Day: August 13, 2024

2024 Will Be The Pocketbook Vote

We hear almost daily that this election will be about economics…..some call it the “pocketbook vote”….people will vote for the person that they think will improve their income so they can better support their families.

I want to go on record as saying that I do not believe that BS for a moment.

Why would I make such a bold statement?

Let’s look at my state of Mississippi….which by the way is at the bottom of the economic scale….voters on local, state and national level do not vote with their wallets…..if they did this state would be a lot better off than it is today.

Many studies assume that policy issues have little bearing on voting, while the economy has a substantial impact, especially in congressional elections. Yet from 2020 to 2022, congressional voting preferences changed in fundamentally rational ways based on views, thus suggesting evidence of democratic accountability with respect to this particular issue.

“What people tell you is ‘most important’ in determining their vote is likely to be a reflection of their partisanship, rather than a source of change in their vote preferences,” conclude Mutz and Mansfield.

“It could mean that people’s perceptions of the economy are less important than journalists typically imply in their coverage. As a result, lingering effects of the Dobbs decision and general distrust of the Supreme Court may be especially influential in 2024.”

https://phys.org/news/2024-05-conventional-wisdom-americans-pocketbook-voters.html

Do Americans “vote their pocketbooks?” This near-ubiquitous cliche seems at first to pass the test of common sense. Why wouldn’t people vote for the candidates under whom they’ll do the best financially? A wealthy voter should favor the candidate who will lower their taxes. A chronically unemployed voter should support the candidate promising lavish government handouts.

In the most basic economic terms, however, this logic falls apart. If one votes, for example, to maximize the present value of their future income, the answer is to not vote at all. Given the vanishingly low probability of breaking a tie, voting isn’t worth the gasoline used to drive to one’s local fire station and cast a ballot.

Perhaps this critique says more about the limits of economic modelling than it does about voting. Slogans like “It’s the economy, stupid” and “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” suggest a bigger-picture view people can take when voting their pocketbooks. But once again, this view fails to hold water.

The concept of “voting one’s pocketbook” frequently causes partisans who don’t understand the other party’s voters to make strategic errors. It also perpetuates the destructive idea that different groups of citizens are playing a zero-sum game against each other. Finally, and perhaps most insidiously, it creates the myth that the right politician can make our pocketbooks grow.

The Myth of Voting One’s Pocketbook

I ask for your input.

Do you think Americans will vote with their wallets?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

As War Draws Closer.

The US is preparing to basically go to war with Iran if it dares retaliates for the attack on their state. The US is moving assets into the region to include ma nuke sub carrying bunches of missiles….and now the wait begins and those trigger fingers are getting itchy.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered a guided-missile submarine to the Middle East and is telling the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to sail more quickly to the area, the Defense Department said Sunday. The moves come as the US and other allies push for Israel and Hamas to achieve a ceasefire that could help calm soaring tensions in the region following the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut. Officials have been on the lookout for retaliatory strikes by both Iran and Hezbollah for the killings, reports the AP, and the US has been beefing up its presence in the region.

And the wait continues…..

But I thought Congress had the last say on any ‘war’ or military action….is that not the case?

Do not worry those cowards in Congress, you know the ones that get those bog checks from Israel or the defense industry, will loo the other way as they have done for many years….thus avoiding their duties as a cog in the whole scheme of federalism.

Yes that is right….this crap has been going on for decades….

With the U.S.- backed carnage in Gaza continuing and the threat of growing violence looming throughout the region (in Lebanon, Iran, and who knows where else), we need to think more deeply than ever about how the American people have historically been excluded from foreign policy decision-making. An upcoming anniversary should remind us of what sent us down this undemocratic path.

Sixty years ago, on August 7, 1964, Congress handed President Lyndon Johnson the power to wage a major war in Vietnam, solidifying its long-standing deference to the presidency on foreign policy. Not once since World War II has Congress exercised its constitutional responsibility to vote on declarations to decide if, when, and where the United States goes to war.

The Tonkin Gulf Resolution of 1964 flew through Congress, in part because most members trusted the president’s assurance that he sought “no wider war.” Their trust was misplaced. The Johnson administration kept secret and lied about its plans for future military escalation in Vietnam. It also lied about the incident used to persuade Congress to give LBJ a blank check to use military force however he wanted: the false claim that American ships had been the targets of unprovoked and unequivocal attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats.

In fact, the United States had been fighting a secret war against North Vietnam since 1961. The U.S. destroyers that LBJ said were innocently sailing on the “high seas” were there to support South Vietnamese attacks (organized by the U.S. military and CIA) on North Vietnamese coastal villages. On August 2, 1964, these ongoing acts of war finally provoked a few Vietnamese patrol boats to chase after a U.S. destroyer which, firing first, easily disabled the small vessels. The Vietnamese managed to fire a few torpedoes but missed. There were no American casualties. Not exactly Pearl Harbor.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/08/02/blank-checks-for-war-congressional-abdication-from-tonkin-to-gaza/

History shows how Congress will do anything to avoid having to vote on war…..not good for one’s campaign for re-election.

Apparently Biden does not care for he will leave this mess he has created for the next president to deal with in whatever convoluted way they see fit.

This whole situation is a massive clusterf*ck.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“Lego ergo scribo”