Essential Economics for Politicians

Bruddah IZ said:
A woman who woke up from a thirty-year coma in 2018 would be forgiven if she looked around and came to believe our world is falling apart.

Cable news and social media are a steady drumbeat of negativity. There is a sense the world is not right.

Russian collusion. Xenophobia. Antifa. Unite the Right. Stormy Daniels. #MeToo. Mass shootings. The Deep State. It’s a cacophony of angst, outrage, and political anger.

The woman who emerged from her coma would have little or no idea that the world is experiencing an economic miracle, just as most people today do not. But it’s happening just the same.--J. Miltimore
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Sexist! #Time'sUp
 
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Bernie Sanders won’t endorse his son for Congress, citing “dynasty politics”

Emily Stewart
6/7/2018
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© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally in Durham, New Hampshire, in 2016.

Sanders isn’t typically frugal with his endorsements, except for when it comes to Levi Sanders, his son, who’s running in New Hampshire.

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Father’s Day at the Sanders household could be awkward. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is publicly keeping a distance from his son Levi Sanders’s congressional campaign in New Hampshire. The senator declined to endorse his son when Levi announced his candidacy in February, and he’s still staying out of it; he says it’s for the sake of avoiding “dynasty politics.”

The younger Sanders, 49, is one of multiple Democrats and Republicans running to replace outgoing Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in representing New Hampshire’s First District. He has styled himself after his father, with his campaign website calling for a system that “represents the 99 percent and not the 1 percent who have never had it so good.”

But whatever Levi Sanders is putting down, Bernie Sanders is not picking up — at least not enough to endorse his only son. When contacted by the Boston Globe about Levi Sanders’s candidacy this week, Bernie provided a statement highlighting his support for a higher minimum wage, infrastructure spending, and free public education. As to whether voters should cast their ballots for him, he wouldn’t say.

“Levi has spent his life in service to low income and working families, and I am very proud of all that he has done,” Sanders said. “In our family, however, we do not believe in dynastic politics. Levi is running his own campaign in his own way.”

Sen. Sanders offered a similarly tepid statement when Levi announced his candidacy, saying, “The decision as to who to vote for will be determined by the people of New Hampshire’s first district, and nobody else.”

Levi Sanders is Bernie Sanders’s son with his ex-girlfriend Susan Campbell Mott. He is his only biological child.

The senator appears on Levi’s campaign website, but what you see is his back as he walks away. Levi’s Twitter photo is an image of him and his father taking a mirror selfie together.

It’s not like Bernie is afraid of endorsements
Bernie Sanders is a popular figure in New Hampshire. He won the 2016 Democratic presidential primary there by a wide margin, bringing in 60 percent of the vote compared to Hillary Clinton’s 38 percent. Among potential 2020 presidential candidates, he polls well, even though in a recent poll he’s not the leader.

There are two ways to read his lack of public enthusiasm for his son’s campaign: He really means what he says and thinks dynasty politics is bad, or he’s not particularly impressed with Levi as a candidate.

Sanders hasn’t been particularly frugal with his endorsements. According to Ballotpedia, he endorsed 107 candidates and 33 ballot measures in 2016 and 62 candidates and two ballot measures in 2017. This year, he’s already endorsed two candidates — Randy Bryce in Wisconsin and Ben Jealous in Maryland — and one ballot measure, and he often campaigns for and supports candidates across the country.

His shyness on his son could be what he says. He probably doesn’t want the Sanders clan to wind up like the Clintons, Kennedys, Bushes, or Trumps. But Levi Sanders isn’t the ideal congressional candidate, either, and perhaps the senator doesn’t want to be damaged by tying himself too much to his son should he decide to run for president again in 2020.

New Hampshire political observers told the Boston Globe that Levi Sanders’s campaign isn’t particularly impressive, with former state Sen. Burt Cohen telling the publication nobody is “really considering Levi as an option.” State Rep. Tim Smith told the Globe he doesn’t know anyone “in the New Hampshire Bernie community who is excited about Levi running.”

Levi Sanders doesn’t live in the district he’s running to represent, and while that’s not required, it doesn’t help his cause. He resides in Claremont, in New Hampshire’s Second District, which is about an hour away. Whereas his father excelled in fundraising, Levi has struggled, ending March with just under $11,500 on the books. He’s picked up two endorsements — from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and California Rep. Ro Khanna — but not his dad’s.

Vox’s Dylan Matthews, who has a full explainer on Levi Sanders, pointed out that some of the candidate’s past social media activity also raises some questions. On Twitter, he has criticized “identity politics” and said criticisms of “white privilege” turn off working-class voters. He tweeted he didn’t think “working-class families” would care about President Donald Trump using a racial slur and complained that eliminating Confederate flag license plates “hurts people’s rights.”
 
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57162-san-franciscos-rank-number-two

The root of San Francisco’s mess can be tied directly to decades of Democrats enacting their leftist policies. San Francisco has the highest rent in the world, coming in at an average of $3,500 a month. The median home price is a whopping $1.5 million, an amount that only 12% of residents can afford.

And the biggest contributor to this obscenely high cost of living is onerous laws. Columnist Rachel Alexander reports, “Zoning regulations and building codes have increased the cost of housing. Height restrictions waste valuable space. In much of the city, it is illegal to build anything taller than 40 feet. One resident built a ‘pod’ in his friend’s living room in order to obtain affordable rent, but the city found out and made him move out. Due to the high cost of living, a family making $117,400 annually is considered 'low income.‘ A family making $73,300 is 'very low income.’ The minimum wage is $15 an hour, but it’s not enough to rent a two-bedroom apartment. In order to live comfortably in San Francisco, an annual salary must be at least $110,000.”

Exorbitantly high cost of living and yet the city is increasingly becoming a slum. No wonder residents are leaving the city in droves. No U.S. city lost more residents in the last quarter of 2017 than did San Francisco. Here is yet another sad example of a long-time Democrat-controlled city whose residents are suffering — and smelling — the consequences.
 
OCTOBER 1, 2018
New York Times finally admits how Obama screwed up the economy in 2016
By Thomas Lifson
Calling it "The Most Important Least-Noticed Economic Event of the Decade," the New York Times finally acknowledges the degree to which Barack Obama's policies were strangling business investment in his final year in office. During the presidential campaign, acknowledging this "mini recession that many missed" was taboo, of course. And among those "many" who "least-noticed" it was the New York Times. So why is the Times admitting it now? Why, of course, to denigrate the achievements of President Trump in rescuing the economy from the miasma Obama inflicted on it with taxes and regulatory policies.

Neil Irwin writes:

[In 2015 and 2016, t]here was a sharp slowdown in business investment, caused by an interrelated weakening in emerging markets, a drop in the price of oil and other commodities, and a run-up in the value of the dollar.

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The pain was confined mostly to the energy and agricultural sectors and to the portions of the manufacturing economy that supply them with equipment. Overall economic growth slowed but remained in positive territory. The national unemployment rate kept falling. Anyone who didn't work in energy, agriculture or manufacturing could be forgiven for not noticing it at all.

Even though the Times and its readers were able to disregard the suffering in the oil patch, on farms, and in the Rust Belt manufacturing strongholds, candidate Trump actively campaigned with these constituencies and won the presidency on his promise to revive them from the suffering inflicted upon them. He knew; he acted; and after he won, he revived them. As Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds quips:

It wasn't invisible – Trump saw it – they just didn't report it because they didn't want to make Obama look bad or hurt Hillary's prospects.
 
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