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JW Mason@jwmason.bsky.social |
1871 followers 1000 following 1339 posts
Associate professor of economics, John Jay College-CUNY. Come study economics with me: johnjayeconomics.org. Also senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. Blog and other writing: jwmason.org. From the river to the sea.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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It seems to me that if you care about Gaza, you should hope that Biden drops out. By now, he and his advisors have committed so much to their support for Israel that it's impossible to change course. With a new candidate without that history, there's at least the possibility of change.
1 replies 1 reposts 11 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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This is remarkable - Labour actually got substantially more votes (both absolutely and as a share if votes cast) under Corbyn in 2017 than it did yesterday.
1 replies 6 reposts 27 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Having done some electoral work in the past, I really think people undervalue simply having election districts correspond to boundaries that people are already familiar with. If you don't know who your representative is, they're not going to be accountable to you for anything.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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I believe some counties in upstate New York followed, and perhaps still follow, this model for their boards of supervisors.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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You could go even further, and simply say that each county or equivalent gets one representative, or smaller existing units for state and local legisltures. And then weight the votes of the representatives based on the unit's population. This would eliminate the need for redistricting entirely.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Now this is one rule I would love to see people think about for the US. While partisan gerrymandering is a serious problem, another big problem is that with arbitrary, frequently redrawn districts people simply don't know what district they are in, or who their representatives are.
1 replies 1 reposts 4 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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This is extremely interesting. A nice reminder of how little, like probably most Americans, I know about other countries' electoral systems.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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fair enough
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Yes, totally made up, of course agreed. But on that level it's no worse than many other of their decisions, and much less consequential on a practical level.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Btw if you read about the Washington administration (I just did, in Gotham) it's amazing how much monarchical trappings they dressed themselves up in. I'm not sure they would be on your side, here.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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I don't know that I care very much about what those guys would think.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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I think it is much, much less important than you think.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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the other two big decisions - overturning Chevron and Corner Post - which seem vastly more consequential but are getting less attention, because they don't fit the frame that the problem with the Court is that it doesn't do enough to restrain the government. People really want their judicial daddy!
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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I think that is just totally wrong, and in a politically destructive way. I guarantee you, if Trump comes into office and says "I declare that the minimum wage in all US states is abolished, by decree" that will not happen.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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right, yes. but they also changed the reality of the federal government in some actually consequential ways, in the opposite direction. maybe we should be talking about that too?
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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I think the idea that *the threat of criminal prosecution of the president personally* is what has limited abuse of federal power in the US historically needs a bit more evidence to back it up.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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in theory, yes. in practice?
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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OK. But 1) presidents already do order the military to go out and shoot people, this is not something new. 2) in practice the binding legal constraints on the president are not the possibility of criminal charges once they leave office.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Right. We need to keep in mind what these things mean in practice.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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wait, but doesn't make the king comparison less apposite?
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Really, tho? It was already Department of Justice policy that a president could not be prosecuted while in office. Every cop in the country enjoys qualified immunity, which amounts to more or less the same protection.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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This seems right to me. bsky.app/profile/jjga...
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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My point is that the normal way that courts enforce their orders is by saying "you can't do this" or "you must do that". Criminal penalties have never been the tool for this.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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That's very true. But the practical effects of this will be much more in further limiting what elected governments can do, as opposed to empowering them.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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That may be, but it's not what people are saying.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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But that is just obviously not the case, at all. The courts still have authority over all the subordinates who would have to carry out an order.
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Kevin Elliott
@kjephd.bsky.social
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Seats on corporate boards reserved for labor representatives would be a major, arguably democratizing reform of capitalism's primary organizational form. A very interesting program being proposed here by the consolidated French left.
0 replies 4 reposts 17 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Glad to see this piece on the New Popular Front from Piketty and Cagé. While almost all the attention has been on the gains by the right, the success of a unified left with an ambitious program seems like just as an important story from the French elections. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
0 replies 19 reposts 34 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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This is the government that Biden and co are doing everything in their power to support. www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240701-ben...
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Oh come on. He did absolutely everything in his power to avoid transferring power, he just failed. The possibility of prosecution did not deter him at all.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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right
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Overturning Chevron seems very bad. Corner Post seems very, very bad. These have the potential to overturn decades of regulation in all kinds of important areas. The immunity one, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have much practical impact on how government operates.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Is it just me, or is everyone freaking out about the wrong SC decision. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but has the possibility of criminal charges *ever* been a constraint on presidential power? Like, ever?
6 replies 3 reposts 19 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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No. Or at least, I think the two probability distributions are largely overlapping.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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I am sure they would. The problem is that the same set of ideas, if not the exact same individuals, are also present in the Biden administration.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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To me, people demanding a US-imposed regime change in China are every bit as threatening to humanity as a second Trump administration. www.scmp.com/opinion/arti...
3 replies 2 reposts 13 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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If there aren’t shopping carts full of cow heads on the sidewalk outside your house, do you really live in Brooklyn?
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Not particularly impressed by anonymous second-hand accusations tbh.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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I'm really liking Graeber's Pirate Enlightenment, on the intersection of pirate democracy and local politics in 17th century Madagascar. Will write more when I finish it, but so far I'd say the core argument of The Dawn of Everything comes through more clearly & compellingly on this smaller canvass.
3 replies 0 reposts 26 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Bouie gets it. bsky.app/profile/jbou...
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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The basic test of seriousness for anyone saying Biden should drop out is if the sentence continues "and let Kamala Harris run." Because that is the alternative. Saying that he should drop out in favor of some unspecified person (or an open convention) is just panic and/or wishful thinking.
5 replies 3 reposts 24 likes
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Spencer Ackerman
@attackerman.bsky.social
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If you never read any other FOREVER WARS edition, read this interview with a US Army major who worked in military intelligence on the Mideast before resigning over Gaza.
www.forever-wars.com/harrison-man...
3 replies 119 reposts 249 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Has the Biden administration said anything about the coup attempt in Bolivia yet? Are we in favor of democracy in South America these days, or in this case not so much?
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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That was the original angle.
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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The ironic thing about congestion pricing is, despite the focus on MTA funding, the big winners from the tax would be people who really do need to drive in Manhattan.
1 replies 3 reposts 15 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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11am in Midtown. Dozens of vehicles at a green light, stopped dead in traffic. But god forbid someone impose a tax limiting our freedom to drive!
2 replies 5 reposts 43 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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This is important. Wagenknechtian “class-only” leftism ignores the reality of class conflict, which is almost always intertwined with conflicts along race and other dimensions.
0 replies 14 reposts 41 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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A reminder from Andrew Cockburn: Russia’s devastating attacks on Ukraine’s power grid are straight out of the playbook the US followed in Iraq and elsewhere. spoilsofwar.substack.com/p/in-destroy...
1 replies 2 reposts 6 likes
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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that last sentence is key
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JW Mason
@jwmason.bsky.social
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Here's a new, rather long blog post on money, interest rates, and how economics should be, based on a talk I gave at the Political Economy of Finance Summer School at Brown earlier this week. jwmason.org/slackwire/ta...
1 replies 2 reposts 10 likes