I don’t know if Sam has anything special happening next week, or indeed that she will have new material at all, Stephen is running live special episodes and Seth will probably be new on tape meaning his jokes are going to be about a day behind.

I’m also not sure how we’re going to cover it. Probably topic by topic as it comes up.

Too Many Candidates

Flies and some Lettuce

Juneteenth

Cooking With Jeff

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Lizzie Borden found innocent of a grisly double murder; Britain’s Queen Victoria begins rule; Race-related rioting hits Detroit; Muhammad Ali convicted in Vietnam War-era draft case; ‘Jaws’ premieres.

There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew. Marshall McLuhan

Continue reading

US confirms Iranian missile has shot down drone

A US military drone has been shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile while in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz, US officials say.

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said it shot down the drone over Iranian airspace, near Kuhmobarak in the southern province of Hormozgan.

IRGC commander Maj-Gen Hossein Salami said the incident sent “a clear message to America”, state media said.

It comes at a time of escalating tension between the US and Iran.

On Monday, the US defence department said it was deploying 1,000 extra troops to the region in response to “hostile behaviour” by Iranian forces.

Human cost of Yemen war laid bare as civilian death toll put at 100,000

Report outlines deadly impact of direct targeting of civilians as researchers call for resolution to conflict

Rod Austin

Thu 20 Jun 2019

As the court of appeal prepares to rule on the legitimacy of the British government’s continued supply of weapons to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, new figures show the conflict’s death toll is fast approaching the 100,000 mark.

The extent of civilian casualties caused by direct targeting as the war with Houthi rebels enters its fifth year has been outlined in a report by the the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (Acled).

Extending its previous research into fatalities to cover the start of the Yemenconflict in March 2015 through to the present day, the project claims to provide the most comprehensive evaluation of the war to date.

Nearly half of Japanese people who want to get married ‘unable to find suitable partner’

Biden epitomizes everything bad about Hillary Clinton without the charisma or brain. His nomination as the Candidate of the Democratic Party is about the only scenario where I can see Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio eeking out a victory of sorts.

Biden represents nothing except the failure of Neo Liberalism and the smug self righteous satisfaction of those who see nothing wrong with the system that rewarded their corruption and incompetence.

People of Color, especially to the extent they support Biden out of name recognition and proximity to Barack Obama, have a deluded view about actual Obama policy and about Joe Biden’s deep and abiding support of Racism and Racist leaders even after it it became unfashionable to be openly racist in public.

Joe Biden may not be a racist, but he sure says nice things about them and their policies.

Of the potential candidates he’s the one I think truly dangerous. The Republicans may cheat us at the Ballot Box. Only soulless hypocrites like Biden can steal the Party and destroy it.

Biden’s comments about segregationists and the rich are deeply problematic
By Paul Waldman, Washington Post
June 19, 2019

At a fundraiser in New York attended by the usual Wall Street types, Joe Biden said some things that are raising eyebrows, for good reason, on two subjects. His comments on his friendly relations with segregationists are getting the most attention, but he also said something important about the wealthy people whose dollars he was seeking.

Both comments are deeply problematic, and both stem from the same misconception Biden holds.
…
Biden knows his audience. His pitch to them is not that we must reduce inequality because it’s a fundamental wrong, but because if we don’t, the masses will rise up in anger and you never know what might happen then.

If you want to be generous, you could argue that when he assured the well-heeled donors that “No one’s standard of living will change,” he was telling them that they have so much money that no matter how much we raised their taxes they’d barely notice it. After all, if you have a billion dollars in assets and Elizabeth Warren’s 2 percent wealth tax took effect, your taxes would go up by $20 million, which would leave you with $980 million in assets. You wouldn’t have to cut back on dinners out or start buying the generic toilet paper.

But Biden’s actual ideas about policy change are far more modest, and so are the arguments he wants to make to the public. He believes that you can govern well without attacking the wealthy or big corporations, in both substance and rhetoric. We can all get along if we assume everyone is operating out of good will.

But are they? The problems we’re facing right now didn’t happen by accident. Biden says he’s a great friend to labor unions, but does he think that the Republicans and their corporate partners can be persuaded to abandon their war on collective bargaining with enough backslapping and reassurances that “nothing would fundamentally change”? Or do you have to fight and defeat them because fundamental change is exactly what’s necessary and they’ll never agree to it? If you’re maintaining good relations with the billionaire class, might that be evidence that you’ve already committed to not changing the status quo?

Now let’s look at the even more startling thing Biden said at the fundraiser.

First Biden recounted being at a caucus with the late Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland. Imitating his southern drawl, Biden said: “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son’.”

Then Biden brought up deceased Georgia Senator Herman Talmadge, and called him “one of the meanest guys I ever knew.”
…
There’s a reason why James O. Eastland didn’t call Joe Biden “boy.” That’s what racists like Eastland called black men, and Joe Biden is white. In fact, Eastland was friendly toward Biden in no small part because at the time Biden was an opponent of busing.

Furthermore, much of Biden’s career was built on him being the kind of Democrat who could speak to and for white people who felt dispossessed by societal change, particularly around issues of race. That’s also a key building block (though it goes unstated) of the suggestion that he’s “electable” in ways other Democrats might not be.

Which means that when he’s running to be the presidential nominee of the party that represents pretty much all non-white Americans, Biden needs to be especially thoughtful about how he talks about his friendships with people like James Eastland.

If you aren’t familiar with that history, Eastland was one of the most prominent segregationists in America.
…
It takes more than calling a segregationist “mean” to assure us that Biden really gets that these men he worked with didn’t just have political differences with him and weren’t just personally unpleasant, but had devoted their lives to a project of monstrous evil, the subjugation of millions of Americans because of their race.

But let’s try again to be generous to Biden. The point he was trying to make is that if he could work with a racist like Eastland to “get things done,” surely he can convince Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to do the same.

But there’s a problem with this logic, which is that Eastland and other segregationists were perfectly happy to pass legislation on any number of issues that didn’t impede their agenda of white supremacy.

Today’s Republican Party is not. If there’s a Democrat in the White House in 2021 they will employ the same strategy they did under Barack Obama of obstructing everything that president wants to do, as Biden ought to remember.

When the other party is committed to that view — as today’s Republican Party is — the president’s good will and friendliness will change nothing. Yet Biden continues to believe that his friendships with Republicans are so profound and his powers of persuasion so overwhelming that he can transform the Republican Party, altering the course it has been on for decades.

I’m sure Biden will protest that people are misunderstanding what he said at that fundraiser, so let’s be clear that this isn’t about a “gaffe.” Biden has a very particular view of how governing works and what’s possible at this moment in history. He thinks his ability to get along with anyone — Republicans, billionaires, segregationists — will make his presidency successful.

There is no reason, based on everything we’ve seen over the last couple of decades, to think he’s right. And we also have to ask what moral compromises he’s willing to make along the way.

I’m not giving Obama a pass. His policies were objectively bad and especially so for People of Color who now hold, after precipitous declines in the Obama years, between 30% (for Hispanics) and 10% (for African-Americans) of the already paltry and inadequate median Wealth of White people.

Democrats need to embrace positive populist policies and nominate a forward looking candidate. Oddly enough the 2 with the newest ideas are among the oldest in the field. Biden is antiquated and not in a good way.

Motor City

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed; Father’s Day first celebrated in the U.S.; The event behind ‘Juneteenth’; Author Salman Rushdie born; NBA draft pick Len Bias dies; Entertainer Paula Adbul born.

Two things form the bedrock of any open society – freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a free country.

Salman Rushdie

Continue reading

Vaccines: Low trust in vaccination ‘a global crisis’

By Michelle RobertsBBC News

Public mistrust of vaccines means the world is taking a step backwards in the fight against deadly yet preventable infectious diseases, warn experts.

The biggest global study into attitudes on immunisation suggests confidence is low in some regions.

The Wellcome Trust analysis includes responses from more than 140,000 people in over 140 countries.

The World Health Organization lists vaccine hesitancy as one of the top 10 threats to global health.

The global survey reveals the number of people who say they have little confidence or trust in vaccination.

Fears Hong Kong protests could turn violent amid calls to ‘escalate action’

A big problem with Social Sciences is that the phenomena they want to describe are in many ways unique and unduplicateable. This is less true in History which purports to be the story of what is and one can, with a reasonable degree of confidence pick up an incised lump of dirt off the desert sands and say-

This is an Ur Cow Token!

In the others you find a lot of arguing over definitions and deep data analysis of limited samples of uncntrolled observation in search of patterns. Meh.

Now that Modern Monetary Theory has risen in prominence to a respectable level, Economists are looking for “natural experiments”, circumstances which demonstrate the effects of policies that only in some incomplete respects duplicate the models. As for instance Japan and MMT.

JAPAN DOES MMT?
by L. Randall Wray, New Economic Perspectives
June 4, 2019

As MMT began to gather momentum, its developers began to receive a flood of calls from reporters around the world enquiring whether Japan serves as the premier example of a country that follows MMT policy recommendations.

My answer is always the same: No. Japan is the perfect case to demonstrate that all of mainstream theory and policy is wrong. And that it is the best example of a country that always chooses the anti-MMT policy response to every ill that ails the country.

Reporters find that shocking. Biggest government fiscal deficits in the developed country world? Check. Highest government debt ratios in the developed country world? Check.

Isn’t that what MMT advises? No.

Nay, it is the perfect demonstration that all the mainstream bogeymen are false: big deficits cause inflation? No. Japan’s inflation runs just above zero.
…
Big debts cause high interest rates? No. Japan’s policy rate is about -0.10 (negative rates).

Big debts cause bond vigilante strikes? No. Japan’s government debt is hoovered up as fast as it can be issued. (All the more true with the BOJ running QE and creating a “scarcity” in spite of the quadrillions of yen debt available.)

Critics of MMT counter that Japan is “proof” that big deficits kill investment and growth.

Well, it is true that Japan has been growing at just 1% per year—certainly nothing to write home about. However, investment grows at about a 2% pace, but is pulled down by lack of consumption growth—which has averaged just about zero over the past few years.

Yet, unemployment clocks in at only 3% – in spite of slow growth — as the labor force shrinks due to an aging population. Per capita GDP has been stuck at about $38,000 for years (not so bad, but not growing). And Japan’s current account surplus has surged from under 1% to 4% of GDP over the past few years (considered to be good by most commentators).
…
From the MMT perspective, what Japan needs is a good fiscal stimulus, albeit one that is targeted. Japan has three “injections” into the economy: the fiscal deficit (which has fallen from 7% of GDP to about 5% over the past few years—still a substantial injection), the current account surplus, and private investment. But what it needs is stronger growth of domestic consumer demand—which would also stimulate investment directed to home consumption. So fiscal policy ought to be targeted to spending that would increase economic security of Japanese households to the point that they’d increase consumer spending.

So what is Prime Minister Abe’s announced plan? To raise the sales tax to squelch consumption and reduce economic growth.

You cannot make this up.

This has been Japan’s policy for a whole generation. Any time it looks like the economy might break out of its long-term stagnation, policy makers impose austerity in an attempt to reduce the fiscal deficit—and thereby throw the economy back into its permanent recession.

Clearly, this is the precise opposite to the MMT recommendation. And yet pundits proclaim Japan has been following MMT policy all these years.

Why? Because Japan has run big fiscal deficits. As if MMT’s policy goal is big government deficits and debt ratios.

No. We see the budget as a tool to pursue the public interest—things like full employment, inclusive and sustainable growth. To be sure, by many reasonable measures Japan does OK in spite of policy mistakes. Certainly in comparison to the USA, Japan looks pretty good: good and accessible healthcare, low infant mortality, long lifespans, low measured unemployment, and much less inequality and poverty. But Japan could do better if it actually did adopt the MMT view that the budgetary outcome by itself is not an important issue.

But, no, the Japanese officials are falling all over themselves to make it clear that they will never adopt MMT. Finance Minister Taro Aso called MMT “an extreme idea and dangerous as it would weaken fiscal discipline”.

One wonders how a reporter could listen to that without bursting out in laughter. Japan’s “fiscal discipline” would be threatened by MMT? The debt ratio is already approaching 250%! By conventional measures, Japan has the worst fiscal discipline the world has ever seen!

But, wait, it gets even funnier. “BOJ policy board member Yutaka Harada kept up the attack on MMT. The approach proposed by MMT will ‘cause [runaway] inflation for sure’. “
…
Assume the economy is at Point A—for Japan this would represent a 5% deficit ratio and a 1% rate of growth. Now PM Abe imposes a consumption tax, or the USA plummets into a downturn, reducing Japan’s growth rate. The economy moves up and to the left toward Point B as growth slows and the deficit ratio rises.

Slower growth reduces tax revenue even as it scares households and firms, which reduce spending in an effort to build up savings. The slower growth also reduces imports so the current account “improves” somewhat. From the sectoral balance perspective, the government’s balance moves further into deficit (to, say, a 7% fiscal deficit), the current account surplus rises (say from 4 to 5%) and the private sector’s surplus grows to 12% (the sum of the other two balances).

That’s the ugly way to increase a fiscal deficit. It is the Japanese way. It is like a perpetual bleeding of the patient in the hope that further blood loss will cure her ills.

What is the MMT alternative? Measured and targeted stimulus designed to restore confidence of firms and households. Ramp up the Social Security safety net to assure the Japanese people that they will be taken care of in their old age. Recreate a commitment to secure jobs and decent pay. Either promote births or encourage immigration to replace the declining workforce. Undertake a Green New Deal to transition to a carbon-free future.

In that case we move along the curve from Point A toward Point C. The fiscal deficit increases in the “good” way, while growth improves.

Note, however, that the boost to the deficit will only be temporary. Households and firms will begin to spend and their surplus will fall. The current account surplus will fall, too, as imports rise. Tax revenues will increase—not because rates rise but because income increases. The fiscal deficit will fall as the domestic private surpluses decline. Precisely how much the deficit will fall depends on the movement of the private surplus and current account surplus — with the deficit falling to equality with the sum.