You’re right, I shouldn’t have said we can create an infinite amount of money. I should have said we can create as much money as we need, or as much as is appropriate.

I have, yes. Money creation itself doesn’t cause inflation. Prices go up when the demand for products and services exceeds the supply. Typically the more money there is in the money supply the higher demand will be, as any money people can get their hands on will likely be spent. So it is important to manage the amount of money in the money supply. During periods of deflation, more money creation may be appropriate and during periods of inflation money would need to be taken out of the money supply. Income taxes are one method for taking money out of the money supply during periods of high inflation.

One of the reasons we have persistent inflation today is that all money creation currently happens with offsetting debt that has to be repaid at interest. So when a bank creates a $1M business loan, for instance, it isn’t only the original $1M that needs to be repaid, it’s the original $1M plus a significant amount of money in interest. This necessitates more money creation, and leads to our persistent inflation and to our ever increasing debt load, as all new money that’s created has its own, new associated debt.

Even the low-hanging fruit hangs rather high. While it may seem easy to reinstate federal subsidies for health insurance programs under the Affordable Care Act, or undo or postpone cuts to Medicaid and food stamps in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Democrats will be hard-pressed to find the money, given a budget deficit that is already running at a whopping 6% of the nation’s gross domestic product.

“Find the money?” It’s not the fucking ark of the covenant, it’s money. Money is everywhere. It’s not a limited resource. In fact, we can literally create an infinite amount of it. No exploratory expeditions or tomb raiding necessary, we can just make it. We do it all the time.

The problem is moderate Dems and progressives don’t agree on how to fix the economy. The moderates think the Ezra Klein ‘Abundance’ doctrine is the way to fix it, but progressive want a more economic populist approach. I totally agree that the first mandate from the voters is to fix the economy, but until there’s a consensus among Democrats on how to go about that I don’t think they can really act on that mandate. But acting aggressively to defend democracy from Trump is a mandate they can act on now.

After a Democratic “tsunami” in this week’s midterm elections that has been widely seen as “a mandate to deliver big change,”

The whole “voter mandate” thing is thrown around too much these days, and it just isn’t always accurate, but in this case I think it was 100% a mandate. But a mandate for what? The people who voted for this blue wave are not necessarily all aligned on every issue, or even most issues, but they are definitely unified in their disdain for Trump and his cronies. I think the mandate is for the Democrats to finally be true, aggressive opposition to Trump. I think Democrats, both left and center, now see anyone who isn’t able or willing to viciously oppose Trump, and all the plutocrats and other oligarchs who support him, as a liability or even complicit. That is Schumer, and his ilk. They are ineffectual opposition, so they have got to go.

The United States of Morons. E Pluribus Dum Dum.

Does the author realize that everyone ran on Mamdani’s affordability platform?

And wisely so. To their credit, moderates realized it was the right campaign strategy, so they embraced it. However, it’s hard to say how many of them actually give a shit about affordability. I think it’s likely at least some Democrats only put on the mask of an economic populist, and as soon as it’s politically convenient, the mask will come off. Which is what the moderate Dem voters are counting on. They have nothing but disdain for economic populism, but they were willing to pretend like they loved it to win back power.

The reason your job is soul crushing is you have no alternative.

No, I have a few. I could put a bullet in my brain. That’s one.

Downsize the corporations so they have competition, and you’ll see better, more rewarding jobs appear.

Sure, sure. Downsize the corporations. Competition. Wonderful. Until it isn’t. Until consolidation, again. Time to downsize again to promote competition. Repeat cycle until the heat death of the universe. That bullet thing is sounding better and better.

The rich aren’t sitting on piles of gold, they’re sitting on piles of…everything - all the stores, all the factories, all the jobs, all the hospitals. There’s no freedom from them while they sit on their piles of everything.

Taxing them to pay for government social programs doesn’t change any of that. It only reinforces our dependence on them. There’s no tax revenue if there isn’t profit or income first, and they generate their profit and income from the everything they own.

Sometimes I think about getting some like-minded people together and building a self sufficient commune. I’m sure it would be very hard but at least we wouldn’t have to go to a soul crushing job everyday to make ungodly profits for some rich psycho.

I live in an area with a lot of Amish communities. They live simply and they work hard but they’re free. They own their land, they build their own houses, they grow their own food. Idk, that doesn’t sound so bad to me these days.

As tech bosses get richer and ordinary Americans struggle, Democrats put the case against the US’s grotesque unfairness – and voters responded

As time goes on, I care less about fairness and more about emancipation. I don’t care about making the rich pay their fair share, I just want to be out from under their thumb. I don’t want to be dependent on the rich anymore, for taxes or jobs or anything. I want to be independent from the rich, I want to be free from them. Let them keep their stupid money. Let them sit on their pile of gold like a dragon, as long as I don’t have to have anything to do with them.

which means a Democratic president in 2028 could have real juice to get things done.

But what “things” would get done? My point is that there isn’t necessarily a majority consensus in the Democratic party on the answer to that question, and there needs to be. You’re absolutely right that essentially no major legislation is getting passed over the next couple years. I totally agree with that. I think the Democrats need to use that time building a majority consensus on what the party’s legislative goals will be should they take back the Whitehouse in 2028.

No single Democratic coalition can claim victory after Tuesday’s resounding midterm results – all parts of the Democratic coalition can.

Let’s hope the Democrats are able to form and govern as a coalition. There are real ideological differences between the different factions within the party. For this blue wave to matter, the different factions need to unify around the things they agree on the most. That means we’re probably not getting Medicare for all or any of the more progressive policy goals, but I think we can get a very decisive reigning in of Trump.

All the Democratic factions agree that Trump is a dangerous threat to democracy and he’s gotta go. They don’t necessarily agree on exactly what the future of America should be, except that whatever Trump is doing ain’t it. I think the Dems will be strongly unified in their opposition to Trump, which is unequivocally a good thing. That’s exactly what we need to end the threat to our Democracy that is Donald J Trump.

However, while it is very good that it appears a majority of Americans have finally decided Trumpism is a dead end street and we need to go a different direction, I don’t think there is a majority consensus on what that direction should be. I, for one, will continue to try and get centrist/moderate/neoliberal/third way, whatever they want to call themselves, to see that programs like Medicare for all are not just pie in the sky progressive daydreams, they’re absolutely essential for America to have any kind of functional future. If the moderates refuse to get on board, then this country is fucked, plain and simple.

On the eve of the eve of the eve of our BIG and important election, a unifying moment has arrived, our democratic nominee for U.S Senate disavows the Rebellion PAC ad made by Hasan Piker’s uncle that claims Jews are responsible for America’s economic woes.

Sorry, Haley, but this strawman crap just isn’t going to work anymore. No one said “Jews are responsible for America’s economic woes.” What they did say is that Trump and Israel’s war on Iran has made prices for Americans go up, which is unequivocally true. Criticism of Israel is not necessarily antisemitism, it’s not going to work, you’re done.

DM me the winning lotto numbers.

I think a big part of it is that AIPAC is a foreign lobby. For any foreign lobby to have as much power and influence over our governments as AIPAC is a threat to our sovereignty as an independent nation.

That said, NAR definitely needs to be significantly reigned in as well, along with a lot of industry lobbying groups

I hope someone can get the Zelda OOT remake running on PC.

It was an impressive demonstration of a car that likely will come with some heavy caveats and restrictions if it ever goes into production.

It won’t.

The event was less than 30 minutes and felt more like a stunt show than a product reveal.

Because that’s what it was.

Indeed, there was no mention of price, trim levels, release date, or other such mundane details.

Because it’s not a legitimate consumer product and it never will be.

Yes, most Americans are very upset with the establishment. They just can’t agree on who the establishment is.

Obviously Trump is currently the establishment since he’s the one in power right now, but the irony is a lot of the people who voted for him did so because they were angry with the establishment that preceded him. So, many Americans are angry at an establishment that was meant to take on a past establishment that many other Americans had been angry with.

That’s just not how politics works in the US. Politics is a career, or in many cases a stepping stone to a career. They’re not there to fight anyone, they’re there to achieve their personal ambitions. They’re not ideological warriors, they’re white collar elites. They don’t necessarily have any ideological commitments, and as such they will simply adopt whatever the ideological paradigm is at any given time.

I don’t expect any politician to fight Trump, if doing so means compromising their career ambitions. If there’s going to be a fight, it has to be fought by the people, not the politicians.