President Donald Trump

Remember when trump was supposed to be good for the economy? Good times.

Consumer confidence dropping low seems like a death's knell for any optimistic takes on Trump's economy.

Which body in the US issues information about the economy used by the major media outlets? The Treasury?

BLS (bureau of labor statistics) is under the department of labor and is a primary source.

Headline inflation stats, unemployment and so on are published by them.

GDP and trade data come from BEA (bureau of economic analysis) which is under the department of commerce

1. Abolish the department of education
2. Deport people cuz reasons
3. Get rid of child labor laws so fields can be picked
4. Bring back measles

MAGA policy is truly regressing to the good ol days huh

Sound vulnerable to me.

The funniest part of this is trump saying you shouldn’t rush to buy a car now cuz after tariffs when prices are up the economy will be BOOMING

Thanks for this, shitheads

White grievance was really this important for you? You couldn’t at least wait for a klan leader who wouldn’t tank the economy for absolutely no reason?

Something like this was expected to some degree, Trump campaigned transparently about this and it was his greatest flaw for some of us

After all this is what we would expect for trade from a Sanders presidency, ofc it's going to be painful.

Now, there is a chance to make up for those unforced tariff errors through massive deregulation and by passing smart bills in reconciliation.

But even if the trump admin has rushed a lot of executive actions much more than expected, it isn't acting fast and powerfully about deregulation, and that's scary. Not sure if they are waiting for some SCOTUS decisions before going allin on deregulation or if it is just incompetence.

As for smart bills in reconciliation, the tiny house majority that includes some really crazy people doesn't justify keeping hopes too high.

Making the round on rightwing, libertarian leaning twitter

With regards to (4.), although RFK jr. is ... questionable at best with his rhetoric regarding vaccines it is a bit disingenuous to insinuate (?) the measles issue in Texas is due to MAGA policy. Anti vaccine ideas/feelings and distrust of science has been on the rise for a couple decades and covid certainly only exacerbated those feelings of distrust. Had Kamala or any other person been elected president the outbreak in Texas likely would have occurred regardless of current MAGA policies/RFK jr. They are certainly somewhat related, but it is not solely their (MAGA) fault at all.

Would you describe your political ideology as mostly a libertarian one, Luciom?

No, it definitey isn't.

RFKj was one of the top spreaders of disinfromation regarding vaccines and covid in general during that time. He is the MAGA appointee now. This is explicitly MAGA rhetoric and policy at this point.

Not, solely, but primarily BY FAR.

And the big difference is that Kamala or nearly any other person that is non-MAGA would have react in ways to control it, not EXACERBATE it. I usually agree with your posts, but I think this one is pretty far off base.

Nice. Gas up 30 cents overnight

Thanks Donnie the Econ hero

Oh there was supposed to be a twitter video in that post

https://x.com/yeahshorebud/status/190568...

/

I self-identify as a rightwing pragmatist libertarian to use modern labeling, i am just a classic liberal + no state paternalism & and no state morality enforcement kind of person.

Afaik that outbreak was caused by a cluster of unvaccinated kids because of religious exemptions, and afaik religious exemptions are mandatory under the (state) constitution of most states so anyway ascribing that to current politics (or claiming it can be solved by policy) is totally in bad faith.

Measles vaccine is already mandatory in schools in all states afaik, but exemptions are constitutionally mandated as well, there is no policy fix legally available no matter ideologies or preferences.

I don't disagree with you. I am just stating that the measles outbreak in Texas would have occurred even if Kamala was elected president. That is it. I'll reiterate that I agree RFKjr and MAGA policies influence antivaccine stance and exacerbate the issue, but this distrust of science/vaccines has been occurring and on the rise since 1998 when Andrew Wakefield published his article on vaccines and autism. Obviously his article was completely wrong, but it had a profound impact on the populace's feelings towards vaccines regardless of whether the article's contents were accurate or not. I also agree that had another president been elected they (as in literally anyone else) would have done a better job at curbing the damage and likely would have provided sound medical advice and information. I am specifically trying to state that MAGA policy/personnel are not -solely- responsible for this occurring even if they have a lot of influence currently (and it will get worse).

Thanks for answering my question. What do you think the role of government should be? What should a government's main responsibilities be to its people and what general purposes should it serve?

If that was indeed all you'd said, I wouldn't have replied. But, I can agree with this amendment, even if I don't think it has any particular importance.

protect people and their property from violence (domestic or external) is the main responsibility. that's that basic reason not to be anarchist, because an actual power vacuum never lasts so at the end some state like entity with monopoly (or anyway a big grip) on violence always exists no matter your preferences, so it better be a state you create for the purpose and keep limited as much as you can.

then given the complexities of human societies, other stuff which doesn't work with private markets if not backed by state violence, so contract enforcement and the like.

and some public ownership of land for common use makes practical sense from streets to infrastructure.

then there is stuff linked to the currency, radio waves and so on.

that should basically be it ideally.

so army, police, judges, diplomatic missions, streets, some infrastructure.

the only significant missing part is protection of minors or adults incapable of legal capacity which is a terribly complicated topic where the state should have some power but very carefully crafted to avoid abuses.

you can add a layer of basic financial guarantees in very rich societies just to reduce the probability of riots (so It would be kinda an expense to defend people and property from violence) but it's not mandatory.

in general the idea would be the state as a referee, not a player at the game of life.

state never acting with "goals" for society, state violence never being the tool for any subset of the population to achieve their preferences in life at the expenses of others.

the state out of all societal 0 sum games as much as possible.

things were fairly similar to what I ask in the late 19th century in many of the most developed countries at the time. except for the paternalism/moral state which I don't want.

single digit of GDP fiscal revenue, no welfare (except perhaps a small UBI), no paternalism (the state never substituting an adult judgement about his own welfare because "it knows better", so no seatbelt mandate , no vaccine mandate and so on), no options for the state to be able to ban any voluntary exchange between people (constitution wouldn't allow to ban prostitution, any production or consumption of any substance, gambling, anything voluntary) nor private behaviour (no anti sodomy laws or anything of the kind being constitutionally allowed), and ofc basically no regulation of production and sale of goods and services.

no animal rights (animals are property with absolutely no inherent rights), no piguvian tax nonsense (tort law if you have damages) and so on.

crucial societal ethos would be the state is a necessary evil and keeps being the biggest threat to wellbeing that can ever exist even if necessary in some form, so a deep distrust of it at all levels, and an almost paranoid sense of skepticism when the state acts in general. and most of your life ideally spent without any interaction with the state.

These no vax religious cults always existed even back when measles was eliminated in the US. What has changed is vaccination rates across the nation as a whole have dropped enough to where these smaller communities will now be exposed to the virus. The right wing anti science culture especially post covid causing lower vax rates is why these type of outbreaks were predicted and why they’ll continue.

Blaming it on religious exemptions is disingenuous, too, as that's what the anti-vaxers claim anyway, regardless of any religious affiliations they have. The religious expemptions are the anti-vaxers.

Texas measle vax rate stands at 94.2 vs 92.7 nationwide. yet they and not the less vaccinated states had the outbreak.

the worst year in the last 33 for measles was 2019 (this doesn't count 2025 which hadn't concluded yet ofc).

in 2019 it was mostly in NYS, among othodox Jews. they typically vote democrat at the local level.

religious exemptions create clusters of mostly unvaccinated kids (and later adults) and all it takes is an infected traveler from outside the country to trigger an outbreak even after you temporarily eradicated the disease domestically, no matter vax rates elsewhere in the country.

Lol I guess you don't know that Texas is a huge state? The fact that people in Houston and Dallas are getting vaccinated and providing a single vaccination rate for the whole state is geographically equivalent to looking at an outbreak in North Carolina and giving a vaccination rate in a continuous area that includes NYC. If you look at say Lubbock and surrounding counties, the rate will be lower than the national average.

Those will be... the clusters we were talking about.

Yes small clusters of 0 vaccination embedded in larger regions of lower than average vaccination rates. Places like rural Texas were known to be some of the most likely places for these outbreaks to occur before they did. The overall vaccination rate of Texas was known to be irrelevant.