Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, April 27, 2026
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20 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus 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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A Ponzi scheme works as long as enough “investors” are willing to let their money ride, and few want to withdraw all or part of their “gains.”
Sometimes, it looks like the stock market works that way. Not that it’s a scam, but that if too many people want to take their money out, the money just isn’t there.
Suppose you buy 100 share os XYZ Airlines* at $10. that’s an investment of $1,000. Over months or years, it appreciates to, say, $100 per share. cool. Now your investment is worth $10,000. Sure, but no one put any money on your shares. The money they’re worth now can only be realized as cash if someone buys them off you for that price.
Now, suppose you instead own a really large number of shares in XYZ, say one tenth of the total shares, which we imagine means 100 million shares. If you try to sell that many all at once, the price will drop. You may still make a profit, bit not the one you expected.
Also, seeing that many shares sold, other holders of the Airline’s shares might sell. This drives the price further down. Eventually the stock may crash, regardless of how XYZ is doing financially, because you needed the money fast.
So, when this happens with several stocks, especially due to actual financial or operational difficulties in some companies, the market crashes.
I may have it all wrong. It strikes me the stock market is far more complex than it needs to be.
*That’s a private joke. The late, great Interjet was the commercial name of a company called ABC Aerolineas. My various imaginary airlines are all called XYZ Airlines in its honor.
Good lord am I ever tired of hearing about the Magical Ballroom.
Would the Correspondents’ dinner really be held there? After all, the White House Correspondents Association is a private group, and this is a fundraiser. Are these people genuinely arguing that the President (this one and all of those who follow) can ONLY show up for events in locations that are completely hardened? How exactly will that work?
Critical thinking skills are completely gone for these folks. Gone.
After working from around 8 am to 4 pm on Saturday, and then visiting my mom at the hospital Sunday morning, I was in the mood for a quick cooking session.
So I made fettucine in red sauce with air fried meatballs, no side. I also made the weeks dinners, which consist of stir fried vegetables and rice. A but under two hours prep and cooking. A bit over two hours once all dishes, pots, pans, and utensils were washed.
I would like to discuss something serious.
Sadie’s poop habits.
She puts a lot of effort finding the exact right spot, sniffing and scratching to get any debris off the ground so she can get the full character of the earth below.
When she is satisfied the spot is THE SPOT, she begins to go around in circles. Lots and lots of spinning around the spot, it’s amazing she doesn’t keel over from dizziness. I have to unleash her or else the leash gets so twisted and I have to stand so close, she gives up, like I cramp her style or something.
This all can get pretty boring, standing there waiting for shit to literally happen, so I’ve taken to counting the spins. Usually it’s about 15 or 20 revolutions, but she has gone as high as fifty. And sometimes, after all that effort, she decides nope, not the right spot after all and we start the whole process all over.
Thank you for letting me share.
@becca: Ha! A neighbor of ours used to have a dog who did the spinning thing. Our pup was discerning in her location selection, but no spinning–but, she did do a squat-poop-walk thing while she was going.
Dogs are fascinating.
@Jen:
1) Of course it will be rented out for private events. it’s a source of income from which El Taco can take his cut (like 150%). It will be outrageously expensive, too, seeing as it’s a fortified, super-secure, gilded, strategic ballroom.
2) All events El Taco attends must be held there. Campaign rallies, golf outings, dinners, movies, pro fights, even the Super Bowl.
3) If Roosevelt had rushed to build ballroom rather than the Pentagon, WWII would never have happened and it would have been won in days!!1!
@becca: @Jen:
I will share with you something the late, great Robert B. Parker once wrote: “Dogs are very mysterious and often do things I don’t understand.”
It’s come to this:
King Charles will meet El Taco off camera, to avoid the spectacle of a crude colonial upbraiding the figurehead.
@Kathy: one of my favorite dishes is black beans and brown rice topped with stir fried red bell pepper, zucchini, yeiiow squash, mushrooms, garlic and onions. Crumble some goat cheese on top with a good squeeze of lemon. Throw some shrimp into the veg and cover all the bases.
@becca:
I’m a rather picky eater with admittedly limited tastes. If you keep track of my recipes, and why would you, you’d notice a lot of repeat ingredients in most things.
Coincidentally, I have some beans and chickpeas in broth left from last week’s meals. I’ve been mixing it with the stir fry and rice for dinner.
Ah, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
According to Lara Trump:
Oh, he should be thinking: “is this the time I’ll wind a deader?”
It does bring some comfort to see a man-child that has achieved power twice be so miserable at his own incompetence. If he could only realize he has only himself to blame, he might do something actually constructive.
But we don’t live in a morality tale any ore than in an action movie.
@Jen:
And the dinner is just the main event of many WHCA activities. There were other events at the Washington Hilton this year–a quick check shows that NPR, ABC, CBS, WSJ, and WaPo were among the organizations hosting pre-dinner receptions in other rooms of the same hotel. This could not happen, of course, at the White House, because it’s not a f***ing hotel.
@Kathy:
I always thought you were taking home the samples from your work*, and that there was a lot of repetition there. I was impressed by your apparent …um… thriftiness**.
*: bidding on some kind of large scale food ordering contracts?
**: thriftiness, light embezzling, whatever.
@Gustopher:
Oh, there’s some of that.
When we require samples, we ask for more than we need to account for damage and spoilage. What’s left over can’t be used for regular supply, because they’re incomplete boxes or packages now. So we distribute them among the 35 or so people in the department. I’m about the only one who’s single, so I take only a few things each time.
But this happens only between January and March (though this year extended into April), and there may be one or two more later.
Most of what I cook, though, I buy at the store each week. This includes all vegetables and 99.9% of all meat.
The samples represent a minute percentage of the supply.
The would be assassin’s manifesto has been published, and people have found his BlueSky and Twitter accounts.
My first impression is that he seems far more normal than most people who get a gun and try to kill people. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m seeing far more of a “well, we all know someone’s gotta do it, why not me?” than a raving loon, although he did want to spare Kash Patel, so definitely at least a little loon.
I like that the manifesto starts with “hello everybody” and ends with “stay in school, kids.” Overall, I’d give the manifesto a 7/10, although probably 2 full points of that are for humor.
Self-deprecating humor is something missing from most manifestos.
@Gustopher:
I wonder why he wanted to spare Patel.
@Eusebio:
A hotel with convention space and shops could go up on the site of the West Wing.
I mean, it’s not like El Taco has any use for that space now.
On other matters, United’s CEO is till pitching a merger of United and American. As absurd as that is, IMO the only thing holding it back now is that American is not interested.
And low-cost (aka ultra-low cost) are asking for a bailout to weather the fuel price storm. Typically the US government does not subsidy only some airlines, but all of them. as it did after 9/11 and during the trump pandemic.
But they have part of a point. after all, El Taco is responsible for the hike in jet fuel prices. They should sue him personally for their losses. I think they’re asking for $2.5 billion. According to the Orange ass, he has at least that much.
Alternatively, El Taco could ask the broligarchs to help out the airlines with a $2.5 billion donation. they’ve that much in loose change in the myriad couches in their several residences and vacation homes, right? Zuck alone spent more of Fakebook’s and investor money on the Metaverse.
Of course, that’s not how things work in the land of private profit and public cost.
Per Gasbuddy four gas stations in Carbondale IL have increased the price of Unleaded Regular overnight by 20 cents/gal to $4.499.
I did get a coupon for a free box of Triscuits from Kroger worth $4.39!
@Gregory Lawrence Brown:
Speaking of prices, Sunday I did my grocery shopping at a different store (reasons not important). While cooking, I noticed the sticker on the ground beef stated the price per kilo was about 150 pesos per kilo. This struck me as so cheap, it had to be a mistake. I regularly pay a lot more, around 250 pesos at my regular store.
So I checked online, and the price is 150 per kilo, vs 240 at my regular store. I checked a third store, and there it goes for 147.
I think I’ve been overpaying for beef.
It also means the great price I got at Costco for ground beef wasn’t as great.
Anyway, the actual ground beef felt, smelled, and handled like regular ground beef, not pink slime (I’ve run across that a few times). It cooked the same, and tasted the same.
I should compare prices of other things I bought, and maybe switch stores.
I think this explains what keeps Bibi in power.
I wonder how you say in Hebrew: Listen up, Israel! You’re royally f***g things up and will wind up hurting yourselves in the end.