17 Burst results for "Megan Mcardle"
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"megan mcardle" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"Is there any way to teach that effectively given, not just social media, but the general collapse of the willingness to learn history apart from identity politics now? Hadith, I know that, you know that. I'll bet you not 1%. We have a minute to coming back and rejoining the network. I'm Israeli. I was raised to think that it doesn't matter what the world thinks. I don't know how to teach the world. I know me, and I'm not going anywhere. That is well said. Stand by. We'll be right back because I got a lot to ask you about the adult Gazans and their complicity. I've got to ask you about your comment to Dan Senor on call me back yesterday that war is not math. And I believe that's very important for people to understand. At this point, war is not math. Things can go very wrong or very right. But Israel is being as restrained as possible. Stand by. I'll be back with Aviv Reddy Gur right after this. Welcome back, America. I've still got Aviv Reddy Gur from Jerusalem. Aviv, adult Gazans, how complicit are they in the terrorism they are inflicting on the Israeli hostages? I'm thinking about somebody got baby Kefir if the baby is alive, and they're not turning them over. How complicit is every adult in Gaza with this horror? There is no question that every adult is not complicit. There is no question that huge numbers of Gazans are absolutely the victims of this moment, profoundly victimized by Hamas. Hamas murders, Hamas oppresses. The victims, the hostages include Muslim young men and young women who have been held incommunicado for 52 days. Aisha al-Ziyadneh is a 17-year-old Israeli Muslim Bedouin girl held by Hamas for the last 52 days with no sign of life. There is no question that Hamas is as much an enemy. You know, I think Hamas is an enemy of the Palestinian cause in sort of grand strategic ways. But individually, specifically, it is a horrific, oppressive, disastrous, murderous organization to Palestinians. And we have polls from October 6, literally the day before, that showed that Palestinians despise Hamas, not for any issue having to do with Israelis, just for its own internal oppression in Gaza. Having said that, there is huge support among Palestinians, ordinary Palestinians, for the October 7 massacre. There is huge support for inflicting pain on the Israelis. There is huge support for holding hostages to get out Palestinian prisoners. And that is true. And that has always been true. The Palestinian political world doesn't have another story. There are essentially two ways that nations have achieved independence, liberation, what have you, in the 20th century and in the 21st century. One way was anti-colonial terrorism. And it worked. It worked in some places. It worked spectacularly. That is the path the Palestinians have chosen disastrously for them year after year after year, generation after generation. There is the other way, which is non-violence. Non-violence that robs the enemy of their excuses. Robs, in this case, it would rob the Israelis of the explanation for the military rule in the West Bank, for example. That path the Palestinians have never chosen. There have been very small movements within the Palestinians that have tried things like that. But they've always happened alongside massive sustained violence. So it doesn't work on the Israelis if it's a tiny movement next to a massively violent one. The only story the Palestinians have to tell about themselves is that story of massive terrorism and violence. I want to, if I may, I'm sorry to talk so long, but I want to say one more thing. The Palestinians are having trouble getting away from Hamas's strategy, from terrorism as a liberation strategy, no matter how much it fails them. And the reason is what economists call the sunk costs problem. The sunk costs problem is when you have invested so much in one direction that to change direction becomes impossible, even if it's failing. This is true of companies and this is true of national movements. And so if it's true that terrorism can't work on us because we have nowhere to run away to, the whole anti-colonial premise, you want to call me a colonialist as a curse, fine, enjoy it, but tactically it won't work. If that's true, then every martyr, as they call them, Shaheed, every act that has ever been, every single suicide bomber the Palestinians have ever produced has something named for them, some street, some soccer field in Palestine. Every one of those stories becomes a story of folly and stupidity and murder instead of heroic martyrdom and liberation. And so to not lose, to not, all the sacrifices of the Palestinian story become empty and stupid. They have to stick to the story. I thought of sunk costs in this context. Megan McArdle wrote a great book on this, The Upside of Down, a few years ago that made me think about sunk costs in almost every situation, but I've never thought about it in this situation before. And that makes it very difficult to change. I saw that Hamas, and I try and use the analogy of Gestapo because Americans culturally understand what it is. Their Gestapo operated in the West Bank on the weekend and executed two Palestinians on the West Bank in rather horrific fashion. How deep is the Gestapo, the enforcement of Hamas in the West Bank, Hadib? In the West Bank, it's a collection of scattered militias deeply disrupted by Israel that occasionally can produce a terror attack, occasionally can take over some neighborhood in some Palestinian city, but don't actually have the capacity to do more than sort of pinpoint terrorize. The point of those deaths of those two young men, by the way, we have no evidence that they were actually in any way informants on Israel.
podcast – Lawyers, Guns & Money
"megan mcardle" Discussed on podcast – Lawyers, Guns & Money
"Blogs don't translate as well to Twitter as just plain old tweets do or viral memes or things like that. And I mean, you know, campaigns tried blogging for a while and then campaigns kind of moved away from that. The new sites, I also think that news sites kind of stepping in and co opting blogging in a lot of ways. Took away a lot of its appeal. Blogging in a lot of ways felt great because it felt somewhat transgressive. I'm saying things, like you said at the beginning. This is not an extreme political punditry. This is not in mainstream political coverage. But when you take the form and sometimes even take the name and then you put it in The Washington Post or The New York Times. It's like, there's not a whole lot of difference. And one of them has kind of an institutional backing that the other doesn't. So you know when Megan mcardle goes from asymmetric info to being like a lead columnist that The Washington Post, you're kind of like what is blogging going to be anymore. And that pipeline kind of shut off after a while. I don't know who the last blogger is that kind of made it to the big time. But that has not happened in quite a bit. Nobody trying to make their way to the big time is going to start by blogging. Like they did for a certain period of time. Right. Yeah, and part of the problem too is that institutional blogs were always just at the whim of and that's what happened because tapped was so great for so many years and just one day I woke up and I forget who the new editor was, just decided, oh, we've killed tapped and I don't know, they started some new blog, which whose name I've always forgotten because nobody ever paid attention. You know, just like the larger behind it, it made us like, you had this really good brand that it bruised all these and then just like, oh, well, we'll just change it to something else. And then basically that died on the vine because nobody, you know, and sort of once it's killed, you can't get it back. So that's the other risk too, is that if you're blogging for an institution, you know, the thing is that particularly places where there's a lot of change over in it. You know, people get, you know, when I think we know this and law and academia, one of the things leaders do is like to like put their own you don't get as much credit for just keeping a functioning institution going. It's important to put your own stamp on things. And so that meant that at any point, the blog could be ended or it could be fundamentally changed. And then sort of what's gone. So that was the other that even if you could somehow maintain an autonomous tone that didn't just become like the rest of the paper, it's just sort of subject to being, you know, sort of changed anybody's whim.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"megan mcardle" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"If you graduate, you may not have access to middle class life that the college degree once provided. The president of the United States fulfilling a campaign pledge and TK a controversial one at that I'd say in the last day or so. Yeah, just not to waste a lot of time, Jason fuhrman with us tomorrow. I think he's on team Biden scathing in his critique. Jason fuhrman is on with us tomorrow. And Jason Furman, like Larry summers, at times Lisa, has been a bit of a headache for this administration. In particular with the inflationary impulse of some of their stimulus of some of their plans and how much does this sort of feed into that on the margins, not significantly, but basically giving people more power to spend at a time where that's a problem. That argument to me is second tier to the top tier argument, which is they've started a process and is Megan mcardle in The Washington Post says, once it gets started, what's next? What's the next program after this? What about me? It's the. Range you heard a lot. So, you know, one of the Abraham was clan gets into something that costs 80,000 bucks a year, and you go, wait, the people 5 years before me got tuition relief, where's my tuition? As you cite some. The $80,000 a year though. That's the heart of the problem, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. Why are you pledging that to me? And we would all go to a snap from Washington, D.C., Emily, how controversial is this one proving to be? So this one is even controversial within the Democratic Party. I mean, you've seen some lawmakers like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, come out and phrase the Biden administration for it. But you've seen other groups notably the NAACP, saying that this really did not go far enough. And then on your more moderate Democrats, we saw one of Chris Papas, he's a frontline Democrat. He's going to be running a very competitive race in November. And he said, look, this doesn't really address the main problem, which is that college tuition is too high, and we need to find ways to bring that back down. So a lot of mixed response here, a lot of criticism from Republicans. At the same point, what Biden seemed to really do here was kind of choose that middle ground. He didn't go as far as more initially pitched on the campaign trail with $50,000 of relief. He went for a smaller number. He limited it to those who make less than a $125,000 a year. Right. And he tried to really focus it on low income students. Emily, Emily ghost Spartans on us here. What is the distinction between University of Chicago at 81,000 all in Michigan state in a number that's a little bit beneath that? How are those two schools treated in this new legislation? Well, to a certain extent, if you see schools, there's an argument out there that if schools see that the government is willing to forgive student loans, that doesn't really incentivize colleges to try and keep their tuition prices low. And let's also point out, I haven't heard this in the discussion too much, but the federal government has already forgiven hundreds of billions of dollars of student loans through numbers of other forgiveness programs. They've had their public service loan forgiveness. They've had other programs where after you pay a certain month for certain amount of time, you get the rest forgiven. So Americans have already been putting the bill for a lot of folks who have gone to college and racked up a lot of student debt through these other federal government programs. And you'll hear folks, particularly on the right, but even some on the left say that they're concerned that some of this government aid that's been going out there, it really has not incentivized colleges to try and figure out ways to keep tuition low. And so we're going to see folks increasingly saddled with more and more debt and then the question becomes, do you start seeing things like Biden's move yesterday become more common? Yeah, Emily milkins of Bloomberg government, thank you so much for being with us, the underlying question here really has become also, though, how protracted is the inflationary impulse if you start to get increasing numbers of programs that do aim at increasing the spending power of a whole swath of individuals, which brings us to the Jan hats costs of Superman and a Bank of America still back with us. What is your view of the ramifications for equities if the fed were to hold rates at 4%, three and a half percent for years in the face of some of these structural changes fueled by fiscal policy? You know, I think that that is that is essentially what the market is pricing in. I mean, my view here is that what we're seeing now is actually a healthy although somewhat volatile return to normalcy. I mean, I thought that by the end of June we had positive real rates and then they retraced quickly back to zero. So I think part of what we're seeing is a move towards a rational market with a rational discount rate. You know, holding rates fixed, I think, is, I mean, I just think that we need to let some of the leverage grow more expensive in order to shake out, you know, kind of excessive spending, excessive leverage levels, which fortunately aren't sitting on consumer or corporate balance sheets, but are sitting on government balance sheets. So, you know, I think the other argument that we hear around, you know, why we should be bullish is the idea that we have so much debt that the government can't afford to let rates move higher. I think that's actually a very bearish sign that we are in this. We've gotten ourselves into a box basically where we have to keep rates low forever in order to shoulder this burden of debt. You know, I guess I look at a lot of the fiscal responses to this. And I think some of it's good. I mean, if you look at the green spend outlined in the inflation reduction act, I think what that does is it shows corporations that they're not alone in getting to net zero in reducing their emissions and that the government is going to help along the way. But I also think that this pulls forward a lot of CAPEX spending that companies were planning to do over a longer time horizon. Now they're going to pull it forward into the next 5 years. So, you know, if you think about it, the easiest way to get to lower emissions is by moving your operations closer to your consumer. And that's what we're seeing most companies do. In fact, our analysts, our analyst based asked our companies, how are you going to reduce emissions? And one of the most frequent responses was reassuring near shoring. So the inflation reduction act, I think, is really interesting in that it does encourage moving to that goal faster, but what it might also do is push inflation up as companies spend more aggressively on CAPEX as this tax benefit basically lasts for about 5 years. So it's a complicated, I don't know if keeping great flow forever is the answer. Thank you. Thanks. I certainly not
KCRW
"megan mcardle" Discussed on KCRW
"With left right and center. I'm Josh Barrow on the right is Megan McArdle, columnist of The Washington Post on the left is Elizabeth Bronek, staff writer at the Atlantic Congress remains busy. There are ongoing negotiations to see whether a portion of President Biden's infrastructure proposal could be completed on a bipartisan basis. West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito is the lead Republican negotiator on that Democrats are working out how they want to seek to advance legislation about voting, though that's highly likely to run into a Republican filibuster in the Senate, But there are two other things moving in the shorter term. But I think tell us something interesting about how Congress works today. One bill is a reflection of the new, highly polarized Congress, and the other is a throwback. Showing the Congress is sometimes secretly like it always Woz. The partisan fight, which we'll get to in a second is over whether there should be a bipartisan commission to investigate the January six attack on the Capitol. But what I want to talk about first is something that really looks like old style legislation. This is the U. S Innovation and Competition Act. Now part of this was once referred to as the Endless Frontier Act, which is a bipartisan proposal from Chuck Schumer on the Democratic side, and Todd Young, a Republican from Indiana. On. It was intended to sharply increase U. S investment in Applied Science Research. That's in things like artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing biotechnology. All this very cool stuff on you can call a big $100 billion investment in this over five years. You can call it a way to boost productivity growth. Even call it a way to fight climate change. You can call it a way to compete with China and in fact Members of both parties have been saying all of those things, and that's part of why the bill is likely on the way to pass. It's been moving through regular order. That's the way Congress is supposed to work or committees right legislation. They change it. There are negotiations and people insert their own pet projects into the bills. And we've been seeing the good and bad of that That's helping to build the coalition that's going to get this thing to pass. But the bills also becoming kind of a Christmas tree, which is to say people hang whatever they want on it. Why Senator Brian Shot's gotta provisioning to build to fight the trade in shark fins. Some of the money also keeps getting shifted around like New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Luhan got a lot of the money that was supposed to go to this new initiative is gonna move the Department of Energy, which has major labs in his state of New Mexico. Bills also been really reduced in size. $100 billion now includes the existing budget of the National Science Foundation, So it's good. It's an increase in spending by tens of billions of dollars, but not as much as was once hoped. Still, it's not nothing even though a lot of a lot of other science stuff and a lot of other unrelated stuff has gotten to this bill. It shows that Congress can move toward new, interesting initiatives, with the temperature a little bit lower in terms of partisanship of the negotiations when they set their mind to it. S Elizabeth. When you look at this Is this a good process and is it leading to a good outcome? Well, I think that the second question sort of answers. The first It's not leading to good outcomes and therefore I I have to rule that it's not a great process. I mean, something. We're not about Congress for a long time. Like you said, It's no surprise that it's ultra dysfunctional. But I think this bill especially because there's nothing really to object to their on. There's a lot to support, especially coming from the situation. We've just come from with the pandemic. On get it's turned into you know such a such a log rolling disaster, I think is it is a very good object lesson in the problem here. But I don't know that it's a log rolling disaster. I mean, even if a lot of the stuff that's getting put in here wasn't supposed to be the initial priority. You know, I don't have a problem with spending more money at the Department of Energy's labs in New Mexico, even if the bill is becoming less focused, and some of the money is spent better than others. It seems to me like you know, if that's what you have to do in order to get something done, and and things are, there's nothing in here that looks to me like it's a completely terrible way for the government to spend money. So I'm I'm not sure it's a disaster, even if it's in perfect. But hasn't ah lot of the pinning stuff. I mean, pinning things on to this bill. I mean, hasn't it also resulted in the wiggling down of the money that was initially set aside for innovation and right? And yes, that's the arresting and technology. Yes, that's a serious problem. Megan, What do you make of this? Look on the one hand I'm kind of heartened to see logrolling coming back. It's kind of just really you cheering to see Congress behaving basically normally. Yes. On the one hand, they have messed up this bill. It is now smaller than it should be, I would say, because I think that you know the government should just like spend money with abandon on basic scientific research research. Ondo Horse Trading has been no prettier to watch than any process of congressional sausage making ever is. But on the other hand, like it's just so normal, right, we're kind of arguing about fairly small details on a bill that we can all basically agree like, should happen. Um and that is a really welcome change from the other side..
KCRW
"megan mcardle" Discussed on KCRW
"Thistles, Josh Barrow and Welcome to left Right and center. You're civilized, yet provocative antidote to the self contained opinion bubbles that dominate political debate. It is the third week of May and as we tape on Friday morning, Hamas and the Israeli government have reached a cease fire after a week and a half of fighting that left hundreds of Palestinians and about a dozen Israelis dead. Fighting had begun in earnest on May 10th. After days of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police that the election mosque Hamas fired rockets toward Jerusalem, drawing an Israeli military response and so forth. President Biden has intentionally set out to de emphasize the Israeli Palestinian conflict in U. S foreign relations. There are no grand plans for a peace process, an area where many administrations before have tried and failed. Hall to see wrote in politico about how the Biden team doesn't even like to use the word peace, talking more about how they want to bring calm to the area to deescalate tensions, essentially setting the modest goal of stopping acute conflicts like the one we have seen this month. And so this Wednesday, Biden, whose hands off approach it displeased increasingly vocal elements in the Democratic Party, there are tuned to the concerns of Palestinians communicated to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he expected a significant de escalation that day on a path toward a cease fire. And the ceasefire brokered by Egypt emerged on Thursday to talk about that. Let's bring in our left right and center panel has always on your center. I'm joined by Megan McArdle, columnist of The Washington Post on the Right. Hello, Megan. Hi. And on the left. Elizabeth Bronek, staff writer at the Atlantic Clueless Hi, Josh making what's the role here for the United States? Oh, I'm not even sure what the role for Israel the Palestinians is at this point. Look, I think that you know they're the administration is pulling back and with good reason, because if if you go to Israel You find out that they also have kind of given up. I mean, if you if you go back to Oslo and the nineties, but Clinton initiative, um you know that process ultimately collapsed. It did not produce a peace deal and that Basically decimated the Israeli left. Um, And now when you you know, I was there and 2018 and I remember asking multiple people like what is the endgame? How do you see this getting to a stable resolution And the answer? I basically got back is they don't see an end game is real is not thinking about how I get to a stable solution. Israel is thinking about how do I survive right now? How do I manage the threat? And that turns into the United States. You know, you could go in for big hopes for peace Still, but ultimately I think that the ground has shifted a lot in the last 20 years. And the bite administration is kind of recognizing what I think is a fact on the ground, which is the parties are not even really thinking about a deal. They're thinking very short term. On Dat means that the role of the United States is to try to minimize the damage both there and, of course to our interests here and abroad. Liz, I assume that's not how you would want to conceive the U s role here. But what I mean, what would there be that we could do? That would be different. That would be productive. Yeah. I mean, um, I think you know. There's very little we could do that. Would I think, make a meaningful difference at this point, especially a meaningful positive difference. Think the one running theme in U. S foreign policy since World War two has been intervention by the United States doesn't really seem to help anything and seems to make everything worse. Most of the time s O. I mean, I have fallen with with Sanders, for instance and AOC And we shouldn't be, uh, selling arms. We shouldn't be selling arms to Israel, especially giving them an expedited 15 Day, a review period instead of the typical 30 Day review period, we shouldn't be making special sweetheart deals to arm them, because again that just seems to be a form of intervention that's actually making everything worse, raising casualties. And so forth. Yeah, Megan. So I get to that point, the historic US support that we have had for for Israel in the long alliance that we've had that was built around for a long period of time when Israel had a very different internal politics that it has today and was was built around the idea. I think it was a true idea in the 19 nineties. There was a commitment from the Israeli government. There was an interest in a peace process. There was an interest in achieving a permanent resolution on guy think that in that context, it made a lot more sense to basically say, You know, we're here to support the Israeli government and to and to support them through this process so that they can be independent and free and peaceful. I don't think we have that partner on the Palestinian side, either. But if we don't have that partnership there, what is what is the reason that it makes sense for us to be selling arms to Israel, for example. Well, what is there isn't a sense for us to be selling arms to many of the countries. We sell arms D. Oh, look, I think that we have historically had a special relationship with Israel for a lot of reasons. Um, starting with the fact that you know this is this is a nation that was On Dad. Also kind of, you know, witnessed the horrors of it. Liberating the camps. Um, had you know was a supporter of Israel from the beginning and had long had And you know, the other thing is that that for all of Israel's problems that I have a lot of problems with the way that they had all the Palestinian Um and, frankly, the Arabs within their borders, Um they are still the most kind of peaceful, stable liberal government in the region. Um, you know, people within their borders have more short human rights and all the rest of it again without in any way, minimizing the abuses against the Palestinians. And the United States tends to pick governments that are friendly and that look like us rather than governments that are unfriendly and don't look like us. I mean, institutionally not. It's not like a racial reference or cultural reference. Um, and that that they have been that partner like should we revisited? A. I think that that's a tough question. You know who who was the alternative? You could sort of argue for a like we just pull back into our borders on don't really give money or arms or anything else to other people. But you also have to ask questions like if the United States was not supporting Israel, first of all with their policy improve, I doubt it. If any, if anything, making them more threatened, might make the policies worse..
Newsradio 970 WFLA
"megan mcardle" Discussed on Newsradio 970 WFLA
"We went and we got our sous soon as we possibly could know. You got some people they waited and Mother getting like 100 bucks or shot and a beer. Where's my shot? Where's my beer? Um, you know what e think There's you know? Also don't necessarily want to pay people to be vaccine hesitant, which is what one of the defenses of this has been. Well, People are afraid. Well. Okay, I get that. But we probably shouldn't be subsidizing vaccine hesitancy. You know, at this point, every adult in the United States who want to back you get one. And it is time to treat the decision to stay home from work as what it would be in a normal economy, not and during a pandemic. What are some of the potential consequences If this really continues to drag out the April jobs number was way weight off expectations if we see that Again for Mei. What are we looking at here with the U. S economy, You know the big thing that we're looking at. It's just business is not able to get back on their feet, right? You know, you have these businesses who have been Desperately trying to stave off and volunteer for a year. And if they have to go another summer without adequate staff to run in normal operation than a lot of those businesses just might not, you know they're talking about. I just got to get through the September but you know, it's not clear that all of them are going to unless something changes one final thing. I want to touch on real quick. This issue, along with the inflation numbers we saw today, inflation rising faster than expected, you know, once vaccinations sort of really ramping up the view of what was in store for the economy became super optimistic, and I think most economists will hold that view for 2021. But are these a few red flags that if they're not handled properly, could derail the recovery? Look, I think that there was an argument that we needed to rip this monetary policy needs looser. Um on do that, You know, we needed to run the economy hotter in order to get employment sort of full employment. I think that we're seeing the impact of one side of that argument Winning, which is we're seeing, um High demand for labor and people not filling jobs. And we're also seeing, of course, um, inflation looking like we we We don't exactly know to be clear. It's not entirely clear that this is the results of That it was only a month so it could just be that you know, sometimes in the numbers go up from fun. But if that continues, then I think yes, we were in a worrying situation where we've got Um, actually, weirdly, a combination of high inflation and high unemployment, which is a something we haven't seen since the 19 seventies. Now, I think the source of that would be different. But it's not a good situation for the economy to be in and should try toe. Tonto. Avoid that. We're seeing a lot of things these days that we've never seen before. So buckle up. I guess. Washington post opinion columnist Megan McArdle with us here, Megan. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me coming up. Next. I'm gonna talk to Dan Raviv, a longtime CBS correspondent in the Middle East, about the situation that's unfolding between Israel and the Palestinians. Violence escalating what caused it? What's happening now? What's the off ramp to a potential peaceful resolution? We're gonna get to all of that and more in a second. Don't move. Let me ask you something. Are you dealing with chronic joint pain and trying to avoid surgery too? Well, if that's the case, I've got some good news for you..
KCRW
"megan mcardle" Discussed on KCRW
"Schools that they're expected to Participate in things in the middle of the day and so forth, and those air real those a real house to the people who want to do the other thing, and we have not figured out and maybe it's not possible how to build a society in which both things are possible. And so if you think that the world on that was better off when more women were home with kids, at least when they're young, and I think that that is possible, I think it's in an empirical argument if you look at the literature on happiness It's really interesting that the only group whose happiness has fallen eyes married women. Um then, you know, maybe that that's correct. And maybe the boomers really wrought destruction if you think you know, and I am a childless woman with with a professional job. If you think that I would have been pretty unhappy, locked in a suburb with three kids, Um then you think that's a good change. But I think it is a change. And we we shouldn't over romanticize it. But we shouldn't assume that what we're doing now is the best possible thing either. Maybe it isn't but it isn't that last bit and an important part there. Her that I mean, you know the while there are while it has become much less common for a woman to stay home and raise Children. There are millions and millions and millions of American women who do this, and they can if they if they so chose families can locate into communities where that's more common. You don't generally do that on the Upper West Side, but people people have chosen various, You know, subcultures. You certainly see, you know Mormon communities in Utah, where this is a very standard thing to do. And so, Helen when, when I look at the at that decline, my first assumption is that people's behavior is driven by what they would like to be doing on. But people you know when there's when, when you have more people who are unmarried, and when you have more women who are who are in the work force. My first assumption is that that reflects an actual set of preferences and that if we impose if we re impose 19 fifties style, you know social expectations. And we end up then we end up pushing people into situations that we can see now they would not freely choose to enter. So why? Why shouldn't that be the first assumption that people's behavior that people's life choices reflect their actual preferences? Well, first, I'd like to push back a little against your claim that there are still millions and millions of stay at home moms out there, so it must be fairly easy to pursue that. Of course, there are such millions of stay at home moms, but the percentage of women with Children under five who are working full time Reached its highest point ever in 2019 s. Oh, that's still definitely something that's Ah, favored and advantaged. But you make a valid point about You know, Don't people's choices reflect their actual preferences? They're revealed Preferences s so to speak. But there's a reason why Elizabeth Warren called the two income trap. Trap, and it's because it's something that people get stuck in, even when their choices would would lead them to want to prefer a different option. And this is also the rebuttal to the valid point that Meghan made, which is that, you know if people really wanted to live the one breadwinner. Lifestyle circa 1970. They could do that. And there's a fascinating technical debate on exactly that question between economists like Scott Winship and Oren CASS specifically, But the bottom line point is that actually, it would not be possible today to buy health insurance that you would have back then. By the college education for your kids that you would have back then. So the claim that you could live that lifestyle if you wanted to, and the fact that you don't mean that you wouldn't doesn't hold up because those choices are in fact not available to people before we go. What's wrong with Aaron Sorkin? I was interested. I mean, you go through these six specific examples of boomers who basically failed to live up to their potential in this book. Aaron Sorkin has been who wrote, The West Wing has come come in for a lot of criticism, especially from the left. And in recent years. What's what's your knock on Aaron Sorkin? Well, I should clarify. I do devote an entire chapter to Aaron Sorkin in this book, but it's not a takedown. I I love Aaron Sorkin. The West Wing is my guilty pleasure. My problem is not with him. My problem is with the people who took the West Wing for reality. I think Meghan Josh David, as some of you probably lived in Washington, D C. And so you can confirm my experience, which is that a lot of people in this town Think of themselves as characters in their own Little West Wing episode. And that's what I find disturbing because the West Wing is a is a fantasy. It's a fantasy version of well. The Clinton years were pretty Boomer ish, already insufferably Boomer ish in many ways, and the West Wing is an even more boomer ish fantasy version. So it's like Boomer nous squared. That's what's wrong with the West Wing. Helen Andrews, senior writer of the American conservative and author of Boomers. Men and women who promised freedom and deliver disaster. Thank you, Helen. Thank you, Josh. We've reached that time once again for our fame, left right and center rants featuring pet peeves from across the political spectrum. David Dan, what's your ran Well. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced he would step down this week to spend more time with his moon colonization project and Less time on congressional hearings. The same day is this announcement, The Federal Trade Commission fined Amazon $61.7 million for stealing tips from delivery drivers. Amazon is currently fighting a unionization campaign and Bessemer, Alabama by confronting warehouse workers with anti labor methods messages in the bathroom stalls. And at another troublesome warehouse in Chicago. The entire facility was shut down, and workers were told they could stay on if they agreed to a new warehouse and a 10 hour overnight ship called a mega cycle. I'd say that basis departure was intended to overshadow these stories. Except that knuckling under workers partners sellers on its website, competitors, governments and entire industries has been his motor separate, and I For the last 27 years. That's the legacy of a winner. Take all executive and winner Take all economy whose desire to take a cut of every economic transaction is nearly complete. The best parting gift for Bezos and for all of us would be the break up of the behemoth he built. Megan McArdle IT yourself box. Stop complaining that the vaccine program doesn't look like some imaginary perfect program that you have designed in your head..
KCRW
"megan mcardle" Discussed on KCRW
"You put the onus on the individual to know that there is a certain eligibility to fill out the proper form to, you know, make sure that their tax preparer perhaps Is filling out the proper form, and we've seen this I mean, there. There have been studies of, for example, the earned income tax credit, which is a major way for the working poor to get a particular benefit. And the utilization is something like 78%. And that means one in five people who are eligible for it. Just don't get it and there have been, you know, large a potential Plans on the on the left. There's a guy named Joe Sandberg here in in California who has done this across the country TGS people to know about the E I T C and to sign up for the EITC and it Z kind of like, why do we need to waste that that effort of organizing when we could just make the program simpler to use and intuitive and And airing on the side of getting the benefit out automatically or close to it. Rather than putting the onus on the individual. I say that it's kind of attacks on people's time. Which, you know, maybe maybe doesn't come up as as an income tax. But it is. It is a tax and, you know, we we have these sort of convoluted ways in many senses. Of putting together systems so that people can get benefits to which they're entitled. So I think any time that you simplify that system, you're moving in the right direction. Let's take a break. And when we come back, Helen Andrews will join us with her case against the baby boomers. I've been talking with Megan McArdle of the Washington Post and David Day and of the American.
KCRW
"megan mcardle" Discussed on KCRW
"We want to hear from YouTube tweet us at el RC KCRW and download the free KCRW apt to listen to left right and center on demand. KCRW sponsors include Aspiration, a digital neo bank designed to help people spend save and invest in ways that are good for the planet. Aspiration lets customers plant a tree with every qualifying swipe of their debit card more at aspiration dot com. I'm working on Leon are to the point Podcast, the former vice president of the World Bank welcomes Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary. America's back with intense with cash with innovation and with financial innovations, well economics and the climate emergency on our to the point podcast. Back again with left right and center. I'm Josh Barrow on the right is Megan McArdle columnist The Washington Post and on the left David Day in his executive editor of the American Prospect Infrastructure, maybe on the congressional agenda for later this year. But there's another big idea with bipartisan support that could show up there too. Joe Biden is called for child allowance and unrestricted payment of a few $1000 per child. Each year. Parents from deep poverty all the way up through the middle class, it would end up phasing out for high earners. Currently we have a child tax credit. But in addition to being smaller than this proposed child allowance, you can't get the child tax credit if you're extremely poor, because you have to earn income to qualify for it, making this allowance available to people with lowest incomes with significantly reduced child poverty. And now this idea is bipartisan. Mitt Romney is out with a proposal that differs from the Biden planning its contours is actually a little bit more generous overall, but that takes the same universal approach that is aimed at poverty reduction. This idea would cost about $100 billion a year. Romney would pay for that, in a few ways, including by eliminating the income tax deduction for state and local taxes paid that deduction, which is a favorite of affluent residents of high tax. Blue states was already significantly curtailed in the 2017 tax law. So, Megan, Is this a good idea? Absolutely. Um, you know the salt production is indefensible, either ethically or as a public policy matter. Um, And it's a good idea have a simpler to administer program that targets. You know, the United States has a demographic problem and anything that even on the margin encourages people to have more kids is good for America. Um, this is good for families who may need help but not.
KCRW
"megan mcardle" Discussed on KCRW
"I mean, at least, you know the I'm not saying that we need to desperately avoid any policies that could cause inflation. But it seems like people experiencing that for the first time in a while, especially seniors who aren't working, and so wouldn't be enjoying the wage increases associate ID with with sort of an economy that's running hot. What do you do about the fact that that's going to arises as a zoo? Public opinion concern as a political concern, and I think, you know, I think that does conceivably interfere with efforts to do an infrastructure package because if you have to do those tax provisions you describe To offset whatever new spending you do. Then you add the political difficulty of getting people to agree in a very narrow democratic majority on exactly what tax increases to do, whereas if you continue to have this very low rate environment Then you can just sort of agree to do more deficit spending. That certainly is a political issue, although I think that the Democratic caucus is pretty well aligned on a lot of that stuff. I mean, I would say that that inflation has been running below target for close to a decade. Now often on I mean for the vast majority of the last decade, inflation has been under that 2% target. If we run it hot for a period of time. You're just moving back to that. That target level. Are we going to let 2.2% over? 2% B something that restricts us from, you know, reconfiguring our schools so that we can get people into the classroom. Are we gonna let that be a barrier to getting the vaccines out as fast as possible and testing and tracing. Making what would it be such a bad thing to run the economy? Sort of so called too hot for some period? I mean, I think I disagree with your characterization that we're at full employment outside travel in hospitality and some other leisure industries that have been especially impacted by the pandemic. I mean, we saw in the 18 4019 period. That the unemployment rate could get a lot lower than a lot of economists previously thought without spiking inflation up that was generating relatively healthy increases in real wages. It feels like you know that people say Oh, the economy will be too hot that that means that companies compete more for workers. They have to pay more. It becomes easier for people to find jobs and to change jobs that they don't like their job. The flip side of that is yes. Some prices go up as companies have to pay more in order to get stuff done, But it feels like the that provides a lot of benefits toe ordinary people that are not something to sneeze that. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not in inflation, OG and my fear is just that look. If we get to like 200, or 250% of debt to GDP, which is where both parties the direction they're not pushing us is no one wants to ever pay for anything. They just want to spend huge amounts of money on depended on things that are not really fundamentally about addressing crises, which is when you should be doing deficit spending. I think the risk instead is that people look at that debt level and just say you know what it Zalkind of starting to worry about whether the United States can pay this much debt back. So I would like us to say yes. Sometimes we have to borrow money to deal with a crisis. I supported a bunch of this in 2000 and eight I supported have supported a bunch of it in the past year. I still support a bunch of it for people who are really suffering right now, and I am not worried about running the economy too hot. What I am worried about is the long term fiscal structural problem that we're setting up. If we're if we're not thrifty about the money that we spend and if we're not Really making sure that it is money that is either going to like infrastructure, raise tax revenues and economic growth later or money that is needed right now, because we're in a crisis to deal with people who are suffering and $1400 checks to people who are making $150,000 a year is not in any way really connected to people who are suffering. It is connected to the Democratic Party's desire. To please voters on get a poll bump. Let's take a break. I'll be back with David Day into the American Prospect, and Megan McArdle of the Washington Post to talk about proposals on both sides of the aisle to give more money to.
KCRW
"megan mcardle" Discussed on KCRW
"With left right and center. I'm your host, Josh Barrow on the right is Megan McArdle. Columns of The Washington Post and on the left is David Day, an executive editor of the American Prospect. Now we're going to talk about the baby boomers what they did to the rest of us and what we can do to fight back and to talk about that. We're joined by Helen Andrews. Helen is a senior editor of the American Conservative and her new book is called Boomer's The Men and Women who promised freedom and delivered disaster. Hello, Helen. Thanks for having me. So this is a trend this anti boomer sentiment and it seems to come from across the political spectrum. You are obviously a conservative, but they're also books like this being written from the left. And it seems like it least some of the complaints about the boomers are in common. But what is the complaint? What do you allege that boomers have done to wrong? The generations that come after them. You say they inherited prosperity, social cohesion and functioning institutions. They passed on debt inequality, more urban churches and a broken democracy. How exactly did they do that You're right that it's a pan ideological case against the boomers, and my intention with this book was to sort out which elements of the anti boomer case were valid and invalid. And as I paired away the invalid ones and got down to the ones that I think are a fair case. Ah common theme emerged in most cases what the boomers did. To screw up the country for the generations after them was to destroy institutions. The boomers were a generation preoccupied with youth. They thought that you thin and experience was where you would find the most wisdom. They didn't put a lot of stock in tradition. They also put a great value on individual choice and the thing about institutions whether they be the families or the churches or even the political parties is that institutions constrain individual choice, so they decided to tear down like a wrecking ball. All of the things that had Held together the civilization that they inherited and the result rather than being liberation across the board has been chaos. And so it strikes me that it's in these arguments. It seems to be sort of table stakes that everything has gone to hell. That things used to be good. And now people are mad because there's so much worse. And then the debates are about. You know why that happened and what to do about it, But I want to ask first, like, are things really that bad? Because there was a Gallup poll released this week about aspects of public life, and it found that average satisfaction with various aspects of public life fell off a cliff during the pandemic. But even prior to that had been on a downward trend for 20 years. And so things like organized religion and the size of government and things like that. There's just continuing dissatisfaction that is growing. On the other hand, when Gallup asks people whether they're satisfied with their personal lives as of early 2020. That was a record of 90% it was up from, You know, if you pulled that about 40 years ago, you typically get only about in the high seventies of Americans, saying they're satisfied with their personal lives. So 40 years on, people are more satisfied with their own lives. And they used to be so I guess you know with the how do we know that the breaking of those institutions and the that liberation? How do we know was such a bad thing? If people are reporting, on average, the greater satisfaction than they used to. I'm so glad you're pushing back against the claim that everything's going to hell. Because a lot of boomers themselves don't buy it. They look at the world outside, they say, What are you millennials complaining about? You have iPhones. On. I think one example. The that were butts. The data that you just presented is the family that's clearly one where the boomers will own up to having affected a revolution there rather proud of the sexual revolution that they created. They might admit that they may be engaged in some excesses in the 19 seventies, but they say, well, the old family that existed in the 19 fifties that was terrible and repressive and nobody actually liked it. And in fact, if people liked it so much, how come it hasn't come back? But I look at the data for Millennials and I see that in just the last five years, America crossed a fateful threshold. Where now a majority of people Over the age of 16 are unmarried. Usually a majority have been married throughout American history. The millennials are on track to be the least married generation in American history. 25% of millennial women are now on track to die childless. And I don't think based on my conversations with millennials that that reflects how millennials want things to be. Most people want at some point in their lives to settle down with a partner. And so the fact that that's not happening indicates to me. Not that people's desires have changed, or that people's desires have been unleashed by the wonderful freedom of the sexual revolution. It shows that something Was broken in the way people engage in courtship the way they come together the way they make commitments to each other. So I think that's you know, least married generation in American history is a pretty good indication that things are not going great, David. There are aspects of this account that I think you often hear similar things from the left. Now they come from places of different values and and different embassies. But this idea that he used to be more possible to have a single bread with her family. The unordinary person. Usually a man could have an ordinary job and support espouse and Children on that that the economy change structurally, in a certain way that pushed us away from that is something that you hear both traditional is conservatives like like Helen and various voices on the left raising as a significant deterioration. American society. Do you see that? On and if so, what caused that and how could you change it? I think you could definitely make an economic argument for why it's so difficult for people to couple up. And s so difficult for, you know people coming up in this generation right now, toe prosper. I don't know that I would necessarily connect that. To generational issue. I always kind of have a problem with painting with a very broad brush. What one generation or another generation did when you know we contain multitudes. But it's certainly true that there is, you know, changes in the economy that has made it much more difficulty for four families. I mean, that's what we were just talking about. With respect to, uh Various ways, toe toe reduce child poverty. I think that that is more of an ideological issue you and in my view and an issue of Of, you know, certain certain trends around conservatism and and and conservative economics that came in, you know, in the early 19 eighties. Rather than a generational issue. But it is something that I think that both parties can agree that that is, you know, has a detrimental effect. Whether we agree on what that test for mental effect is not withstanding. But it's something that we should definitely pay attention to Helen to that point just before you joined us. We were talking about Mitt Romney's child allowance proposal on the cool reception that it's gotten from certain other Republican officials. How does how does this fit? Into your critique, not of the boomers, but also of the You know, the societal changes of that we've seen over the last several decades is is a child allowances that a conservative idea that would allow people to return to some of those more traditional family forms. Or is that an undesired government intervention? I think the details of the Mitt Romney proposal are not something I've examined yet, but fundamentally trying to make things easier for families. The intention behind the Romney proposal is absolutely well within the conservative tradition..
KCRW
"megan mcardle" Discussed on KCRW
"In the KCRW AB. Support comes from Pacific Neuroscience Institute Foundation. Parkinson's Disease is a complex neurodegenerative condition that requires expert care for patients living with Parkinson's Pacific Neuroscience Institute offers innovative personalized treatments designed to help reduce tremors, rigidity and slowness Symptoms management with medications and innovative, deep brain stimulation Technology aimed to provide a comprehensive continuum of care for each patient. Improving quality of life. Learn more at Pacific neuro dot org's slash Parkinson's. Back again with left right and center. I'm Josh Barrow. On the right is Megan McArdle, columnist of The Washington Post and on the left David Day, and his executive editor of the American Prospect Infrastructure, maybe on the congressional agenda for later this year. But there's another big idea with bipartisan support that could show up there too. Joe Biden is called for child allowance and unrestricted payment of a few $1000 per child. Each year. Parents from deep poverty all the way up to the middle class, it would end up facing out for high earners. Currently we have a child tax credit. But in addition to being smaller than this proposed child allowance, you can't get the child tax credit if you're extremely poor, because you have to earn income to qualify for it, making this allowance available to people with lowest incomes with significantly reduced child poverty. And now this idea is bipartisan. Mitt Romney is out with a proposal that differs from the Biden planning its contours is actually a little bit more generous overall, but that takes the same universal approach that is aimed at poverty reduction. This idea would cost about $100 billion a year. Romney would pay for that, in a few ways, including by eliminating the income tax deduction for state and local taxes paid that deduction, which is a favorite of affluent residents of high tax. Blue states was already significantly curtailed in the 2017 tax law. So, Megan, Is this a good idea? Absolutely. Um, you know the salt production is indefensible, either ethically or as a public policy matter. Um, And it's a good idea have a simpler to administer program. Um, that targets you know, the United States has a demographic problem and anything that even on the margin encourages people to have more kids is good for America. Um, this is good for families who may.
KCRW
"megan mcardle" Discussed on KCRW
"For 100 days. He has also signed an order requiring face coverings on federal Property. But the kind of and the quality of masks that are widely available various pretty widely and now with worries about more transmissible variants, experts are telling people to wear better masks, especially The workers who faced the highest risks from the workplace culture desk marketplaces Meghan McCarty, Karina is on that one. My sheikh a wrong Keogh has a whole laundry basket of cloth masks of every stripe and fabric. I lose them like all the time, So it's like you get that one master. You're just like, Oh, this is so cool and then you know you lose it. She's got masks emblazoned with the words black lives matter and united we stand just making positive. Wrong Queue works part time at a fast food restaurant in Los Angeles, one of the worst hot spots in the country. Sometimes she gets disposable paper masks at work, but supplies often run low, so she wears her own cloth. One. It's a big difference from her other job as a home health care aide for two older patients. They have everything right at the front door. As soon as I walk in, I changed from O'clock Mass. They have Kay and 95 mash those filter at least 95% of small airborne particles, one of the primary drivers of covert 19 transmission. Wrong, Keogh says several co workers at the restaurant I've gotten sick, and she worries about bringing the virus home, where she lives with five family members, including her mom, I'm very concerned because sometimes there's 10 to 15 people and the space that work, you know, you're literally side by side. As the virus has become more pervasive and potentially more transmissible the risk multiplies, says Monica Gandhi and infectious disease doctor at UC San Francisco that increased risk means workers need increased protection. It's not the cloth masks don't work. Actually, they do block a lot of the virus, but they don't block all of it. So if you're in these indoor spaces, I would where Quote, stronger mask Disposable and 95 respirators are still best reserved for health care workers, she says. But there are better alternatives than cloth. And Gandhi worries. That message has gotten a little lost. The tail of masks is a very willful one and the United States In the earliest days of the pandemic. We had officials like the surgeon general Jerome Adams, saying not to wear them mask do not work for the general public and preventing them from getting parole. Then supplies were short. So it was all about D I y. Or you can make a face covering out of an old T shirt folded to the middle and the message that end 90 five's are on Lee for health care workers and everyone else can just use whatever has kind of stuck, says Gandhi. It was a blunt way of thinking and it wasn't nuanced, and it wasn't correct. Any mask is better than no mask. But there's kind of like a hierarchy of different solutions. Deva Buck Denise, three, Krishna works in patient education he and to Harvard Medical School Partners have analyzed all the available options. Best, he says, is a reusable, The last America and 95. That kind of makes you look like Darth Vader. They're not is exactly the most stylish things, but they're widely available. Unlike disposable and 90 five's they fit better arm or comfortable and provide the same level of protection. But not everyone is going to want to wear something so bulky. So his virus cases of mounted in Los Angeles fast food worker my sheikh a wrong Keogh has improvised her own solution doubling up. Most of the time on have on a cloth, mass that like comes down my neck, and then I'll put another mask over that. Monica Gandhi at UC San Francisco, says the best combination is a standard surgical mask layered with a washable cloth mask that provides almost equal protection to an N 95 without looking like you've gone to the dark side. Megan McArdle Carino for Marketplace. Coming up. You hit your head on the plants is just not what I wanted it to be. You know, some ideas or better just left as ideas, right? First, though, let's do the numbers down. Dust rose up 300 points today. Almost 1% 30,000 to 603, the NASDAQ rose almost 67 points 5/10 percent 33 13,007. S and P 500 jumped nearly 37 points. Almost 1% 78 3007. Those roller coaster stocks and spree was talking about up to the top of the program. Companies caught between hedge fund short sellers and red enters. Gamestop ended the day down. 44% AMC down 56% BlackBerry Remembered blackberries by the way dropped 40% 40% brought bond prices, fellas well yield on the 10 year Treasury Note. 1.4%..
860AM The Answer
"megan mcardle" Discussed on 860AM The Answer
"Years, Mike Gallagher. I am very aware that this is a painful day. For millions of Americans. There's no question That Watching Joe Biden's inauguration unfold today is tough, but what I'm what? I'm optimistic about what I'm excited about. What I am hopeful about is knowing knowing that we're here together and this show And this radio station and this site and this streaming video and this platform. Is here expressly for You. For times like these There are people who are Angry. They're people who are despondent. There are people who are sad. There are people who are relieved. Tucker Carlson put it last night. Winning hasn't made the left any less crazy. It's true. Um Years ago, the columnist Megan McArdle, Paula postulated a law of politics, The DeVoe tase of the party in power are smug. And arrogant. The devoted ease of the party out of power are insane. This was a pretty good summary of the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump years, writes Glenn Reynolds at The New York Post, but no more. The Democrats have taken control of the presidency and both houses of Congress. But based on the evidence of the past week That hasn't made them any less crazy. First the unleashing of the big tech titans against the Twitter alternative parlor. Um Facebook took down all sorts of pages, including one for the Walk away campaign, which was designed to encourage minority voters to switch to the Republican Party with half a million followers. Twitter, of course, Band President Trump move that drew criticism even from Angela Merkel. Who's never been a big trump fan. Here We are. Then Democrats voted to impeach Trump. Um One promise of the Biden campaign. Was that after the craziness of the trump years Electing Biden would return the country to normal. It was a promise. Let's uh Let's see if Joe Biden is capable of fulfilling that profits that promise Because Democrats are doubling down on crazy these days, and we're all witnessing it in real time. It is Inauguration day. I wanna as we always do whenever there is a historic or or big event. I invite you to call 1 806 55 Micah's. We put your voice front and center here on this show. This is also a good day. If you are interested in the in the list of Trump accomplishments, because we're going to be battered with revisionists who want to pretend That there were no accomplishments and that the Trump presidency was a disaster. The reason they're doing that is they're going to take the riot at the Capitol on January 6th and use it to bludgeon you into thinking that that was emblematic of all four years. Of the Trump presidency. Now that's a bald faced lie. You know it. I know it. They know it. And as proof. If you text the keyword trump toe 1 806 556453, We will send back to you courtesy of the My Pillowtex line, a list of President Trump's accomplishments over the four years of his presidency. Probably helpful list for you to have handy for that pesky co worker who's going to repeat Don Lemon's talking points that four years of Trump has been a disaster. For some reason, the feed we use gravy in they always like sending out clips of the late night comics. I don't know why I don't even like looking at them. I don't even like hearing anything they have to say. But one of them in particular. It's Seth. Um, I always get the guys mixed up. Seth Meyers. I guess this is a raging Angry, bitter Looney Tunes. Was talking about how the Republican Party there's a late night comic How the rot has infected the core of the entire Republican Party. The Republican Party is rotten to the core. How's that for late night humor? This is what they Glen Reynolds means about the gaining power hasn't made these people any less crazy. I'm I'm might even play part of Chef Myers. Comedy routine last night so you can hear Anak Chew a lunatic on late night talk. I'm sure he's in his bedroom. I hear a couple of voices off in the side. Nobody's doing TV shows with audiences except Saturday Night Live Somehow they figured a way around it. But none of these other shows have audiences, of course, so they're sitting in their studios by themselves, or they're in their bedrooms or in their in their basements and their and their rig. Urgent ating their hatred. For Oh, I don't know more than half the country. And to hear this guy, it's really kind of stunning. So when you hear that kind of garbage when you hear how rotten we all are, and how rotten Trump has been and how rotten the presidency has been, you might want a list of the accomplishments that were actually achieved in the four years of the Trump presidency so again as a public service to you No no extra charge. Standard Text messaging rates may apply. Please never text and drive. But if you text the keyword trump toe 1 806 556453 will send you back that list of accomplishments and it's a pretty helpful tool for you to have when you get bombarded with crazies who are going to tell you The Trump presidency was a disaster because it was not It was A monumentally impressive Victorious, successful four years that accomplished things that we couldn't even dream possible. Moments ago, the president and the first lady departed. For from the White House we're going to carry it will play for you. Some of President Trump's remarks. He also gave a very, very powerful, gracious farewell address last night. Including wishing the new administration, Uh, well praying for the new administration for its success. You won't hear that in the mainstream media, but we'll play it for you. So you know, he actually did that. And again we need We want your voice. What? 806 55 Mike as we welcome you into a Wednesday, January 20th 2021 episode of the Mike Gallagher Show right here in the relief factor dot com Studios 1 806 55 Mike Press 12 Come on air to leave a voicemail.
KGO 810
"megan mcardle" Discussed on KGO 810
"Chip Franklin with you on KGO, Um so it looks like there's gonna be an impeachment trial. It will be pretty quick and pretty short and there'll be a vote. And the question is how many Republicans Will be part of it. But really, you know, you look at this thing and you start to take it apart. And you ask that question to Megan McArdle is a columnist for The Washington Post. Meghan Where is this all stand now? How is it moving? Well, look, I think there are a bunch of different considerations when one is the short term consideration that the president has incited CIA's, as Mitt, Romney said, fomented insurrection against the government of the United States, and we need to do something about that. We can't just say Oh, well easily. They get 12 days. That's fine. Because the next time, you know, do we have a president who says, Well, I've got three months left. Maybe, um, you know, we have TOC have to respect the results of elections. We have to respect the peaceful transfer of power and we have to block off. This this kind of action and make it clear that there will be serious consequences for doing this kind of thing on go. I think all of that sort of points towards yes, we should impeach him remove him from office or his cabinet should should remove him to the 25th Amendment. Um That said. There are only 12 days left, which doesn't make it challenging, just procedurally to get it done. Um, it is not clear that this will succeed in the Senate on dwell for Democrats. This is obviously a no brainer. We should just impeach him because politically that will be good for them. Um and we'll humiliate Republicans who have to defend the president. A man called the split in their own party. I think that for the good of the country, there are questions about, you know, Do you want another failed impeach impeachment against this guy? Or do you want to just say it's small days away, and, um, And while we should do something, we're gonna have to prosecute him after these, Um or, you know, whatever we can do in order to send the message is completely unacceptable on their, albeit steep, steep price to pay. For this kind of behavior on then I think the third question is that look 45% of Republicans. Support what happened on Wednesday, which I think is appalling. But it is also a political reality. And you know you can purge political elites and sometimes political elites should be heard from office and punished for violating the trust that they've been given. Um you can't purchase voters. They're here. They're American citizens. They will be with us for a long time that there are questions about How do we get the legitimacy to move forward to move beyond Trump's presidency? I think Trump has done tremendous damage to the country. I think he has done tremendous damage just in terms of lying this of order than betraying them. I mean, one of the really tragic aspect of what happened on Wednesday. With that A number of those people clearly thought that they were trying to stop Congress from knowingly certifying a fraudulent election that had been stolen from the president by shadowy cab all of Washington insiders who were trying to prevent him from clearing out the swamp. That's utterly false. To be clear. Um And it does not excuse. You know, incitement to riot is not mixed used to write. It does not excuse what they did. They should be arrested. They should be tried. They should be punished for what they did. We cannot allow that. Tonto passed. It does point to the greater responsibility of the people they trusted, who told them that this had happened on def We don't deliver on the one hand if we don't deliver that kind of accountability. We're asking for this kind of thing to happen again. On the other hand, if they're that large in number, it becomes very difficult for that kind of accountability because that action will not be seen as legitimate. Bias, substantial portion of the electorate. And I think these are all very difficult problems. I mean, can we deal with these people who we saw that that video on the front of the Washington Post today? We're actually Babbitt gets shot. I mean, when I watched that my anger towards President Trump is borderline uncontrollable. I see this young woman who was obviously has some issues. The travel cross country go there. She's a veteran, and she still believes his Cuban on crap because people like Trump and others propagated it, and she's dead because of it. So that alone that one video right there tells me we have to remove him from office. Let me ask you a procedural question, though you were talking to Megan McArdle from The Washington Post. Will McConnell allow the Senate to come back? I think he's gonna have a hard time avoiding it if, um, if he's if Trump is impeached. Um, you know, he could try to hold out. But I also think I mean, if you watched his speech One thing I if you watched what a number of other Other girls were saying. I think that McConnell may have come to the end of his rope, which I mean, you never know, right. We have thought so many times that Republicans were done and they were finally going to rise up and then throw, throw him out. And then they they back down, and they backed down because their voters were average. But I do think I do think that Um, a lot of voters. Who I knew as Trump sympathetic among my readership. I won't say that they're now big Biden supporters, but I will say that they were shocked and horrified by what Trump did. And also that they recognize that he did it. That he got up there that he spent months lying to people about whether he'd lost the election. And they just kind of assumed that he was doing that to save face and pump up his base so that he could go off and start a TV show. And they did not expect him to try to organize a mob to storm Congress, which is basically what he did. He was clearly delighted with it right up to the point where his advisers pointed out that he might have legal liability for this. Um and this was not playing well. Always telling Now his advisers are telling reporters he's unhappy because he thought it looked low class. Really, You know, clearly, you should have put more gold leaf on his mob before he unleashes on Congress. Just totally insane. Um So I think that I think that this is different. Right for four for five years. Really? Had been listening to his supporters. You know, it's all just talk, talk, talk, talk talk, and you don't like the way he talks And who cares? Call me when he does something. He's done something now and yes, some of his supporters. They're still denying that he did something, but it's it's clear even to people who are At least Trump sympathetic Trump adjacent That he did this and they are out now. The problem is that another group of people has gone down this rabbit hole that he started because he was too much of a cry baby to admit he lost the election. Andre really believed that it was stolen it But there were all of these, You know, procedural moves to deny people, their votes and to still the votes. And, um I don't know what to do about that. And I think that that is actually the much bigger problem. You know, I personally on the moral basis I want him impeached and removed a pragmatic basis. I don't want him to have the party in power to possibly pardon the mob. He at least Um, but on a practical basis. What I am really worried about is not Donald Trump. He is in his seventies. He's not gonna be around forever. On by really don't think that is much of a shot of getting the nomination in 2024. When I worried about deeply is the damage he has done by convincing so many of his followers of a completely spirit of baseless fantasy. About the election being stolen from him rather than the fact that he lost the election because people were like, not very impressed by his handling of the pandemic and repulsed by the way he conducts himself. Yeah, I was, um I grew up as a Cold war kid and always worried about the concept of nuclear fall out and how long it would it would spoil the land. Fry for habitation. And I wonder now how Trump has spoiled the sensibilities and spirit of you know this just this disparate, sort of odd group of people who You know, I don't know what they're looking for. Really Don't And I think that the Democrats have two problems and one is procedural how to get this country together and the economy and covert everything the other It's how to how to embrace people. Without embracing this ideology because we can't have a civil war. We can't have an uncivil war. We have to find a way. To get through this and that is a tall, tall order. Meghan. Thank you.
Ben Shapiro
US grinds to a halt as Americans lock down to stop the spread of coronavirus
"Coronaviruses freaking everybody out well in corona virus news the British health minister and conservative member of parliament parliament Nadine Dorries has been diagnosed with corona virus now so the health minister of Great Britain has coronavirus mystery says she's been self isolating at home labour MP Rachel Maskell said she's been told to do the same **** met mysteries that apartment health in Britain said mysteries first showed symptoms on Thursday the same day she attended an event hosted by the prime minister right now U. K. had a documented total of three hundred eighty two cases as of yesterday six people with the virus have died in the U. K. in the United States the total number of cases now has surpassed one thousand cases in the United States we have twenty nine deaths so far the the clusters are happening on the coast mainly in Massachusetts New York Santa Clara California and up in Seattle Washington the first known US front of Irish cases announced January twenty first in Washington state the pace of diagnosis has quickened significantly in recent weeks at the start of the month seventy cases have been reported in this country most of them tied to overseas travel since then new cases have been pouring in by the dozens and then by the hundreds the coronavirus updates are coming fast and furious the mayor of New York bill de Blasio he said that there are lots of cases coming in at like dozens per day in New York City as testing is made available it is obvious that there are a lot of people who are least carrying corona virus without knowing that they are carrying corona virus or the the German public has now been warmed up to seventy percent of Germans face the possibility of infection that's going to Angola Merkel and of course the top US health official Dr Dr Anthony Fauci he said this is going to get worse so Dr Fauci said all hands are basically on track with this thing these are really simple keep the workplace safe keeping the home safe keeping the schools safe and keeping commercial establishing safe this should be universal for the country everyone should be doing that where do you live in his own that as communities spread or not when you have community spread you obviously going to ratchet up the kinds of medications that you have but at a minimum this is the minimum that we should be doing so everybody should say all hands on deck this is what we need to do in a non shocking news thanks to again the up and down of the corona virus news the stock market in creamed again it's just up and down insanely was up like a thousand points and then is dumped again back down a thousand points pretty amazing how the stock market is bouncing around like a yo yo no we're not gonna know honestly where anything stands until the end of April Megan McArdle has an interesting column over the Washington post a lot of people might really like everyone is looking around going I don't see a lot of car owners out there yeah we had a grand total of like four thousand deaths worldwide if you look at the flu every year and kills like a hundred thousand people worldwide minimum maybe hundreds of thousands of people worldwide every year so why are we also worried about coronavirus Megan McArdle has this statistical dot experiment to remind you that when there's an exponential growth factor things move really quickly right you don't see anything in the C. everything right it let let's say you have a pond with lily pads example that you get statistically and it explains why were also worried today if you have a pond with lily pads and the lily pads are going to overtake the pond as they grow in each day the lily pads double the number of lily pads double so let's say that day one it's one to which to death rates for right to keep stumbling on the very last day the lily pads cover the entire pond the question is at what point did lily pads cover half the pond at what point it really has got a half upon and the answer is the day before they cover the entire contract if they're doubling every day and that means that half the town was covered yesterday and today boom suddenly the entire pond is covered that is how exponential growth works okay that is what people are feeling in terms of coronavirus is that we have exponential growth of coronavirus what you end up with is no one around me has it oops everyone I think that's it right that that that is what people are fearing is that sudden is that sudden object and this is what is being feared by the trump former homeland security adviser Tom Bossert he says hospitals are basically ten days away from being creamed he suggested in an op ed that we are we are in trouble in terms of our our hospital facilities as officials must pull the trigger on aggressive interventions said aggressive internet interventions put off and ease the burden on hospitals and other healthcare infrastructure and that of course is true as one of my wrists wells then the hospitals that need to be prepared as I already said mayor bill de Blasio said that things are happening intensely in New York City and the governor Jay Inslee has no restricted gathers more than two hundred and fifty people in king county as well as several as well as you know how much and Pierce counties which are the the biggest counties in Washington state that means no soccer games means no it means no baseball games it means that basically all major gatherings ought to be canceled according to Jay Inslee the governor of Washington state Dr foundry has suggested there be no crowds at NBA games so basically if you have tickets for opening day in the United States for baseball you can fairly bank that that is not going to happen why colleges are canceling events I would not be surprised if my college events this semester for example are canceled that would not be a great shock again I think that all of this makes a certain amount of sense like better caution and they have this viral outbreak you want to reduce the size of the the spread and the and the quickness of the spread is to give us time right now we're bargaining for time but we don't know what the death rates are on this thing we just don't and what that means is that every attempt to slow the spread of the virus buys a day for people to develop vaccines they're going to be more effective in slowing or stopping the spread of the virus of becomes just another seasonal problem instead of becoming an overwhelming threat to western populations so this is it it is in this light it is important to recognize that when the federal government fails along this along these lines you can be absolutely disastrous there's a a piece from The New York Times that is just devastating talking about how the federal government did in fact blow the month the president trump was a president trump said very early on we're shutting down travel from China and a lot of people unless I'm not this is racist on this is terrible ten people were saying you have virus when buyers is racist you can see when my wrist is a drum said no we're sitting down travel that was a very good thing it was a very smart thing was the right thing to do the problem is that only buys you time because it turns out that some people are going to get in and any other problem so what did the federal government do with a month and president trump bought them by shutting down travel from from when the answers basically nothing according to Dr Helen chew infectious disease expert in Seattle she knew the United States and not have much time in late January the first confirmed American case of coronavirus have landed in her area critical questions need answers have been infected anyone else according to The New York Times was the deadly virus already working in other communities and spreading as luck would have a doctor to have a way to monitor the region for months as part of a regional research project into the flu she and a team of researchers have been collecting nasal swabs residents experiencing symptoms throughout the Puget Sound region three purpose the test for monitoring coronavirus they would need the support of state and federal officials but nearly everywhere Dr Jew turned officials repeatedly rejected the idea interviews and emails show even as weeks called by an average margin countries outside of China where the infection begin by February twenty fifth Dr Chu and her colleagues could not bear to wait any longer they began performing coronavirus test without government approval but came back in from the worst fear they quickly had a positive test from a local teenager with no recent travel history the corona virus had already established itself on American soil without anybody realizing it Dr she recalled thinking it must've been here this entire time is just everywhere already in fact officials later discovered through testing the virus had already contributed to the deaths of two people guns killed twenty more in the Seattle region over the following days federal and state officials said the flu study could not be repurposed because it didn't have explicit permission from research subjects labs are also not certified for clinical work well now Jeannie affable questions doctor should others argue there should be more flexibility in an emergency very much so many lives could be lost this is correct I mean like if you give permission for somebody to do a nasal swab for flow and that is repurposed enables one for coronavirus I honestly fail to see how any reasonable person would consider that a violation of privacy I nobody must know that I had grown up at night they're not gonna release your specific rotavirus task it just allows the state to do something on Monday night state regulators told them to stop testing altogether the failure to tap into the flu study detailed here for the first time was just one in a series of missed chances by the federal government to ensure more widespread testing during the early days of the outbreak when containment would've been easier instead local officials across the country were left to work in the dark as the crisis go undetected exponentially now so I think this is from so now I don't I don't think trump is monitoring local level task I think this is the fault of the massive regulatory bureaucracy that prevents people from doing reasonable things it turns out that the federal government well it is well placed to issue brought national guidelines is not well placed to deal with local testing that has to be done it turns out the local communities maybe the the fastest to react to the sort of thing right voluntary shut downs right now happening across the country with regard to major public events and those are happening on the local and state level without the federal government even doing anything it turns out the people who see federalism is the obstacle to this sort of thing they're doing it wrong local and state officials are more answerable to local populations and are in fact more likely to request the people do responsible things in fact is that porn was yesterday in the in the Jewish community basically every pore institute that I've heard of in my area meaning every big poor meal with big gatherings lots of kids those were basically shut down voluntarily without any guidance from the federal state or local officials is so the notion that the federal government needs to be running this thing in extraordinarily top down fashion the federal government should be coordinating all the officials letting them know sort of the minimum of what they expect but standing in the way of local officials doing what they need to do to Tampa's thing down is a completely different thing and that is a testament to the stupidity of bureaucracy generally
Left, Right & Center
Highlights and analysis of the debate
"And center I'm Josh barro of New York magazine on the right is Megan McArdle of The Washington Post on the left is plain old also a columnist at The Washington Post and when it Lopez of business insider is our special guest all right so we talked about trade but obviously there was much much much more than trade whole lane who won these debates I'm I don't think anybody won these debates actual lay I think everybody I went through and read tons of commentary at one point and came to the absolute conclusion that everybody thought the candidate that they like the most won the debate I read impassioned defense you know a passion Biden won the debate Warren when the debate Sanders won the debate I even saw John Delaney won the debate I saw in this way I mean it was across the board and conversely people generally thought whoever they didn't like didn't do particularly well so you saw well you toward in Sanders only did well because they teamed up and you know they were against some lilliputian and you saw well by now only did well because you know he was against terror out send and so on and Harris only did well or you know whatnot because she wasn't fully attacked the way she deserved and so on down the line and I think it just sort of became a sort of wash and I think the pop that was the public's reaction to I mean barely anybody watch I think it had viewership of about eight million at fat and to be honest it's actually already it's Friday it's already kind of hard to remember very much of it so I mostly agree with that with two exceptions one is that I don't really think I saw anybody saying that they thought Kamel Harris had a good night even people who work fans of commerce he didn't work for her campaign you probably weren't saying that she won the debate and and then the flip side of that is I saw a lot of people saying they really thought Cory Booker did a good job in that sort of elevated himself above the the lower tier position that he had managed to hold on to in this debate I Meg and I know you wrote about Kamel Harris this week yes I think that there's no question that she lost the debate in in part because you know she her last debate she was definitely the clear winner rich she went into the debate point seven percent she comes out pulling at fifteen right that is a major move and that is because she she took the fight to Joe Biden sort of questioning him about his history opposing federal school busing efforts and people thought here is the fighter who can really dismantle trump on stage but the problem with that is that she then went into this debate as a front runner and people were gunning for her and it turns out that she's all offense and no defense and so when people started landing punches she was just reeling and really not able to mount an effective response on the other side of that I thought Elizabeth Warren did well enough I mean I think she slightly improved her position she looked very good but mostly she siphoning voters from Bernie who I think did not do well in this debate not because he did badly but merely because he's just holding steady it's not really widening as support Cory Booker I agree absolutely like god himself noticed finally after months and months of waiting for this to happen I think enter Yang also I don't think he's gonna be president but I think that you know he went into this debate with almost no one knowing who he is he made a couple of very well timed jokes sounded very coherent and you know plausible if not to me personally very convincing on things like his signature universal basic income initiative so I think there were a number of people who really committed this to be looking much better but in part that was because of what the for one of the sort of great white hopes came out looking much worse can can we and and I hope this is the last time in my life I ever have to say this phrase can we talk about and Yang for a moment alleluia the Ted talk version of politics yeah I I don't get it at all I don't get the people who are you know talking about you know good night friend Riang I mean I guess you know if you're if you're not really Yang gang if you're judging it like a like a high school debate competition and you know he won some points that might be right but the the problem with Andrew gang is that is central idea that virtually every problem in society is best addressed through universal basic income of a thousand dollars a month is both wrong on the merits and also it doesn't speak to any particular constituency in the Democratic Party and he has this idea that basically the problem is that our jobs are being automated away which is if it's if it's ever gonna happen it's not happening yet if that was what was happening you would see really fast productivity growth in the economic data because the robots would be doing all the things that people used to do and yet right productivity growth is actually pretty slow and then you know what what kind of Democrat is supposed to be into the entry on message if you you know if you just want things to go back to normal and you want a third Obama term he's not your guy if you're very concerned about inequality and the concentration of wealth in the hands of certain of a few powerful people of political and economic power he's not your guys you're very concerned about racial justice he's not your guy he said the sort of bizarre thing about how basically it's too late on climate change and we need to give people money so they can afford to move to higher ground I do not get at all what this suppose it gang constituency is supposed to be I've actually gone to so I went to an injury Yang rally so I can actually talk about this okay so you go to a rally right and it's a bunch of guys it's a thirty five and under many of whom like have to pause for a minute went before the answer a question like who did you vote for two thousand sixteen they often can't remember if they voted in the primary if you ask them if they very who they voted for in the general there's also this pause and then they also Hillary Clinton and I'm not convinced if that means they had to think about it whether they are voted for trump and no they shouldn't say that or if they actually like you to vote I mean I'm not convinced but I'm not convinced of any of those but what I think it does is it appeals to this kind of people who I don't wanna say they're disenfranchised because their tech guys by definition are not disenfranchised but they see themselves as disenfranchised and you know this is kind of you know vaguely lake we could rent okay higher episode on these guys right exactly taken over the internet this is not a large box and enter right now it's not all it and expect it might not even be a voting block is again as I said I'm not sure how many of them vote but you know this is a sort of stuff that looks really great on an internet chat board I mean this is like a plaque right exactly it's a platform for internet chat board it is a platform that appeals to people like engineers who lake systems with very simple rules right that's actually like I've been lot of libertarians in that camp rate is the lake extremely simple operating rules and then it's kind of set it and forget it government and I think it does appeal to those people and I should point out that while it is true that probably most the people coming out for him don't didn't vote in twenty sixteen certainly in a primary truck did pretty well in twenty sixteen by mobilizing those people because in fact even though they're not a big portion of the electorate the primary voters are not a big portion of the electorate and so if you can get people moving you can get a fairly small group to swamp primaries especially in early races that said I do not think enter Yang is gonna be present and at what I want to ask is like is that the point right so yes if you if if you're asking like why would he be doing this if it's not this kind of classic democratic lake little bit from column a little bit from column be little bit from column C. coalition building politics that is how democratic primaries usually work then yes it's it's not a good strategy but is the goal to actually become president or is the goal to get himself noticed to make himself higher profile to get his ideas on the board and I think he did that in that debate when I want to give you an opportunity to talk about anybody other than Andrea ang and Marianne Williamson I haven't you haven't gotten it yet on the on the one question what were your big takeaways went winners and losers my big take away is that the progressives won in the moderates just found it blocked they just sounded like they didn't have any answers and they sounded like they were not willing to make that the sweeping changes that I think a lot of Americans want to see I think that the progressives are right a lot of people are not happy with their health insurance as much as I hate to say bill de Blasio was right and I think that you know when you hear guys like John Delaney and Tim Ryan talk about confronting China on green tech or and the technological space at all they say things like well I'm going to hire a chief manufacturing officer it's like that's not a real plan Mister Ryan that's actually nothing you need to put your money where your mouth is China has spent ians and billions of dollars and has spent eight spent a lot of time planning their technological advancement the United States needs to at least match that effort to be able to go toe to toe with them to see what you want about the A. O. C. new green deal at least it matches the problem in scale even if you don't agree with that the actual mechanics of her plan and the moderates just sounded like they were petty like they didn't have any real solutions and that they were not up to the task of winning the next century or the next generation or whatever the next monumental thing it so here here's what I don't get about this if if the if the democratic primary electorate is is hungry for a bold progressive who wants to you know really radically re imagined what government is for once things like single payer health care that sort of thing white is Joe Biden have such a persistent poll lead I actually I thought it was it was weird how much of the analysis of this debate of the campaign generally has sort of glossed over the existence of Joe Biden there was a an op ed by Bret Stephens in The New York Times this week complaining that quote Democrats are not up to their historic responsibility unquote he's this you know conservative columnist who wants the Democrats to not be such a Liberal Party it is because he doesn't care for Donald Trump he's complaining you know you had John Delaney and Tim Ryan up there making these good points but nobody's voting for them but people are are are intending to vote for Joe Biden and you had Joe Biden up their forcefully pushing an incremental this message and pushing back on some of the ideas from the progressive candidates saying basically that if you take away employer provided health insurance the polls show that's on popular you're gonna get beaten up over that there are a lot of people who wants to insure that everyone has health insurance but who don't want to do that saying that a lot of these plans that involve big tax increases you have to tax the middle class for them and that's impractical and that that incremental is message basically saying you know we can't have maximum change here's what we did in the Obama administration was built on that that does seem to have a lot of appeal among voters in the democratic primary I point out that a lot of Biden's appeal at this point seems to be that people think he can beat trump and name name recognition in general were early yeah yeah we're we're not that early I mean to and Bernie Sanders has has very very high name recognition and had and as the champion of this message and Sanders is nowhere in the polls I kind of think of all these debates completely as prelude to September when we will finally get all of the major competitors on one stage and I think at that point you might finally see some movement among the competitors that is actual real movement and will hold as opposed to for instance after the first debate where Biden fell after fairly weak performance and then slowly crept back up as people kind of forgot about it so make in one of the things that we heard when you're having these conversations between the center candidates in the left candidates as you would talk about one of these ideas like like getting rid of employer provided health insurance and you would speak that someone would say that some popular and then the progressive candidate would say that's a Republican talking points this is not a Republican talking for it this has nothing to do with the Republic Republican talking ports your question is a Republican talking point we cannot keep with the Republican talking points on this you got to stop the thing is in what again the thing that I take from Joe Biden's poll lead is that