Trump’s Proposed Tariffs Would Cost Families $1,700 Annually

Posted on by Lone Candle

“A set of new tariffs proposed by former President Donald Trump would cost the average American family an estimated $1,700 annually—and lower-income households would be hit relatively harder, a new analysis warns.
Trump has called for a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on all imports combined with higher tariffs (potentially as high as 60 percent, he’s claimed) aimed specifically at imports from China. Together, those two policies would cost Americans about $500 billion per year, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), a trade-focused think tank.”

https://reason.com/2024/05/22/trumps-proposed-tariffs-would-cost-families-1700-annually/

The obscure federal intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, and Ukraine right

Posted on by Lone Candle

“The bureau’s stellar track record seems, on paper, inexplicable. INR is tiny, with fewer than 500 employees total. The DIA has over 16,500, and while the CIA’s headcount is classified, it was 21,575 in 2013, when Edward Snowden leaked it.
You could fit over 47 INRs in the CIA, and even if you exclude the non-analysts on the CIA’s payroll, Langley’s analytic headcount is far greater than INR’s. Tom Fingar, who led the bureau from 2000 to 2001 and 2004 to 2005, once told a reporter its budget was “decimal dust.” In 2023, it came to only $83.5 million, or 0.1 percent of overall US intelligence spending.

On top of that, INR has no spies abroad, no satellites in the sky, no bugs on any laptops. But it reads the same raw intel as everyone else, and in at least a few cases, was the only agency to get some key questions right.

Saying “INR does a better job than DIA or CIA,” as a general matter, would go too far, not least because making a judgment like that in a responsible way would require access to classified information that the press and public can’t read. But it clearly is doing something different, which in a few key cases has paid off. And at least some policymakers have noticed. Bill Clinton told the 9/11 Commission he found memos by INR more helpful than the President’s Daily Brief, then prepared by the CIA.

I spoke to 10 veterans of the bureau, including six former assistant secretaries who led it. While no single ingredient seems to explain its relative success, a few ingredients together might:

INR analysts are true experts. They are heavily recruited from PhD programs and even professorships, and have been on their subject matter (a set of countries, or a thematic specialty like trade flows or terrorism) for an average of 14 years. CIA analysts typically switch assignments every two to three years.
INR’s small size means that analyses are written by individuals, not by committee, and analysts have fewer editors and managers separating them from the policymakers they’re advising. That means less groupthink, and clearer individual perspectives.
INR staff work alongside State Department policymakers, meaning they get regular feedback on what kind of information is most useful to them.”

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/351638/the-obscure-federal-intelligence-bureau-that-got-vietnam-iraq-and-ukraine-right

Biden’s path to winning the Electoral College runs through the Midwest

Posted on by Lone Candle

“Seven states are generally considered to be competitive this fall, and when you look at our polling averages of each of them, six of them fall into two clean categories: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Biden trails Trump by less than 2 points; and Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, where Trump leads by a more comfortable 6- or 7-point margin. (Arizona, at Trump+3.5, is somewhere in the middle.)”

“Obviously, if those turn out to be the final margins in November, Trump would win every swing state and the presidency. But the numbers also point to a narrow but feasible path for Biden to win. If he carries Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, plus every other state and district* that he won by at least 6 points in 2020, he would finish with exactly 270 electoral votes”

…

“Winning Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will require Biden to proactively improve in the polls (or hope that they are wrong — and generally you don’t want to leave your campaign up to fate!), something he has struggled to do so far this year. This path also leaves the campaign no margin for error: If Biden loses just one of those three states, he’d need to carry one or more of the more challenging Sun Belt states to make up for it.”

…

“there’s one further wrinkle: Getting to 270 electoral votes via Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin would also require Biden to win the electoral vote from Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which Biden won by only 6 points in 2020, according to Daily Kos Elections. Polls of Nebraska’s 2nd District are scarce, but the one we do have suggests that Trump is leading there right now.”

“if Trump wins Nebraska’s 2nd while Biden wins Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the Electoral College would be tied 269-269. Under the Constitution, that would throw the election to the House of Representatives, where each state’s delegation (not each representative) would get one vote, with 26 out of 50 votes needed to elect the president. Trump would very likely win under such a scenario because Republicans will probably control a majority of congressional delegations after the election, even if they don’t have an overall House majority.
The House hasn’t needed to step in to decide the presidential election since 1824, but the way the electoral map is shaping up, there is a nonzero chance it could happen this year.”

https://abcnews.go.com/538/bidens-path-winning-electoral-college-runs-midwest/story?id=110231273