word for it.  My “sixth sense” smelled a rat when a commenter named “Shmebulock, Crusher of Pussy” entered the scene a few days ago.  I’ve never banned a commenter in 7 years of blogging, and almost never banned a comment.  But there’s a first time for everything.  This cat smasher had an almost Trump-like mix of boring, juvenile and stupid, which led to him (I’m also pretty good at guessing gender) being awarded the first lifetime ban.  Congratulations to Crusher.  He wasn’t even able to mimic the humor of Ray’s inanities.  Of course there are many others that richly deserve banning, and would be banned in a classier venue than this one.  So consider the banning of Crusher to be a shot across the bow.  Once I’ve taste blood, it might become a habit.  Who knows how many people I’ll ban?

And to any potential commenter who says “You banned Crusher but not X, so you must find X’s racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., acceptable” my only response is . . . actually I can’t give you my response, it’s so rude I’d have to ban myself.


Tags:

 
 
 

46 Responses to “Random notes”

  1. Gravatar of H_WASSHOI (Maekawa Miku-nyan lover) H_WASSHOI (Maekawa Miku-nyan lover)
    25. February 2016 at 11:39

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-online-secrets/201409/internet-trolls-are-narcissists-psychopaths-and-sadists

    http://i.gzn.jp/img/2014/12/10/internet-troll-narcissist-psychopath-sadist/02.png

  2. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    25. February 2016 at 11:51

    “This would make the system foolproof”

    I love foolproof systems. They always work!!

  3. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    25. February 2016 at 12:05

    #1 Good plan with the firing compromise. The jobs of the board are much too secure.

    #2 Christie? VP slot? Trump? With completely different positions on the issues? Whaaaaa? Never gonna happen.

    “I’ve always had an uncanny ability to predict a person’s character just based on their name.”

    -Really? Did you predict mine? You might well have predicted Ray’s.

    #3 I wrote my response to this action in the comments in the last post. Crusher didn’t even have a blog. Neither do Ray or Freedom. Gary does, I think. I have two active ones.

    “had an almost Trump-like mix of boring, juvenile and stupid”

    -Fits Crusher, not Trump.

    “I’m also pretty good at guessing gender”

    -All the regular commentators here are men. This isn’t hard to do.

    “actually I can’t give you my response, it’s so rude I’d have to ban myself”

    -Your actual response was here:

    http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=31413#comment-491791

  4. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    25. February 2016 at 12:07

    You are too nice to Christie, but for completely the wrong reasons.

  5. Gravatar of Britonomist Britonomist
    25. February 2016 at 12:35

    Interesting post by Cochrane that you’ll likely find objectionable: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/negative-rates-and-ftpl.html

  6. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    25. February 2016 at 13:20

    Thanks Britonomist, you won’t be surprised by the comment I left.

  7. Gravatar of Gabe Gabe
    25. February 2016 at 13:22

    I am grateful for not being banned.

  8. Gravatar of Majromax Majromax
    25. February 2016 at 13:39

    @ssumner: You left a comment? As of 4:33pm EST it’s not showing up yet.

    My hunch, however, is that it includes “interest rates are no measure of moentary policy,” “the Wicksellian rate can be zero or negative,” and possibly “the Fed raised interest rates — by its own standard that means the US has all the inflation the Fed desires.”

    I also find “QE is ineffective” to be shortsighted. If central banks can’t generate inflation by buying bonds, then we should be very thankful we’ve found a free way to fund government services!

  9. Gravatar of Scott Freelander Scott Freelander
    25. February 2016 at 16:37

    Scott,

    You’re the most tolerant of comments of anyone I’ve seen. The one you banned was obviously only here to troll, so we lose nothing.

    Major Freedom, with all his tunnel vision, at least seems to believe what he writes.

  10. Gravatar of Randomize Randomize
    25. February 2016 at 16:56

    http://img.epicgifs.net/images/doshow/457JP8VL.jpg

  11. Gravatar of Catherine Catherine
    25. February 2016 at 17:53

    “so rude I’d have to ban myself.”

    Good one!

  12. Gravatar of Aaron Cuevas Aaron Cuevas
    25. February 2016 at 18:31

    Kuddos to Beckworth, he solved the puzzle.

    Stop it with Trump. I don’t want headaches.

  13. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    25. February 2016 at 18:42

    I suspected the cat-crusher was Beefcake The Mighty, in drag. Whatever happened to our fair Beefcake, anyway?

    And is Ray Lopez really just a lonely millennial living in his mom’s basement on the outskirts of Indianapolis?

    Beckworth’s ideas are good, but too complicated. It is simple: FICA tax holidays during recessions. This lowers the cost of employment exactly when needed. The Fed can buy bonds and place them into the Social Security trust funds to make up for lost revenues. That is how you do it, and don’t be shy on the volumes.

    Side note to Scott Sumner: Yes, I am a MM EMH’er.

    But how to explain EMH alongside the abject fear of “terrorists” that seems to define the American voter? This suggests markets can be spooked, or believe in fairy tales.

    This different from saying the facts changed and so the market changed, and so there was a subsequent large decline or increase in asset values, such as post 1990s e-stocks, or house prices. Efficient markets can have swings.

    What I am saying is there is a possibility of markets simply being deluded, and obviously. See “fear of terrorists.”

  14. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    25. February 2016 at 18:51

    Sumner, suffering from jet lag, writes:

    “What would it mean to not be out of ammo” – there’s no reference to “ammo” in the excerpt, and the article is gated, but in any event it’s interest that Sumner now is advocating fiscal stimulus. Question: how is sending money to households any different from tax cuts? It’s not. So 2nd question: if one day the government announced that to reach NGDP there will be no raising of taxes (a tax holiday) until such time NGDP is met, do you think this might cause panic in the markets, or a celebratory shopping spree? Hint: PANIC.

    “Of course (!) there are many (!!) others that richly deserve (!!!) banning, and would be banned in a classier venue than this one. So consider the banning of Crusher to be a shot across the bow.” – that’s strange, I don’t know of a single person other than Crusher who deserves banning, except that other nym that imitated Crusher a while ago (“Beefcake”). Even the racist kook E. Harding is OK, just annoying. But fear not, Sumner has no credibility, though he wishes to become the Robespierre of the blogosphere. This site is his monument, and it will suffer the fate the USSR monument did to Robespierre if he bans me: (Wikipedia) “During the October Revolution and Red Terror, Robespierre found ample praise in the Soviet Union, resulting for example in the construction of two statues of him – one in Saint Petersburg, and another in Moscow. Due to the poor construction of the latter (it was made of tubes and common concrete), it crumbled within three days of its unveiling and was never replaced.”

  15. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    25. February 2016 at 18:54

    Ben, our man Ray speaks the truth. His IP’s from the Philippines. Which both validates his story and shows his technical inexperience, because I would definitely be using Tor in that situation.

    “I suspected the cat-crusher was Beefcake The Mighty, in drag.”

    -Yep. Bingo.

    I’m not a very strong EMHer.

  16. Gravatar of Steve Steve
    25. February 2016 at 21:40

    I think Christie didn’t go after Trump because of the conventional wisdom that Trump can’t win, and the establishment victor would have a cakewalk. But I agree it is really sad that Christie went after Rubio and not Trump…the line “You never have specifics…there he goes again” would have been quite appropriate.

    I wish Rubio would offer Cruz VP or AG, but you’d have to hit fools like Lindsay Graham over the head with a crowbar first…they’d rather lose.

    This election is demoralizing, because there are a lot of candidates with good qualities, but no one is the complete package.

    P.S.
    I think “Crusher” just reincarnated as “Sphincter”. I believe the prediction markets are at “99% Troll” so it is EMH, not ssummer’s uncanny skill.

  17. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    25. February 2016 at 22:52

    Ray Woepez: if your turkeys are large enough to fly and roost in trees, you probably need not worry too much about a coop. My turkeys and guinea hens roost in trees every night. When I get enough birds, they should cover the plantation and help prevent insect infestation. They sell for 180 baht per kilo. The guinea hens are absolutely beautiful, but my turkeys are mostly just white and brown.

  18. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    26. February 2016 at 00:55

    In an effort to actually get some useful information from this site…

    @Benjamin Cole – thanks, I took them out of the coop and just have a ‘lean to’ for rain. Turkeys eat even tree leaves I notice. It’s smart that you let them free-range; but I don’t have that much land. How do you tell if it’s a “tom” or not? Do toms fight like roosters? I suspect so, so cull all but one tom from a harem. Internet says 6 months before you can harvest them.

  19. Gravatar of sdfc sdfc
    26. February 2016 at 03:52

    Sounds like you are getting closer to acknowledging that central bank funded tax cuts are the most efficient form on monetary stimulus. Well done.

  20. Gravatar of paul henri kadjo paul henri kadjo
    26. February 2016 at 04:39

    Scott, you have to see this Cochrane article http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2016/02/negative-rates-and-ftpl.html?spref=tw.

    I think he argues that central banks are so powerless,they can’t create inflation even if they want to and I guess he believes that is the justification for his fiscal theory of the price level.
    Having read your blog for a long time,I worry this will give you a heart attack.

  21. Gravatar of Jose Romeu Robazzi Jose Romeu Robazzi
    26. February 2016 at 04:48

    Aren’t MMers neglecting the power to buy private assets ? buy private debt, buy stocks. That will put money directly in the hands of somebody who may spend it.

  22. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    26. February 2016 at 05:12

    Ray Woepez: gadzooks, for a guy that can make some pretty witty comments about monetarism, you are a million miles away from your element in turkey raising. One does not “harvest” turkeys. And toms court by raising their hind feathers into a fan, and strutting around.

    What type of turkeys do you have?

  23. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    26. February 2016 at 05:18

    BTW to Scott Sumner and all: did anyone notice that David Beckworth’s monetary plan in effect shifts monetary policy power back to the Treasury Department? I have been arguing for years that the Fed should be placed inside the Treasury, and be run by the Treasury secretary, who, of course, would report to the President.

  24. Gravatar of paul henri kadjo paul henri kadjo
    26. February 2016 at 05:46

    oops I actually just realized britonomist linked to the article I sent.Sorry for being repetitive

  25. Gravatar of Patrick R. Sullivan Patrick R. Sullivan
    26. February 2016 at 06:55

    Benjamin, it would be ‘back to the future’;

    http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2014/201444/201444abs.html

    ‘Roosevelt Administration gold policies and New Deal legislation limited the Fed’s ability to conduct an independent monetary policy. The Fed was forced to cooperate with the Treasury in the 1930s, and fully ceded monetary policy to Treasury financing requirements during World War II. Nonetheless, the Fed retained a policy tool in the form of reserve requirements, and from the mid-1930s to 1951, changes in required reserve ratios were the primary means by which the Fed responded to expected inflation. ‘

  26. Gravatar of Gary Anderson Gary Anderson
    26. February 2016 at 07:25

    Christie has gone to Trump functions and they are friends, for 13 years. Christie put friendship above his nation. Oh well.

    So, Scott, Stephen Williamson showed me this chart, which is his way of saying that the banks are healthy and therefore so is the economy. But with inflation running 1.31 percent, surely this lending is not affecting main street. Could be a lot of Euro lending as their banks are in bad shape. It is an illusion of US prosperity to cling to this chart. But Dr Williamson is the Fed practically speaking. http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/economics–politics/forget-keynesianism-and-market-monetarism-new-monetarism-rules-the-federal-reserve?post=86742&page=2 How can there be all this lending with no inflation?

  27. Gravatar of John Thacker John Thacker
    26. February 2016 at 09:55

    Chris Christie just endorsed Trump officially.

  28. Gravatar of Joe Joe
    26. February 2016 at 09:59

    Interesting, I was going to say that Christie probably made the mistake everyone else did: that Trump was a joke and would fade. But I’m hearing that he might be endorsing Trump now? Crazy…

    At least Rubio was able to attack Trump with a smile in last night’s debate. He’s a bit extreme for my taste, but much preferable to Trump as the nominee of a major party. Rubio came off quite well, I thought.

    Jeb’s attacks of Trump turned back on him: making him looking like a nerd getting bullied.

  29. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    26. February 2016 at 10:24

    “He’s a bit extreme for my taste, but much preferable to Trump as the nominee of a major party.”

    -Only if you want America to fight WWIII -and lose.

    https://marcorubio.com/issues-2/marco-rubio-russia-policy-position/

    Same with Christie, but, fortunately, he’s out and just endorsed the Donald.

  30. Gravatar of Joe Leider Joe Leider
    26. February 2016 at 10:49

    E. Harding, maybe I was a little too finessed in my dislike of Rubio. I would support Kasich over any of them (not his hard-money policy, but he seems more genuinely good and accomplished).

    A more muscular approach to Russia (and I’m not keen on this) doesn’t necessarily mean WWIII. Obama could have done more to fill the power vacuum in Syria earlier. It’s a bit like central bank policy – show resolve and end up doing less. Waffle and end up with trillions on your balance sheet.

    In any case, I find Rubio’s policies more palatable than registering all US Muslims, killing the families of terrorists, hunting down and deporting 11 million Mexicans, building a big, beautiful wall on our southern border and raising tariffs to 40% or whatever Trump wants.

    I also easily imagine someone as thin-skinned as Trump vying for a new alien and sedition act.

    Not pleasant at all…

  31. Gravatar of TravisV TravisV
    26. February 2016 at 10:58

    Rate-Hike Odds Surge To Highest Since January

    Rear-view mirror……

    “Memo to Yellen: Fed Getting Desired Inflation Ahead of Forecast”

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-26/memo-to-yellen-fed-getting-desired-inflation-ahead-of-forecast

  32. Gravatar of TravisV TravisV
    26. February 2016 at 11:12

    Joe Leider,

    Excellent thoughts on Trump! Glad to hear from you.

  33. Gravatar of TravisV TravisV
    26. February 2016 at 11:33

    Impressive new analysis by Yglesias:

    http://www.vox.com/2016/2/25/11113122/bernie-sanders-economic-growth

    “Have top Democrats given up too soon on boosting economic growth?”

  34. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    26. February 2016 at 11:52

    “In any case, I find Rubio’s policies more palatable than registering all US Muslims, killing the families of terrorists, hunting down and deporting 11 million Mexicans, building a big, beautiful wall on our southern border and raising tariffs to 40% or whatever Trump wants.”

    -You do realize that, given NSA, a Muslim registry almost certainly exists? Killing families of terrorists is an excellent idea; the militant might not care about his life, but may well care about those he knows closest. I like serious policies to reduce illegal immigration, and Trump offers them.

    Trump’s Chinese tariff idea is another subsidy to his base; it’s just another thing that politicians do.

    Rubio’s policy on Russia requires him having taken a bottle of crazy pills to have accepted the premises behind it and another bottle of crazy pills for him to ignore its internal contradictions and the failure of its premises to support it. Personally, I don’t like having a President who takes crazy pills, especially ones as strong as the ones Rubio’s taking. So far, I haven’t seen any evidence of Trump taking crazy pills, only nonsense pills and memory loss pills.

  35. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    26. February 2016 at 11:56

    “Obama could have done more to fill the power vacuum in Syria earlier. It’s a bit like central bank policy – show resolve and end up doing less. Waffle and end up with trillions on your balance sheet.”

    -Agreed, but I think Obama’s a smart guy, and most of what’s going on in Libya, Iraq, and Syria now is intentional.

  36. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    26. February 2016 at 13:09

    E. Harding, You said:

    “#2 Christie? VP slot? Trump? With completely different positions on the issues? Whaaaaa? Never gonna happen.”

    You do know that Christie just endorsed Trump? And do you really think Trump has “positions on the issues”? Don’t make me laugh, he’s a con man who will do and say anything to get people to vote for him. If he thought bringing back WWII-style concentration camps would win votes, then he’d advocate them. I find it completely comical that Trump supporters believe he has positions on the issues. How hard is it to see when someone is pulling your leg?????

    You said in response to me:

    ““I’ve always had an uncanny ability to predict a person’s character just based on their name.”

    -Really? Did you predict mine? You might well have predicted Ray’s.”

    Oops, I guess it’s really hard for some people to tell when someone is pulling their leg.

  37. Gravatar of SG SG
    26. February 2016 at 13:39

    @ssumner

    Don’t worry, I thought your joke about predicting a person’s character based on their name was hilarious.

    It’s funny how it’s possible for some people to follow a blog for years without actually reading it.

  38. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    26. February 2016 at 13:48

    “You do know that Christie just endorsed Trump?”

    -Doesn’t mean he’d ever be anyone’s VP pick.

    “If he thought bringing back WWII-style concentration camps would win votes, then he’d advocate them.”

    -Clearly the case for Marco, except with him, it’s not votes, it’s establishment support. He’d gladly gas all the the non-Hispanic White gentiles if his Jewish backers (P. Singer, N. Braman, etc.) told him to. Cruz did those fraudulent “Voting Violation” Iowa mailers, so he’s a pretty dishonest guy too, but less coherent on policy than the Donald.

    Besides, if a politician can’t do and say anything to get people to vote for him, “why bother having a democracy”?

    BTW, telling South Carolina Republicans what he did about Bush and Iraq probably lost him five percentage points’ worth of votes. Trump isn’t trying to appease every side.

  39. Gravatar of Joe Joe
    26. February 2016 at 14:09

    E. Harding – how do you think the propaganda will play out if America starts targeting completely innocent people just because they are related to terrorists? Somehow I don’t see that going down very well.

    And calling Trump’s policies towards illegal immigrants serious is laughable. There’s no way a massive wall is going up that Mexico pays for. And there’s no way the government will round up 11 million people and deport all of them (unless America takes a really dark turn somewhere).

    Free immigration, free trade!

  40. Gravatar of SG SG
    26. February 2016 at 14:20

    Scott,

    On a side-note, you may have heard that Christina Romer has thrashed the incompetent economic “analysis” of Gerald Friedman – the economist who hyped up Sanders policies by claiming they would cause 5% RGDP growth and lead to 2% unemployment.

    https://evaluationoffriedman.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/romer-and-romer-evaluation-of-friedman1.pdf

    But what I particularly liked was the following:

    “Massive demand-side stimulus in an economy closing in on its productive capacity would have one of two effects. First—and most likely—it would lead the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, offsetting as well as it could the expansionary effects of the stimulus. Output would rise little, and the main effects would be on interest rates and on the composition of output between the components stimulated by the fiscal expansion and the components restrained by higher interest rates. Second, if the Federal Reserve did not respond, the result would be inflation. And if the stimulus were large enough to try to push the economy 10%, 20%, or more above its productive capacity, the inflation would be substantial.”

    I’m still very sad that Obama never appointed Christy Romer to the Fed.

  41. Gravatar of Dtoh Dtoh
    26. February 2016 at 14:47

    @benjamin cole
    Poultry? Hmmm I go for the quadrupeds. My vast Thai livestock holdings consist of a kwai and 3 cows

  42. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    26. February 2016 at 15:14

    Joe, if Trump wins, the wall is going up, and Mexico’s paying for it. Terrorists will be disincentivized. Operation Wetback will be re-implemented.

    As Nick Rowe says, importing people is not like importing goods. Higher prices on Chinese-made goods are a small price to pay for cooperation with Russia on Syria, a continued opening up with Cuba, a conservative Scalia replacement, and a restoration of masculinity to the White House-combined!

  43. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    26. February 2016 at 18:48

    @B. Cole – of course you harvest turkeys, or cull, or slaughter. I’m not raising them for pets, maybe you are… I have no idea what kind of turkeys they are…I bought all three for $7 each and they are white and black. Tell me more turkey tips here: raylopez 88 at gmail dot com

    @Dtoh – ah yes, the buy one and give every other offspring to caretaker scheme, popular in the Philippines to. We own a water buffalo (used in rice fields to plow) on that basis.

  44. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    27. February 2016 at 07:27

    Thanks SG, I’ll do a post.

  45. Gravatar of Joe Joe
    27. February 2016 at 11:18

    TravisV, thanks! Fortunately my blog led to some interesting analytics projects. Unfortunately I didn’t have any more time to blog! I’ll hopefully get back to it soon. For now I’ll hang out on Prof Sumner’s blog, hoping I’m not the second one banned 😉

  46. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    28. February 2016 at 17:38

    Christie: Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, who writes a neo-con / mainstream conservative column called “Right Turn” was REALLY heartbroken by Christie’s endorsement. I think Jen is a war monger, and that her criticisms are often off mark, but she’s pretty consistent for going after the right-wing talk show hosts, and Beltway scam artists like the Heritage Foundation (I agree w/ her on all that). But she really let Christie have it: a man she knows personally I guess. Her twitter feed was going strong too. She basically said “You’re dead to me now.” Also Levin got into a bit of a pissing contest with Mark Levin (who also hates Trump… now anyway), over her calling him out for supporting him for 6 months or so. She was trying to lay blame at the feet of those who deserve it. (She probably does too to some extent).

    And well to the right of Jen, is RedState.com and Erick Erickson and his new blog “The Resurgent.” Most of the commenters and writers on those two sites have basically taken a blood oath to NOT support Trump under any circumstances. Now their reasons are actually mostly things I agree with… except for their Planned Parenthood derangement syndrome (they don’t care about anything else PP does for women (other than abortions), PP is Satan’s Spawn to that crowd). But other than PP, they basically agree with Jen: he’s a know-nothing, fascist, demagogue clown.

    What’s interesting is EE & co, are VERY anti-illegal alien, but to their credit, they do identify his “Crusher of Pussy” character, and thus will not support him. One writer there even suggested that HRC would be less bad than Trump (which I never thought I’d see!)… and suggested that “slow decline” under HRC would be better than dramatic collapse under Trump. He says he has his wife and kids to think about! Lol. Let’s hope that’s some of their usual hyperbole, but in the case of Trump… Hmmmm, it’s hard to say.

    It’s been fun for me to read over there because they’re basically convinced that the GOP is now doomed (to lose the WH to the dems, but also the senate, and perhaps even the house) and they’re just inventing strategies to hold a little of the gains they’ve made recently, and to be able to live with themselves. They’d JUMP at the chance to vote a 3rd party conservative. What that word… Schadenfreude.

    The thing is, for as bad as Trump is… I look at a guy like Glenn Beck: fasting for Cruz. Or Erickson himself, and his high and mighty “Christian values” BS (He wrote one today saying Christians should be ashamed of themselves for supporting Trump), and it’s no wonder to me what happened to the GOP. THESE are the people steering conservative opinions for the last dozen years??? They’re the source of all this purity BS and “no compromise” attitude. Why should we be surprised? Cynics from top to bottom, actively promoting the dumbing down of their base.

    Now all that said, I’m still pulling for Trump in the primary. The sooner we put a stake through the heart of the GOP the better. Let other parties rise in it’s place.

Leave a Reply