BernankesBeard

BernankesBeard

@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

45 followers47 following250 posts

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

I honestly think that the way the Civil Rights Movement is taught in schools (emphasizing protests, de-emphasizing the planning and explicit strategizing) might be more disastrous than how poorly taught the Civil War is.

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social

"The Jews who went to Mississippi didn't take selfies and post tweets." Okay, but honestly, if tweets had been a thing in 1961, many of them probably would have done.

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BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

There's this myth that the protest movement of the Civil Rights Movement was some completely spontaneous, organic series of protests that people come away with from school and it warps peoples understanding of modern protest and how it can be effective.

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

The Civil Rights Movement was diligently planned and organized. They had explicit strategies that deliberately involved provoking and documenting violence from the segregationists. It took planning for the righteousness of their cause to prevail - it didn't just happen because they were right

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

I honestly think that the way the Civil Rights Movement is taught in schools (emphasizing protests, de-emphasizing the planning and explicit strategizing) might be more disastrous than how poorly taught the Civil War is.

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social

"The Jews who went to Mississippi didn't take selfies and post tweets." Okay, but honestly, if tweets had been a thing in 1961, many of them probably would have done.

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

The Civil Rights Movement absolutely *would* have done that. They worked incredibly closely with media where possible because putting explicit images of Segregations brutality on national TV and newspapers was a critical part of their political strategy

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

I think it needs to be emphasized that we're debating if he's the worst guy since *checks notes* last election. This is just who the GOP is. They're cranks, losers and scum.

Eric Michael Garcia@ericmgarcia.bsky.social

Is… Vivek Ramaswamy the worst candidate for governor since Mark Robinson?

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

TIL the USSR wasn't socialist

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Q: How do you define socialism personally? JD VANCE: I think in reality what it actually means in the American context is you want to replace American workers with foreigners workers, and you want boys to play in girls' sports

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

This is stupid, dangerous and mal-intentioned. But again, we have to remind people that they simply don't have the bodies. 1K is not enough to matter at all. Your typical congressional district has 200+ polling stations.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

BREAM: DOJ plans to send 1k monitors to polls. Sen. Baldwin says 'our democracy depends on ppl being able to have their voices heard, but that's at risk as Trump weighs sending in armed agents.' How do you answer? BLANCHE: She should be saying 'thank God. Thank God we have a govt ready to show up'

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

This isn't to dismiss or excuse these actions. The threat is just different. They're not going to meaningfully prevent people from voting. I think it's clear they're hoping to create a pretext for state officials to discard election results.

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

When all the cockroaches and worms of the Trump admin try to rehab their images after he's gone, we can't let this go. Rubio promised that PEPFAR wouldn't be impacted. It happened anyway. When he tries to be a "Normal Republican" in 6 years, remember he let hundreds of thousands die for no reason.

Matt Darling@besttrousers.bsky.social

(USAID/PEPFAR is by the far the worst thing that happened, but there's so many little things that were destroyed that are clearly out of ignorance)

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

I know that tech people can be annoying, but can anyone explain the galaxy brain take behind "introducing regulation on AI for safety" makes it *less* likely that other impacts of AI would be regulated?

Nicholas Grossman@nicholasgrossman.bsky.social

“AI will kill us all” is how the tech industry, especially rich people in it, avoid talking about real world problems—ones they’re causing, exacerbating, or neglecting—while still thinking themselves good. “I’m better than all that,” they say. “I got high with my friends and BSed about the future.”

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

Like, let's take a concrete example. Suppose you're mad that AI training and inferencing burns a lot of energy. Does adding regulatory steps that slow down development (even if they don't accomplish anything else, even if they don't slow down development much) make that problem better or worse?

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

"oh but if they're talking about safety, then they don't need to talk about the energy costs" Really? What have you observed about opposition to data centers (which is like an 80-20 issue) that makes you think this will just go away if Anthropic keeps talking about alignment?

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

Gee that sounds like a very serious sanction. Let me just check who is buying all that Iranian oil...

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social

He warns any country or entity that continues buying Iranian oil, facilitating its finances, or providing commercial lifelines will become a “global pariah” in the eyes of the US and face economic ostracism. The goal: sever every remaining financial artery until the regime stands alone.-FT

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

Time and again we keep seeing people believe that conflict is determined simply by which side can cost the other more. Willingness and ability to accept those costs is determinative.

George Pearkes@peark.es

On paper a trade war between the US and Canada should be much harder on the northern country. But one country’s political economy can sustain the major costs of a trade war and the other’s cannot.

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

No argument has been made to Americans for what specific conditions must be resolved. Only vague complaints about a deal *that he negotiated* and some hyper specific complaints (ex. tariff rate quotas on dairy). There's nothing that Americans care about or believe is worth any sacrifice.

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social
Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social

Israeli officials stunned by Iran’s rapid military recovery after 2026 war IDF, Mossad officials shocked for the second time in two years by the speed of Iranian post-war recovery. IDF seeing a stunningly speedy turnaround in ballistic missile threat. www.jpost.com/israel-news/...

jpost.comIran rapidly rebuilding ballistic missile arsenal after war, stunning Israel | The Jerusalem PostIDF, Mossad officials shocked for the second time in two years by the speed of Iranian post-war recovery • IDF seeing a stunningly speedy turnaround in ballistic missile threat
BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

High implicit marginal tax rates creating poverty traps is something Chicago economists (Friedman in particular) talk about all the time.

ryan cooper@ryanlcooper.com

curious how Chicago School economists don’t worry about the hundreds of 500 million percent marginal tax cliffs for poor people built into the American welfare state

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

It's astounding how much bullshit rehab Nixon has had. His economic policies were a disaster. "But he was good at fopo!" completely ignores that his management of Vietnam was a disaster and the Sino-Soviet split had reached "Moscow thinking of nuking Beijing" levels before Nixon did anything

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BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

It'd be nice if the American people could trust CENTCOM to not lie to them all the time. Our Kwantung Army needs to go.

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social

Traffic in strait continues to flow: U.S. forces monitoring situation to ensure it keeps moving, U.S. Central Command spokesperson says. Also says Iran doesn’t control Strait of Hormuz.

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

Genuinely incredible that Trump has signed, not one, but two surrender agreements.

Shipwreck@shipwreck75.bsky.social

Here's what’s in the US-Iran deal As Donald Trump has been speaking, senior US officials have been briefing reporters about the deal with Iran. Here are some key points from the 14-paragraph agreement:

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

I don't get the point of all of these studies determined to understand what material facts are driving consumer sentiment, when underlying consumer sentiment looks like this:

Jake Grumbach@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social

New for the Vibecession Debate. Working paper argues that using microdata to get household-specific inflation rates (rather than aggregating first like CPI), you find -lotta variation in household inflation -greater avg inflation during price upturns -lower real wages for lower income people

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

Nothing to brighten up the week like some bonus ACOUP content

Ancient History 101 Podcast@ancienthistory101.org

New on the show today! The First Punic War: pirates, sieges, shipwrecks in storms and sacred, seasick chickens - PLUS the largest naval battle *in all of recorded history* - to guide us through this fascinating conflict is military historian extraordinaire @bretdevereaux.bsky.social

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

It's a genuine problem that modern conservatives are so stupid they can't recall events from 1.5 months ago. We already tested the theory of whether assassinating Iran's leaders in the middle of negotiations would produce the concessions we wanted! That's how we got here!

Qasim Rashid, Esq.@qasimrashid.com

This is Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen He just called on Trump to assassinate the Iranian delegation. 1. This is a war crime 2. Wash Post is now state media and promoting war crimes 3. Why are you still subscribed to them? Yes, inviting you to my platform: www.qasimrashid.com/subscribe

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

Yes, he lied. No it's not why he's in office. He's in office because Republicans want an anti-vaxxer or care more about appeasing Trump. Everyone with two brain cells knew RFK was an anti-vaxxer and that he'd do this.

The UnPopulist@theunpopulist.net

Kennedy canceled $500 million in mRNA research and announced no new mRNA projects will ever be initiated—killing the technology that produced the fastest vaccine rollout in human history.

theunpopulist.netRFK Jr. Lied His Way Into Office and American Health Is the VictimHe is pushing quackery as science as health secretary
BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

All of these dumbass Republicans saying "oh man NATO will have to change because of this" - NATO has already changed. The US threatened to invade a NATO country earlier this year (after threatening less directly to annex another NATO member last year). NATO is dead.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Rick Scott: "Europe would all be speaking German if it wasn't for the American service members and what we did to save their butts in the second world war. For them to not support what we're doing in Iran is foolish. So NATO is gonna have to change."

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

GOP won the house pop vote by 2.6% in 2024. The tipping point district is somewhere between even and R+2. Here's the list of midterms where the margin has shifted by less than 4.6% away from the WH party: - 1990: -0.26% - 1998: -1.24% - 2002: +4.53%

David Nir@davidnir.com

I'm really not exaggerating.

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

So based on history, the viable strategies for not losing the House would be: 1. Win the Cold War 2. 9/11 3. Opposition frivolously impeached President with a +35% net approval Otherwise, they're stuck in one of the other 17 midterms where the backlash was too strong to avoid losing the House.

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

The retconning of Nixon as a "master" of foreign policy has been disastrous for US foreign policy

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

McCormick: "We were horrible in Vietnam until we did Rolling Thunder Two, then we won. As soon as we do half-measures, we lose. The faster we get this over the better. If we seize Kharg island, it could be done almost flawlessly. If we have enough firepower, it would be very easy to defend."

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

I remember in high school being shocked to learn that Nixon portrayed himself as the "Peace Candidate" in 1968. Given everything that followed and Nixon's general demeanor, wasn't it obviously bullshit at the time? And now I've seen in realtime: yes it was and voters are still dumb enough to buy it

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BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

Kavanaugh: "We can't strike down these tariffs because refunding them would be too difficult!" Gee if only there was some sort of relief courts could provide to prevent the government from committing irreparable harm!

Jay Willis@jaywillis.net

Do not let Brett Kavanaugh's increasingly reactionary politics distract you from the simpler fact that Brett Kavanaugh is a dullard and a shitty writer whose colleagues all (albeit for different reasons) very obviously have nothing but contempt for him

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

The funniest aspect of Trump's tariffs getting struck down is the total shitshow that is the refunds. Legal incidence means importers should be entitled to 100% of the refund. Economic incidence means they passed on a significant portion of the tariffs to consumers and business partners.

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

A reminder that Oren Cass is a lawyer by training, doesn't understand how comparative advantage works and is a "chief economist" because he founded a think tank and gave himself that title.

Sam@samd.bsky.social

“We noticed some anger from doctors last week. That’s why we invited RFK Jr. to talk about vaccines”

BernankesBeard
@bernankesbeard.bsky.social

A reminder that Oren Cass is a lawyer by training, doesn't understand how comparative advantage works and is a "chief economist" because he founded a think tank and gave himself that title.

Sam@samd.bsky.social

“We noticed some anger from doctors last week. That’s why we invited RFK Jr. to talk about vaccines”