Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his allies in the state legislature have only one week left in the current session to pass a bill legalizing marijuana for recreational use. Whether they succeed will depend partly on whether legislators believe they have the support of most voters, and a recent poll indicates they do, reinforcing the results of an earlier survey.
In the new poll, commissioned by Think Big Illinois and conducted by the Global Strategy Group in late April and early May with a sample of 802 registered voters, 60 percent of respondents said they supported “legalizing recreational marijuana, taxing it, and regulating it just like alcohol,” while 35 percent opposed that policy. Those results are similar to the numbers from a March poll of 1,000 registered voters by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, which found that 66 percent favored “the legalization of recreational marijuana if taxed and regulated like alcohol.” Given the statistical margins of error (plus or minus 3.5 and 3.1 percentage points, respectively), these findings are essentially the same.
By contrast, a survey of 625 registered voters commissioned by the anti-pot group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) and conducted in early May by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy found that 41 percent supported “legalizing commercial production, use and sale of marijuana for recreational use.” Although several Illinois news outlets reported that the Mason-Dixon poll showed public support for legalization was slipping, it actually showed that support had risen by 78 percent since a similar SAM-sponsored poll in November 2017.
The gap between the Mason-Dixon poll and the other two surveys illustrates how big an impact the wording of questions can have. Instead of asking voters whether or not they supported legalization, SAM presented them with four options: 1) “keep the current policy of decriminalization and medical marijuana,” 2) “keep the current policy of decriminalization and medical marijuana but also allow for past misdemeanor marijuana convictions to be expunged,” 3) “change the current policy of decriminalization by legalizing commercial production, use and sale of marijuana for recreational use,” or 4) “make all marijuana use illegal.”
SAM argues that its preferred framing provides a more nuanced measure of public opinion. But presenting four options instead of two is bound to dilute support for recreational legalization, and it does not accurately reflect the decision confronting state legislators. SAM also misrepresented current law by telling respondents that “personal marijuana possession is already decriminalized in Illinois.” In fact, possessing more than 10 grams of marijuana—about a third of an ounce, easily a personal-use amount—is still a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail for a first offense and a felony punishable by one to six years in prison for a second offense.
Perhaps most important, SAM stripped the issue of relevant context by omitting any reference to alcohol or to regulation. The alcohol analogy makes marijuana legalization more logically appealing, while the mention of regulation is surely reassuring to many people.
Even with those advantages, SAM’s poll found that just 9 percent of voters thought marijuana should be completely illegal, down from 18 percent in the group’s 2017 survey. That’s a pretty decisive rejection of a policy that prevailed throughout the country from 1937, when Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act, until 1996, when California became the first state to allow medical use.
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The White House is set to mull a Pentagon plan for deployment of 10,000 new troops to the Middle East on Thursday following heightened tension with Iran, the AP reported Wednesday.
It’s as yet unclear whether President Trump will sign off on the full number, but the White House is expected to send at least some of the requested forces, the report noted, citing anonymous defense official sources.
According to the Associated Press report the plan calls for “defensive forces” to “monitor” the Iran threat:
Officials said the move is not in response to any new threat from Iran, but is aimed at reinforcing security in the region. They said the troops would be defensive forces, and the discussions include additional Patriot missile batteries, more ships and increased efforts to monitor Iran.
Image source: AP
Though at the start of this week there appeared a calming of war rhetoric out of Washington, with the president signalling that Iran’s leaders should “call me,” the situation remains highly volatile and dangerous, considering a US carrier strike group is in the region along with B-52 bombers flying over and near the Persian Gulf, based out of Qatar.
Iran military leaders also issued new threats earlier this week over their “full control” over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow vital oil shipping choke point in the Persian Gulf.
The statements, according to Reuters, came as tensions reached their highest, but simultaneous to the Pentagon signalling there’s no plan to go to war:
A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Wednesday that Guards and regular Iranian military forces had complete control of Gulf waters north of the Strait of Hormuz, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.
“Everything north of the Strait of Hormuz is under our control,” Ali Fadavi was quoted by Fars as saying, referring to the strait at the Gulf’s eastern end through which about a fifth of the oil that is consumed globally flows.
“(Movements of) American battleships in the region are under the complete control of Iran’s army and the Revolutionary Guards,” Fadavi told Fars, without providing details.
Moreover, it must be remembered that earlier this year the US designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization, which could result in a clash between the elite force as it patrols the Strait of Hormuz and any US vessel also patrolling the area.
Also on Wednesday Senate Democrats attempted to reign in any potential White House military action directed against Iran, introducing a bill to requiring Congressional approval before the president acts. However, it was defeated in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Wegzh1 Tyler Durden
Longtime readers of the blog may recall Todd Levitt, the self-described “Badass Lawyer.” As I wrote back in 2016, Levitt’s main client pool was apparently lawyers from Central Michigan University, so he tried to cultivate an edgy image (hence the “Badass” title), and promoted it through YouTube videos and a Twitter feed. This led to three lawsuits:
1. In the first, he sued a CMU student who created a parody of his Twitter feed; a trial court threw out Levitt’s libel lawsuit, and the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that the feed was indeed a parody and thus not libelous. (I argued in the case on behalf of amici, with the help of my invaluable local counsel Michael F. Smith.)
2. In the second, he sued local media outlets for reporting on an award that he had “won,” in the context of reporting on the first case:
In August 2014, The Morning Sun … published an article discussing Levitt I with the headline, “[L]awyer suing student admits to fake award[.]” … The article stated that plaintiff created the website “topcollegelawyers.com,” and that the website announced plaintiff as the winner of a College Lawyer of the Year award.
It’s rarely a good sign for a libel plaintiff when part of the Court of Appeals opinion in his case begins with:
Substantial truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim.
The court went on:
In this case, although it is technically true that plaintiff did not “admit” that the College Lawyer of the Year award was “fake” or admit in a court document that he “awarded” the “‘top college lawyer’ recognition … to himself,” we conclude that these inaccuracies do not alter the complexion of the affair and would have no different effect on the mind of the reader than would the literal truth….
[P]laintiff admitted that he commissioned the topcollegelawyers.com website and created the College Lawyer of the Year award to generate profits. He further conceded that he established the criteria for the award, chose the persons who comprised the committee that selected the award recipient, won the award, and then broadcast this as an accomplishment on a marketing website.
The heart of Levitt’s [intentional infliction of emotional distress] claim appears to be the audio recording of the incident with [Kenneth] Sanney. Specifically, plaintiff objects to [Gordon] Bloem submitting the recording with [Bloem’s] Request for Investigation to the Attorney Grievance Commission. Similarly, plaintiff argues that it was egregious for James Felton [the father of the student whom Levitt sued in the first case] to share the recording with “anybody who wanted it.”
However, the circumstances under which the video was taken were anything but private. Plaintiff’s altercation with Sanney took place on a public sidewalk. And although Sanney may have instigated the incident by calling plaintiff a “clown,” it is clear from the transcript of the recording that plaintiff escalated the confrontation by verbally berating Sanney.
Given those circumstances, James Felton’s decision to audiorecord the incident6and subsequently share it others was not extreme and outrageous. [Footnote: We note that although plaintiff claimed to not be aware that the incident was being recorded, James Felton testified that he removed his phone from his pocket during the incident to begin recording and held his phone by his side thereafter. Thus, while plaintiff may have been distracted by Sanney, there were indications that the incident was being recorded.]
In this day and age, one must accept the possibility that one might be recorded in public. That possibility heightens when one chooses to engage in vitriolic behavior. There is a concomitant possibility that such recordings will be shared with others and posted to the Internet. In sum, we conclude that the recording and sharing of a rant on a public sidewalk cannot reasonably be regarded as extreme and outrageous behavior. [Footnote: We do not mean to suggest that third-party posting or publishing of private statements or activities cannot give rise to a viable action for IIED.]
Similarly, we fail to see how the sharing of materials already published on the Internet supports an IIED claim. For instance, plaintiff takes issue with Angela Felton sharing plaintiff’s Tweets with campus police and CM Life. Plaintiff also relies on Bloem’s decision to send the Attorney Grievance Commission a YouTube skit that plaintiff appeared in. However, that content was freely available to anyone online, having been published by plaintiff or with his consent. Under those circumstances, a reasonable jury could not conclude that sharing plaintiff’s content with others constitutes extreme and outrageous behavior.
There are other claims, and a return visit of our old friend “The substantial truth of a statement, however, is an absolute defense to a defamation claim.” And it helps understand what makes Levitt’s ass so bad: The skin on it is a titch on the thin side.
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Since the Great Recession, there has been an explosion of interest and activity in the tech startup arena. Tens of thousands of tech startups have been founded in recent years and there are now over three hundred new “unicorn” startups that have valuations of $1 billion or more. The startup gold rush began as countless entrepreneurs attempted to follow in the footsteps of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and the “Google Guys,” Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Unfortunately, the majority of today startups – including today’s hottest unicorns – are burning copious amounts of cash. In this piece, I will make the case that today’s startup phenomenon is very similar to China’s construction of countless empty “ghost cities” for the purpose of creating jobs and economic growth.
Though the U.S. was the epicenter of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and 2009, China’s economy was still strongly affected as well. After all, China’s largest export market – the U.S. – had just succumbed to a powerful recession. In an attempt to cushion the economy and create growth again, China’s government announced a RMB¥ 4 trillion (US$586 billion) stimulus package and helped to encourage an aggressive debt binge. A good portion of this stimulus package and debt binge was used to build massive infrastructure projects, extravagant government buildings, and entire cities throughout the country.
A very high proportion of China’s construction projects over the past decade were basically make-work projects that were undertaken for the purpose of creating jobs and GDP growth, despite the fact that they are typically wasteful and inefficient. Make-work projects are very common in centrally-planned economies like China. The economist John Maynard Keynes was a strong proponent of make-work projects and is even known for saying, “the government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up.”
As an adherent of the pro-free market Austrian School of economics, however, I vehemently disagree with make-work projects and Keynesian-style stimulus programs because they create tremendous waste and misallocation of resources, which ultimately leaves society poorer in the long-run. China’s numerous empty “ghost cities” are an eerie reminder of the gross misallocation of resources that has occurred in the past decade. China’s government and real estate developers were hoping that “if you build it, they will come,” but that hasn’t proven true for many of the country’s brand new cities and malls that are almost completely devoid of people. There are an incredible 65 million empty apartments in China currently, which amounts to approximately a fifth of the country’s housing stock.
The pictures below show some examples of these empty cities:
Meixi Lake development near the city of Changsha. Source: Kai Caemmerer
Zhengdong in Zhengzhou in Henan Province. Source: Wade Shepard
Evergrande Splendor Kunming. Source: J Capital Research
Now, it’s time to discuss why the startup mania of the past decade is very similar to China’s construction of grandiose infrastructure projects and ghost cities. In addition to the housing and stock market plunge, the U.S. lost 8.7 million jobs during the Great Recession, so the Federal Reserve was desperate – just like China was in 2009 – to engineer another economic boom to create jobs and GDP growth again. China relied more heavily on fiscal stimulus, while the U.S. relied more heavily on monetary stimulus. The Fed cut and held interest rates at ultra-low levels for much of the past decade and pumped trillions of dollars worth of liquidity into the U.S. financial system via its quantitative easing programs. Unfortunately, dangerous economic bubbles and other distortions form when central banks and governments aggressively interfere with financial markets, especially interest rates. The chart of the Fed Funds rate below shows how bubbles form when interest rates are at low levels:
The Fed pumped trillions of dollars worth of liquidity into the U.S. financial system via its quantitative easing programs, which can be seen in the chart of the Fed’s balance sheet since QE started in 2008:
When central banks use monetary stimulus to create an economic boom, they usually succeed (until the boom turns into a bust, of course). What they don’t know, however, is what sectors of the economy are going to boom as a result of their stimulus. Each cycle is different – it was telecom and dot-coms in the late-1990s, housing and banking in the mid-2000s, and tech startups in the current cycle. The explosion of venture capital activity over the past several years can be seen in the chart of the monthly count of global VC deals that raised $100 million or more:
Trillions of dollars worth of central bank-created liquidity has been sloshing around the globe looking for a home, and a portion of it found its way into unicorn companies that are worth billions of dollars each. Most of these unicorns came of out virtually nowhere and amassed tremendous valuations despite hemorrhaging cash, which is a tell-tale sign of a bubble.
The majority of startups and unicorns are burning astounding amounts of cash – even those that have made it all the way to the IPO stage. For example, the 15 tech unicorns that went public over the past three quarters lost a combined $6 billion in 2018 despite having a lofty combined valuation of $178.3 billion.
Like China’s grandiose infrastructure projects and ghost cities, the majority of today’s tech startups only exist – at least at their current scale – because of stimulus, and are not economically viable, as evidenced by the billions of dollars they are hemorrhaging with no end in sight. China’s infrastructure projects and ghost cities and today’s tech startups serve essentially the same purpose – to create jobs and GDP growth, economic viability be damned.
The creation of tens of thousands of tech startups leads to the hiring of scores of technology professionals, renting tremendous amounts of commercial office space, buying computer and office equipment, and paying for professional services, which all serve to boost economic activity. Meanwhile, the boom that is driving all of that activity is basically bogus. The same phenomenon occurred during the mid-2000s housing bubble, when soaring housing prices led to a surge of construction and lending activity, which created jobs for construction workers, real estate agents, and mortgage bankers. Of course, when the housing bubble burst, many of those workers lost their jobs; I expect today’s tech startup bubble to end in a similar fashion.
As stated throughout this piece, government and central bank interference in the economy creates dangerous distortions, bubbles, and waste. Austrian School economists call this kind of waste and bad investments “malinvestment” –
“Malinvestment is a mistaken investment in wrong lines of production, which inevitably lead to wasted capital and economic losses, subsequently requiring the reallocation of resources to more productive uses. “Wrong” in this sense means incorrect or mistaken from the point of view of the real long-term needs and demands of the economy, if those needs and demands were expressed with the correct price signals in the free market.Random, isolated entrepreneurial miscalculations and mistaken investments occur in any market (resulting in standard bankruptcies and business failures) but systematic, simultaneous and widespread investment mistakes can only occur through systematically distorted price signals, and these result in depressions or recessions. Austrians believe systemic malinvestments occur because of unnecessary and counterproductive intervention in the free market, distorting price signals and misleading investors and entrepreneurs. For Austrians, prices are an essential information channel through which market participants communicate their demands and cause resources to be allocated to satisfy those demands appropriately. If the government or banks distort, confuse or mislead investors and market participants by not permitting the price mechanism to work appropriately, unsustainable malinvestment will be the inevitable result.”
It’s almost impossible to find better examples of malinvestments than China’s empty cities and the tens of thousands of profitless tech startups that have taken the world by storm over the past several years. Future economics students are going to study those phenomena as case studies in how not to run an economy. Of course, it’s still party time in China and in the startup world for now, so the warnings of skeptics like myself fall on deaf ears. But, inevitably, all of the post-Great Recession stimulus-driven booms are going to violently end, and the GDP growth, jobs, and stock price gains created by them will be reversed.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2VHlyCt Tyler Durden
Longtime readers of the blog may recall Todd Levitt, the self-described “Badass Lawyer.” As I wrote back in 2016, Levitt’s main client pool was apparently lawyers from Central Michigan University, so he tried to cultivate an edgy image (hence the “Badass” title), and promoted it through YouTube videos and a Twitter feed. This led to three lawsuits:
1. In the first, he sued a CMU student who created a parody of his Twitter feed; a trial court threw out Levitt’s libel lawsuit, and the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that the feed was indeed a parody and thus not libelous. (I argued in the case on behalf of amici, with the help of my invaluable local counsel Michael F. Smith.)
2. In the second, he sued local media outlets for reporting on an award that he had “won,” in the context of reporting on the first case:
In August 2014, The Morning Sun … published an article discussing Levitt I with the headline, “[L]awyer suing student admits to fake award[.]” … The article stated that plaintiff created the website “topcollegelawyers.com,” and that the website announced plaintiff as the winner of a College Lawyer of the Year award.
It’s rarely a good sign for a libel plaintiff when part of the Court of Appeals opinion in his case begins with:
Substantial truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim.
The court went on:
In this case, although it is technically true that plaintiff did not “admit” that the College Lawyer of the Year award was “fake” or admit in a court document that he “awarded” the “‘top college lawyer’ recognition … to himself,” we conclude that these inaccuracies do not alter the complexion of the affair and would have no different effect on the mind of the reader than would the literal truth….
[P]laintiff admitted that he commissioned the topcollegelawyers.com website and created the College Lawyer of the Year award to generate profits. He further conceded that he established the criteria for the award, chose the persons who comprised the committee that selected the award recipient, won the award, and then broadcast this as an accomplishment on a marketing website.
The heart of Levitt’s [intentional infliction of emotional distress] claim appears to be the audio recording of the incident with [Kenneth] Sanney. Specifically, plaintiff objects to [Gordon] Bloem submitting the recording with [Bloem’s] Request for Investigation to the Attorney Grievance Commission. Similarly, plaintiff argues that it was egregious for James Felton [the father of the student whom Levitt sued in the first case] to share the recording with “anybody who wanted it.”
However, the circumstances under which the video was taken were anything but private. Plaintiff’s altercation with Sanney took place on a public sidewalk. And although Sanney may have instigated the incident by calling plaintiff a “clown,” it is clear from the transcript of the recording that plaintiff escalated the confrontation by verbally berating Sanney.
Given those circumstances, James Felton’s decision to audiorecord the incident6and subsequently share it others was not extreme and outrageous. [Footnote: We note that although plaintiff claimed to not be aware that the incident was being recorded, James Felton testified that he removed his phone from his pocket during the incident to begin recording and held his phone by his side thereafter. Thus, while plaintiff may have been distracted by Sanney, there were indications that the incident was being recorded.]
In this day and age, one must accept the possibility that one might be recorded in public. That possibility heightens when one chooses to engage in vitriolic behavior. There is a concomitant possibility that such recordings will be shared with others and posted to the Internet. In sum, we conclude that the recording and sharing of a rant on a public sidewalk cannot reasonably be regarded as extreme and outrageous behavior. [Footnote: We do not mean to suggest that third-party posting or publishing of private statements or activities cannot give rise to a viable action for IIED.]
Similarly, we fail to see how the sharing of materials already published on the Internet supports an IIED claim. For instance, plaintiff takes issue with Angela Felton sharing plaintiff’s Tweets with campus police and CM Life. Plaintiff also relies on Bloem’s decision to send the Attorney Grievance Commission a YouTube skit that plaintiff appeared in. However, that content was freely available to anyone online, having been published by plaintiff or with his consent. Under those circumstances, a reasonable jury could not conclude that sharing plaintiff’s content with others constitutes extreme and outrageous behavior.
There are other claims, and a return visit of our old friend “The substantial truth of a statement, however, is an absolute defense to a defamation claim.” And it helps understand what makes Levitt’s ass so bad: The skin on it is a titch on the thin side.
from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2VYQbrR
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The recent decision by the Scholastic Aptitude Test to add a so-called adversity score to test takers’ results for college admissions’ officials to weigh has been almost universally panned.
Few think it’s a good idea to give students an “overall disadvantage level” ranking.
First, conservative scholar Heather Mac Donald laid out several big problems with the new index, noting it’s basically affirmative action and reinforces the soft bigotry of low expectations.
The College Fix’s senior reporter Christian Schneider also weighed in, calling it “just another invitation for fraud.”
“Clearly, lying about one’s racial identity is wrong – but in a country where racial makeup is growing more complex and college admittance is as competitive as ever, students can hardly be blamed for trying to give themselves a leg up,” he opined.
“Colleges are basically begging to be duped – this is akin to publishing your HBO NOW login credentials online and politely asking people not to use your password to watch ‘Game of Thrones.’”
Over at The Daily Signal, Kenny Xu, a math major at Davidson College, pointed out that “the SAT’s new ‘adversity score’ isn’t just unfair. It’s self-destructive.” Xu wrote:
Only a few of the 15 factors used to determine a student’s adversity score have been revealed. But it’s unlikely that any of them will include irregular hardships, such as “My father died when I was little” or “I was bullied in middle school.”
The College Board’s overreaching attempt to determine what constitutes “adversity” for millions upon millions of high school students in America will inevitably capture only certain visible, easily researchable fractions of a student’s experience—a small portion of who they really are.
After all, the aspects that usually affect students’ lives the most are not easily researchable and are not stored in the public databases the College Board plans to mine. The sweeping, collective generalizations this adversity score will make about a person will hinder a student’s ability to craft his own story and advocate for himself.
The Wall Street Journal also came out against the plan. Its editorial board argued that the score “looks like a way to undermine one of the last objective measures of academic merit.”
Also weighing in, deputy editor of The Journal’s editorial page Daniel Henninger linked the new adversity index to the recent college admissions scandal to paint a grim picture:
The admissions scandal and the uproar over the new index literally have nothing to do with each other but in fact are about the same question: Are colleges, in pursuit of poor, mostly black students, putting a thumb on the admissions scales in a way that dilutes if not eviscerates the idea of achievement based on individual merit? The grim reality of what no doubt were liberal, socially aware parents resorting to bribes says, yes, higher education has a credibility problem. …
Accurately identifying and rescuing diamonds in the rough isn’t the worst way to level life’s playing field. But higher ed’s hyperactive race-consciousness has damaged the public’s faith in the admissions process. And will Asian students get shafted no matter what because they live on the wrong end of the bell curve?
“Though these metrics appear to be a well-intentioned effort to guide schools toward more holistic admissions standards, it’s unsettling that a student’s fate could be determined by an opaque algorithm.”
The adversity index, or overall disadvantage level, or environmental context score — or whatever it’s being called now — is still a limited pilot program. But the initial responses and criticisms show most people thinks it’s a bad idea.
If the SAT hopes to retain its relevancy, it should correct course.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HO09CM Tyler Durden
If elected president, Pete Buttigieg says, he would remove Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports.
In the meantime, he’ll settle for just calling them what they are.
“Tariffs are taxes on Americans—and we talk as if that’s not the case; we forget that Americans are paying them,” Buttigieg said this morning.
That shouldn’t really be noteworthy, but unfortunately it is. President Trump has routinely, and falsely, claimed that the tariffs are being paid by China. On Wednesday, while facing questions from Rep. Cindy Axne (D–Iowa), Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin tied himself into knots in a hilarious attempt to avoid admitting that tariffs are taxes.
.@RepCindyAxne: Are you in agreement that American consumers will pay more as a result of tariffs?
MNUCHIN: I don't necessarily agree with that, no.
AXNE: So you disagree with all of our key retailers and economists who say they will?
Mnuchin is the latest in a long line of Trump administration officials put in the awkward position of trying to balance economic reality with the president’s private reality. Trump was reportedly unhappy after Larry Kudlow, a senior economic aide, earlier this month admitted that tariffs are being paid by Americans.
Though he voiced some support for the Trump administration’s overall goal of reshaping China’s behavior, Buttigieg said the use of tariffs has been “counterproductive” and he promised to move in a different direction if he finds himself in the White House in January 2021.
“Tariffs aren’t going to get China to change its economic model or its regional security strategy,” said Buttigieg.
Those comments were part of a wide-ranging and at times rapid-fire interview with The Washington Post‘s Robert Costa. Buttigieg, the current mayor of South Bend, Indiana, held his own while facing questions about domestic and foreign policy, his personal life, and the Trump presidency. He said he would support impeachment proceedings against the president—though he also dismissed the entire mess as being too D.C.-centric to interest most Americans. He also dismissed the notion that he’s too baby-faced to stand on a debate stage with someone like Trump. “I don’t have a problem of standing up to somebody who was working on Season 7 of The Apprentice while I was packing my bags to go to Afghanistan,” he said, a line that seems destined for heavy rotation on the campaign trail.
As he’s done before, Buttigieg distanced himself from the Democratic Party’s left flank. Calling himself a “democratic capitalist,” he said that Democrats have erred for decades by not talking enough about freedom.
That’s something that might attract curious libertarians to his campaign, but as Reason‘s Zuri Davis and others have noted, those statements aren’t quite what they appear. Buttigieg frequently backs them up with promises of greater government involvement in personal and business affairs. For example, on Thursday he argued that bigger government can help freedom by limiting bad outcomes created by the marketplace—like the credit card companies he accused of staking the deck against low-income Americans through mandatory arbitration clauses.
When it comes to trade, Buttigieg’s tack away from the left makes a lot of sense. Polls show Democratic voters—probably due, at least in part, to their distaste for Trump—swinging toward greater support for free trade. A Hill-Harris poll released earlier this month found that 58 percent of Democrats believe Trump’s trade negotiations with China would result in fewer jobs and less economic opportunity. Democratic pollster Simon Rosenberg has pointed out that Trump’s approval rating has been sinking in states where the trade war has been most damaging, including such electorally important states as Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
As the mayor of a Midwestern city, Buttigieg may be uniquely positioned to bring a key message to Trump voters: that tariffs aren’t the answer to their economic woes and that Trump’s trade policies are not producing his promised results. At the very least, it’s good to have another sane voice in a trade debate that’s grown increasingly maddening.
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If elected president, Pete Buttigieg says, he would remove Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports.
In the meantime, he’ll settle for just calling them what they are.
“Tariffs are taxes on Americans—and we talking is if that’s not the case; we forget that Americans are paying them,” Buttigieg said this morning.
That shouldn’t really be noteworthy, but unfortunately it is. President Trump has routinely, and falsely, claimed that the tariffs are being paid by China. On Wednesday, while facing questions from Rep. Cindy Axne (D–Iowa), Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin tied himself into knots in a hilarious attempt to avoid admitting that tariffs are taxes.
.@RepCindyAxne: Are you in agreement that American consumers will pay more as a result of tariffs?
MNUCHIN: I don't necessarily agree with that, no.
AXNE: So you disagree with all of our key retailers and economists who say they will?
Mnuchin is the latest in a long line of Trump administration officials put in the awkward position of trying to balance economic reality with the president’s private reality. Trump was reportedly unhappy after Larry Kudlow, a senior economic aide, earlier this month admitted that tariffs are being paid by Americans.
Though he voiced some support for the Trump administration’s overall goal of reshaping China’s behavior, Buttigieg said the use of tariffs has been “counterproductive” and he promised to move in a different direction if he finds himself in the White House in January 2021.
“Tariffs aren’t going to get China to change its economic model or its regional security strategy,” said Buttigieg.
Those comments were part of a wide-ranging and at times rapid-fire interview with The Washington Post‘s Robert Costa. Buttigieg, the current mayor of South Bend, Indiana, held his own while facing questions about domestic and foreign policy, his personal life, and the Trump presidency. He said he would support impeachment proceedings against the president—though he also dismissed the entire mess as being too D.C.-centric to interest most Americans. He also dismissed the notion that he’s too baby-faced to stand on a debate stage with someone like Trump. “I don’t have a problem of standing up to somebody who was working on Season 7 of The Apprentice while I was packing my bags to go to Afghanistan,” he said, a line that seems destined for heavy rotation on the campaign trail.
As he’s done before, Buttigieg distanced himself from the Democratic Party’s left flank. Calling himself a “democratic capitalist,” he said that Democrats have erred for decades by not talking enough about freedom.
That’s something that might attract curious libertarians to his campaign, but as Reason‘s Zuri Davis and others have noted, those statements aren’t quite what they appear. Buttigieg frequently backs them up with promises of greater government involvement in personal and business affairs. For example, on Thursday he argued that bigger government can help freedom by limiting bad outcomes created by the marketplace—like the credit card companies he accused of staking the deck against low-income Americans through mandatory arbitration clauses.
When it comes to trade, Buttigieg’s tack away from the left makes a lot of sense. Polls show Democratic voters—probably due, at least in part, to their distaste for Trump—swinging toward greater support for free trade. A Hill-Harris poll released earlier this month found that 58 percent of Democrats believe Trump’s trade negotiations with China would result in fewer jobs and less economic opportunity. Democratic pollster Simon Rosenberg has pointed out that Trump’s approval rating has been sinking in states where the trade war has been most damaging, including such electorally important states as Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
As the mayor of a Midwestern city, Buttigieg may be uniquely positioned to bring a key message to Trump voters: that tariffs aren’t the answer to their economic woes and that Trump’s trade policies are not producing his promised results. At the very least, it’s good to have another sane voice in a trade debate that’s grown increasingly maddening.
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Last week the price of Bitcoin was double what it was on April 1 of this year.
Then it crashed by almost 20% in matter of days. Then it surged again. And at the time of this writing, the price of bitcoin is just shy of $8,000.
That’s a pretty volatile ride.
Naturally the “experts” are back to predicting Bitcoin will hit anything up to $10,000 this month, and $100,000 this year.
Obviously no one truly knows where Bitcoin will go. As with all speculations, it could go substantially higher from here. Or lower. Or nowhere.
Long-time readers know that I’m not anti-crypto. A decentralized financial system fully aligns with my ethos of independence and diversification.
I was also an early adopter of Bitcoin and have made a few investments in crypto-related businesses.
But I am anti-stupidity.
And back in 2017 during the worldwide crypto-craze, there was an unbelievable amount of stupidity taking place, including people taking out second mortgages on their homes to buy Bitcoin.
Not to mention there were scams galore… to the point where email spammers sent out tens of BILLIONS of messages encouraging people to buy some ICO token or new cryptocurrency.
Multiple cryptocurrencies and tokens were being created on a daily basis, to the point that there were thousands and thousands of them, often being promoted by celebrities ranging from boxer Floyd Mayweather to Paris Hilton.
It was a classic bubble mentality… people rushing in to the market who didn’t know the first thing about crypto.
Within a few months they all got burned.
Now that Crypto prices are charging higher again, these same people are starting to feel the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), and wondering whether they should jump in, whether this time is different.
Just remember that, over the long term, the price of just about everything is decided by supply and demand.
So when we look at Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the real question to ask is: will there be more people using Bitcoin in the future? Or fewer people using it?
And I’m talking about actual, real ‘use’. The vast majority of crypto transactions these days are just speculators betting on whether or not the price will increase.
It’s basically just gamblers selling these coins to one another. And that’s not real use.
I’m talking about being able to buy groceries with crypto… and the majority of transactions being for those sorts of purchases.
There are some promising signs that this might finally start to happen.
Stores like Whole Foods and Nordstrom are starting to accept Bitcoin through an app that has partnered with the Winklevoss twins’ crypto company Gemini.
That’s certainly beneficial in terms of actual real cryptocurrency transactions in major mainstream retailers.
Even Facebook is developing a cryptocurrency that can be used with its messaging software Whatsapp.
Given Facebook’s 2+ billion members who could become potential users, this stands to create global reach.
But just because there appears to be a strong future for crypto doesn’t mean that any specific coin is going to a great investment.
Bitcoin is by far the most popular cryptocurrency, and the one that most people acquire when they’re first getting their feet wet.
But Bitcoin is also the oldest of the major cryptocurrencies, which means that it’s the most technologically inferior.
And it’s always seemed strange to me that the most technologically inferior coin is simultaneously the most valuable.
Just be mindful of that fact before rushing back in to crypto. There are a lot of coins and tokens out there, some of which have superior technology and more specific uses (like privacy, financial clearing, information-sharing, etc.)
And there are also a number of new ones that will hit the market, including proprietary coins developed by tech giants like Facebook, and financial giants like JP Morgan.
So perhaps education is the safer choice for now. Before making any investment, take time to really learn about the developments and the market, as well as how to safely purchase and store your digital assets.
Just like cryptos didn’t disappear when crypto prices crashed to $3,000, they’re also far from having reached their full potential.
This journey still has a long way to go. So any investment in your education will pay dividends long into the future.
