EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
I know what you're here for. What's his bias? Politically I at least like to think of myself as a true moderate, maybe (in US context) slightly naturally right-leaning but currently politically left-leaning if I had to be more specific.
User ID: 1043
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
23hr ago
Maybe I should have elaborated on this point. Frankly, for all the attention on MAD, I don't think this is the 21st century model. Rather, there's a series of escalations that appear reasonable on the surface: someone uses a "tactical" nuke, then someone nukes a single semi-military target, then the other retaliates with two civilian-target nukes, then three in response... and then people regain their sanity and meet for talks, because it's obvious to everyone that this cannot continue. Like, for example, let's say LA - and LA alone - is nuked. Obviously a calamitous event the world has never seen before. But even then... would the President really pull the trigger on a full MAD response on all of China in response to a single lost city? MAD says yes, you need to, but human behavior says no. We're too hardwired for proportionality for full-MAD to really work. That's my mental model at least for the most likely 'worst-case' scenario, but it's possible I'm a little too optimistic.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
23hr ago
There's a significant chance that it works. I give it 2 in 5, personally, though reasonable people disagree. However, that's missing the point a little bit. Our estimation is not the relevant probability of interest! The relevant probability is what Xi Jingping believes the probability to be, and that is going to be filtered through the presentations from his own military wing - loyalists, actually, since he performed a purge just a few years ago.
The other shoe, of course, is whether the US would stomach a defeat. We aren't used to it. It's unclear how the President (whoever it is at the time) or the populace would react. The assumption is that we'd do a second Pearl Harbor, but other people think we're too soft for that now or wouldn't have a "miracle" that the carriers escape to rely on.
EverythingIsFine
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23hr ago
I realize netizens are obviously non-representative, but it's equally true that generalized Chinese patriotism is on the rise, relatively speaking. That was part of the deliberate plan after all! Put your heads down for a decade or two and work single-mindedly to grow economically and scientifically, and only after you deserve respect do you demand it. Whether that patriotism is generalized enough to produce a genuine "war fever" that happens in a wide range of societies is an open question. It's clear the Great Firewall and censorship generally has been somewhat effective in establishing norms and contours to national conversations on some of the issues, ironically that is somewhat a counterbalance. But you also have the increasing popularity of war films, increasing participation in various boycotts after international incidents they don't like, and other sort of second-order effects, so I wouldn't be quite so quick to immediately say that Chinese people don't care about geopolitics at all and will never care.
EverythingIsFine
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23hr ago
It pretty clearly is? Slow Grinder + America Capitulates, or Sneak Attack + America shrugs were listed pretty obviously in the set of possible outcomes. And combat in the South China Sea doesn't necessarily favor the US and its allies - although clearly we have tons of assets right there, China is also pretty nearby and with Taiwan they have more room to maneuver and the Philippines in particular has to pay greater attention to their northeast. But mostly, China has a decent number of semi-hardened airstrips built on the dredged islands there (in direct contravention of their promises to leave the area demilitarized, I might add). Still, the point about containment is a decent one - for us, perhaps, but not for Japan and Korea, and we still have plenty of assets there too.
Part of the whole reason to explore these scenarios is to get a broader, big-picture view of why the US should or should not defend Taiwan. It's not just about the near-term, it's about the medium and long-term. There is in fact a domino theory of sorts in some foreign policy circles, which is that if we decline to defend Taiwan, on top of the Ukraine thing, on top of the NATO wishy-washiness, suddenly there's really good reason to believe that the US cannot be trusted to honor mutual defense pacts (this is true even if we've taken pains to avoid anything even approaching a formal pact with Taiwan - perception matters). On top of that, an argument is made that taking Taiwan is a line where it's clear that China now has full, superpower impunity to do what it wants. On that note, I'd be interested in your thoughts as to whether or not the international community, such that it is, would be able to levy significant sanctions on China for a Taiwan move, or if such would even be wise.
In terms of ideology, that's not the threat. It's more about political-economic power. Right now China can't pull the kind of things we can do, like just randomly threaten Venezuela. They don't have the room or the respect. If they take Taiwan, it's a different ball game, no matter which way they take it. China can now use gunboat diplomacy in the following decade, in addition to economic coercion. And de-dollarization might also accelerate. The stakes are real.
And then on top of all that, there's just general sadness that a decently-functioning democracy, where people govern themselves, is taken over for nothing but pride and ego reasons by a non-democratic one.
Did you know that the Navy can blow their entire anti-ship missile arsenal in just a few hours? China has the advantage of time, including in naval engagements at missile range. Edit: There's a legitimately interesting strategy where they accept a large amount of losses on purpose if they manage to get the engagement in a favorable spot. The missile ranges in question don't necessarily favor the US, and camping outside missile range is possible generally, but not if you want to intervene in an actual invasion. They also have built up a fairly sizable oil reserve.
Broadly historically speaking? The Opium Wars left a century+ long impact on the national pysche. Even farther back, the Mongolian invasion was a huge deal. One they ended up (partially) whitewashing into a "Yuan Dynasty" as if it were just a normal thing. More recently? Online Chinese hypernationalist netizens have reacted very harshly to a wide range of perceived insults abroad. Sometimes encouraged by the government, but lately they have had to be restrained in some cases. There are a ton of media examples from the last 10 years.
Edit: and yes, as magicmushrooms said, humiliation implies national weakness which implies governmental weakness, and would indeed threaten the CCP's claim to legitimacy, crazy as it might sound to us here. That's partly why the "how" matters, because some resolutions can be "spun" better than others. Outright military defeat? Yikes. Collapse of the government is just as likely and scary as a vow of revenge, Versailles style.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1d ago
I'm not positive it would start with GPS satellites, but with the current setup of space weaponry and capabilities it could escalate to that pretty easily. Also, it's hard to justify "we nuked (potentially) millions of people and broke a three quarters of a century long precedent" with "they made our maps harder to read".
Are you suggesting that they can do lots of non- or less-lethal things in their first strike, then? It's possible, but seems unlikely beyond some of the easy fruit like a smaller-scale cyberattack and internet shenanigans. The point of a first strike is to prevent a counterattack, decreasing overall risk. And militarily it seems quite plausible (in their view, which is what matters for their decision making) that they'd be able to prevent US intervention if they took out enough air and sea bases (and carriers, potentially) to buy them the ~2 weeks to do an invasion (would Taiwanese resistance be less if they saw that China beat the US and no aid is coming? Probably yes).
Re: grey-zone tactics, it doesn't have to look exactly the same. What if Zelensky had just lost an election to a Russia-friendly President who rolled over? Would he really be forcibly removed, or would the situation create just enough confusion to allow the tanks to finish rolling into Kiev? I think you underestimate Taiwan's geographic proximity, potential low points in governmental trust, support for China among the population and even political leadership who might stand to gain promotions under a Chinese takeover. What if they hold a sham vote, either among the people or in the legislature? Or even hold a vote, lose it, allege fraud, and use that as an excuse? False flag something? Stage a partial civil war with sleeper agents? Have commandos take hostages? There are a lot of options, and to emphasize this point, they might only need to work for a week or two, and dilute local resistance.
I agree that your scenario seems somewhat likelier than some of the others (though part of me wonders if Chinese military leadership gets too high on their own supply, they could do something 'illogical') - what do you see the world looking like if that happens, US weak response included? Do you think it's a sea change, or just another part of a slow slide towards something else? Personally, I think any Taiwan resolution has the potential to be the biggest geopolitical world event since the end of the Cold War, but I'm open to other perspectives.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1d ago
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1d ago
this lack of control makes things much scarier.
Bingo, got it in one. A LOT of human behavior makes a lot more sense when you frame it as "wanting to be in control". Including believing things that imply control is possible. Add in some "fundamental attribution bias" and boom, you've explained a great deal of weirdness in our pyschology.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1d ago
I mean, it's all about the definition of "legitimate". Democrat anti-legitimacy arguments were, as I understand, grounded in the theory that a foreign country allegedly deliberately manipulating the timing of media events (and/or Comey's actions) will mislead gullible Americans and thus decrease the "fairness" of the vote. That is, it's "illegitimate" in the sense that a counter-factual vote without intervention would have had a different outcome. I've always thought this was pretty darn weak, but I also think it's important to describe it accurately. It's a "illegitimacy" born of bitterness, even to people who use the word, not an "illegitimacy" as a factual debate. In popular parlance these are different meanings. I don't think that's slimy wordsmithing, it's just how people use the words, in a descriptivist sense.
Now, is claiming "illegitimacy" (in the two meanings) the same as "election denial"? No, mostly? Election denial, I feel like, is a meaningless phrase, even if I've used it once in a while as a sort of general gesture at a concept. Some people use it as "I would have won", an ego-saver among other things, while others use it as "I did win", and the two must be separated. Plainly both can be considered "denialism"! But both do not mean the same thing. I chalk this up partially to word-confusion. As I said, there are two separate concepts going on that are distinct, that our words aren't capturing very well, so I view this argument as silly (and the upvotes/downvotes as tribalism)
Stacey Abrams is a different issue, with a different debate about "voter suppression" that is much closer to the Trump case, and doesn't to me seem to be the same thing as Clinton-style denial.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1d ago
Personally I think it's just a question of priorities. Simple as that. The bombings didn't get much mainstream sustained attention, didn't kill anyone, didn't even go off! All cases need personnel and time, and I'm positive the FBI has more cases than it has time and personnel. I know some very loud people wanted it to be a priority, but frankly I'm a bit iffy on that. It's not like there was a string of later, connected pipe bombings? So no imminent safety risk. (Also not read into the details of the case - were the pipe bombs actually capable of doing lots of damage? Or was it incompetently done?)
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
1d ago
Well, having just visited Amsterdam, I was super impressed - until I realized that the population of Amsterdam is less than a million people. That's shockingly tiny! I'm not sure that the bike culture scales beyond that.
But overall I agree that IF you pair more mass transit with infill higher-density housing, you can definitely make portions of American cities into European-like ones. And then you can connect higher-density areas with something like, I dunno, BART or something. Critically, you still need to do the infill housing bit to make it work, though.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2d ago
I saw a bit of discussion downthread about Taiwan, and as a resident doomer, that's like red meat to me. Plus, I recently saw this actually fairly good and accurate - but still incomplete - WSJ article about what an invasion might look like in terms of nuts and bolts. But talk about the actual mechanics of an invasion get all the attention, so let's talk about something different: what does the world look like after an invasion, assuming it happens?
Unfortunately to answer this question we do need to backtrack and still break down exactly the way in which this invasion happens. There are, essentially, 3 methods for invasion:
Option One: The First Strike. To oversimplify, because of the reality of the geographic and power arrangement, much like Pearl Harbor, a similar idea presents itself. If you can knock out enough American ships, bomb the island bases, bomb bases in Japan (possibly; also Korea, Philippines are possible), attack the GPS and satellite systems, accompany it with a massive cyberattack on both military and civilian targets, cutting undersea cables, and so on, you make a military response ultra-hard mode, giving China carte blanche to invade at their own pace with the wind at their backs. Lots of the details are untested, but there's good reason to think that China would be at least moderately successful at this, depending on how hard they want to commit (a big question). And unlike WW2, it's unclear that America has the industrial strength or the allies willing to pitch in to win a war if it drags on longer. It should be said that buildup to this is virtually guaranteed to be noticed in advance. On Taiwan proper, the ultimate goal, this manifests as an amphibious invasion similar to what's described in the article. It's an outright fight. (One I tend to think is overstated in difficulty, but that's beside the point)
Essentially, three outcomes. The US wins, China loses in the initial stages pretty significantly. China wins, takes Taiwan, does very well against the US (and possibly allies). Or, fighting drags on and WWIII kicks off. Whether or not Taiwan itself folds with a big or a small fight, or even wins, is within this WWIII-esque scenario, because a first strike virtually guarantees a war. It's conceivable China might try something smaller-scale, thinking America might take it on the chin, but we all know America usually punches back.
Option Two: The Slow Grinder. China, possibly taking advantage of local Taiwanese political developments and/or American weakness, blockades Taiwan. Sleeper agents, propaganda, and intimidation blanket Taiwan. America dithers whether or not to intervene, because that would basically mean that America was starting the war, over an island they never formally committed to defend with arms (it's complicated) very far from home.
Two outcomes. Taiwan and/or America capitulates is one possibility. Though I suppose it might matter who blinks first? Or, China's bluff is called and America breaks the blockade, China backs down. I think politically, actions short of a blockade but muscly moves have similar outcomes and so belong in the same general bucket. If the blockade turns into a fight, outcomes also collapse more or less to the first option, albeit with notably different starting assumptions in terms of a fight. I'm not going to call that out as a separate outcome for simplicity.
Option Three: The Sneak Attack. Yep, you heard that right. China has been doing more and more major military exercises. It happens sometimes that these turn into real invasions. Even with some intel, people often second guess this - Russia-Ukraine being an obvious example. It's plausible. Central to this case is the somewhat Chinese military competence, but mostly the degree of Taiwanese resistance. Personally, I think that any appreciable number of Chinese soldiers get into Taiwan, and the nation folds without much of a fight. Picture this: internet blackout. President killed in a sneak missile strike and/or assassination. Chinese troops both helicopter in by the hundreds from offshore helicopter carriers, land on beaches, use temporary piers to land even more. Civilians don't actually fight back much, due to bad equipment, poor training, and poor communication. China eventually overwhelms with numbers, and the US doesn't think it's realistic to land boots on the ground to retake. Most of the Taiwanese strategy hopes to deny beach landings, and if they happen anyways, it's a bit handwavy "urban warfare".
So. Two outcomes. Taiwan loses is clearly one, and one that I find likely in this case. It could also be that China embarrasses itself and fails abysmally in the landing, and then backs off, giving it up as lost. I'll count this as its own outcome, because a failed invasion could still collapse into a larger hot war outcome.
So, we have approximately seven outcomes across three scenarios: China attacks the US first, and either wins or loses quickly, or else the world experiences a longer war. A longer threat or blockade results in China backing down, or the US capitulating (or Taiwan itself). Possibly accompanied by a political settlement or backroom deal. And finally, China takes Taiwan or fails all by its own, quickly.
What does that mean for the world order?
What's striking to me is that nearly none of these outcomes are actually very good for the US, like at all. Even the "good" options! Being attacked and winning? We all know what 9/11 neurosis did on the US, this would be just as major a shift in the attitudes, if not more. I suppose a smaller, cowardly first strike (or a neutralized one) is plausible, resulting in a more 'meh' reaction, but I don't find it likely. China failing a sneak attack might be viewed as good, but I worry about that. China has, historically, not reacted very well to national humiliations. A loss just kicks the can down the road to some other issue, in my view.
The one truly "good" option is where China tries a blockade (or threatens one), and the US resolves the situation with diplomacy - without selling out Taiwan. It's just that... that seems wishful thinking. Have you listened to what China has been saying for literal decades? They are dead-set on taking Taiwan. Maybe they could be (fooled into?) thinking that Taiwan will eventually vote itself into becoming a protectorate or part of China, by its own internal political process. Accepting the status quo.
Of course, that's the whole pin in it, right? I'm taking for granted that a conflict happens, or that China at least makes some kind of move. But isn't that a reasonable base case? The "window" won't be open forever, and we all know how groupthink can take over organizations. On the other hand, it could be I'm excessively poo-pooing this option. Successfully solving the crisis with diplomacy, maybe an economic deal, could also be great for the world, with one less looming crisis over everyone's heads. Maybe it's an agreement to hold a vote in Taiwan once and for all to settle it. Dunno.
I should note that all of these assume a hostile Taiwan, but that's also not a solid, fully given assumption! It only takes a single friendly or weak President to sell out their own country and offer diplomatic cover for the takeover. The US would find it ranging from awkward to impossible to intervene 'against Taiwan's wishes' so to speak, even if it's only a cover and doesn't represent the people. Additionally, and very critically, we've seen a "little green men" approach work in Crimea, so never underestimate the value of plausible deniability and the wide variety of "grey zone" ops, paired with misinformation.
What do Europe and other Asian allies do? That's a wrinkle I didn't address. Might be meaningful. There IS, I suppose, one nice outcome where US allies help us out in the negotiations, or even in combat, and our ties deepen, creating an even stronger power bloc worldwide by virtue of shared goals and arms.
What about the scenarios that are bad for the US/Taiwan? Here's where things get interesting, and I'm curious to know your thoughts. China winning a first-strike, and abject US defeat is plainly fascinating. In a single stroke the world order is upended. Americans are now insecure at their place in the world, outraged that they were beaten, playing the blame game. Perhaps they re-unite and re-dedicate themselves to making a comeback in 10 years. But either way the hold is broken. De-dollarization probably accelerates, global trade is now China-dominated via increased sea and political and economic power. China now has a guaranteed seat at any world table it wants in any international incident.
China winning a lightning strike? Honestly I view this as somewhat status quo, believe it or not. The US might lose a little face, but we never like actually, fully guaranteed we'd defend Taiwan this whole time (strategic ambiguity). Think Hong Kong - protest, followed by quiet acceptance. I view this status quo-like state, to be clear, as mildly good for China. The biggest thing is that China would now have access to the crown jewels of tech: GPUs. That is a pretty big deal, even if you're an AI pessimist.
"WWIII" is... well, I have no idea. Worst case, nukes get exchanged (maybe half a dozen). Russia gets involved on China's side. Things spiral out of control as many countries get pulled into conflict (Japan, Korea, North Korea, etc all have opportunities). Abroad, the American distraction provides plenty of cover for other wars to start (Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, various African countries, all can act with temporary impunity).
At any rate, I'm curious if one of these post-invasion scenarios captures the attention of anyone else. The US has been the head honcho for so long, it's hard to imaging a world where they've been beat solid and perhaps even retreat into a new generation of isolation.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2d ago
Even then I remember some cases where people fail to weight or tie it properly and it floats back up anyways. Few methods are totally safe.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2d ago
Typically, people like this seem to over focus on a few more particular steps and have blind spots. Robinson was amazing at finding getting into a spot with a rifle, and had at least an immediate getaway, heck physically he seemed to have gotten away with it, but totally ignored/didn’t address the human element (family and roommate and discord). Luigi had a plan for a getaway, to minimize his face via a mask (at least partially), a detailed plan to evade capture in the first few hours by taking a variety of transportation to lose people, but ignored the gun. Or actually, there’s a case to be made that keeping it is smart. Lots of criminals are caught because they are seen in the act of dumping evidence, and usually criminals hope to avoid being caught and ID’d (thinking if they are caught it’s all moot) more than they hope to legally be exonerated openly.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
2d ago
His problem was that he continued to wear a mask in an area where masks were weird. And said mask was worn when he was photographed. He actually would have been better off taking the mask off! I think the anonymous tip is reasonable. Also, Bayes rule/selection bias. While I’m not sure how many other municipal cops got tip offs of various types that turned out to be false, I bet there were still a lot. We are only seeing the one tip that panned out.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
9d ago
I think what you're missing is that leftists genuinely do put Jews and Israelis in different mental buckets. And, leftists are also very comfortable with the general idea that regular otherwise-good people can be guilty of very-bad apologia. Thus, Zionists and those gullible enough to defend Zionists, even Zionist public opinion manipulators, can be real and bad people without there ever being a whiff of "and also BTW they control the world". Or at least, the Jews specifically controlling the world. "Billionaires" writ broadly and never defined well are assumed to have large de facto control already, so that idea isn't even too weird. And remember, since good people can be manipulated into apologia, it's very easy to motte and bailey most misspoken utterances - ironically, sometimes quite easy to claim.
As such, you usually need to say something pretty explicitly like "Jews control the world" and not merely two adjacent sentences of "Zionists control a lot of the media" and "Billionaires control the world" or even "A lot of Zionists have a lot of money". It's only "Jews control the world" where they go, wait, that's antisemitic. Even Jews have a lot of money jokes are somewhat diluted in effect because too many (often rich, left-wing) Jews made the jokes about themselves.
Thus: Zionists and Jews and Israelis are indeed different mental buckets. No, it doesn't make a ton of sense, but yes, it's a real and widespread perception.
EverythingIsFine
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9d ago
I think my reading of a biography left me with the vague impression of: great conceptual thinker, somewhat bad at math but definitely not dreadful, mostly lives up to the hype in terms of the ideas but definitely not a super-renaissance man of science.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
9d ago
I liked Isaacson's all right. But personally I found far more interesting, despite its occasional dry bits, The Making of the Atomic Bomb which actually explained all the physics and stuff along the way alongside the physical challenge plus a side of the political as well. It basically gave mini-biographies of a ton of the players along the way.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
9d ago
The law of averages doesn't dictate how extreme these clusters are, though, and only loosely bounds how big they can be. Theoretically, all skills could be heavily right-tailed and so extremely large groups could lie within close range of the median person (in all areas, which is definitely what most people mean when they say "average", they don't mean a literal arithmetic average).
Of course, there's a utility aspect to it too. Even if we were to grant that your thesis were true, there's the weird human psychology thing where telling people it's true can have certain self-fulfilling prophesy effects, although their extremity is debated. Motivation is weird.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
9d ago
I was real excited about an education post, but I'm finding this a bit incoherent.
Kids lack any internal or external motivation to learn, discipline is basically forbidden, and any mark under 85 is cause for meetings and interventions and BS special ed plans. Many teachers don't think this is a problem
Are you an educational determinist? Can a somewhat-stupid student earn good grades? Should they? If so, how? Say nothing about the ridiculous assertion that many teachers somehow don't care about their students learning. I'd say rather than them not caring, teachers have been taught tools that don't work very well and gaslit into believing that they do. See: "inquiry-based learning" and its plague on math. Most observers around here claim that the real problem is disconnected parents, so it's strange to see that you seem to be claiming that the real problem is that the parents are too connected to modern educational trends.
So either the upper class families are fortunate enough to have the means to ensure their kids get the help they need while less affluent students are struggling unassisted, or they're gaming the system to inflate their marks when the most common grade is already A. You know in your heart which one it is.
Obviously both are true...? You know better than to use this strawman/false dichotomy.
The "best work" that this system produces is never good- work expands to fill the time allotted, so if you were going to write a C+ essay in an hour, and now you have two hours, it now takes you twice as long to be just as mediocre.
So is extra time unfair? Or merely a poor use of time-resources? I'm willing to buy the latter, but you aren't doing anything to justify the former. Under this stated opinion, extra time "should" be useless, long-term. I think that's your point, that head-burying is more trendy and desirable than black-and-white analysis and accurate grades, and it's certainly true that grade inflation has accompanies lowering state test scores relative to some previous cadres (although IIRC the data isn't super compelling so far that this recent mini-generation is, say, worse off educationally than those of the 80's, but I haven't dug that deep) but claiming that extra time doesn't produce better work is a little misguided. It objectively does. Better scores at least, for certain, in many if not most cases.
Modern neuroscience seems to be suggesting that kids actually all learn in similarly optimal ways but at different rates, and sometimes this is true on a per-subject basis too. If true, this actually, ironically even, suggests that "extra time" in fact be the better solution. A solution best paired with differentiated instruction of the truest type: leveling and creating tiered classes that move at different speeds.
To say nothing about intrinsic or external learning motivation. As far as I can tell, this is mostly a mystery still to everyone including the neuroscientists. All we really know for sure is that there's a lot of wisdom to the general idea that people rise or fall to the level of the expectations put on them. And that includes self-expectations. As a matter of fact, identity is a major driver of human behavior. I think you're insisting that this is a fragile foundation, but I don't think that's a widely supported view. Rather, most experts seem to think that rather than kick against the pricks, it's better simply to focus on which aspects of self-identity are most useful and least problematic.
At any rate, I require some clarification:
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Are tests useless or accurate measures of student learning? How entangled are these scores with raw talent?
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How involved and/or harmful are parents' efforts at the moment? Are most too engaged in the wrong ways, or unengaged entirely, or what?
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Do teachers (and/or administrators) care about learning, or just about the day-care aspects of stuff? Do they even care about that?
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Are wealthy, non-stupid recipients of accommodations actually hurting themselves, or is such hurt limited to vague psychological hypotheses of yours? Why should we care if so? Or is everyone being hurt, via some unspecified coddling (presumably 'good unearned grades')?
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What do you actually want to see from schooling? Better inculcated mindsets? Civic mindedness? Raw educational attainment? Good test scores? College preparedness? Career aptitude? Plenty of options, or fewer but more-reliable options?
EverythingIsFine
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10d ago
It’s totally possible and I’d posit even likely that the Economist, rather than “not knowing economics”, subscribes to a particular school of economics, and at the same time doesn’t care to explain economics. After all, the vibe the magazine cultivates is that everyone reading it is a metropolitan genius. Those are both good explanations of why the article is light on root-cause explanations (and Fannie and Freddie are indeed mentioned very specifically!)
EverythingIsFine
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11d ago
What you fail to understand, though forgivably, is that the Economist is not an economics paper for a regular person’s idea of the economy. It’s for a certain brand of finance person with international and political awareness interests.
To you and I, normally, mortgages are mostly about houses. It’s about the chance of default, about rates, and about the first degree effects. The Economist occasionally talks about this stuff. But usually, this is not actually the most interesting part about mortgages. The interesting bit about them in our modern financial system is that they are pools of presumably predictable risk, and since large scale finance is all about allocation and dynamics of risk, mortgages play a key role as a counterbalance, hedge, collateral, stress test statistic for banks, etc all rolled into one. That is, second order effects to be a little lazy about it. As just one example, all big banks have strict liquidity ratios that they are mandated to carry to pass the “stress tests”, and mortgages are a big part of that. I think you’re missing this context entirely. Mortgages backstop much of the risk pool of the lending activity of big banks.
The entire point of the article is that there is a such thing as too-safe mortgages, when taken in aggregate, in terms of their role as a risk sink in the broader financially engineered world of banks. This is a legitimate concern, systemically speaking. It’s also pointing out that traditional turnover rates on housing are way undershot due to a combination of hitherto unusual levels of inflation, excess bank loan skepticism, and this has acted as a subtle brake on home building. That last point is an arguable thesis, but it’s a commonly made one.
Homes aren’t purely about supply and demand even if that’s a huge part of it. There are hidden background regulatory pressures that have a stochastic effect on mortgage offers. The financial market historically “expects” a certain ratio of subprime applicants, and hasn’t been getting it, so it’s been throwing a few wrenches into the cogs.
One side effect of this state of affairs by the way is that the big banks instead of doing the riskier lending themselves now lend money to private equity which then does the riskier lending. Some people think this is bad. One solution is to undo Dodd-Frank, and indeed some people want to, but many others feel like that’s worse (the liquidity rules are there for a reason and a collapse of private equity funds is potentially less bad than a collapse of the main banks themselves).
EverythingIsFine
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11d ago
If you drug the President against his will, that’s obviously a crime. And I’m quite skeptical you could get away with it as a premeditated act. It’s really no different than people who worry about the President getting personally blackmailed - yes, it’s technically a risk, maybe even a real one, but it’s a crime that stands on its own, not one we need to try and catch in the second degree
Parsing US Space Command comments carefully, you get the sense that both China and the US have some slightly different advantages in the space realm, it's not universally one side with all the cards. Both have antisat capabilities of at least two varieties. I feel like their attitude right now is medium confident but slightly nervous. And it's worth noting that China is potentially only 3-4 years away from pulling closer to SpaceX, which would jive with potential timelines in terms of lift capacity backstops.
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