Odds and Ends — 22 April 2025
“So many books, so little time.” — Frank Zappa
Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:
https://twitter.com/AlanMCole/status/1914355942734405876
Coinbase considering applying for US banking license
https://twitter.com/CoraCHarrington/status/1914336519340371968
Markets Are Discovering the Real Trump Trade Is ‘Sell America’
Two months into Donald Trump’s second term, the pillars of American financial hegemony — erected over the best part of a century — have rarely looked shakier.
Trump’s renewed tirades against the Federal Reserve, including the most explicit threats yet to fire Chair Jerome Powell, only amplified the shockwaves from his declaration of trade war on pretty much everyone. It’s forcing a reappraisal of the assets fundamental to US economic dominance. The dollar and Treasury bonds, traditional havens at times of stress, suddenly look much less appealing. It’s not long since investors were anticipating a so-called Trump trade, essentially turbocharging US exceptionalism, but now it looks more like a sell-America trade.
https://twitter.com/EpsilonTheory/status/1914331033530495327
Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:
Unvaccinated kids face up to 20 times higher risk of long COVID, analysis finds
Politics:
Harvard Is Suing the Trump Administration
Harvard University said it has filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing it has violated the university’s constitutional rights by freezing billions of dollars in federal funding, illegally imperiling its academic independence.
The lawsuit sets up a legal showdown between America’s most prominent university and the president of the United States, who has been on an escalating campaign to reorder elite higher education.
https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1914458627919982655
———— Autocracy R Us ————
Due process is such an inconvenience: Trump blasts Supreme Court while arguing trials for migrants ‘not possible’
Alito’s Emergency Deportation Dissent Misrepresents the Most Crucial Fact in the Case
———— Francis and Vance ————
https://twitter.com/JoJoFromJerz/status/1914411003971866991
https://twitter.com/blaireerskine/status/1914238133539139707
https://twitter.com/PeterTwinklage/status/1914389152566497542
https://twitter.com/JoePostingg/status/1914277589893447869
———— Kristi Noem ————
https://twitter.com/capitolhunters/status/1914345571428544566
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1914412019114975437
———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————
The Legal Case Against Trump’s Tariffs
The Trump administration’s trade war has prompted chaos and countermeasures across the globe, but a potent counterattack has emerged in the courts in recent weeks — and in the long run, it could fatally undermine President Donald Trump’s unprecedented global tariff regime.
A Sudden-Stop Crisis Comes to America
What we’re seeing now is something familiar to those of us who have studied economic crises in other countries, usually but not always emerging markets. For this is looking more and more like a “sudden stop.” That’s what happens when a country that has relied on large inflows of foreign capital loses the confidence of international investors. The inflow of money dries up — and the economic consequences are usually ugly.
Trump inherited an economy in remarkably good shape. We’d had ‘immaculate disinflation’: The inflation spike of 2021-22, largely caused by Covid-related supply chain disruptions, had faded away without a large rise in unemployment.
But Trump wasted no time in squandering the hand he’d been given. It’s not just the destructive tariffs. It’s also the chaos, as policy zigzags wildly, and the craziness. If you were a foreign investor, would you want to bet on America right now? Would you even want to visit to look at investment prospects, given the risk that you might be imprisoned by ICE because you once sent a text critical of Trump?
———— Signalgate ————
https://twitter.com/FPWellman/status/1914296356249706850
https://twitter.com/jasonselvig/status/1914382751228420184
https://twitter.com/adgirlMM/status/1914449677354983926
———— DOGE ————
Federal Workers Ignore Elon Musk’s ‘5 Things’ Emails
Can Rural Health Care Survive DOGE?
The scramble to save a federal grant program that puts doctors in poor towns.
DOGE Gets Access to Sensitive Immigration Data
———— Mors Imperii ————
https://twitter.com/LouWhompus/status/1914073128352768221
White House Embraces Pro-Natalist Agenda
The White House has been hearing out a chorus of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans to get married and have more children, an early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda pushed by many of its allies on the right to reverse declining birthrates and push conservative family values.
https://twitter.com/DarrigoMelanie/status/1914410141476155872
Inside the White House Plan to Make America Make Babies Again
The Supreme Court Looks Poised to Give Religious Parents a Veto Over All Public Education
https://twitter.com/krassenstein/status/1914458376806764845
Serendipity:
https://twitter.com/atlanticesque/status/1914094546104856831
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Amazing photograph of Manhattan!
Hey! I read The Way of Shadows long ago and remember loving it!
Your head must be spinning with the endless circus of political events to draw from!
I don't know... that headline may be misleading. I think the Mahmoud v. Taylor should not be lumped in with the Oklahoma case. In the first case, parents are seeking to keep what they consider to be religiously objectionable material from their young children. In the Oklahoma case, parties are seeking to force funding for religious beliefs (by paying for religious education out of public funds).
I think parents have a right to protect (as they see protection) their children from an ideological perspective they consider inimical to their religious and social values. Young children are very vulnerable to what the teacher presents as acceptable in the classroom, even if that material falls counter to the religious beliefs of a family.
The objections of the parents are not to historically or scientifically factual material (ex: slavery did exist and was a human tragedy) but to a cultural norm, one that has significant religious implications for many people.
Our society is in flux, has been for a long time. Rendering a gay or GBTQ+ lifestyle as acceptable is an effort to change culture. Parents have a right to protect their values, their culture. If parents are not ready to have their children inculcated with a new cultural norm, they have a right, I believe to resist that change in the classroom.
That's not a veto over all public education. That's a veto over acculturating their children in a belief system/ideology that is at odds with the child's family's values.
OK, a long answer. Just wanted to be sure that I am clear. No objection on my part to introducing children to the existence of a diverse culture. But I think parents have a right to weigh in on these issues and to insulate young children until they discover these issues on their own. It will happen, inevitably.