cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/5566633
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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/MechCADdie on 2025-04-04 08:19:11+00:00.
Fun fact! - this is what Ben Stein is teaching in Ferris Bueller’s day off.
And then the conservative brain worms convinced him to support the people who did it again.
I heard he became a MAGA though. How ironic.
Not really ironic. The dude was part of Nixons administration. Trump is basically Nixon 2.0. Trumps whole worldview was shaped by Nixon or guys who worked for Nixon.
Surprisingly, he was actually a terrible person BEFORE MAGA.
You are not wrong…
Anyone? Anyone?
The Great Depression.
Maybe they should have been more attentive than send all the time preparing an extremely elaborate day of playing hokey.
Great depression, and 2/3rds drop in global trade resulted.
I present also 1828 dementia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_Abominations which started southern secessionist movements.
Unjustifiable trade attacks like all wars are bad for unity. If California or Texas has to pay $10k more per car so metal and auto workers elsewhere get high pay, national unity fractures. Everything being super expensive with no jobs because of global trade retaliations, means that Mexicans stop being a unifying problem, and those white Michigan and Pennsylvania blue collar workers cheering for Trump are the problem. Better cars elsewhere in the world become a bigger national unity factor the more protection $ is spent on inferior cars.
… Ford begins furiously colaborating with Lada.
We can’t afford to waste this chance…
There is zero reason to settle for “not trump” we need to use Republican Inaptitude to get a decent progressive in power , there’s zero reason to compromise with Republicans after this shit.
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People are going to say it shouldn’t be her for all the same reasons they said Obama couldn’t win…
AOC is popular enough to get the votes, and she’ll actually fight while in office.
I really hope she runs.
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You shut your mouth. This is America! We like our guns loud, our cars broken down, our food fried, and our presidents oooooold. If you didn’t grow up playing with one of these, you simply aren’t fit to be president in this country!
I hope you’re right. I feel this country’s rampant sexism is far worse than its rampant racism. Either way, AOC is facing both forms of bigotry
It’s not
Venn diagram of racism and sexism is pretty much a single circle. And they’d treat an old white straight catholic conservative male just as badly.
Don’t listen to the neoliberals who blame Hillary and Harris’ lose on sexism. They lost due to their conservative policies and almost conplete lack of charisma and authenticity.
AOC is essentially the complete opposite in those regards
Hillary lost because of a multi-decade campaign against her by the right wing propaganda machines.
Sexism played a role in Harris’ loss but overall her issue wasn’t focusing on economic populism.
AOC faces a similar level of hate from right wing media.
Hillary lost because of a multi-decade campaign against her by the right wing propaganda machines.
Hillary lost because the only voting demographic that hates her more than Republican voters, is Dem voters.
For valid reasons related to her unpopular policy and zero charisma.
It doesn’t matter how many comments you make denying it, people started paying attention to politics again.
Hot take: you’re both right.
Right-wing spin machine had been after Hillary for years. It severely damaged her campaign.
Hillary had no appeal to 60% of the Dem base. It severely damaged her campaign.
AOC faces the same threat from the right-wing spin machine, but she has good policies to sell to the base.
Sexism and racism will factor in, of course, but the strongest opposing force is the billionaire news outlets.
Didn’t Obama basically have the same platform? If anything, Hillary ran on healthcare for all while Obama didn’t in 2008. He’s certainly more charismatic and had the image of “not a typical politician”, which helped him win that primary, plus but I think he benefited from W’s economic mess and McCain unwillingness to be an asshole on the campaign trail, unlike Trump with Hillary and Kamala
But honestly, I’m speaking anecdotally. It’s been extremely depressing how many people have told me that a woman can’t be president because being on her period will make her nuke china. But maybe people just think it’s okay to be sexist out loud more than racist these days.
Thank you for saying this. I’m a pretty aggressive feminist but I think this desire to paint the losses of Harris and Clinton on sexism alone is dangerously reductive. I strongly feel like until neoliberals categorize women losing as an individual losing and not an entire gender losing we won’t have real success there. Like, when McCain lost no one was like: WOE MEN CANT WIN it’s OVER for white men boohoo!!
I hate when they do this boohoo shit over women while running the least charismatic rat fucked campaigns. Wearing pink and holding a sign when they need people wearing red white and blue and open carrying the constitution with brimstone fire.
That being said, I genuinely in my heart think that AOC has a chance. As long as the controlled opposition doesn’t rat fuck her
Look into Ken Martin, there is zero reason for anyone to think he’d stand in front of progress.
And he has final say in the DNC till after the next presidential election.
Seriously, I wouldn’t be optimistic about the DNC if there wasn’t good reason to be.
Ok I’ll go read about him. Thank for the tip.
I don’t feel very favorable about the DNC. I assume they will purposefully fail
Ken Martin is Zionist and torch bearer for Israel first rule (Dem candidate victory lower priority) over US. It’s the party’s proud tradition.
Hillary did win the popular vote. By a lot.
People aren’t remotely as sexiest as you think. It’s just that 2% is all it takes to lock in an election pretty well
She’ll have the same problems Hilary Clinton had in that the right wing propaganda machines have been vilifying her for decades.
Who gives a shit?
We could run Dick Cheney and they’d say the same shit about him.
They’re going to say anyone with a D by their name is a fucking communist, it literally doesn’t matter what the fucking Republicans say, and there is no logical reason we should move to the right of our own voters because of what Republicans say.
Because, and I truly hate to break this to you:
Republicans fucking lie and Santa isn’t real.
The problem with Hillary wasn’t Republicans saying she sucked because they were “scared” she lost because no one fucking likes her or her policies.
She’s why you’re seeing Gavin run further to the right and why Booker pulled off his little stunt. I imagine a few more liberals are going to try and make a big splash in either direction in order to get some camera time before she makes her announcement.
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No, Dem voters hate uncharismatic politicians with policy to the right of the Dem voting base.
And Hillary and Harris still almost won because Trump is so shit.
The part that needs to change is not the gender of the candidate
Preferably someone who’s qualified.
Go to hell
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She is qualified. She is a citizen. She us over 35.
She has degrees in poli sci and economics so she even has the education too!
Your suggestion then?
Pete
Hegseth? Davidson? Who are you referring to?
This guy called Pete down the pub is a pretty switched on guy. Maybe they mean him.
Guessing Buttigieg
No, the kid with the dragon
They are already trying to setup Kamala for 2028. I have zero faith that the Democrats are going to learn anything from their failure
They don’t want to win. At least not with someone who would bring change. Why would they, they are all multimillionaires.
This is what I’ve been saying too. They made over a billion dollars and they happily lost taking that money to the DNC bank.
That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. So I’m sure they will do it.
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They are already trying to setup Kamala for 2028.
Who is “they”?
We have a DNC chair that at worst will be impartial.
And Harris has zero chance of winning a fair primary.
The only way a neoliberal can win a primary is if the party hands it to them.
The only way a Republican becomes president, is if the only other choice is a neoliberals.
The only reason the Republicans have the house, is because of “victory fund” bankrupting stat parties.
We really didn’t need much, and we got it. Which is why we desperately need to capitalize and move the Overton window as far left as possible while we can
“Impartial” like when Bernie Sanders was winning, and every Democrat decided to fold for Biden.
Don’t you mean Hillary in 16’
Oh wait. They did it twice.
And the “Liberal MSM” started running “Bernie loves Castro” stories left and right. Hell one of the chucklefucks at “far left MSNBC” said that if Bernie won he’d put people like himself “against the wall” invoking an image of firing squad executions…
Ah Chris Matthews. He said they’d have public executions in times square if the reds won the cold war and heavily implied Bernie would cheer for it.
They made him retire for a couple years, and I see he came back as a commentator on good ole Morning Joe apparently.
At this point I’m not against renaming it red square and dusting that suggestion off
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The DNC chair is the DNC…
Martin has complete control for the next four years
Like, you just legitimately do not understand what you’re talking about
I have zero faith in us having free and fair elections in 4 years but if we do then clearly the fascist threat has been vastly over blown and I’ll never cast a ballot for either major political party again.
Watch Dems shoot themselves in the foot
I don’t know that there’s a ‘we’ here, as the billionaires run the Democratic Party too and have sued for the privilege of holding undemocratic primaries.
With that said, the SHTA precipitating the historic Senate loss isn’t the only historical pattern working against Trump in 2026.
Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden all entered office with control of Congress and lost control at the mid-terms, so it’s highly likely that will happen again.
, as the billionaires run the Democratic Party too
No, neoliberals have held the DNC chair for decades. And they did whatever billionaires said.
The current chair of the DNC is not a neoliberal. He used to be Minnesota’s state chair, and if he acts like he did then he’ll be the most progressive chair we’ve had in 30 years, arguably 50 years.
The fight over the party already happened and the neoliberals lost.
Don’t blame the new guy for what the old guy did
I will believe it matters when I see it, and I’m doubtful 40+ years of masquerading as progressives and ruling as conservatives is going to change anytime soon.
and I’m doubtful 40+ years of masquerading as progressives and ruling as conservatives is going to change anytime soon.
Then it sounds like you’re ignorant both of how the DNC works and Ken Martin’s history running Minnesota’s state party…
The DNC chair is a dictator, he calls all the shots and is accountable to no one. For all intents and purposes the DNC chair is the national party.
It’s been less than two months since Martin took over the DNC. Don’t blame him for what happened before he had total control.
But seriously, look into what Minnesota has been up to. Loads of progressives and turned a battleground into a solid blue state.
His main concern is winning elections, so he doesn’t fight progressives in primaries, because that’s what voters want.
This isn’t blind loyalty. If I didn’t have valid reasons to support the DNC I can assure you I wouldn’t be doing it
Don’t blame him for what happened before he had total control.
Don’t expect me to ignore 40+ years of history on the basis of mere promises, when broken Democratic promises paved the road to the fascism we’re having to fight today. Frankly, it’s unreasonable, and no one should expect Democrats to do what they say they’re going to do until they demonstrate it.
Someone has either never seen “Ferris Buller’s Day Off,” can’t remember it very well, or didn’t pay attention. This was covered in class!
In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?.. the Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?.. raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. Voodoo economics.
I watched this movie 3-4 times and even when reading this, I’m still spaced out.
Ben Stein just has a voice that makes me tune him out.
Such a great voice for comedy. Shame he’s anti-abortion, pretty racist, pro-Regan and Trump, weirdly against evolution… So many awful perspectives.
What’s interesting is that this boring speech isn’t just an actor reading something boring. Stein is a second-generation economist. He has a BA in economics from Columbia University. His father had a PhD in economics and chaired the Council of Economic Advisors under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
His father was apparently well respected by both parties, but the son has gone full MAGA, which is unfortunate.
weirdly against evolution
You can see his point. Look where it got us, we should have stayed in the sea.
Yeah, can we vote for some intelligent design please. The old regime isn’t working out.
Worth noting Laffers claim had already been proven to be likely true by the time that was filmed. The claim is you can set a tax rate so high that it can encourage tax evasion, avoidance, and fraud and that reducing the rate below this level can bring in as much if not more tax revenue which was demonstrated to be likely true in 1983.
Or we could just fund the IRS since it’s a profit center.
We could do both?
proven to be true? that is news to me.
proven to be likely true and you can look at the 1983 tax cuts for evidence of it being likely true.
So the cut that went into effect in '83 was passed in '81, just before a recession hit. So the US seeing an increase in revenue compared to the few years before that where unemployment was up over 8% and gdp dropping, is really more about the economy recovering than tax policy changes.
Except the size of the cut was substantial and we still brought in more revenue because of people moving wealth from foreign banks to US ones. Your explanation doesn’t account for this.
proven likely true means not proven true. Way to many factors. I personally thing the theory has a sorta merit but is very limited and vague (in the sense of there is no identification of where the exact sweet spot of taxation levels are). For example the punitive measures for not paying taxes at very high levels need to be very severe to curtail such behavior. So five figure owning person or mom and pop shop you give a slap on the wrist. Maybe 10% of owed added. Wealthiest individuals and companies get knocked completely out of their level so like 500% of what was owed.
To be clear it isn’t a theory. It really is an idea explained on a cocktail napkin. There seems to be a rate that if you reduce it under you get more recenue which worked once in 1983. There’s nothing to support further cuts though
I would not even say it worked once in 83. Lower rates are one possible reason but like anything with the economy there are plenty of factors including cyclical changes that could explain it.
Laffer curve in political practice is BS. It is proven that you raise 0 revenue at 100% tax rate because no one is actually paid to work, then. The political distortion is “therefore, always lower taxes for more revenue”.
No it makes sense it just isn’t scientific nor does it justify any cut after 1983.
nor does it justify any cut after 1983.
That was my point on how it is misused.
Planet Money interviewed the professor who wrote the book from which Ben Stein is reading in that scene.
It is an older episode they re-air periodically. I think this one:
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/11/1218506684/worst-tariffs-ever-update
I know it from the Newsroom
Well they had elections afterwards. Trump’s nazis will just throw dissenters into KZs and invade their neighbours.
There will be no free elections anymore
Proof yet again that “business leaders” typically don’t know shit about shit.
It is all 1000% on purpose.
They intend to ride it out and profit from all of this, and we’ll let them due to cowardice and division.
They LOVE massive depressions. They buy up real estate and failing companies cheap with their massive cash reserves.
This guy is no business leader- he bankrupt his own casinos multiple times and just stiffs people on payment. He’s a grifter who happened to be born into money
The so called geniuses of business have a better batting average than the average person but they are still prone to the same fuck ups and emotionally driven foolishness as anyone else. I was reading about the Theranos scam and how many supposed brilliant corporate leaders all threw big money at it without taking the time to investigate it first.
If you have Hulu or sail the seven seas, check out “The Dropout” which is a mini-series about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes.
The thing about Smoot-Hawley is that when it happened everyone else also put up equal tariffs among one another.
this time the EU, Japan, South Korea, Canada are only putting tariffs on the US. Not amongst themselves.
There is some nuance here. Smoot-Hawley didn’t cause the great depression, and there a lot of economists who say it didn’t have that much of an effect at all.
Tarriffs can have some useful effects when used for protectionism, diplomatic coercion, or trade barrier reduction coercion. However, Trump’s tariffs are way dumber than anything that came before, because he’s trying to do all three of these at once. All of these have conflicting effects on each other, and it is literally impossible to design a tariff strategy that can accomplish all three, since raising a tariff for one purpose means that you need to lower tariffs for other purposes. All he’s doing by raising across the board is causing instability in the economy and convincing all partners to ditch the US.
All he’s doing is exactly what Putin wants. Systematically isolating and weakening America while weakening the West at large and any other competing countries to his power and new accumulation of wealth.
This is what is funny for me. I would like tariffs to discourage trade with countries that have less democracy, rights for its citizens, and high income disparity (which unfortunately we are not a paragon of currently) and encourage trade with countries that are the reverse of that.
No one thing triggered it but the tarifs contributed almost as much as the out of control stock market. All the controls put in place to prevent this have been changed. So stupid tarifs(Are there any other kind) and a unregulated market system has us primed for some serious times.
So stupid tarifs(Are there any other kind)
There are some that work in order to protect national interests, mainly local producers and services. Whether they are stupid or not depends on implementation and end results
But these local companies just jack up their price to be competitive to the new tariffed foreign price and pocket the money.
Dunno, what usually happens without tariffs is that the bigger multinational companies drive the prices so low as to destroy local competition, after that they jack up the prices
There is good economic theory that Smoot Hawley actually was responsible for the initial bank failures that led to the Great Depression.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOvWS_xzRbc
Can skip to about 15 minutes into if ya want.
Tarriffs can have some useful effects
Europe has a some tariffs on Chinese EV brands. The reason is that they get subsidized by their government and can easily dump them on our markets, ruining our own industries. The tariff calculation is based on what we think those subsidies are and how to make it fair compared to our prices.
something something people who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it
Funny thing the 1828 Tariff of Abomination, The Smoot Hawley Tariff and Donald’s Liquidation Day Tariff are all roughly a hundred years apart. Living memory of the consequences of such tariffs need to die out completely before a new generation tries this stupidity.
It’s the same with the nativist bullshit. Memory of the peak of Know Nothing, KKK and now MAGA bullshit has to die out before it is tried again.
My only hope is that this is viewed as the high water mark of the MAGA movement. MAGA incompetence is on full display.
As much as I disagreed with Sen. Chuck Shumers decision to roll over on the budget. Shutting down the government and giving MAGA any excuse to blame Democrats for this economic slowdown would have been a bad call. Donald and the Republicans now solely own this disaster.
For the MAGA faithful it won’t make a difference but for independents, moderates and low information voters this could be a huge turning point.
Attacking Russia stops being a bad idea every 100 years or so too. Occupying government of France leading the cheerleading a common factor.
The largest Senate loss in history yet
Those that don’t know history are destined to have a nice day.
Tarrifs are billionaire cash grabs, nothing more. Nobody likes those. Except billionaires of course.
Even the billionaires are going to lose money. It’s just unjustifiably stupid.
Every once-in-a-lifetime economic disaster I’ve personally witnessed has taught me that any economic loss for billionaires is only temporary.
Let them lose enough to put them on the street with the rest of us. Hopefully it can humble them enough to understand that wealth should not be hoarded but shared for the greater good of society
Some of them will get more power or money, though. They are not unified.
Some, but it does work nicely as a regressive tax to offset their tax cuts. It’s really hard to see who’s winning in the race to destroy the global economy, someone has to right?
Yeah, look past the self-righteous grandstanding to see it for the big wealth transfer that it is.
Tarrifs are billionaire cash grabs
Not really. It is possible that Musk envisioned breaking NA auto pact to USMCA agreements on autos for purposes of destroying big 3 auto competition, which has been releasing competitive EVs prior to this aggression. Most billionaires like the status quo with existing protections of their business.
A depression does permit billionaires to swoop in later to buy assets. Complete chaos, uncertainty, and yo yo policies does allow for people to make huge short term leveraged returns if they know when the chaos is to be reversed and applied.
In this case, its just a cult leader doing stupid cult actions, though chaos profit angle can easily be there.
God let history repeating itself be a good thing for once.
How about no. The only people who will suffer is poor people.
If it makes them angry, to actually do something?
Sometimes we need an example, and hypothetically I think the orange turd getting gadaffid would be a spectacular one.
Jesus says touch the stove.
History is rhyming. The person you’re responding to is simply hoping the outcome is positive. The poorest people have already been suffering.
Smoot-Hawley 2: Electric Boogaloo
Not the second time but some are saying this one is similar to two others including smoot-hawley that triggered a huge economic downturn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_Abominations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tariff_laws_in_the_United_States
Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.
I have a feeling they learned, and then said “what a great idea to crash the economy. It’s so easy, let’s do it.”
hey asshole, trade wars are good, and easy to win!
i swear to god you can get in line behind our eternally healthy, young, sexy god-king or you can get ooooout
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Let’s not forget that the Republicans are an army of sycophants with zero capacity to think or act for themselves. Trump is a narcissistic pawn and absolute loser, but even at the highest level of power he’s only a problem because the Republican Party are either spineless cowards or deranged cultists.
And trump can easily have any gop primaries, if they oppose him
Thats supposed to be cautionary, but to the MAGA Nazis, its a Game Plan.
Yes but only the racist parts. They don’t want to repeat the great depression, but are going to because they didn’t actually learn about history.
It’s almost always conservatives caused
Just throwing this out there.
If you expect conservatives to learn anything from this experience, I can promise you on my life that they won’t. They will not deviate from voting R under any circumstance in existence.
Best we can hope for is independents getting a clue and helping swing the next election, if there is one, back to the grownup party.
Not holding my breath though. This is a very, very stupid generation of Americans.
