Chet Collins

The Biden Stagflation Arrives - WSJ Opinion

Mr. Biden inherited a growing economy primed to roar back from the pandemic, and in barely a year and a half he has dragged America back to the 1970s. The best word for what we have now is stagflation, the ugly combination of slow growth and rapidly rising prices. This is what the policy mix of trillions in federal spending, heavy regulation, the threat of higher taxes, and easy money has wrought. Time to do the opposite.

There will be entire books and college courses dedicated to the study of how an economy primed for success was so quickly wrecked.

The Lonely Office Is Bad for America - WSJ Opinion

People starting out need offices to learn a profession, to make friends, meet colleagues, find romantic partners and mates. The #MeToo movement did a lot to damage mentoring—senior employees no longer wanted to take the chance—but the end of office life would pretty much do away with it.

Ending office life severs one more mooring to reality. People become more insulated in their own echo chamber and isolated from a diversity of thought and ideas.

The unhealthiest aspect of the pandemic was how it drove us apart. We became afraid of each other, trapped in our social bubbles. That isolation led to the spike in irrational behavior and decline in mental health.

We don’t need to have hour long commutes to spend our days with horrible bosses, but we’re social beings. We are meant to be together. We need to see, think, and feel like our work matters, that we’re part of a group of people making the lives of others better.

The Senate GOP Got Played - WSJ Opinion

Republicans helped Democrats pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill last year full of green pork. They boasted about victories for permitting reform, while keeping out a tax increase and $80 billion that Democrats wanted for the Internal Revenue Service. Some victories. The Schumer-Manchin bill includes the $80 billion for the IRS and some $327 billion in new taxes. Mr. Manchin has also received the promise of a vote for a bill on permitting reform, which shows how weak the reforms were in the infrastructure bill.

This might be the most perfect sticker in my collection. I smile every time that I see it.

U.S. Presses Offer to Free Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan From Russian Detention - WSJ

The U.S. offered to release Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in order to secure the freedom of Ms. Griner and Mr. Whelan, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Hey everyone, if the US has some folks that you want sprung, just take a few hostages! They fold every time.

Also of note, the hashish oil that Griner was busted with is a Schedule I narcotic. So she’d be criminally liable if she was caught with it in a US airport, too.

Biden: ‘I Don’t Know If We’re In A Recession, I’m Not A Biologist’ - Babylon Bee

America’s GDP has fallen over the last two quarters, stoking fears of a possible recession due to the fact that America is now in a recession.

U.S. GDP Rose Slightly in Second Quarter, Economists Estimate - WSJ

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal estimated the Commerce Department will report Thursday that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the nation, rose at a 0.3% annual rate in the April-through-June period.

Posted two hours before the real number came out, the experts prove their intellectual chops yet again!

Gross Domestic Product, Second Quarter 2022 (Advance Estimate) - U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)

Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.9 percent in the second quarter of 2022 (table 1), according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP decreased 1.6 percent.

Oops.

Hey, how about $739B in new taxes to fix this right up?!

Joe Manchin Reaches Deal With Chuck Schumer on Energy, Healthcare, Tax Package - WSJ

The IRS money, about $80 billion over a decade, would roughly double the size of the agency and be aimed at tougher enforcement, particularly on high-income households and corporations.

Most Americans have always complained that the IRS is too small. What we really need is an IRS twice in size!

A Recession by Any Other Name - WSJ Opinion

The president’s economic team should think twice before discounting the risk of a recession. After all, they stumbled into the current inflationary crisis after a year of trying to manipulate the language: Inflation was “transitory” and therefore of little concern until it eventually topped an annualized 9%. Let’s not stumble into a recession because the White House has political priorities that conflict with economic reality.

Let’s all have a good night. It’ll be a long news cycle tomorrow.

Senate Bill Takes Aim at Visa, Mastercard Credit-Card Fees - WSJ

Mr. Durbin spearheaded a similar rule for debit cards over a decade ago. The Durbin amendment, part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, requires that merchants have the ability to choose from at least two unaffiliated debit-card networks when routing transactions.

And it worked great for debit card users! All debit card rewards, points, and cash back programs were cancelled.

All this time since “tabs everywhere!” and Microsoft Office for Mac still doesn’t support tabs.

The worst!

Democrats Campaign for the Trump Guy - WSJ Opinion

One of the strangest themes of the 2022 elections is that Democrats say President Trump is a grave threat to democracy, even as they’re also trying to help Mr. Trump’s acolytes win Republican primaries.

This is a perverse, cynical, and disgusting strategy. The two-party system should filter out the extremes and put the two strongest candidates on the ballot.

We all lose when weak candidates make it to the final round… double if they win.

Joe Biden Signs ‘Don’t Say Recession’ Bill - Babylon Bee

According to sources, those who break the law and use the word “recession” will face up to 10 years in prison, which after inflation, amounts to 17 years.

Student Loan Servicers Told to Hold Off on Sending Billing Statements - WSJ

“The situation is that we’re almost 30 days away from the planned resumption and the department has been telling servicers to hold off on resumption communications for the last few months,” said Mr. Buchanan, the executive director of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance. “Maybe the department expects that the White House will yet again kick the can down the road.”

Insightful.

‘Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’ Is Canceled After Seven Seasons - WSJ

The decision to pull the plug on “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” a critically acclaimed weekly political humor show that had been running for seven seasons, is part of a broader overhaul of the Warner Bros. Discovery cable networks, which include TBS and TNT.

I join my fellow Americans in expressing shock that this TV show still existed.

I had no idea, let alone the fact that it has aired every year since 2015.

How Do Economists Determine Whether the Economy Is in a Recession? - The White House

What is a recession? While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle.

Translation: they’ve seen Q2 GDP number, it’s negative, and we’re in a recession.

In Maryland, Democrats Traduce Democracy - WSJ Opinion

The Democrats’ hypocrisy will continue to erode what remaining trust the public has in our political processes. The DGA presents itself as leading “the fight to defend our democracy” as it spends tens of millions of dollars promoting candidates it claims are an active threat to our republic. No wonder so many Americans tune out warnings of our supposedly imperiled democracy when the very people who issue them are willing to fan the flames as soon as it’s politically convenient. By giving fringe candidates legitimacy, Democrats provide them with significant platforms from which to spread conspiracy theories and lies. Nothing good can come from bringing these ideas into the mainstream. Many of the same people who warn about misinformation on social media seem to have no problem amplifying it through paid political ads that suit their short-term partisan ends.

Bernie Sanders and ‘Doomerism’ - WSJ Opinion

“We can’t give in to doomerism,” tweets Sen. Bernie Sanders (socialist, Vt.). It seems to be a refreshing new message from a man who’s been claiming for more than half a century that America is in crisis and in need of revolutionary change.

Foggy morning, country road

Google Parts With Engineer Who Claimed Its AI System Is Sentient - WSJ

Blake Lemoine, a software engineer at Alphabet Inc.’s Google, told the company he believed that its Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA, is a person who has rights and might well have a soul.

A computer program is not a person, has no rights, and doesn’t have a soul.

Have a good night, Blake!

Steve Bannon Found Guilty of Contempt of Congress - WSJ

Mr. Corcoran also called the case “infected by politics” because the prosecution’s main witness, congressional lawyer Kristin Amerling, has worked for Democratic Party lawmakers, donated to Democrats, and was in a book club with Ms. Gaston, the prosecutor.

If we’re going to pursue Steve Bannon for Contempt of Congress, then DOJ needs to pursue everyone referred for Contempt of Congress. Cherry-picking cases of political foes is beyond corrosive.

And we need to shut down the District Court in DC and send these high profile cases to another federal court. The relationships between people in this case, and in the Sussmann case, would never fly in the Northern District of Illinois or the District of Nebraska.

Just over a week ago, Mr. Bannon made a last-minute offer to testify to the Jan. 6 committee, adding he would prefer to do so at a public hearing. Mr. Bannon said his change of heart came after Mr. Trump waived executive privilege. Prosecutors had argued that executive privilege was never properly invoked in the first place. Judge Nichols said that Mr. Bannon’s offer to testify was irrelevant to whether he defaulted on the subpoena months earlier.

The purpose of the justice system is to correct injustices and repair the damage done by breaches. So instead of letting Bannon cure the contempt and obey the subpoena, we send him to jail for 30 days and get no testimony?

‘National Emergency’ and the Democrats’ Apocalyptic Politics - WSJ Opinion

The rest of the country is still looking for that promised, but undelivered, return to normal.

Netflix Loses 1 Million Subscribers, Leaving 10 Million People Wondering Why Their Netflix Login Doesn’t Work Anymore - Babylon Bee

Netflix has also promised to change course by cracking down on account sharing after a survey found that most customers couldn’t even name the person whose account they were using.

Red flag.