An economic podcast I listen to has covered how much foreign investment the US net trade imbalance has led to, for exactly that reason: foreigners had dollars from US entities buying more stuff than they sold, those dollars had to come back to the US, and investment ended up being a huge way that happened. If the trade imbalance actually reduces, likely that investment rate will be the first thing to drop. We’ve already seen hints of it with softened demand for Treasury bonds.

The US has had relatively steady population growth for so long, all our normal ranges for economic indicators have an assumption of a growing population baked in, including what a healthy amount of GDP growth is - enough to both cover the prior GDP per person for the new people, and also have some productivity growth.

This year with all the immigration policy changes (and maybe some emigration pattern changes), projections are for a population decline. Which means potentially GDP could maintain or slightly improve on a per-capita basis, and yet decline overall.

The current policies are doing damage that will last at a minimum of decades, but I think it’s important to try to sort out the real damage from the weirdness of massive change. If we manage to get a majority of elected officials who actually want to do repairs, good analysis will be important to figuring out best bang for resources to focus on.

It was weirder than that. Hawley was pitching income-based check distribution (full amount for annual income below $75,000 then phased to lower amounts up to $200,000 or something like that). Then he stated that this policy of income restrictions would ensure everyone who got a check would be Republican (meaning, no Republican makes more than $200,000 a year) and would prevent Democrats from getting checks (meaning, all Democrats make more than $200,000 a year). It breaks my brain.

Eliminating benefit cliffs, and taking the onus off applicants (the government has all our taxes!) to prevent qualified people from being cut off due to missing some paperwork box or deadline, would go a long way. Given how great our government has been at making programs that sound like they would help people, but then creating bureaucracy to ensure very few actually get help (not as a money saving thing - the bureaucracy costs a lot - but just because they believe people don’t deserve help), I have a lot of skepticism for any new program.

Not only is moderation expensive, but the current administration has attacked organizations that try to moderate anyone who catches the fancy of the MAGAverse. Slash moderation departments and reduce the risk of expensive lawsuits and harassment with the power of the federal government behind it, win-win.

It replies to all top-level comments

Their belief in MAGA is filling some deep psychological need. Logical reasoning around the belief is irrelevant because logic can’t activate whatever social buttons are being satisfied by their engagement with the MAGA movement.

Research trying to figure out what makes humans susceptible to this kind of stuff and how to protect each other was a hot topic, but then Congressional Republicans launched harassing investigations into everyone in the field and the institutions that supported their work, and of course the current executive branch has entrenched that fear. Gotta keep the victims coming to the grifter trough.

Outside of major roads (the proposal sounds like it allows strip-mall-type businesses facing onto major roads), the limits are on square footage, traffic, hours, and compliance with residential noise and similar restrictions. Mcdonald’s probably wants to be open at 1am and have two lanes of drive-thru, but if some franchisee thinks they can make a go of it with a day-hour-only, walk-up-only store, I say let them try.

Loaded-up big trucks/semis and frost-thaw cycles are the source of almost all road wear. Less passenger cars/SUVs/unloaded pickups wouldn’t really matter.

I think the person you were responding to was making a joke.

Different people and relationships can have different solutions that work for them. That’s OK!

There isn’t a list of abusers. The only person the files have evidence of abuse is Epstein himself. Per multiple sources interviewed by the NY Times, the only lists in the files are victims and witnesses, and releasing the files would just victimize them again to doxxing. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/us/politics/epstein-files-trump-bondi-justice-department-fbi.html

Dems are jumping on the bandwagon because it distracts the Republicans from their rampage of destroying the foundations of our country, but the files themselves are a nothingburger as far any actual evidence of crimes.

https://clerk.house.gov/Members/ViewVacancies

Gerald Connolly and Raúl M. Grijalva, apparently. Both were Democrats. No, there are no alternates. Each State determines its own process for filling vacancies: often the governor appoints someone but special elections are also common.

And updating regulations to promote building denser housing in locations people want to live!

Entitlements is a weird one. A person who wrongly believes they are entitled to money/power/respect is “entitled” in a derogatory sense. A person who has paid into the Social Security and Medicare programs for three or four decades is truly, genuinely, entitled to the payout of those programs.

And Republicans believing entitlement programs are bad, when so many of them are dependent on these programs to maintain a basic standard of living, is an astounding level of doublethink.

I could use some history learning to give me hope for a more progressive future. Do you have some examples of corrupt parties burning out I could research?

Once we are confronted with a situation that extends past our moral gray area and into firmly awful territory, nothing beyond that point is any deeper shade of gray - it is all equally morally black. So person A with a wide moral gray area sees a thousand people on the path to senseless death, and an alternative path of senseless death for two thousand people, and finds one thousand deaths a reasonable choice given bad options. Person B with a narrow moral gray area sees the same options and no moral difference - both choices are equally morally black. They rail against the options and see no value in trying to reduce the deaths by one thousand, because that’s not enough to bring the situation into their moral gray zone.

“We need to be cautious!” would be much more compelling if the standard medical approach to trans minors was not already immensely cautious.

The standard may be cautious, but a significant number of individual clinicians are not. But pointing out that a concerning number of care providers have looser-than-standard medical approaches gets the speaker attacked as a traitor to the cause.

Bolding mine, quite from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/transgender-youth-skrmetti/683350/

When red-state bans are discussed, you will also hear liberals say that conservative fears about the medical-transition pathway are overwrought—because all children get extensive, personalized assessments before being prescribed blockers or hormones. This, too, is untrue. Although the official standards of care recommend thorough assessment over several months, many American clinics say they will prescribe blockers on a first visit.