No matter how this election turns out, the next president of the United States will be a crackpot.
Donald Trump thinks you can fight Covid with bleach injections. Kamala Harris thinks you can fight inflation with price controls.
No, let me correct that. What Trump actually said was that it would be “interesting to check” on whether you could fight Covid with bleach injections. What Harris actually said was that you can fight inflation with price controls.
On that basis, I’d have to conclude that Harris is the more delusional of the two. Unfortunately, Trump has offered me plenty of additional evidence that he’s right up there in Harris’s league. But she’s made it pretty clear he’ll never actually surpass her.
No, Trump did not recommend bleach injections. I do not think he even uttered the word “bleach”. All of the fact-checkers agree that this was a lie put out by Biden and other Trump-haters.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/apr/24/context-what-donald-trump-said-about-disinfectant-/
After hearing a presentation on methods for disinfecting covid from a surface outside the body, he said it would be interesting for medical doctors to check whether lungs could be disinfected. Nothing wrong with what he said.
Here is the Harris position:
“In her remarks Friday,” it concluded, “Vice President Harris will discuss her lifelong commitment to fighting for the middle class and tackling powerful interests by invoking her time as California’s attorney general and going after corporate greed and price gouging — and winning.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/14/business/kamala-harris-price-gouging-inflation.html
I think Trump has other problems of the economic type. I read somewhere that he plans to impose a 10 percent tariff on all goods from all countries (And I think he’s even mused about a 20 percent tariff), with an extra-punitive rate of at least 60 percent on goods from China. Some have estimated that this would raise costs for the typical American family by at least $1,700 a year. There’s a winning platform!
Serious question for the economists:
While clearly more distortionary and not throughout the supply chain, can a case be handwaved it is a step towards racing consumption a bit like a VAT? And finally raising revenue from the middle class to pay for its goodies?
And if we will get spending from left and right, would we be better of with a ton of debt and borrowing with MMT on the left, or tariffs and slower growth but some middle class revenue and hopefully less debt (yeah, king of debt but ok, go with it).
Come on, of course you can fight inflation with price controls. If Harris claimed that you can eliminate inflation with price controls it would sound closer to delusional. I doubt you could produce a quote from Harris making that claim. Are you really arguing that it’s delusional to think that if all the buyers of a product agree they will not pay a higher price then that would be a powerful disincentive for the seller to raise the price?
I suppose you’re just trolling here, but I would have expected you to have a little more insight into the game aspect of political campaigning. The publically articulated justifications a normal, skilled politician makes for the actions they’re proposing comprise whatever words they think are most likely to lead to them having the power to take those actions *or other unrelated actions*. That’s the correct strategy if they really want to win. I think I learned to think like that in part from one of your books, so why are you acting like it’s reasonable to take them literally? They aren’t educators, they’re running for office.
Steve Ruble (#4): If your grocery gets cut in half, what are you going to do with the money you saved? Buy an extra tank of gas and drive up the price of gas? Save it and drive down the interest rate to make it easier for **me** to buy an extra tank of gas? Or what?
There are only two ways to affect the price level: Change the supply of money or change the demand for money. Which of those do you think you can change with a price control on groceries?
Harris perfectly exemplifies my long held belief that it is not lack of understanding economics that gets in the way, but rather active sabotage of economic thinking.
She does not believe that.
Candidate says x
Candidate’s lead economist says, Don’t worry about x, the Candidate was only lying.
To paraphrase Kamela:
It was a campaign.
Trump was talking about bleach, he was talking about ultra-violet light. There was an Israeli group doing research on exactly that, to disinfect.
He was edited to make it sound that he was, insanely, suggesting you inject bleach.
Once you look at the constant, intence and co-ordinated attacks on Trump, including mostly outright lies, you have a strong signal that Trump is not the problem.
Of course, that should read “Trump was not talking about bleach”
I don’t have anything on topic to say other thsn that I love the more frequent postings. When will you post every day like old times again? Or better yet…DO A PODCAST!
In the disturbances caused by scarcity of food, the mob goes in search of bread, and the means it employs is generally to wreck the bakeries.
— Ortega y Gasset, The Rise of the Masses, 1932
So the conventional wisdom of what Trump did/said is incorrect here. And incorrect in a way that Trump, in fact, is not as bad as reported. This same story has played out often. It should make one question the story about any reports of egregious behavior by Trump.
I agree that both of them are terrible, and I think Trump’s economic notions are even worse than Harris’s, if only because she seems to have no real notions and he does. But I think Harris, if she gets a majority in Congress, will do more long-term harm than Trump by packing the Supreme Court, abolishing the filibuster, and probably making Puerto Rico and DC states, ensuring many years of one-party rule. So for me, deciding which way to vote is tough, though it’s comforting to know that my vote can’t possibly determine the outcome. Our best hope is that one party wins the presidential election and the other gets Congress, or at least the Senate.
The other commenters who say that Trump isn’t as bad as the media say are right, but he’s still awful.
I have been away for a long time, as it seemed dead here.
However, I find it incomprehensible that lands burg does not use Trump’s total incomprehension of tariffs as an example of their delusions.
Trump has stated time after time that tariffs will bring in billions from China. Trump has no idea how tariffs work.
Forget whether Trump actually said injecting bleach would be good, or just whether we should look into injecting beach. His economic ideas are crackpot. Far more so than Harris’.
Lets be honest, Trump has no idea about economics. He is a mercantilist. Ask him about competitive advantage, he will not even know what you are talking about. His economic ideas are based in “common sense” philosophy that went out of fashion among economists in about 1850.
If we are basing our vote on who understands economics, it has to be for Harris.
“No, Trump did not recommend bleach injections.”
He was talking nonsense, whatever spin you want to put on it.
If he was not suggesting injection of bleach, he demonstrating a total lack of understanding about treatments.
Just like his understanding of economics, his understanding of medicine is about third grade. Bleach can kill the virus on surfaces. maybe we can inject bleach, almost like a cleansing.
Totally, utterly simplistic.
Just like his economics.
Tariffs inject billions into the economy. How stupid is Trump?
I do not know about USA, but in UK price competition for groceries is cutthroat.
There are 4 or 5 major supermarkets. These have been challenged by Aldi and Lidl from Germany, Cut price, limited offer alternatives.
Margins are down. there is no price gauging in UK Competition has shifted form groceries subsidising petrol to petrol subsidising groceries. margins shift from 2% to 1.5%. Aldi and Lidl have forced competition to focus more on price. Maybe a good thing, But margins on groceries are and have always been low.
In UK. I do not see any room for price controls. I do ne see any “price gauging”
I suspect it is the same in USA. I suspect that Harris is being somewhat opportunistic. However, it is nothing compared to the economic illiteracy displayed by Trump when it comes to tariffs.
If one were to base ones vote on the basis of which candidate has the better grasp of economics, then Harris has it hands down.
Harris may not be beyond using public opinion to gain support. But Trump clearly is a mercantilist. Trump’s understanding of economics was abandoned in the 1800;s.
Even if we doubt Harris;s economic understanding, she will listen to those with greater knowledge. Trump is famous for not accepting any view but his own.
Landsburg claims “On that basis, I’d have to conclude that Harris is the more delusional of the two.”
For some reason, Landsburg has used a completely illogical basis to decide. On “that” basis, maybe. But that is a stupid basis. If we use a reasonable basis, of how each candidate seems to understand economics, then both are bad, bur Trump is clearly and by fat the worst.
” do more long-term harm than Trump by packing the Supreme Court, abolishing the filibuster, and probably making Puerto Rico and DC states, ensuring many years of one-party rule.”
I do mot know what to make of this. “Packing” the SC is bad. Republicans blocked Obamas nomination because it was within year of an election. Then immediately and shamelessly abandoned that “principle” when RBG died a few weeks before the election.
All evidence so far is that republicans, no democrats are likely to subvert norms for their political advantage.
“probably making Puerto Rico and DC states,” What is your view on what should happen with Puerto Rico?
“No, let me correct that. What Trump actually said was that it would be “interesting to check” on whether you could fight Covid with bleach injections. What Harris actually said was that you can fight inflation with price controls.”
Why are you doing this?
Let us be straight. Trump was making an absurd claim about bleach and covid. He was making a nonsense claim that had zero basis in science. We can nit-pick about whether he was advocating injecting bleach, but all ways his words were nonsense and demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the problem.
Just like his economic policies. Just like “injecting bleach’3 sounds like a good idea, but he was not actually going to impose it. However, tariffs, from the same foundation as common sense he will actually impose.
So comparing Trump covid nonsense with Harris economic nonsense is flawed. Compare both economic ignorance. Add in removal of rule of law if Trump is elected.
The answer is clear. Come out for Harris. there are no good reasons to avoid it.
Declare for Harris. there is no intellectually valid alternative
So far your arguments for Trump have been spurious.
I cannot believe you really want Trump.