half_giraffe [comrade/them]

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  • 26 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: July 27th, 2020

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  • The dunk here is not on MMT, it’s that the head of Biden’s council of economic advisors opposes MMT but can’t even try to muster a reason why. The woman interviewing him in the video is Stephanie Kelton, author of the Deficit Myth and the main proponent of MMT. She describes (as shouldn’t be shocking based on the name of her book) that deficit spending is actually a necessary good to keep the economy functioning, and in that way fits within the left as a counterpoint to criticism of progressive policies like universal healthcare or free college or reparations etc. as “unaffordable.”

    But your instinct is right, MMT isn’t necessarily collaborative with leftist ideas since it isn’t concerned with class or redistributive policies. It’s basically just a way to explain why we can print so much money and see barely any inflation despite classical economics constantly warning about that exact scenario.







  • If the democratic party was at all interested in the opinion of the general public (which includes you and me), they would at least run some primaries and go through the motions of a western liberal democracy. Instead, they’ve decided to rerun 2020 on the hope that the bold message of “He’s not Trump” will work again.

    The election is in eleven months - if Biden loses the fault lands squarely on the democrats for covering their ears and saying “lalalala” any time someone suggests maybe actually doing something resembling democracy. Or hey you can continue to pre-blame the left for an election that hasn’t happened yet and accuse us of actually being conservatives, certainly that will convince us to line up behind Genocide Joe.






  • A little - the last couple of times timehop had a puzzle hunt it was just a web page with a set of themed puzzles, this time they’ve incorporated some other apps they’re associated with and host the clues within their platforms. You still don’t need an account or to download an app but it’s definitely attempting to encourage people to use their bullshit.

    But to be clear, the puzzles themselves have halloween themed answers, you won’t get “always drink your ovaltine”.




  • you want to bus people from the streets of LA there and call it the cure for homelessness?

    No I don’t, and it’s wild because I double checked what I wrote and I absolutely did not say that. If you really need it spelled out, the homeless people in LA would just be handed the keys for the empty houses and apartments inside of LA that outnumber them (and - gasp - some of those are even non-cabin vacation homes, trust me those actually exist).

    You can smugly pretend that anything less than your one idea is inhumane so we shouldn’t do anything to help anyone, but why not advocate for any solution that can help people?

    This is really getting away from you. My “thing” or “one idea” (lol) is to actually end homelessness by giving homes to people that don’t have them - it’s actually a really simple idea that can be implemented immediately since we already have more than enough housing for everyone. I am not “pretending like anything less than that is inhumane,” I’m directly saying that stacking people into the smallest possible living spaces is inhumane; I definitely wouldn’t want to live in 100sqft with shared plumbing, and you wouldn’t either.

    You’re all over this thread talking about “doing both”, but no one’s biting because your idea is bad - it’s more complicated and expensive to build a bunch of pods or tents or tiny homes or whatever than it is to just hand the keys of already constructed empty places over to people who need shelter. And further, your idea does nothing to change the societal relationship towards housing, which means the conditions that create homelessness are reinforced - there’s a reason why every city that deploys some unorthodox housing arrangement still fucking has homeless people!

    Why not do both? Why not advocate for “any solution”? Why not “do SOMETHING”? Because a solution already exists that is easy, effective, and well within the existing powers and legal framework of the current state.


  • There’s a good faith discussion to be had on locations of empty homes and how the problem isn’t supply but distribution, but it’s clear that you aren’t really interested in any of that because of how you ended the comment:

    But that said, I never said we couldn’t do that

    I mean, right before this you spent a paragraph calling vacation homes inhabitable, but sure whatever. And, the cherry on top:

    if you can get the votes to pass your thing then sure let’s do both

    It reveals so much about your thought process that your imagination ends at what policies can “get the votes.” If you’re justifying potential government activity within the bounds of what the current system allows to pass then anything beyond tax cuts for the rich and increased military spending is straight up off the table. You can smugly pretend that you’re being reasonable and pragmatic but ultimately anything that changes the status quo will be violently opposed by people in power - so why not advocate for the most humane and society-improving solution?