“At age 26, the authors find, 30 percent of Americans live in the census tract they lived in at 16. Fifty-eight percent live less than 10 miles away; 80 percent live less than 100 miles away; 90 percent live less than 500 miles away. Census tracts are tiny, hyper-local designations, with populations between 1,200 and 8,000 each; mine is only 0.2 square miles in area. The small town where I grew up has three tracts within it. Staying within your tract is an extreme level of residential stasis, but 30 percent of young adults do just that. By contrast, huge leaps, like my great-grandmother’s from New York to Honolulu or my parents’ from Honolulu to New Hampshire, are extremely uncommon.”
“On its face, the idea of increasing semiconductor manufacturing in the US seems like it would help address the global supply crunch for computer chips, which has made it harder to buy everything from cars and laptops to sex toys and medical devices during the pandemic. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has even suggested that the funding package could help fight inflation, presumably by making these goods cheaper.
But while it’s certainly fair to call the legislation a victory for bipartisanship, this plan is primarily focused on keeping up with China’s growing investment in its own domestic chip industry — not solving the present issues with the tech supply chain. The chip factories produced by this package won’t be complete for years, and the bulk of the funding won’t necessarily go toward basic chips, also known as legacy chips, which account for much of the ongoing shortage. And that shortage may be nearing its end anyway.”
“Cornyn is among a number of Republicans, including Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Mitt Romney (R-UT) who’ve argued that taking the bill up is superfluous, as the GOP seeks to keep the focus on other issues like inflation. While Cornyn and Rubio oppose the bill, however, Cassidy and Romney are among the Republicans who have yet to say where they stand.”
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“By their reasoning, lawmakers don’t need to consider this legislation, which has already passed the House and is known as the Respect for Marriage Act, because the Supreme Court will treat the Obergefell v. Hodges decision that established this right as settled law.
In his concurrent opinion in the recent Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, however, Justice Clarence Thomas said that Obergefell was among the decisions he was interested in reconsidering. Previously, multiple justices also said they believed Roe was an established precedent only to vote to overturn it in Dobbs. That’s left Democrats arguing that the marriage bill Congress is weighing is vital to enshrine these protections into federal law in case the Supreme Court reverses the precedent set in Obergefell.”
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“Ultimately, the Republican position is about deflection. GOP lawmakers would be taking an unpopular position if they opposed the bill, so they are instead claiming to be opposed to legislative redundancy and overreach. Additionally, this framing helps them avoid what some GOP lawmakers see as a lose-lose scenario: Opposing the measure could prompt backlash from moderate voters, while supporting it could enrage socially conservative members of their base.”
“Global power is often seen as a zero-sum game, and policymakers in Washington fear that China’s growing influence is coming at the expense of the US. Yet they haven’t offered an alternative to the BRI, instead largely chastising China for its intentions behind it and discouraging countries from joining it.
But that changed at the Group of Seven (G7) Summit last month, when President Joe Biden announced the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII). With the PGII, G7 governments and private funders aim to invest $600 billion in low- and middle-income countries over the next five years, with $200 billion specifically earmarked from the US.
The motivation isn’t hard to discern: Counter China’s BRI. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” said Jorge Heine, a professor at Boston University and Chile’s former ambassador to China. “It has finally dawned on Western countries that there is actually a need for infrastructure in countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.””
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“In his remarks announcing the PGII, Biden stated: “I’m proud to announce the United States will mobilize $200 billion in public and private capital over the next five years.” Despite that promise, however, the real money the US government has committed is far from $200 billion — adding up to about $170 million.
That discrepancy comes in part from how the US plans to finance this agenda. Kenny told me the US and the European Union have been keen to mostly rely on the concept of financial leverage. For example, a government may offer to finance $1 of an infrastructure project with the idea that this will then spur and be matched by $10 of investment from the private sector. “There’s this idea that you get from the millions and billions to these hundreds of billions by leveraging the private sector,” Kenny said. But, he added, “the fact is the record of that has been grim.” Rather than a one-to-10 public-private financing ratio, “we’re seeing a low one-to-one.”
The US is relying on leveraging to fund the PGII for two reasons. One, Congress is unlikely to authorize any more money for this kind of initiative, especially given its failure to pass increased funding for domestic programs (the rebranding of the initiative from “Build Back Better World” was no coincidence). So leveraging private companies “makes small amounts of US government money look bigger,” Kenny said, while enabling the administration to take credit for the whole promised sum.”
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“The other reason, according to Kenny, is a deeply embedded ideological belief, stemming back to the Washington Consensus of the late 20th century, that the private sector beats government when it comes to delivering on goods like infrastructure. Reliance on the private sector also has the added benefit of preferring US companies and workers for various development projects, but Kenny added that US policymakers genuinely appear to believe this method makes these projects more affordable to low- and middle-income countries.
This line of reasoning is shaky, though, as public-private partnerships like the ones the PGII proposes are often very complex.”
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“China and the BRI have had a different model, which has proven more successful. Kenny told me that China has been more willing to finance infrastructure that will be owned and operated by Global South governments. Fundamentally, this allows projects to be built faster and more cost-effectively as governments are already responsible for most infrastructure (approximately 83 percent of infrastructure investment worldwide is government-financed, per a 2017 study), and they don’t need to bargain and haggle with private companies.”
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“One key way for the US and G7 to support the Global South would be to better use existing multilateral institutions like the World Bank and regional development banks like the African Development Bank, especially because, as Kenny told me, the World Bank actually can do the concept of leverage pretty well. While the US is proposing the approach of a “bespoke retailer” that pursues public-private deals one project at a time (each maybe a $100 million investment), the World Bank is like a big “wholesaler” that leverages money from the whole market (in the range of hundreds of billions) to support a range of public sector projects.
“Governments put in a little bit of capital to the World Bank, which then goes out and borrows massive amounts on private markets, issuing bonds at a 10:1 ratio,” Kenny said, meaning that they can get a lot of money for construction and development projects for the Global South. The World Bank also used to be much more engaged in financing hard infrastructure like roads and railways, only for priorities in terms of what is funded to change in recent decades. A massive recapitalization of the World Bank, Kenny said, could be an important place to start.
Dean Baker, senior economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, also suggested the issuance of “special drawing rights” (SDRs) from the IMF to shore up the central banks of countries in the Global South. SDRs effectively act as “coupons” from the IMF — the closest thing to the world’s central bank — and they function like cash transfers to countries in times of crisis.
SDRs were most recently issued to support countries around the world facing a financial crunch during the Covid-19 pandemic, and were used by low- and middle-income countries to pay for vaccines and other health care needs. However, as the authors of a Brookings Institution analysis of SDRs during the pandemic found, high-income and upper-middle-income countries currently receive the majority of SDRs, so distribution would need to become more equitable.
The US would also be wise to focus on its strong suits. As Kenny wrote in a recent article, the best way the US could help build the human capital of the world by way of providing scholarships and visas for access to its world-leading institutions of higher education, as well as increasing the number of work visas issued. And many of these migrants would end up sending capital back to their home countries in the form of remittances. A 2019 IMF study found that remittance flows total up to greater amounts of cash to low- and middle-income countries (China excluded) than overseas development aid.”
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“A final option for the US is to ditch the global competition frame and collaborate with China to invest in the Global South. Baker argued that the “competition basically makes zero sense” due to the global scale of issues like the climate crisis, pandemics, and global development more generally.”
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“Fundamentally, the Global South hasn’t necessarily bought into the geopolitical ideological competition of “democracy vs. autocracy” between the US and China. The Global South, as seen in its position toward the Russian war on Ukraine, is increasingly pursuing a strategy of what Heine termed “active nonalignment,” meaning rather than siding with either of the big powers in this supposed “new Cold War,” they’re more narrowly focused on their own economic growth and development.”
“GDP measures the monetary value of goods and services produced in a country. It contemplates things like consumption, government spending, business investments, and net exports. But there’s also a lot it leaves out, such as unpaid work, sales of used goods, and, perhaps most important, general well-being. Generally, countries with stronger and growing economies have higher standards of living. But GDP is only a decent-ish indicator of how things are going for people.”
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“There’s a British economist, Kate Raworth, who once said in a book called Doughnut Economics that there’s one graph in economics that no economist ever wants you to talk to them about. And that is the graph of exponential GDP growth. A mainstream economist would probably consider a growth rate of about 3 percent GDP every year as a healthy, robust economy. At 3 percent, the economy would have to double in output roughly every 25, 26, 27 years or so. If I showed a 5-year-old this kind of graph, they would know that that’s patently insane. This is, however, precisely the reigning economic doctrine in every country in the world with the possible exception of Cuba and Bhutan.
It is destructive because it will plunder the world, it will destroy our ecosystem, because it works people to death, because it destroys economies, because it commodifies everything.
Let me give you an analogy. Say we’re passengers on a train racing toward a cliff, and the only metric that matters in that train is its increase in speed. Whether that train has an unfair distribution of income matters not at all, what we’re destroying on the journey does not matter, whether the train is comfortable does not matter. And, in fact, not even the destination of the train matters.”
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“The vast majority of people would agree we should care about the greatest well-being of the greatest number within the biophysical limits of the planet, for the most part. The problem is that we are currently operating in a system called capitalism, which requires growth. We are at this tragic moment in history in which we can say both that if we continue to grow, we will kill ourselves, and if we stop growing, we will suffer greatly within capitalism.
Capitalism requires growth. The economy doesn’t require growth, development doesn’t require growth, and welfare doesn’t require wealth. Since we are living in a global capitalist economy, when capitalism doesn’t grow, you and I know exactly what to call that: a depression, a recession, a crisis.
But the opposite is also true. If we continue to grow exponentially, that is a massive crisis. It is the reason why we are unable to address climate change successfully, why we don’t know how to address rampant inequality.”
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“If you are starving, and you’re on 200 calories a day, and I as a doctor set you on 400 calories, and then on 800, and then on 1,600, you will get well. But if I say I have the key to your health and well-being, I will continue to double your calorie intake, what will you look like pretty soon? You will get very sick, and you will die. Absolutely no question. The exact same thing is true for the economy at large.
Was it good and necessary at some point? Probably yes. Although there are lots of caveats there, too. Is that still necessary? Absolutely not. Certainly not in developed countries like the US or Germany or France or Denmark.”
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“I have done interviews with corporate CEOs who very frankly admit that the business model they’re currently operating under is not sustainable, that it will hurt the world and the planet in ways that are irreversible. But they don’t know how to change it. They say, “If I stop giving return on investment to my stockholders, they will fire me, that’s the end of that.””
“Over the past two decades, researchers have become much better at determining whether a certain idea actually achieves intended goals. The focus on results — evaluating whether a program benefits people cost-effectively — has changed philanthropy and even the US government’s domestic programs.
In theory, USAID recognizes the importance of making sure their programs work. But in practice, it’s largely failing to do so.
Two USAID reviews, one by USAID’s office of the inspector general in 2019 and another commissioned by the agency in 2020, reveal two dismal facts: The agency gives out billions to programs that don’t achieve their intended expectations, and, worse, it’s not even sure of the impact of most of the money it gives in aid. Recent agency moves and statements suggest that USAID wants to fix this problem. Whether it can will determine the fate of billions of dollars — and the health and well-being of many millions around the world.”
“In our federalized system, it may make more sense to blame your state and local government or even your neighbors, not President Biden, for out-of-control costs in housing and energy or supply chain pain in our logistics infrastructure. That’s because most of the time, the US tasks lower levels of government with responsibility for infrastructure and land use — and the decisions made at those levels in the past are contributing to rising prices today.
State and local jurisdictions, not the Fed or the feds, determine how much housing is built and where, when to permit cheap clean energy sources and vital energy transmission lines, and whether to expand ports and logistics infrastructure. Across the country, local legislators, executives, and public authorities have declined to spend more to improve economic capacity, or placed additional hurdles in the way of badly needed new development.”
“As Hutchinson related it in a June public hearing, Trump became enraged when agents tried to take him back to the White House and not to the Capitol. “I’m the f-ing president, take me up to the Capitol now,” Trump reportedly exclaimed before reaching for the steering wheel of the Secret Service vehicle. He then “lunged at [the] clavicle” of an agent trying to restrain him, Hutchinson said.
Immediately after her testimony, anonymous Secret Service agents told several outlets that Ornato and Engel are prepared to deny that this happened, but neither has testified about it under oath. In its most recent hearing, the committee said other anonymous sources had corroborated what Hutchinson said.
Visibility into the text messages between agents would confirm what happened and could further prove Trump’s intent to join the crowd at the Capitol in its effort to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election. They also might offer more details on what Trump was doing during the attack. The committee established in its July 22 hearing that Trump spent most of the time during the attack watching Fox News and lobbying senators to back his efforts to overturn the 2020 elections.
In addition, they could clarify what was happening around Vice President Mike Pence that day. The hearing displayed audio transcripts of Secret Service agents at the Capitol who worried that Pence might not be able to escape to a secure location in the Capitol, and one anonymous security official testified that members of Pence’s detail were so concerned that they called family members to say goodbye in case they did not survive.
Afterward, when Pence fled, he refused the requests of agents to get into a car because he didn’t trust them not to drive away and evacuate him from the Capitol. Pence, who thought it was important for the country to proceed with finishing the task Congress started that day, didn’t want to prevent the election’s certification if he couldn’t return to the Capitol that night, as the Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker reported in their book I Alone Can Fix It. Pence told Tim Giebels, the head of his detail, “I’m not getting in the car, Tim. I trust you, Tim, but you’re not driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I’m not getting in the car.”
At the same time, Ornato told Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser, that there were plans to move the vice president to Andrews Air Force Base. Kellogg replied, according to the Post, “You can’t do that, Tony. Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.”
The missing text messages might reveal more details about this as well, but it is unclear if we will ever see them. The Secret Service says it’s unlikely they can be recovered. We may, though, learn more over the course of the criminal investigation about who erased them and why.
In the meantime, committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) told reporters after the July 22 hearing that both Ornato and Engel have retained private lawyers.”
“There’s one policy the US can pass today that can also save lives: stopping utility shutoffs in the summertime because a customer has missed one or more payments.
Right now, only 18 states have any protections that prevent utilities from shutting off a customer’s power in a heat wave because of missed payments, while 41 states have these protections for the cold. That leaves most of the population vulnerable to utility shutoffs during the deadliest extreme weather window of the year.”