Stidmatt

So I have been running several laptops for the last year or so. A friend gave me some surface books which he didn’t need, I have a Mac mini with an M1 processor, and a system76 Oryx Pro which has served me well for the last 5 years, but it isn’t as portable as it was when I bought it and the battery no longer can maintain a charge for as long as when I purchased it. The Surface Books don’t have very strong battery life, one of which is a standard laptop with an i5 processor which is basically a lap warmer, and the other one has an ARM processor, and its quite good honestly as a hybrid, but still has fairly abysmal battery life.

I also am going to get myself an iPad on contract with my phone carrier over the next couple of days.

So why I am going almost 100% Apple hardware? Well, a couple of reasons honestly.

First of all, Apple Silicon is extremely powerful without the power draw or heat of x86 CPUs. That is a very nice combination of features which I am a major fan of.

Second of all, again, the battery life of Apple Silicon is unparalleled in the market today. It is truly the best value available.

Third, the button placement of Microsoft Surface is absolutely atrocious. Apple puts their buttons one long edge, and one short edge. The Surface puts their buttons all over the place, so there is no short edge without a button, making it a major pain in the butt for setting up when I play music because I am either holding down the volume button or the power button. It is not useful for that purpose. Between the abhorrent button placement and the low battery life, the Surface just doesn’t seem like a good deal compared to the iPad. If Apple allowed users to load MacOS onto the iPad, it would be a Surface killer.

iPad has numerous advantages which makes me choose it over the competition. Android has such a short lifetime of support that it doesn’t fit my environmentalist desires. I have not bought a laptop in 5 years, and it is mostly because of declining battery life that I feel it is finally time for an upgrade. I don’t want to upgrade every 3 years, 5 years for me is a minimum unless if I am recycling unwanted computers. Android doesn’t fit this requirement for me. Apple’s hardware is just superior to the alternatives. The only thing the iPad is missing is the ability to port Linux to any older device, and while I know this is possible with newer iPads, it is not possible with the 2012 iPad which I have lying around. Yes, I know it is a 10 year old device, but the hardware still works, and if I could port Linux to it it would still be a useful device. Hopefully as time goes on Linux on iPad will continue to improve so I can port Linux to it.

So right now after looking at all the variables and options I could find, my needs were a laptop which I can easily travel with, which has a good CPU, a nice display, and enough RAM to fit my needs. The MacBook Air with the M2 processor appears to be the best deal on the market right now from what I can tell. I never seem to run out of RAM on my Mac mini, the only thing I might have added in was another 8 GB of RAM for 16 GB but I decided that given that I will need a good travel laptop in the near future. It was a tossup between the M1 Pro MacBook Pro and the M2 MacBook Air for me, and I decided to go with the MacBook Air over the M1 Pro MacBook Pro. Just make sure you get at least 512 GB of storage, because I have a Mac mini which I got at a steep discount at Costco last year, and you will run out of the 256 GB of storage in the base model very quickly. That right now is the big question I can see, is it worth spending more money for the M1 Pro chip or save a few hundred dollars to buy the M2 MacBook Air with 512 GB of storage. That is for you to decide. Either choice is going to give you an incredible amount of value for your money.

There is a lot of talk in libertarian circles about how everything would be better if we would privatize everything. Privatize the roads, privatize the railroads, privatize our electric grids, the government is inherently inefficient, and everything will be better.

Then they will inevitably point to Hong Kong (which Milton Friedman personally pointed to as a model for his vision) and Japan’s highly successful Shinkansen.

Let’s start with Japan, where the railroads are truly private. Well, first of all… Shinkansen was built in 1964 and its three most important routes were built before privatization. The lines which have been built by the private companies have been carrying far fewer people than the other lines.

But then there’s another kink in this entire philosophy, which can be found in the Railway Business Act of 1986

Article 7 (1) When the person who was granted a license of Railway Business (hereafter referred to as “Railway Business Operator”) intends to change the Basic Business Plan or the matters listed in item 8 or item 10, paragraph 1 of Article 4, the person shall obtain approval of the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, provided, however, that this shall not apply to the minor changes prescribed by an ordinance of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

So much for economic freedom when a private business can’t even make a single service change without the government rubber-stamping it. But remember, this is the epitome of privatized rail in the world!

The other main case, and Milton Friedman’s favorite, is run by MTR Corporation Limited, which is 75% owned by the Hong Kong government and is able to completely control the decisions of the company. It’s organized more like Amtrak, far less like BNSF.

Pretty much every other country in the world with significant rail operations, with the exception of the US and Canada, has government-owned railroads.

Country	population	Area	freight in billion tonne-km	passengers in billion passenger-km	tonne-km per capita	passenger-km per capita	tonne-km per km2	passenger-km per km2
Bangladesh	172,073,828	148460		7.3	0.00	42.42	0.00	49,171.49
Nigeria	211,401,000	923768			0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Philippines	111,383,204	300000			0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Pakistan	225,200,000	881913	6	20.3	26.64	90.14	6,803.39	23,018.14
Spain	47,450,000	505,992.00	10.30	27.50	217.07	579.56	20,356.05	54,348.69
Australia	25,000,000	7,692,024.00	198.00	15.70	7,920.00	628.00	25,740.95	2,041.08
Brazil	214,240,467	8,515,767	267		1,246.26	0.00	31,353.61	0.00
Romania	19,186,201	238397	10	5.9	521.21	307.51	41,946.84	24,748.63
Japan	125,000,000	377,976.00	21.00	431.80	168.00	3,454.40	55,559.08	1,142,400.58
France	68,000,000	543,940.00	31.80	110.50	467.65	1,625.00	58,462.33	203,147.41
Mexico	126,014,024	1964375	126.9		1,007.03	0.00	64,600.70	0.00
Italy	60,300,000	301,339.00	21.00	52.20	348.26	865.67	69,688.95	173,226.83
South Korea	51,700,000	100,210.00	10.00	77.80	193.42	1,504.84	99,790.44	776,369.62
United Kingdom	67,000,000	242,495.00	24.40	80.20	364.18	1,197.01	100,620.63	330,728.47
Russia	146,000,000	17,098,246.00	2,596.00	129.40	17,780.82	886.30	151,828.44	7,568.03
Poland	38,139,000	312696	53.8	22.1	1,410.63	579.46	172,052.09	70,675.67
India	1,300,000,000	3,287,263	739	1157	568.46	890.00	224,807.08	351,964.54
United States	325,000,000	9,833,517.00	2,326.00	10.60	7,156.92	32.62	236,537.95	1,077.95
Switzerland	8,570,000	41,284.00	11.00	20.80	1,283.55	2,427.07	266,447.05	503,827.15
China	1,400,000,000	9,596,961.00	3,018.00	1,471.00	2,155.71	1,050.71	314,474.55	153,277.69
Germany	80,000,000	357,114.00	113.00	95.50	1,412.50	1,193.75	316,425.57	267,421.61
Ukraine	41,000,000	603,500.00	237.00	37.10	5,780.49	904.88	392,709.20	61,474.73

Data from Wikipedia

If you graph this data, you will find that the US doesn’t lead the country in either total passengers carried or in terms of total freight carried. Switzerland and Germany both beat the US in terms of total passengers carried, when controlling for population and it looks like a lot of America’s tonne-km is because so much is carried such a long distance through the west I expect which inflates our value.

That dot at the very bottom of the graph? That’s the United States.

It appears from this data that well-run rail systems like what exists in most of the developed world successfully provide both high levels of freight and passenger rail.

Then there’s the small fact that China (fully government-controlled) carries more freight and passengers than the US.

So, in summary, Japan is only a good example of a free market for rail if you think a corporation that needs to get every major business decision cleared by the government counts as a free market, Hong Kong actually has no significant private transport, and every other major rail country in the world which has good passenger and freight rail has 100% public ownership of the tracks. In my opinion, a private company that needs to get every business decision cleared by the government and was originally established by the government mandating how they must spend their money isn’t really a good example of a private company. It’s more like a public corporation (eg MTR, Amtrak, or Deutsche Bahn) that just privatizes the profits. True private companies, like Google, Berkshire Hathaway, Mcdonald’s, and Walmart, don’t need to go get every decision they make cleared by a government committee. I don’t think the companies in JR Group count as truly private companies but are more structured as public companies with privatized profits. There is no denying these essentially government-controlled corporations which just give their profits to private shareholders who have little to no real power over the company do indeed provide one of the highest-quality rail systems in the world.

Private monopolies will indeed under serve and overcharge.

Fascism takes the form of whichever ideology at the time best enables their ideas. During the lead-up to Nazi Germany, they called themselves social. They made an alliance with the Soviet Union (because it was convenient) and it furthered their goal. They surrounded their rhetoric with vaguely socialist wording, while all the time their main goal was always the formation of a totalitarian state. They never cared about economics as long as they could kill other people.

I almost never quote Hitler, for many obvious reasons, but in this case, he described the economics of fascism so succinctly, there really is no one else I can quote which makes their economic policy so clear. When you want to learn something in social sciences… go to the source.

“The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all” ~ Adolf freaking Hitler

Today in America, the fascist movement has taken over the Republican Party, they wrap a thin veil of libertarianism and anti-government, anti-tax hysteria, and how the government is “coming for your money” so you need to elect them to power for their “small government” of a police-state surveillance system, travel restrictions, all the while those who are in power can walk away with government money through tax breaks, subsidies, and government contracts.

 

This is the basic fact of the economics of fascism and why it is so hard to pinpoint fascism as right-wing or left-wing on the economics spectrum. It is truly a syncretic movement when it comes to economics, and extreme right-wing when it comes to social policy). You can go spend years of your life reading through complex economic texts talking about the economy of Nazi Germany… and if that’s your thing, go for it. But all you really need to know is what is in the already existing Wikipedia Article, Economics of fascism. When you read through this article you will find that very succinct quote by that butcher of millions Adolf Hitler. He didn’t care about economic ideology, he was just a bloodthirsty monster. When hiding money in Swiss Banks and buying goods from American megacorporations furthered his goal of exterminating as many Jews, Roma, and queers as possible, he did business with American and Swiss corporations. When he saw Stalin massacre 14 million Ukrainians with no regard for life in the 30s he had no misgivings or hesitation of allying with Russia to further his goals of invading Poland, which had been a relatively safe haven for Jews for several centuries up to that point in time. He didn’t care about the means, he only cared about killing people.

We find the same thing when it comes to the modern Republican party. For programs they view as giving money to people of color, they rail against those economic programs with calls for austerity. When it comes to sending more money to the military, which then sells military-grade weapons to police departments which then disproportionately use those weapons against people of color, the Republicans declare the excessive military spending which buys weapons that the military doesn’t even have room to store as mandatory spending. They are libertarians when it comes to helping poor people, and socialists when it comes to further bloating already extreme military budgets. The Republican Party doesn’t really have a succinct economic plan nowadays asides from killing brown people and is becoming syncretic.

They do not care about the deficit, they have not truly cared about inflation or unemployment in over 40 years, and they only care about reaping as much money in this country for their rich donors as possible.

The economic theory of the Republican party is that they really have no economic theory at all.

But their social policy becomes more and more right-wing every year. I see no end in sight to their radicalization.

The Standard Deduction is bad for Democrats. The Standard Deduction gives Americans a choice… we can either deduct the standard deduction and then stop there, or we can choose to itemize our deductions one by one, but we don’t get the standard deduction if we choose to itemize.

So why is this bad for Democrats? Well, the reason is that Democratic states are more likely to support raising taxes like income taxes to support state programs and the SALT deduction cannot be used if you are using the standard deduction. I believe this minimization of the SALT deduction is the main reason Republicans doubled the Standard Deduction in 2018. This means that for most taxpayers we would be better off with a tax code that had a 0% tax rate on the first $50,000 of income and then be able to itemize the SALT deduction and other important deductions. Because of this, many deductions (such as the much-hated home mortgage interest deduction) cannot be used by many households until they are paying enough in home mortgage interest and state taxes over the course of the year to be greater than the Standard Deduction. This means for many middle-class Americans, the standard deduction means they pay more tax than they would otherwise. For the vast majority of taxpayers, the current system vastly underperforms a tax code with no standard deduction but no taxes paid on the first $50,000 of income for this reason.

The standard deduction is also very unequal in how it impacts the tax bill of people who use it. Let’s take a taxpayer who earns $30,000 a year, or a full-time $15 per-hour job. This person will pay around $2,970.40 in total federal taxes in our current system or 17% of their income. Removing the standard deduction and exempting the first $50k of income from the income tax means they pay only $1,860, basically only payroll tax into Social Security. For very high-income taxpayers who make $200k (assuming as a single individual) they see their tax rates drop from $26% to 20% (assuming no other changes) and for the ultra-wealthy taxpayer who makes $500k, their tax rate changes from 31% to 29%. Basically, replacing the standard deduction with 0% tax on the first $50k makes the biggest impact on the tax paid for low-income taxpayers. This would permanently benefit 99% of Americans. Unlike Republican tax cuts in the past, this change would be permanent.

This would cost the Federal government some money, but I would pay for it by reinstating the 70% tax rate for people who make over $1,000,000 per year, a 50% tax bracket on people who make over $500k, and 60% on people who make over $750k. 99% of Americans will never be impacted by this change. This would be the biggest shift in the tax burden for the working and middle classes in history. In exchange for this higher tax rate for the uber-wealthy, I would also remove the cap for the SALT tax deduction. On top of this, I would also tax capital gains as regular income which would mean retirees with IRA plans will benefit from the tax holiday on the first $50k of income they make. This compromise should make this entire tax swap deficit neutral if not even cut the deficit altogether while also putting money into working Americans’ and retirees’ pockets.

Another major impact of this will be how then how every American will have access to the IRA deduction, whereas people who take the standard deduction have no access to it. This is one of the simplest ways the Federal government can boost America’s savings rate, by making it so everyone has access to that critical deduction.

In short, this is a plan which will enable state governments to fund much-needed programs, reduce taxes on 99% of Americans, and also reduce the Federal deficit.

We are seeing a very dangerous precedent right now with the court case to undo student loan forgiveness. There are three main parts to this case that are very critical:

1. Laws don’t have to help everyone equally. Medicare for All is basically the only policy in that basket.
2. Bailouts are part of the American fabric.
3. The courts are nullifying clearly established law.

Equal access problems

So for the first part, if everything has to apply to everyone equally, then hurricane relief in Florida is unconstitutional. Federal subsidies for gas exploration in Texas are unconstitutional. Federal subsidies which prevent the South from falling into complete misery are unconstitutional. Federal subsidies which clean up coal mines in Kentucky and West Virginia are unconstitutional. They don’t impact me, so they are unconstitutional based on this Supreme Court’s logic.

Federal laws don’t have to apply equally to every person or every county in order to be constitutional. That has never been the case and is complete legal bogus. I doubt the Supreme Court will apply this new legal doctrine to all of these programs which benefit Republican states. That makes it not a doctrine but just an activist Supreme Court.

Unethical bailout argument

The whole argument that everyone needs to pull their own weight is antithetical to one of the main reasons our Constitution was written in the first place. By being together in one country we are able to pull each other up in times of need, and this has been the core of American democracy since 1787. This means that reconstruction would be unconstitutional under this argument. The Tennessee Valley Authority is now unconstitutional. FEMA is now unconstitutional and Florida now needs to be self-reliant and stop taking Federal aid when they get hit by hurricanes. If New Orleans is getting flooded than either Louisiana gets to pay to rebuild the dikes or rebuild New Orleans somewhere else. Same goes for Houston. These states need to stop taking Federal Aid because they don’t build their cities in ways which are resiliant to hurricanes if they are so opposed to bailouts. What about the PPP forgiveness program which gave billions of dollars to mostly rich bankers who then gambled the money on wall street? All of these programs are unconstitutional under the unethical bailout argument.

The pure hypocrisy of this one is just amazing. The Supreme Court has never before had any problem with giving a bailout to anyone. But as soon as it is student loan forgiveness, a program which is far more progressive than most of the other bailouts we have seen over the last decade they are up in arms about “ethics”.

Nullification

Congress spent this money, and they clearly put in a section of the law clearly stating that student loan forgiveness is legal.

The Supreme Court is nullifying a section of the US Code without any clear argument about why it violates the Constitution. Any section which they say violates this section will likely be just as easily used to nullify PPP loan forgiveness or FEMA saving Florida yet again the next time a hurricane hits. Student loan forgiveness is constitutional, which is why the Supreme Court shouldn’t make this ridiculous argument without opening up a massive can of worms about the supreme court’s legitimacy. If the Supreme Court can just strike down any law without any merit or real argument, it has become the most powerful branch of government, unaccountable, and dangerous.

 

What it really comes down to is the Republican Party is unable to win a majority of the vote in the modern American party system. They are legislating from the bench because that’s all they can do.

Playing with this idea that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon… one would expect a very high correlation between the federal funds rate and the inflation rate. Also for shits and giggles let’s throw in the price of energy in the United States.

Here are my correlation coefficients:

	CPI	Energy	Fed Funds
CPI		0.699622	0.714027
Energy			0.282622
Fed Funds

and what if we put in a 6 month lag?

	CPI	Energy	Fed Funds
CPI		0.467863	0.717891
Energy			0.282622
Fed Funds

Now… I don’t want to be brash here… but when I see a correlation of 70%, I don’t immediately think it must be a causal relationship like Milton Friedman claims. I think such claims are wrong, and this data shows that inflation cannot be an inherently monetary phenomenon.

Source:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=VxU2

If you try to look at the arguments for Brexit for any length of time with any basic understanding of economics, it doesn’t take long to realize the problems with all of them. With Brexit in full force are starting to see a decrease in wages, an increase in inequality, and a loss of jobs to European Union member states. They still haven’t dealt with the really big problem of having an open border on Ireland between the UK and EU, which threatens to reopen the troubles as soon as they deal with it. The solution has been an effective internal border in the United Kingdom, which is something countries just love to have!

So the economic arguments are all stupid, they always have been, they always will be, and the proof of their foolishness is just growing by the day.

What about the “loss of foreign power” argument? Well, let’s take a look at the recognition of Kosovo in this lovely map from Wikipedia…

 

This is clearly complete bogus. Nothing about the European Union requires each member state to have the same foreign policy in regards to external relations except when it comes to things like trade where they need to have consensus for obvious reasons.

There is only one more argument in favor of Brexit:

I predict the UK will rejoin the European Union in 10 years.

When asking the question of which state parties are the most effective, one of the first questions I ask is how effective is the party at keeping control of a state. If this is how we define a political party to be effective, then the most effective parties are the ones who are able to maintain absolute control of state government for the longest period of time. We can define these parties as the most effective state parties in the party.

Using Wikipedia as our source, we can then derive a table of the most effective state parties, based on how long it has been since the minority party controlled each of several different offices. The most effective state party is then the one that has maintained absolute power the longest over the state government.

Some states can be immediately discounted because they have failed to maintain absolute control of the state’s government right now. These states are:

1. Alaska
2. Arizona
3. Florida
4. Georgia
5. Iowa
6. Kansas
7. Kentucky
8. Louisiana
9. Maine
10. Maryland
11. Massachusets
12. Michigan
13. Minnesota
14. Missouri
15. New Hampshire
16. North Carolina
17. Ohio
18. Oklahoma
19. Pennsylvania
20. Vermont
21. Virginia
22. West Virginia
23. Wisconsin

These 23 states can be considered swing states.

For the Democrats, the following table can then be derived

State	Governor	Any state executive office	Either state legislative chamber	US Senate	President	Last R official
California	2010	2010	1996	1992	1984	2010
Connecticut	2010	2010	1996	1988	1988	2010
Hawaii	2010	2010	1962	1976	1984	2010
Rhode Island	2010	2010	1958	2006	1984	2010
New Jersey	2017	2017	2001	2013	1988	2017
Delaware	1992	2018	2008	2000	1988	2018
Illinois	2018	2018	2002	2016	1988	2018
New Mexico	2018	2018	2016	2008	2004	2018
New York	2006	2008	2018	1998	1984	2018
Colorado	2006	2018	2018	2020	2004	2020
Oregon	1986	2020	2006	2008	1984	2020
Washington	1984	2021	2017	2000	1984	2021
Nevada	2018	2022	2016	2018	2004	2022

These are the most effective Democratic parties in the country, with California, Connecticut, Hawaii, and Rhode Island being the most effective. Which of these four is the best Democratic party can be debated, based on your values and how you measure “best”. But in my view, there is no question that the most effective Democratic party is one of these 4.

For the Republicans, the following:

State	Governor	Any state executive office	Either state legislative chamber	US Senate	President	Last R official
Utah	1984	2000	1978	1976	1964	2000
Texas	1994	1998	2002	1994	1976	2002
Idaho	1994	2006	1960	1980	1964	2006
Tennessee	2010	2010	2008	1994	1996	2010
Wyoming	2010	2010	1966	1977	1964	2010
Nebraska	1998	2006		2012	1964	2012
Arkansas	2014	2014	2012	2014	1996	2014
South Carolina	2002	2014	2000	2004	1976	2014
South Dakota	1978	2006	1994	2014	1964	2014
Indiana	2004	2016	2010	2018	2008	2018
North Dakota	1992	2008	1994	2018	1964	2018
Alabama	2002	2010	2010	2020	1976	2020
Mississippi	2003	2020	2011	1988	1976	2020

The Republican Party of Utah has dominated the politics of that state more thoroughly and for a longer period of time than any other party in any other state, and Texas is a close second.

A big lesson from all of this is that pretty much every state can swing either way with enough campaigning and the right candidate.

Out of 50 states, 23 of them do not have one party completely dominating every political office.

13 states have Democrats dominate every aspect of state politics.

The other 13 states have Republicans dominate every aspect of state politics.

Out of the 26 states with total partisan control, 6 of those states have gained total party control since 2020. 17 states which saw a party gain and keep complete control since the 2010 midterms.

Only Texas, Utah, and Idaho have had one party dominate every aspect of political life since before the 2008 election.

 

The lesson of this is, no matter what state you live in, whether you are in the minority or the majority, no matter how daunting it may seem that the politics in your state are absolutely dominated by one party or another, things can always change. No party in any state has dominated every aspect of politics for more than 22 years. The majority of states (29 to be precise) have seen multiparty control since the 2020 election.

No state is guaranteed to have complete partisan control by one party or another.

With this knowledge, go vote now and be heard in this month’s election. Your vote counts.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states and individual pages for each state.

A common refrain among Democrats today is that “Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have resigned before Clinton lost, and that would have saved abortion.”

Let’s review this claim, by looking at different scenarios.

RBG retires early

If RBG retired before 2015, then Democrats could have replaced her with another Democrat. She could not have retired after 2015 successfully because McConnell successfully blocked every appointment Obama had a right to fill.

If RBG had retired before Republicans took the Senate in 2014 the Supreme Court and Trump still won then would have had the following makeup in 2020:

Liberal (4): Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan and Obama pick #3

Conservative (5): Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito, Kavanaugh

Roe v Wade would still have been overturned.

We Vote for the Email lady

Hillary Clinton is elected, we do not take the Senate. Nothing else changes. What does the court look like in 2020:

Liberal (3): Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan

Conservative (4): Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kennedy

Roe v Wade would still have been overturned.

We Vote for the Email lady and elect a Democratic Senate

Liberal (5): Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, Scalia replacement, Ginsburg replacement

Conservative (4): Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kennedy

Roe v Wade would have been protected.

This is the only path we had for truly protecting Roe v Wade.

 

The way American politics works, you need to keep the Senate to decide who joins the federal bench. That’s just how the system is designed.

 

Democrats need to keep the Senate.