Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Friday, August 9, 2024
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39 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Remember when the stock market “crashed” 2 days ago in the worst collapse since Black Monday? Yeah, about all that “presaging a recession” talk: Wall Street sees best day of trading in nearly two years amid recovery rally
I guess they aren’t afraid anymore. I wonder what changed?
‘Designed to tear families apart’: a shocking film exposes abuse and infanticide
Hall of Fame golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez has passed away. He was 88. Chi Chi was a character besides a successful golfer- 8 PGA Tour wins, 22 Senior Tour wins, and a participant in the 1973 Ryder Cup matches. On the course Chi Chi was known for his sword play and other antics after making a critical putt. Chi Chi was very popular with golf fans.
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Off the course, Chi Chi was very active with charities in both the US and his native Puerto Rico. I remember Chi Chi well. He was a colorful personality and pro golf has next to none today. RIP,
@OzarkHillbilly:
Entities that have some ability to manipulate the market for their purposes will manipulate.
Whether the motivation is political or personal gain or emotional gratification is interesting but unimportant.
@OzarkHillbilly:
You know, it almost sounds as though the stock market is volatile.
@Bobert: It’s just greed and lemming psychology.
The sell off began because of the layoffs in the tech sector. A lot of people thought tech stocks were going to take a hit so they wanted to sell at the highest price they could get. In fact, so many investors wanted to sell they caused a “crash” in the prices of tech stocks (I suspect a few other sectors got hit as well, fear is contagious). But now the prices are so low that it is an opportune time to buy. So they are all buying back the stocks they sold.
Fifty years ago today, Nixon resigned.
WKRP in Cincinnati
@CSK:..Nixon resigned
At 11 am cdt on that day, the owner of my favorite swill hole, Nixon hater supreme, bought the house a round for the first and only time.
John Dimitrios Karayanis
1935-2017
RIP
I am waiting for the Wall Street Journal editorial board to excoriate the idea that a president should have a direct say in interest rates and cut all editorial support for a presidential candidate who argues for it.
As long as we’re going down memory lane…
Where Does the Time Go?
Jerry Garcia
August 1, 1942-August 9, 1995
RIP
I remember distinctly the day that Nixon resigned, because our local newspaper reported it with the title in the biggest font they must have had and bigger than I had ever seen before.
@CSK: I was 16 yrs old. I had more important things on my mind
@OzarkHillbilly: In fact, I didn’t notice that the market had gone down, let alone “crashed,” but in a market with numbers as inflated over time as ours is, we can only get perspective on how bad downturns are by considering percentage value declines. But I will note that “market dropped by some single-digit number” is a lot less impressive as a headline than “market suffers worst drop since ‘Black’ whatever day that was.”
@Kathy:
Yes, “volatile” pretty much sums it up. And of course traders will try to take advantage of that volatility, sometimes resulting in further volatility.
Stepping back a smidge, we can see it never was a crash. Even before yesterday’s big up day, the S&P 500 was up about 10% this year and 80% for the last 5 years.
… and while we split hairs of the VP military record Trump is flat out making things up out of thin air. And no one seems to think this is anything more than “Trump Being Trump”
That Time Trump Nearly Died in a Helicopter Crash? Didn’t Happen.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/us/politics/trump-helicopter-willie-brown.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Bk4.JcCw._4-K1z1DIapT&smid=url-share
@just nutha: Yeah I remember Black Monday I was fixing something at my parents house when the news came across the radio. Their neighbors were not exactly screaming “A new Depression!!!” but the panic in their voices was impossible to miss.
I just thought, “Life goes on.” and continued with my business for the day.
@OzarkHillbilly: I remember Black Monday. Thought “I bet my portfolio manager is having tons of people scream in her ear, will wait a bit.” Called her a few days later. Asked:”should I worry?” Answer:”nope!” Me:”OK.”
@OzarkHillbilly:
Let me guess, the classmate two chairs ahead of you in English class.
@Rick DeMent:..Trump the Chump…
Here is Trump right after the helicopter crashed. It addled his brain and he did not know where he was.
@Rick DeMent:
You’ll be happy to know I tackled the helicopter thing as part of a larger post about Trump that just went up.
@Bill Jempty:
He was a golfer? And a he?
I’ve known the name for my entire life — it filtered in somehow. But I had no idea who they were, and just assumed that Chi Chi Rodriguez was a woman, and a dancer, but not the one with fruit on her head. Tangos may have been involved, but not mangos.
@Gustopher: Chic Chi Rivera.
Fans of WKRP in Cincinnati may remember Chi Chi Rodriguez’s name from this bit…
@Eusebio: That’s Mister RODragweez to you.
@Joe:
Chita Rivera
On another thread Matt Bernius commented that he thought candidates should do more interviews and take more questions. While I agree with him in a general sense, I feel that for the most part reporter’s questions are so hackneyed that they generate nothing of interest. And the worst example are found at the typical press conference. First, we have to get every TV reporter asking a variation of the same inane question of the day because their network needs to run a 10 second tape of the candidate responding to their perfectly coiffed guy rather than the one from the competing network. Then we get a whole series of questions which boil down to, “how do you respond to this piece of borderline slander that was slipped to my by one of the opposition and for which I haven’t even made the barest attempt at investigating it before I assist your opponent in spreading it?”
An ideal situation would be for the candidate to sit down to a lengthy interview with a serious reporter who has done real homework. But the way it works now it’s just a waste of everyone’s time.
@Bill Jempty: Actually, it was 3 things: Girls, girls, and girls.
@MarkedMan:
Hey, I hope to have a post on that tomorrow. I totally agree that long form sit down interview are the best. And I think doing press conference responses to softball and questions/controversies of the day are good as well.
Busy day in History.
August 9, 1945
Second Atomic Bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
New York Times:
Bad, naughty FDR. Bad.
Seriously, wtf, NYT?
@JohnSF: Wow.
I would love to hear exactly what the NYT writer thinks FDR should have done instead…
@OzarkHillbilly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBDvxWRl7aM
@DrDaveT:
“Well, obviously, a peaceful accommodation with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan would have worked out just fine.”
The thing is, Chamberlain tried that.
And people tend to forget, it was Chamberlain, the advocate of appeasement, who ended up declaring war on Germany.
@JohnSF: Timothy Snyder’s class on the Ukraine (available on YouTube, and highly recommended) suggests that Hitlers main ambition was to take over Ukraine and use it as a breadbasket for German peoples, getting rid of Ukranians.
He only fought France and Britain because he had to. So, ladida, it could have been just fine…who cares about those people anyway?
@Jay L Gischer:
Yes, the lebensraum project: only it was not just Ukraine, but also Poland, Belarus, Baltics, etc.
The British strategic calculus at the time was that was indeed what the Nazis desired.
And what the British would not permit them to achieve.
Because that would make Nazi Germany a Super Power.
And, in the end, the UK could not abide that.
As Raymond Aron said, iirc:
“The British would accept the dominance of American democracy; but would fight to the death against German autocracy.”
Because the US might be annoying, but was tolerable, as it was “liberal”: lawful, mercantile.
Nazi Germany was not.
@JohnSF: I find it fascinating that Ukraine was at the center of that conflict, and here we are again.
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