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I keep questioning this (this morning over the firing of the SDNY's Berman), but seriously for my conservative friends, how the hell do you support what is going on? If you have totally different views for your party than the other, you are in a cult and not free-thinking.
I was conservative - still am - and never voted for Democrats although I am not even sure what a conservative is anymore. I thought it was supporting individual freedom, a limited government, supporting and advancing western democracy, and free market economics
How is what we have today any of that? The GOP today is the opposite of individual freedom. Just this week, they lost their mind because they want the right to discriminate against LGBTQ... why cannot we treat people as people? If your religion tells you otherwise...
or if you believe you found solace in a party that supports hatred, you are in a cult that lost its way. Seriously, how?! This isn't conservatism, this is just being an awful human being.
And limited government... Republican administrations have added between 0.75% and 1.2% more to the deficit as a friggin percent of GDP than Democratic administrations. How. Seriously, how. Before the Covid-19 recession, we were already at a $1T deficit... in a good economy...
when deficits should be low... the conservative embrace of modern monetary theory is an embarrassment that has real impacts to the economy and our social structure. As I said above, I am a free market guy (my background is economics). But on the Republican side, free market...
only applies to not giving handouts to the poor. This deficit financing by the Fed is never viewed as a problem or recognized for what it is. The Fed balance sheet has grown from under $1T in 2018 to $6.6T now... in a "good economy". Why should people care?
The Fed buys bonds... and debt from companies... originally to stabilize the economy after the financial crisis but now does it to keep the economy (really stock market) propped up. Who does this benefit? Asset holders (stocks, bonds, real estate). Generally rich people.
Who does it hurt? Well all this excess liquidity and asset purchases does something... it drives up the price of assets. The stock market has done well, great (although it is disconnected from underlying valuation right now). But it has driven up real estate prices
While wages and inflation have grown at about the same rate (around 2.5%), real estate has grown 7%, three times wages, making owning a house harder and harder every year. Rents? They've grown 4.3%, almost double wages. Even food, in the last year has increased 4%.
So we hate handouts to the poor, but don't care or even realize that the Fed buying an incredible amount of assets to prop up asset prices and help portfolios is causing a real issue for low income people to afford to live. We want free markets? Let the economic cycle happen...
Cruise lines in trouble due to Covid? Let them fail. Companies like the airlines that made money every year but when the economy turns down need a bailout? I thought we didn't like bailouts. I get not letting your economy collapse, but companies can issue stock or access...
credit markets to take on debt if they are doing poorly. We have lost the concept that capitalism means that there are losers when companies fail and that this is actually good. I hear often that the Democrats want socialism, but all of the above is exactly socialism, just...
for a different group. And supporting Western democracy? I don't even know what to think on this. Today's GOP has become anti-West and pro-Russia. There is serious room for debate on our role in the world but not for abandoning our strategic positions.
If you imagined the other party doing everything your party is doing and have a totally different view on it, look in the mirror as you are the problem. What is going on today is really, really dangerous as we are creating an economy that is not resilient or free, have lost the..
concept on individual freedom unless it is our freedom, and are abandoning 70 years of strategic position in the world.
