Most of their specific examples seem to be…relatively wealthy people who got in trouble with the IRS or state tax agencies because they were cheating on their taxes. So, sure, economic anxiety.
Bill Maher fell for this too, doing one of his ‘New Rules’ bits about a 1/6er who was mad because she got a high interest loan, or something. Pretty annoying.
He’s also been insisting for years that the “Woke Left” are also keeping away voters. And he certainly gets even journalist guests and Democratic guests to agree with that hypothesis all the time.
Nesrie
3209
A high interest loan right now seems like it might indicate financial problems in the past, like bad credit, or those weirdo games some people like to play, like spending all their time and effort to tell a bank they make a ton of money while their returns suggest they make nothing. I mean interest rates are less than 2% on some home loans… less than 2! You can get 0% on a car loan. What kind of loans are these and what is even high?
I’m not quite as critical article as you are, it is more or less just reporting facts. But, I’m mad that, they fail to ask any of the Republican about the underlying cause of the 'financial anxiety". She, the private jet lady, “almost lost the house.” The passive voice does us no favors. The Republican party used to be about personal responsibility. Republicans shouldn’t get a pass.
Why did she almost lose the house? Was it because last year her sister and BIL died in tragic car accident, and she took in her nephew and niece and then 6 months ago her mom, the sole caregiver for her father with dementia, got cancer. Or was it because she ran up $30K of credit card debt but stuff she didn’t need and couldn’t afford. Asking the tough questions, would have made the Trumpester pissed at the reporter, but it would be have service to his readers.
The one advantage of working with narcissists is no matter how bad you treat them their love for the spotlight generally outweighs their anger.
I remember the Maher bit – he was speaking about the woman Trumper who was shot in the Capitol; the Air Force veteran named Ashli Babbit. The loan in question seems to be a short-term business loan that she took out to keep her pool-maintenance business afloat.
Ms. Babbitt appeared to struggle in business. In 2017 she took out a costly short-term business loan. In effect, it meant her pool business would have to pay an interest rate that she later calculated in court filings to be 169 percent.
Within days of signing the loan agreement, she stopped making payments, only repaying about $3,400 of the $65,000 borrowed from the lender, EBF Partners, records show. The lender soon sued her.
Normal citizens with reasonable credit can get those 2% or 0% loans if they are SECURED – meaning there is a house or a car to be repossessed by the bank if you default. In Babbitt’s case, I would assume it was a short-term unsecured loan, with maybe a 4% rate compounded monthly, which I think runs to about 170% annually if you never make any payments.
Nesrie
3212
Well even if credit is not stellar, those two loans are pretty low right now. Those are also the kinds of loans many people tend to have outside of credit cards and of course student loans. This…
This is not something everyone has but there has been some discussions about it.
Trump has not done anything to improve this though. I mean, that economic anxiety is still largely garbage because, so far, the bulk of these people being arrested and looked into do not believe in basic facts. I don’t know how a real estate agent that flies in a private jet, for example, can complain about how much a loan costs. These seem like poor decisions, not reasons to burn it all down.
Ghh. Apparently The Atlantic, in its wisdom, has decided to publish an opinion piece by a journalist called “I Miss the Thrill of Trump” about how, sure, people are dying and democracy may be ending. But, gosh darn it, the Trump era was exciting, and how can a reporter not miss that?
I hesitate to link it. For that matter, I hesitate to read it, because if I click have I not fallen for the clickbait?
But Jesus. Imagine some reputable publication putting out an article called, “I miss the thrill of World War 2” in September 1945.
Edit: Apparently now they’ve changed the headline to “I Was An Enemy of the People.” But the headline is not the only problem with the article … apparently the author says his “thrill” of being a journalist in the Trump era was like the “thrill” of a 20-year old storming Normandy Beach in WW2 (!) And the bulk of it consists of him taking a victory lap for being a dashing journalist and standing up to Trump by occasionally reporting facts. Any journalist who thinks the media deserves to be compared to WW2 vets is seriously deluded about what happened during the Trump years and the media’s role in it.
Nesrie
3214
It’s like the plot of the third Star Trek reboot movie, or the motivation for a character in half of Kong Island.
On a more serious note, yeah that’s pretty messed up. There are always “exciting” things to explore. They just don’t tweet themselves out every hour.
KevinC
3215
That elicited an audible WTF from me.
Now it’s headlined ‘I Was An Enemy Of The People.’ Did they change the title?
Yep, they changed the title as noted above. Presumably there was a chorus of WTFs.
Seriously, WTF. The past few weeks have been a paradise of normalcy compared to the goddamn trauma of four years, and they think that’s BAD???
Timex
3219
I like not hearing anything about Trump, ever, other than rarely hearing that he’s pissed off about something.
The fact that he has zero power and can no longer destroy the earth is nice.
It’s considerably better than when he was the most powerful man in the world.
From the perspective of media, regardless of political alignment of their audience, Trump was a gift that just kept giving. He courted headlines and generated nonstop drama. I can completely understand why anyone who worked at a media outlet would miss him professionally because now they have to work harder to generate content of interest to their audience.
They aren’t supposed to say that part out loud though, because it’s clearly a view that puts professional concerns over the health of the country.
Haven’t read the article yet, but that reminds me of something Peter Baker said on I think Preet Bharara’s podcast months ago. Preet asked him what sort of presidency he’d prefer to cover, and Baker said something like “Well, I’d have to say, probably this one”, and sort of chuckled. Preet didn’t really say anything, but I could sense his frustration. He was more reserved than I would have been, since I think I audibly said “Fuck you”.
I get that a crazy political scene can make your job more interesting/fun, but as Tortilla noted, you’re not supposed to say that part out loud. (You’re also, one hopes, supposed to have enough perspective to look beyond your own narrow work interests.)
Hold up, guys. Now that there’s a Democrat in office we need to worry about the debt again.
Seriously, WTF, wapo.
U.S. federal debt to exceed size of economy even before Biden stimulus is approved, CBO says
By Jeff Stein
Is it possible they ran those types of articles during the Trump administration, but they were just buried under the flaming shitstorm?
