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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – June 11, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

 

Strategic Political Economy

What Happens When Corporations are Taxed at 50% – Like Before the Reagan Revolution?

Thom Hartmann, June 5, 2023 [DailyKos]

The main benefit of raising the top personal income tax bracket back up to nosebleed levels is that it causes CEOs and business owners (people who can essentially determine their own pay) to restrain themselves from draining the corporate coffers just to buy a new super-yacht, jet, private island, or a fourth 70-room mansion in the Swiss Alps.

He had a reason for keeping those classified documents and it wasn’t for “show and tell” It’s true, as always, that Trump is such a psychological train wreck that it’s not hard to imagine that he stuffed classified documents into boxes on the regular without thinking about it because he’s a disorganized mess. But that’s just too easy. There are other aspects of Trump’s personality that make it much more likely that he was thinking about making some deals. This piece by Fintan O’Toole in the NYRB (subc. only) says it all: Secrets are a kind of currency. They can be hoarded, but if kept for too long they lose their value. Like all currencies, they must, sooner or later, be used in a transaction—sold to the highest bidder or bartered as a favor for which another favor will be returned. To see the full scale of Donald Trump’s betrayal of his country, it is necessary to start with this reality. He kept intelligence documents because, at some point, those secrets could be used in a transaction. What he was stockpiling were the materials of treason.

You all have a nice day now,

Stochastic terrorism and plausible deniability Once upon a time, Republicans wanted to learn to “speak like Newt.” Gingrich. These days, they might aspire to speak like Trump. Many have learned without a lot of trouble how to stoke stochastic terrorism with plausible deniability. Bill Kristol points to a Joe Klein article on how Trump’s close-up magic is done: He has a preternatural ability to bend the law to the point of breaking, but he never cracks it in two. He never says to the January 6 crowd: Go on down to the Capitol and overthrow the government. He says to the Proud Boys: “Stand back and stand by.” Stand Back absolves him of a truckload of evil intent. Stand By means: ignore the first part. He is a genius at the micro-laser-slicing of baloney, tip-toeing the rhetorical tightrope. And if you want to charge him with something that isn’t a flat-out doozy: advantage Trump. Don’t get cocky. Remember when they called Bill Clinton “Slick Willy”? He’s got nothin’ on Trump. He’s a master. And his followers will just brush off whatever he’s done. Because the facts don’t matter.

Remember January 6th! True to form, the former president set out to rally his foot soldiers by branding Thursday’s 37-count federal indictment against him, for his actions, as an attack on them. That is, to personalize it. “In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you — and I’m just standing in their way,” Donald Trump told the convention of Georgia Republicans in Columbus, Ga. on Saturday. Right. And I’m still waiting for Barack Obama’s jack-booted thugs to kick in my door and confiscate my guns, as I was promised over a decade ago. The indictment is “ridiculous and baseless,” the most “horrific” abuse of power “in the history of our country,” so “many people have said,” Trump droned. “The Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Injustice” has engaged in “vicious persecution,” a “travesty of justice.” Blah, blah, blah. “I will prevent World War III. … Without me, it will happen,” Trump told them.

As wildfire smoke hit the East Coast, Fox News claimed it was “perfectly healthy” to breathe.

The post The Right-Wing War on Clean Air appeared first on The Intercept.

I was on a one year sabbatical leave at Cambridge University, King’s College by invitation of Professor Wynne Godley in the year 1988/89. Seriously speaking I was surprised, because except for Godley there were only few economists left at the Faculty, who called him-/herself Keynesian. The old guard of Keynes’ disciples had disappeared: Joan Robinson […]

MARK Hughes, the founder of the Mark Hughes Foundation (MHF), paid a recent visit to the North Coast Cancer Institute. Hughes, a former Newcastle Knights and NSW Origin rugby league player, visited the local Cancer Institute with Professor Mike Fay, MHF Chair and Centre Director, meeting MHF Brain Cancer Care Coordinator (BCCC) Nicole Allen, patients...

The post Mark Hughes Foundation representatives visit Coffs Harbour appeared first on News Of The Area.

LIPMAN, the NSW-based construction company with a long and proud history of working in the Mid North Coast, has won three awards at the 2023 Master Builders Association (MBA) Northern Region Building Awards. “We are thrilled to have been considered for three awards this year,” Darren Ferguson, Region Manager, North Coast (Lipman) told News Of...

The post Coffs Harbour projects by Lipman win 2023 Northern Regions Building Awards appeared first on News Of The Area.

FUNDS raised at the LifeWalk 2023 sponsored walk on Saturday 3 June have put the SleepBus for Coffs Harbour project’s goal of raising $100,000 within sight. The SleepBus project was founded by advocate for the homeless Doris Rake (Cowan) and is enthusiastically supported by LifeHouse Care, who run LIfeWalk. Advertise with News of The Area...

The post LifeWalk fundraiser boosts SleepBus project for Coffs Harbour appeared first on News Of The Area.

THE Legacy Centenary Torch Relay 2023, the flagship event for the organisation’s anniversary marking 100 years of service to those who have sacrificed, arrives in Coffs Harbour on Friday 30 June and Coffs Coast Legacy has been planning a suitably celebratory occasion. Beginning in Pozieres, France in the lead up to ANZAC Day in 2023,...

The post The Legacy Centenary Torch Relay 2023 is coming to Coffs Harbour appeared first on News Of The Area.

TWO Coffs Coast students received scholarships at the ‘2023 Proudly Public!’ Awards night at Sydney Town Hall on Monday, May 29. They were among over 700 public school students and educators from across Australia to receive scholarships administered by the Public Education Foundation (PEF) in 2023. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth...

The post Coffs Coast students awarded for excellence in public education appeared first on News Of The Area.

LOGGING in native forest in Orara East State Forest was halted by protesters on Wednesday morning, June 6. A 55-year-old ‘forest defender’ suspended herself 30 metres high in a tree-sit from ropes strung across the only entrance to the forest, blocking all trucks, vehicles and workers from logging the forest. Advertise with News of The...

The post Protester halts logging in Orara East State Forest appeared first on News Of The Area.

The reviews for HBM are coming in and, so far, have been enormously positive ...

New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival is running through June 18th. The festival (co-founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff in 2001) features a variety of media platforms, including film, TV, music, audio storytelling, games, and XR. I’m doing virtual coverage; as much as I’d love to be skipping down the streets of my birth city (well…technically Queens), physical mobility issues have made travel too uncomfortable. At any rate, I’ll be sharing reviews over the next couple weeks. The good news is that you can virtually attend as well-the festival is offering select titles via the “Tribeca at Home” online portal. Check out the website for more info. Against All Enemies (U.S.) *** – In a post examining reaction from the Right when news broke this week that ex-president Trump was being indicted by federal prosecutors for alleged mishandling of classified documents, Digby included this disturbing tidbit: Take this seriously. “Perimeter probe”: Higgins thinks indictment precedes bigger attack. “rPOTUS”: “real POTUS,” Trump.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

I was going to Fisk (an old blogging term) this WSJ editorial but I see that James Joyner did it already so I don’t have to. Seriously, it’s completely daft and a low point for the WSJ editorial page and that’s saying something. Never, ever let them forget this the next time they start hippie bashing over national security. The hypocrisy has never been so overwhelming. Here’s Joyner: That the WSJ editorial page tends toward reflexive fealty to Republican causes is no secret. But the Editorial Board should be ashamed of its latest effort. Already, this is ominous. They’re not only insinuating that violence is likely to occur but blaming the decision to indict a person for serious crimes, not the environment created by the individual under indictment. The Justice Department is not Joe Biden’s; it’s ours. We have not, in modern history, had a former President run for re-election after having been defeated.

Garth Brooks is selling Bud Light at his bar and says that the boycotters are assholes. The right is now calling for a boycott against Garth Brooks. Of course. (Read the comments to this…) Look who’s making moral judgments about Garth Brooks: I know, I know. Garth does a great version of a Billy Joel song called “Shameless” and I think it’s called for right now:

I realized, while watching the semi-final at Roland Garros between Djokovic and Alcaraz, that I have lived a uniquely blessed and cursed life. My life has coincided with the best years of humanity, and I have played a unique but ultimately losing role in the two great crises of our age: the collapse of the … Continue reading "My Blessed and Cursed Life"

Secrets are a kind of currency. They can be hoarded, but if kept for too long they lose their value. Like all currencies, they must, sooner or later, be used in a transaction—sold to the highest bidder or bartered as a favor for which another favor will be returned. To see the full scale of […]

The post The Ultimate Deal appeared first on The New York Review of Books.

Apparently, some people think that one of the unnamed recipients of classified information in the Trump indictment was Kid Rock. It’s because of this interview from 2022 on Tucker Carlson’s show. But the event happened in 2017 so it was when Trump was president and has nothing to do with this indictment. He does show just how cavalier he always was with government secrets. In the 2022 interview, Rock said the embattled former business mogul asked him for assistance when writing a tweet about ISIS and probed the rocker on how he would handle North Korea – showing him maps in the Oval Office. A 52-year-old Rock – whose real name is Bob Ritchie – is not the mystery person mentioned in the indictment, though the stories he told to Carlson do call into question Trump’s handling of top secret material. Rock recalled one session with Trump when the now ex-president ‘ended the caliphate,’ a reference to the Islamic State terror group that took over parts of Iraq.  ‘He wanted to put out a tweet.

Military activities generate uncounted but large amounts of greenhouse gas. Ocean temperatures hit all-time peak in April. Victoria to end logging of native forests. And, do your personal CO2 emissions influence your life expectancy? Military greenhouse gas emissions Under pressure from the USA, the Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in 1997, excluded military activities from nations’ mandatory Continue reading »