Quantumfreakonomics
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User ID: 324
Quantumfreakonomics
6hr ago
One would think that a winning political formula would be to promise lower prices, and then actually lower prices. Then you get to run on the lowered prices.
Quantumfreakonomics
6hr ago
Everyone wants lower prices. Voters say they want lower prices in exit polls. Political candidates run entire campaigns on lowering prices. Any internet discussion can be derailed in an instant by complaining about how much things cost. In 2024, Donald Trump and Republicans surged to power on a wave of anger and resentment at high prices.
Then he immediately jacked the effective tariff rate from 2% to 10% and caused a global energy crisis by starting another war in the Middle East. Now Texas is run by Democrats.
Why? I think the answer is public choice theory. Despite inflation being the number 1 political issue of the last two US general elections, nobody gets into politics to lower consumer prices. Strong consumer sentiment is not a terminal value of ~any of our politicians. It is good with solely instrumental value in that it allows politicians to spend political capital on the things they actually care about, like open borders, ethnic squabbles, corporate profits, or wars.
There is a Matt Yglesias take that even though Republican economic policy is on paper better than Democrat economic policy, Republican presidents end up with worse economic performance because they always start pointless foreign wars, causing both global supply shocks and a rundown of the treasury to pay for military expenditures. It’s hard to argue with this. I’m sort of left going, “real Republican governance has never been tried.”
Quantumfreakonomics
17hr ago
Don’t forget Epstein. If feels unserious to put Epstein in a list of impactful political phenomena, but we have to admit that the Epstein messaging was effective.
Quantumfreakonomics
18hr ago
Uno reverse card - Trump is now distancing himself from Republicans:
Quantumfreakonomics
19hr ago
He needs to reach 0.99c by February if he wants to outrun the Anthropic Von-Neumann probes.
Quantumfreakonomics
20hr ago
I think it's the gas prices. Most people here drive pickup trucks.
Texas has had a Republican governor ever since George W. Bush defeated Ann Richards in 1994. People were ready to give the backup quarterback a few snaps so to speak.
Quantumfreakonomics
20hr ago
Gina Hinojosa 88% to win Texas governor.
I was mentally prepared for Talarico to win, but this is going to potentially impact my day-to-day life. This is now a cope thread.
Do I need to buy a gun? Should I think about moving to Florida?
Texas is a huge market for business. What happens to stocks tomorrow?
Quantumfreakonomics
21hr ago
Decision Desk HQ projects Jon Ossoff wins the GA US Senate General Election #DecisionMade: 7:18 PM EST
Ladies and gentlemen, your 2028 Democratic presidential nominee.
Quantumfreakonomics
23hr ago
Do the Northern Marianas Islands get to vote?
Quantumfreakonomics
1d ago
You’re probably right, but Darline Graham isn’t a real politician. We don’t even know if she wants the job. She had a cushy nepo position nobody had ever heard of before Trump plucked her out of the aether.
Quantumfreakonomics
1d ago
I guess I ought to make an actual prediction, if only to give everyone the opportunity to laugh at me.
Dems win: Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia.
Reps win: Texas, Iowa, Alaska, Nebraska.
These are all senate btw.
Quantumfreakonomics
1d ago
You can tell that their hearts aren’t really in it though. It’s like when dems act like they’re going to be tough on border security.
Roger Marshall might lose re-election in Kansas because when he was a practicing physician he sued patients who didn’t pay outstanding medical bills.
I get why messaging like that plays poorly with voters, but the only coherent opposing position is that patients should not have to pay for healthcare. That’s what dems are running on.
Quantumfreakonomics
1d ago
Separately from the Anthropic question, is one morally obligated to short-sell EVIL Inc. if it makes up a meaningful fraction of the index funds one owns?
Quantumfreakonomics
1d ago
This is the price that we pay for freedom. Nothing like this would be possible in Europe under the GDPR.
Small aircraft incidents are a surprisingly common cause of death for rich people. Commercial airlines are signifigantly safer per passenger-mile than driving. Private jets are not. It's not no-big-deal to jump in a Gulfstream or helicopter every weekend. Don't be like Kobe.
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
What’s crazy is, if the polls are wrong 4 points in the other direction, Democrats could pick up senate seats in Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi, which haven’t even been talked about as being in play.
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
The Dem agenda is gibs. Everyone loves gibs. Even old white people love gibs (yes, social security and Medicare are gibs).
Arguably, the Democrats spent the last 10 years shooting themselves in the foot by running on anything besides gibs. Social justice? Institutional integrity? Just tell people you’ll give them free stuff lmao.
The highways around here are full of, “James Talarico will protect benefits”, billboards. That’s it. That’s the message. I don’t see any Ken Paxton billboards.
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
There are about 12 GOP Senators who are waiting around for some excuse to vote to impeach and remove Trump so they can blame all their failures on Trump and get back to the real GOP values represented by people like Mitt Romney.
Who? Name them.
Mitch McConnell - Retiring in January
Bill Cassidy - BTFO by MAGA in the primary
John Cornyn - BTFO by MAGA in the primary
Susan Collins - Will be gone in the event of a blue wave. Don’t double-count her seat.
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
There’s not a huge difference between 53 seats and 56 Dem seats for the remainder of Trump’s term, but it could have big repercussions for the country down the line. A 56+ seat majority in 2029 with a Democrat house and president probably abolishes the filibuster, packs the Supreme Court, and admits Washington DC and Puerto Rico as states.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
Mossad, if you're listening, now would be a good time to activate sleeper agent Jasmine Crockett.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
The whole point of voting for El Sayed in the primary was to have a candidate who doesn't condemn anti-Israel messaging on demand. That's what the base wants. One doesn't normally expect a four-term Democratic congresswoman to take her ball and go home.
"Haley Stevens will endorse Mike Rodgers if she doesn't get what she wants on Israel," would have been considered a vaguely antisemitic statement three months ago.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
Anything from, "it's bad to contribute to AI killing everybody," to, "it's bad to contribute money to the NGO blob," to, "it's bad to own galaxies."
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
Listening to politics inside baseball podcasts, one quickly learns that email lists are the most valuable asset of a defunct campaign. One of the reasons the establishment hates Bernie is that he refused to hand over his email lists to the DNC.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
Anyone have thoughts on the ethics of buying the Anthropic IPO?
Quantumfreakonomics
4d ago
With three days until Election Day, is there still enough time for the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Michigan?
Cenk Uygur's Rebellion PAC dropped a controversial new ad supporting the Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El Sayed featuring a grocery store conversation about Israel. Some are calling it the most antisemitic ad of all time:
"You're going to have to put those eggs back."
"They don't like eggs anymore?"
"No, they like eggs. But we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians."
"What? I mean, don't we give Israel $4 billion a year anyways?"
"Yeah. And now we're giving them another $26 billion. Do you know how much that is per American taxpayer? It's like $161 per person."
"Apparently, it's costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza. It's terrible."
Now, I don't think this is a very good ad. It's poorly acted and a bit too on-the-nose, but accusing the political opposition of wasting money on unpopular special interests while regular citizens deal with rising prices is probably the most common political maneuver in modern American politics. Apparently, this ad is at the center of a possible last-minute fracture of the Michigan Democratic coalition.
Haley Stevens, El Sayed's defeated challenger in the dem primary, released an incredibly passive aggressive statement preemptively thanking El Sayed for his "Expected Condemnation of Antisemitic Campaign Advertisement". Amusingly, long-time TYT host Ceng Uygur has been demoted to "Hasan Piker's Uncle". In case you didn't catch the subtext, this is a threat to pull her support (as explained by Haley Stevens's fiance on TMZ for some reason?). Abdul appears to have no intention of disavowing the ad.
This doesn't seem to have affected El Sayed's chances in the prediction markets. He is now up to an 80% chance to win, but I guess we'll see what happens at the black church on Sunday.
I did notice that the polls were oddly close, and that there weren’t very many of them.
Being in position to slam one’s Republican opponent as being anti-BBQ is a good place to be in the South.
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