Jen Hampel

[Jen Hampel @JenHampel]

@TheRickWilson If only the Grim Reaper would answer.

[Jen Hampel @JenHampel]

@Timodc **and the candidate doesn't even live in Iowa**

[Patrick Rynard @patrynard]

“We want you to know how disappointed we are with you as a U.S. Congresswoman,” former Valley West HS teacher says of Valley grad Ashley Hinson. “…It is not time for you to graduate to the U.S. Senate” #IASen

[Mostly Peaceful Memes @MostlyPeaceful]

Congress watching soldiers get arrested for insider trading

[Brandon Beylo @marketplunger1]

lol who did this.

[Fania Oz-Salzberger 🇮🇱🕊️🟣 פניה עוז-זלצברגר @faniaoz]

Please share. Let it be known that many Israelis are enraged by the Ben-Gvirite settler terror and the death penalty law, and that some of them are brave enough to demonstrate and face unprecedented police brutality in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

[Idrees Ali @idreesali114]

The latest Economist cover says it all.

[Mr. Spock 🖖 (Commentary) @SpockResists]

After the Soviet Union collapsed, a group of corrupt wealthy oligarchs stole everything leaving the people with nothing.

This is what is happening.

Right now.

In the United States.

And so called “patriots” are cheering it on.

[Richard Stengel @stengel]

He is repeating every foreign and domestic policy mistake the US has made over the last five decades, but he's doing it with a gracelessness, cluelessness, and corruption that has no precedent.

[Gary Peterson 🇺🇸 @GaryPetersonUSA]

Prices are down under President Trump!

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

Energy industry insider in Iran tells me the following, and it is STUNNING:

Before the war, Iran produced just shy of 1.1mn barrels of oil per day, and sold it at $65 per barrel minus $18 discount (i.e. $47)

Today, it produces 1.5mn barrels a day, and sells it at $110 with only $2-4 discount.

And this does not include petrochemical sales that not only have increased, but are now being sold to a larger set of customers compared to before the war.

Moreover, Iran is receiving payments through new mechanisms that bypass the UAE, which were set up after the June war.

In essence, and this is really important to understand, Trump and Israel's war has ended up delivering Iran de facto sanctions relief.

This means that Iran is all the less incentivized to end the war, unless the agreement provides Iran with formal sanctions relief.

[Angry Staffer @Angry_Staffer]

Now the administration is thinking about unfreezing Iranian funds as part of the negotiations?

Looking forward to all the “MONEY IS FUNGIBLE!!!” conservatives losing their mind over how Trump is funding Iran’s missile program

[Mark Warner @MarkWarner]

I remember when my Republican colleagues blasted Barack Obama over $400M tied to hostages and an old debt with Iran.

Now, under Donald Trump, sanctions relief on 140M barrels of Iranian oil could net Tehran up to $15 BILLION — while the U.S. is at war.

Where’s the outrage now?

[Hadas Weiss @weiss_hadas]

europeans when asked to help unblock the strait of hormuz

[The Purple Pimpernel @Eyeswideopen69]

Confucius says:

“If you call your allies cowards in February, don’t expect help in March you stupid cunt”.

[Marc Polymeropoulos @Mpolymer]

Had a great chat with a Syrian immigrant to the US yesterday morning, who was my uber driver on way to the @MSNOWNews DC studio. I told him I lived in Syria previously. I mentioned "Faruq's" shawarma shop in Malki, and he went crazy. Best shawarma anywhere in the world, we agreed! He said that when he was young, years ago prior to leaving Damascus, he used to go in front of the US embassy in Abu Rumaneh and literally look up and talk to the American flag. Prayed that he could come to the US. Said he did it all the time, night after night. I was stunned. The same flag I used to look at walking home from work, silhouette in the night sky, and hoping that it meant something to the Syrian people, who back then lived in a terribly repressive regime. So this story from my uber driver, man, it got to me. America stood for something very real to him. Political and economic liberalism, in a world where in many places, that doesn't exist. The Syrian driver ended our chat (I had tears in my eyes) with a great final thought. He said that in America, you can scream and yell at Trump, with no sanction. Or praise and love him too. He loved that about our country. He didn't tell me who he supposed politically, because to him, it didn't matter. Some times you need to hear stories like this one to give you hope.

[Diane Swonk @DianeSwonk]

I have been an economists for a very long time. I have always been a little surprised by how some people will talk about recession as a necessary reset or a “cleans.”

There is this “let them eat cake” kind of mentality that emerges that somehow a recession is like a fast for a day and healthy. Recessions are painful, especially when accompanied by inflation.

I became an economist as a fluke - it was the only class open when I registered & it sounded interesting. I loved the math and the intuitive study of collective human behavior. It gave me an understanding for the train wreck of an economy I experienced growing up in the modest suburbs of Detroit as a kid.

My best friend’s dad died of cancer when I we were in high school. She stopped bringing lunch to school - there was no money for food. Her family dug up their backyard to plant a garden & put food on the table. Her yard was bigger than the postage stamp of my own, but the ground was toxic. Many of her siblings died of cancer very young.

I still remember the smell of baked bread - it was the only bread they could afford. My mom, who was on her own tight budget, gave me money to buy her lunch each day.

Stagflation and recession were brutal. The scarring effects of all those years ago linger. Families broke down & vicious cycles of poverty emerged in towns that became known as the Rust Belt for their rusting factories.

Recessions are ugly, unpredictable and leave a scar. Those accompanied by inflation are worse.

The economy is not a single body that can be fit from a “cleans,” as I have so often heard in my career. It is a complex system that has increasingly seen inequality worsen in the wake of recessions.

Income inequality hit a low as measured by the Gini coefficient in 1979 in the US. We have been seeing a rise in inequality ever since, with more sidelined for long periods after recessions, with perhaps the brief surge in hiring we saw in the wake of the pandemic. That is over.

We are already flirting with a payroll recession, which is showing up as losses in payroll employment. I would like to believe that rate cuts could cure what ails us, but I fear what we are enduring is systemic. Lower interest rates cannot spur hiring with firms dealing with so much uncertainty.

That means the Fed should focus more on inflation. I hate to think of what a recession to derail the inflation we are enduring would look like, although I think about it a lot. It is not pretty.

The economy is about people’s lives and livelihoods. It is what you deal with when you walk in your front door if you have one to walk through. It is worrying about feeding and sheltering your kids. It is about all the choices we make every day.

It is a living organism that does not do better when pain is broader. I will never say a recession is good. Recessions are hard.

We may have to suffer one to derail inflation - I hope not but worry that may end up being the case. That is a horrible place to be.

Food for thought. I have seen talking heads talk about a recession with a cavalier attitude. I find that hard to witness.

The tails risks of recessions are large. They hurt people.

Break bread not ties. Empathy is a gift to few share. Time to fill our cups with it.

[ProfTalmadge @ProfTalmadge]

This is a technical story with stunning strategic implications. It is quite possible the US launched a massive war because Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff lacked the technical expertise to even understand what the Iranians were offering in negotiations. Absolute idiocy.
https://t.co/q54pHJdiOE

[Mike Drucker @MikeDrucker]

Half the people on this app melted down when they found out someone can buy a cookie with food stamps