Tom Roche
Shared posts
The Brief Episode 32: West Bank Escalation
Tom Rocheexcellent
Bakhmut Heats Up W Brian Berletic And Gonzalo Lira (Live)
Tom Rochebetter than most TD livestreams, consistently good (though Lira is still a liability, he's better than usual) not only on the NATO proxy war vs Russia (aka RUW) but on geopolitics and geoeconomy generally. Plus they react IRT to NYT dropping the nutty deepstate anti-Hersh headfake (that some "pro-Ukraine volunteers" on a yacht bombed the Nord Stream pipelines)
3/8/23: Seymour Hersh EXCLUSIVE: SHREDS NYT Nord Stream Report, Warren Slams Fed Rate Hikes, Biden Defends Medicare Future, China Accuses US Of Containment, DC Crime Bill, Ryan Vs KJP Spying Question, German Chancellor on Nordstream
Tom Rochenearly-consistently EXCELLENT, few stumbles e.g.,
- Grim backs trickle-down immigration
- Jashinsky claims BRI is 'debt-trap diplomacy'
- both say Russia protecting its national security and the rights of Russians in Ukraine is 'criminal'
Ryan and Emily are joined by legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh to discuss his belief that the New York Times Nordstream report is fake, Elizabeth Warren slams Jerome Powell for considering future interest rate hikes that may cause a recession, Biden says he has a plan to extend the future of Medicare, Biden administration considering reviving detention of migrant families, China accuses US of containment leading other Western countries to encircle and suppress China, a DC crime reform bill thats puts the spotlight on DC statehood, Ryan asks Karine Jean Pierre a question on the FBI spying on Americans, Ryan looks into Matt Gaetz calling for all American troops to leave Syria, and Emily looks into the January 6th Tapes and how Media is ignoring the real scandal.
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3/7/23: FAA Near Death Accidents, Clearest Signs Of Trump Indictment, DHS Illegal Spying Program, Fauci Prompted Lab Leak Coverup, New Jan 6th Footage Revelations, Alex Murdaugh's Verdict, California Housing Crisis, Introducing BP Partner Spencer Snyder
Tom RocheAnother BP "mixed bag" of variable-quality segments. Short: segments 5-9 are worth your time (esp 9==KB radar). Long:
1. FAA in crisis, and multiple near-death accidents. Krystal (KB) and Saagar (SE, collectively K&S) spend /waaay/ too much time on US air travel relative to other transportation modes, given the (low) frequency at which most Americans fly.
2. Jet Blue and Spirit airline mergers blocked. Good as economic reporting, ehhh as transportation reporting.
3. Trump indictment indications. K&E also spend /waaay/ too much time on political prognostication (notably--see next item--wasting much time on 2024 horserace-ing), but good reporting on the internal FedGov (mostly DoJ-vs-FBI) friction on whether/how to pursue Trump, esp the Mar-a-Lago raid.
4. CorpDems foolishly/overconfidently celebrate Trump's political return. True that, but see above on horserace and tealeaf-reading.
5. DHS revealed to be illegally attempting to extract information from prisoners, esp pre-trial: EXCELLENT, more of this please.
6. Fauci caught orchestrating lableak coverup. EXCELLENT, but most of the segment is just (admittedly delightfully) dunking on liberal/CorpDem CFM collaborators (esp former CNN boss Jeff Zucker) who helped Fauci, Daszak, Collins, and the whole sick gain-of-function crew ... which K&S have done lots recently.
7. 6 Jan 2021 footage (released by McCarthy to Carlson) provides evidence (particularly, Capitol Police providing almost tourguide-level friendly escorting to the now-jailed QAnon Shaman) that the so-called "insurrection" was a honeypot. (SE said Tucker Carlson says Jan6 was 'a false-flag', which strikes me as false--it was really a honeypot.)
8. SE radar on Alex Murdaugh conviction, esp the extent to which this and other convictions have dangerously relied on questionable technological data (e.g., cellphone health apps): EXCELLENT.
9. KB radar on the US affordable-housing crisis, esp California's, and how CA events and policies (esp the suppression of public housing in 1950s Los Angeles--see [this book excerpt](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/frank-wilkinson-chavez-ravine-los-angeles-dodgers/), archived [here](https://archive.is/Z0ODk)) helped make sprawl and drive housing prices. This segment is /nearly/ VERY EXCELLENT, ... except that it's kinda hard to reconcile with K&S's longtime support for private homeownership as "the passport to the middle-class," "the key to comfortable retirement," and other bullshit they have repeatedly spouted. Krystal: rational polities do /not/ treat housing as 'investment'--the value of which its owners will /of course/ want to go only up, and will fight like hell to protect--but instead as as a /necessity/ (like food, clean water, waste disposal, healthcare, etc), the price of which should be kept as low as possible.
10. introducing newest BP partner Spencer Snyder: nice but very skippable and fortunately short.
Krystal and Saagar discuss the FAA in a state of emergency after multiple near death accidents, Jet Blue and Spirit airlines merger blocked, the clearest signs yet of a Trump indictment, Dems celebrate the return of Trump, DHS revealed to have illegal spying program, Fauci caught prompting a coverup of the Lab Leak theory, how a CNN Boss quashed lab leak investigation, Jan 6th footage shows police escorting the Q-Anon Shaman through the Capitol, Saagar looks into Alex Murdaugh's verdict based on data from his cell phone establishes a dangerous new precedent, Krystal looks into how California's Housing Crisis is sweeping the rest of the nation, and we introduce our newest BP partner Spencer Snyder (https://www.youtube.com/@SpencerSnyder).
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Swedish Kegstands feat. Matt Christman
Tom RocheVERY EXCELLENT--Ciarán, Julia, Nick, and Uma all spittin', plus The Cushbomb Himself
How is the 30 Years War remembered in Germany? Is the Kipper- und Wipperzeit why the trains keep breaking down? Why does the Catalonian anthem go so hard? To talk to us about central Europe's 17th century blood bath we had Matt Christman of Chapo Trap House on. Make sure to catch Matt's new mini series he made with Chris Wade, "Hell on Earth"
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3/6/23: Trump Dominates CPAC, Bannon Declares War on Fox News, New Norfolk Southern Train Derails, MSNBC Attacks Marianne, Russel Brand on Bill Maher, Amazon Bails On HQ2, Teenage Liberal Depression, Former Navy Pilot on UFOs
Tom Rocheexcellent KB radar on the continuing Amazon HQ2 fail, rest skippable
Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump dominating at CPAC, Desantis short circuiting when asked about Trump endorsement, Steve Bannon declaring war on Fox News, another Norfolk Southern Train derails, Buttigieg concedes he needs to do more, MSNBC smears Marianne's candidacy, Russel Brand goes viral on Bill Maher, Krystal looks into Amazon rugpulling on their HQ2 facility, Saagar looks into the rise of loneliness in liberal teenagers, and we're joined by former Navy pilot Ryan Graves to discuss his piece in Politico on the continued persistent sightings of UFOs despite a lack of investigation.
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AER 119: That time when Britain killed 10 million Indian people, with Amaresh Mishra
Tom RocheVERY EXCELLENT on Indian resistance to--and complicity with--the British Raj, mostly about the 1857 revolt, but also before and after, including 2023 Indian politics and economy (esp the roots of the prosperity of oligarchs like the Tatas)
Separating Fact From Fiction on Fox News/Dominion Lawsuit. PLUS: 50th Episode Reflections on Rumble & Our Show | SYSTEM UPDATE #50
Tom RocheGreenwald makes EXCELLENT case that the claims that Fox News' most prominent hosts (Carlson and Ingraham) promoted 'stop the steal' (and the underlying claim that Biden actually lost the US 2020 presidential election) are
1. based on a Dominion *legal brief* that has not been examined by the defense (Fox), much less by a court, yet is nevertheless being represented as truth by USCFM
2. empirically false, in that (at least) Carlson stated on-broadcast that he has seen no evidence for the claim
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Magnus: Per-project xref history in Emacs
Tom Roche[Non-packaged code](https://gitlab.com/magus/my-emacs-pkgs/-/blob/main/my-projectile-params/my-projectile-params.el) implementing project-specific [xref](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Xref.html) stacks for [projectile](https://github.com/bbatsov/projectile)
When I write code I jump around in the code quite a bit, as I'm sure many other developers do. The ability to jump to the definition of a function, or a type, is invaluable when trying to understand code. In Emacs the built-in xref package provides the basic functionality for this, with many other packages providing their custom functions for looking up identifiers. This works beautifully except for one thing, there's only one global stack for keeping track of how you've jumped around.
Well, that used to be the case.
As I tend to have multiple projects open at a time I used to find it very
confusing when I pop positions off the xref stack and all of a sudden find
myself in another project. It would be so much nicer to have a per-project
stack.
I've only known of one solution for this, the perspective package, but as I've been building my own Emacs config I wanted to see if there were other options. It turns out there is one (almost) built into Emacs 29.
In Emacs 29 there's built-in support for having per-window xref stacks, and
the way that's done allows one to extend it further. There's now a variable,
xref-history-storage, that controls access to the xref stack. The default is
still a global stack (when the variable is set to #'xref-global-history), but
to get per-window stacks one sets it to #'xref-window-local-history.
After finding this out I thought I'd try to write my own, implementing
per-project xref stacks (for projectile).
The function should take one optional argument, new-value, if it's provided
the stack should be updated and if not, it should be returned. That is,
something like this
(defun projectile-param-xref-history (&optional new-value)
"Return project-local xref history for the current projectile.
Override existing value with NEW-VALUE if it's set."
(if new-value
(projectile-param-set-parameter 'xref--history new-value)
(or (projectile-param-get-parameter 'xref--history)
(projectile-param-set-parameter 'xref--history (xref--make-xref-history)))))
Now I only had to write the two functions projectile-param-get-parameter and
projectile-param-set-parameter. I thought a rather straight forward option
would be to use a hashtable and store values under a tuple comprising the
project name and the parameter passed in.
(defvar projectile-params--store (make-hash-table :test 'equal)
"The store of project parameters.")
(defun projectile-param-get-parameter (param)
"Return project parameter PARAM, or nil if unset."
(let ((key (cons (projectile-project-name) param)))
(gethash key projectile-params--store nil)))
(defun projectile-param-set-parameter (param value)
"Set the project parameter PARAM to VALUE."
(let ((key (cons (projectile-project-name) param)))
(puthash key value projectile-params--store))
value)
Then I tried it out by setting xref-history-storage
(setq xref-history-storage #'projectile-param-xref-history)
and so far it's been working well.
The full code is here.
AER 120: Russia Ukraine Year 1: Who is winning? Who is lying? With Scott Ritter
Tom RocheVERY EXCELLENT, comprehensive review of not just RUW 2022-2023, but of the US-NATO proxy war on Russia (and a bit on Iran and PRC) from c2008
How Progressive Democrats Were Railroaded in the Primaries by AIPAC and Allied Groups
Tom RocheVERY EXCELLENT longread
This week on Deconstructed, host Ryan Grim revisits his reporting on how the Democratic Majority for Israel, Mainstream Democrats PAC, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent so much money on the politics of Israel that the question of Israel-Palestine now dominates Democratic primaries.
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Bombshell w/ Seymour Hersh: US Blowing Up Nord Stream Was ‘Act of War’
Tom RocheHersh EXCELLENT (but rambling) as usual
Award-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh joined Rania Khalek on Dispatches to discuss his latest bombshell on how the Biden administration destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline using remotely triggered explosives with the help of the CIA, US Navy divers, and NATO member Norway. This means the US targeted the critical energy infrastructure of its most important European ally, a major violation of sovereignty in what essentially constitutes objectively an act of war against Germany. But Germany is looking the other way.
Hersh’s article: https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream
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3/2/23: Republicans Battle Over East Palestine Aid, Trump Surges 2024 Polls, Vivek Ramaswamy 2024 Interview, Insulin CEO Cuts Prices, Havana Syndrome Debunked, China Threatens Elon, Media Mogul Arrested, Lab Leak Coverup, Ukranian Democracy
Tom Roche1st 2 segments good:
+ US Republican civil war over East Palestine response
+ Politico spreads railroad propaganda while criticizing Lever fundraising
then looong stretch of disposable 2024 presidential horserace:
- Trump polls
- Fox News loves DeSantis, Repub base still loves Trump more
- profile of ... Vivek Ramaswamy (really?)
then 6 good closing segments:
+ Eli Lilly cuts insulin prices
+ US government admits Havana Syndrome fake
+ PRC threatens Elon Musk over SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan-lableak tweets
+ (Krystal radar) Carlos Watson and Ozy Media as latest {corporate fail, identity-based fraud}
+ (Saagar radar) lableak as latest no-accountability {deepstate, corporate-funded}-media fail, compared Iraq WMDs
+ Branko Marcetic @ Jacobin gives a mildly critical assessment of Ukranian (lack of) democracy ... which is still much more empirically accurate than what you'll hear from deepstate CFM
Krystal and Saagar discuss the Republican civil war over East Palestine Aid, Corporate media caught running Railroad propaganda, Trump surging in all Republican 2024 polls, Fox stunned as Diner voters back Trump over Desantis, Saagar presses Vivek Ramaswamy on his 2024 run, Insulin company Eli Lily cuts insulin prices, the Havana Syndrome is debunked, China threatens Elon Musk over Lab leak tweets, Krystal looks into Fake Media Mogul at Ozy media is arrested for fraud, Saagar looks into the comparisons between Iraq WMD's and Lab Leak, and Branko Marcetic (@BMarchetich) from Jacobin joins us to talk about the media's lies on Ukranian democracy.
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Democracy Now! 2023-03-02 Thursday
Tom Rocheskip the 1st (post-headlines) segment (Sporrer and Zubok claiming either that "no one would win a long [Russia-Ukraine war (RUW)]" or that Russia is doomed to lose the RUW but Putin must be given an acceptable climbdown--both empirically ridiculous) and go straight to the final, Omar/Levy segment on Palestine
Democracy Now! 2023-03-02 Thursday
- Headlines for March 02, 2023
- "Unwinnable War"? Calls Grow for Negotiated End to Ukraine War
- Surviving a Pogrom: Palestinian in Huwara Decries Israeli Settler Attack as "Ethnic Cleansing"
Why It’s Time to Officially Get Over Your EV Range Anxiety
Tom Rocheunfortunately doesn't address charging-station networks/availability, otherwise interesting. archived @ https://archive.today/gbDkN and http://web.archive.org/web/20230302144633/https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02032023/inside-clean-energy-electric-vehicles-range-anxiety/
By Dan Gearino
Electric vehicle batteries keep getting larger, and the typical driving range between charges keeps growing.
Buried Treasures & RIP Tom Verlaine of Television
Tom RocheTom Verlaine (1949-2023) deserves more than a 14-min obit (this SO ep goes to Buried Treasures @ 14:08), but "whaddya want for free"
Hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot are joined by their production staff to highlight new music that listeners may have missed: musical buried treasures. They also pay tribute to Television's iconic guitarist, Tom Verlaine.
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Featured Songs:
Avalon Emerson, "Sandrail Silhouette," Sandrail Silhouette (Single), Another Dove, 2023
The Beatles, "With A Little Help From My Friends," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Capitol, 1967
Television, "Marquee Moon," Marquee Moon, Elektra, 1977
Television, "Venus," Marquee Moon, Elektra, 1977
Television, "Glory," Adventure, Elektra, 1978
Wesley Joseph, "MONSOON," MONSOON (Single), Secretly Canadian, 2022
The Get Right Band, "Hell Yes Refresh," Hell Yes Refresh (Single), Head Heart and Hips, 2022
Hurry Up, "American Weirdos," Dismal Nitch, Comedy Minus One, 2022
mazie, "it's not me (it's u)," it's not me (it's u), Good Boy, 2023
Måneskin, "GOSSIP (feat. Tom Morello)," RUSH!, Epic, 2023
Little Dragon, "Water (FKJ Remix)," New Me, Same Us Remix - EP, Ninja Tune, 2021
Ducks Ltd., "18 Cigarettes," Modern Fiction, Carpark, 2021
The Arcs, "Only One For Me," Electrophonic Chronic, Easy Eye Sound, 2023
Manasseh, "I'll Be - Live Pt. 1," Variations V1: I'll Be, Self-Released, 2023
Automatic, "New Beginning," Excess, Stones Throw, 2022
Daydream Review, "Have You Found What You’re Looking For?," Leisure, Side Hustle, 2023
Sinéad O'Connor, "Black Boys on Mopeds," I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, Ensign/Chrysalis, 1990
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5. Give 'Em Hell
Tom RocheVERY EXCELLENT (again, though also again very heavy advertising) esp on FBI snitchjacketing
Alongside a couple of activists with the Young Democratic Socialists of America, Mickey infiltrates the Denver protest scene. He also starts spreading rumors that a leader of the demonstrations is a snitch. Meanwhile, the protests in Denver are becoming increasingly violent as Mickey leads the way in his silver hearse.
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Grayzone Radio - Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Tom RocheEXCELLENT on (1st half) corporate takeover of East Palestine toxic-waste zone, and (2nd) freakout from US Corporate Party and their media/CFM on the threat to US empire and its {NATO, collective West} vassals as their proxy war in Ukraine (RUW) goes south, and esp as it strengthens the (largely US-deepstate-caused) PRC-Russia alliance.
Caž Chat about Springer Media being Wild
Tom RocheCiarán and Nick only. Skip their initial banter (occ funny but mostly ehh) to 10:11 in the audio for an interesting discussion of EU (but mostly Germany) current politics and media. (Excepting NATO's proxy war with Russia, which Nick states he doesn't want to talk about--not sure if this is because he's not interested, or it's too down, or RUW dissent is just too dangerous in Germany right now, esp for emigré content-monetizers--but then Ciarán and Nick both obliquely hint around it.)
After roughly 4 minutes of guitar noises we talk about Axel Springer's growth, weird stories they were putting out in Germany and of course Nickelback.
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3/1/23 CounterPoints: SCOTUS Set to Kill Biden Student Debt Plan, Biden Pushes ESG World Bank, SF Debates Reparations, DeSantis Memo on Protests, Dilbert Creator Cancelled, Biden on Cartels, NSA Spying on US Congressman, Phil Wegmann on Gain of Function
Tom RocheCounterPoints continues its streak of consistent EXCELLENCE
Emily and Ryan discuss SCOTUS seeming set to kill Biden's student debt plan, how Biden pushed ESG takeover of the World Bank, San Francisco debating $5 million dollar Reparations, a Desantis memo requiring Protests to "Align with Mission", Dilbert creator Scott Adams cancelled after racist rant, Biden's border giveaway to the Cartels and Big Business, the NSA caught spying on a US congressman, and White House reporter @RealClearNews Philip Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) joins us in studio to talk about the Biden administration defending Gain of Function research.
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China arms sale panic
Tom Rocheexcellent if necessarily shallow (<18 min minus outro) explanation of how the deepening PRC-Russia alliance (largely created by the US deepstate) will crush NATO's proxy war in Ukraine
710 - I Believe Mole Children Are Our Future feat. Will Sommer (2/27/23)
Tom RocheEXCELLENT--no Felix, barely any Matt, but Will Sommer and the Q Cinematic Universe pick up the slack
We’re joined by friend of the show Will Sommer to discuss his new book “Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America”. We discuss the full shape of the conspiracy/movement now 5 years into its run, its effect on those who follow it, and where it might go from here. As well as all the bizarre cultural references, micro-celebrities & criminals that fill out the movement.
Pick up Will’s book here: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/trust-the-plan-will-sommer?variant=40493482541090
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The rise of US dollar imperialism, and why it failed - with Radhika Desai & Michael Hudson
Tom RocheVERY EXCELLENT
Betrayal of BREXIT complete with Ursula, King Charles and Rishi
Tom Rochegood UK politics breakdown--I don't share their Farage love, but clearly the UK is now dominated by a Globalist Party (with 2 wings, Starmer and Sunak) in much the same manner as the Corporate Party dominates US politics
Ukraine War, China and the Decline of US Hegemony Under Biden
Tom RocheEXCELLENT--I don't completely agree with Bessner or Khalek, but it's an interesting hour of conversation with ~0 'conventional wisdom'
Two years into his presidency, Biden’s foreign policy has been defined by the war in Ukraine and a weakening American hegemony, one that also characterized Trump’s time in office. Some argue the American empire is in decline no matter which party is in control. So where will U.S. foreign policy go from here as the new Cold War era drags on? Does it even matter which party is in charge anymore? How are anxieties of a U.S. decline playing out in the media and in popular culture? And where does that leave the left?
To discuss this and more Rania Khalek joined by historian Daniel Bessner, an associate professor of international studies at the University of Washington, a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and co-host of the podcast American Prestige.
You can listen to all episodes of Rania Khalek Dispatches anywhere you get podcasts.
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A New Coupled Modeling System Improves Forecast Skills
Tom Rochepullquote from this interesting [paper](https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JD037757) (edited, links added):
> To [improve] subseasonal forecast skill, a coupled [GEFS](https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/weather-climate-models/global-ensemble-forecast) [archived [here](http://web.archive.org/web/20230101021839/https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/weather-climate-models/global-ensemble-forecast)] was built up on the [Unified Forecast System](https://ufscommunity.org/) prototype version 5 that fully couples [atmosphere, land surface, ocean, ice, and wave models]. It significantly improved probabilistic forecast skills in many categories, such as precipitation, tropical storms, Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), etc.
Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
Improving the skills of weather forecasts with longer lead time is a perpetual challenge to the scientific and operational weather forecast community. In a new study, Zhu et al. [2023] describe one milestone of the forecasting system at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) with lead time of one to two four weeks.
Built on top of the current operational Global Ensemble Forecast System version 12 (GEFSv12), a new system is developed by fully coupling the atmosphere, land, ocean, ice and waves. Forecasting skills are assessed by using anomalies of 500 hectopascals geopotential height, atmospheric zonal winds at different heights, tracks and intensity of tropical cyclones, and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) among others. The new system is shown to have better forecast skills at different lead times than the uncoupled system.
Citation: Zhu, Y., Fu, B., Yang, B., Guan, H., Sinsky, E., Li, W., et al. (2023). Quantify the coupled GEFS forecast uncertainty for the weather and subseasonal prediction. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 128, e2022JD037757. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JD037757
—Minghua Zhang, outgoing Editor in Chief, JGR: Atmospheres
Text © 2023. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.
Savings, Taxes, Share Buybacks: Fun with National Income Accounts
Tom Rochepullquotes (lightly edited):
> The key point in this story is the definition of savings in the national income accounts [(NIA)]. Savings is simply disposable income (income minus taxes) that is not spent on consumption. From the standpoint of the national income accounts, it doesn’t matter what you did with the money that you didn’t spend on consumption. As long as you didn’t spend it on the consumption of a newly produced good or service, it is treated as being saved. [Furthermore,] income in the national income accounts is money generated from services provided in the current year. [But] capital gains [on sales of stocks, property, etc] do not count as income [for NIA purposes].
> Suppose that a household [(call it 'H')] has a [usual] income of $200,000 from wages. If [H] sold stock last year for $300,000, with a capital gain of $100,000, [H] would have lots of money in the bank. However, from the standpoint of the national income accounts, [H's] income is still just $200,000. If [H's] consumption was unchanged, then their measured saving would be the same in the year they realized these capital gains as it had been before. [But the difference between the ordinary sense of 'savings' and the NIA sense gets even larger.] If [H pays] capital gains tax at the 20 percent rate, [that] $20,000 [tax payment reduces] their disposable income [(defined as income minus taxes), so H's] savings would [by the NIA definition] be $20,000 lower[.] For the country as a whole, if we have a large sell-off of stock after a big run-up [in stock markets], we will see an increase in taxes, which will mean a lower saving rate, other things equal. We did in fact see a big jump in tax payments in 2022, which explains most, but not all, of the drop in savings last year. (The saving rate rose in January, despite the big jump in consumption, due to a sharp drop in tax payments.) [Another NIA-definition-induced problem] is that households may increase their consumption based on their capital gains. If [H] used some of their gains to remodel their house, buy a new car, or [whatever, by the NIA definition, H] would have increased their consumption and reduced their savings. Undoubtedly, this is part of the story of the decline in savings reported for 2022.
Many people who should know better have been saying silly things about households running down their savings and being forced to cut back consumption. The problem with these sorts of comments is that savings in our national income accounts have little to do with how most of us think about savings in our lives. Less of the former does not necessarily mean that people will have less money to buy things.
Before going into the specifics, let me just make a point to orient people. Saving in the national income accounts is almost entirely a story of the top half of the income distribution, and largely the top 10 percent.
I recognize that there are tens of millions of people who are struggling to get by, and in many cases not getting by. These people are either not saving at all or, insofar as they are, it has a minimal impact on aggregate saving numbers. The saving rate is not about their story.
Aggregate saving is about the people who have the money and the choice of whether to spend it or not. That is not a good picture, it would be great if we had a far more equal distribution of income so that most people did have the option to save, but we don’t. In an economy where the richest 10 percent of households get more than 40 percent of income, aggregate savings is the story of what these people are doing with their money.
Saving by Burning Money
The key point in this story is the definition of savings in the national income accounts. Savings is simply disposable income (income minus taxes) that is not spent on consumption. From the standpoint of the national income accounts, it doesn’t matter what you did with the money that you didn’t spend on consumption. As long as you didn’t spend it on the consumption of a newly produced good or service, it is treated as being saved.
Savings includes all of the things people typically do with their money that we would think of as saving. So, putting money in the bank counts as saving, as does buying a government bond. Buying shares of stock or a plot of land would also count as saving. We may colloquially describe these purchases as “investment” but we are not buying a newly produced good or service, we are just trading assets (cash for shares of stock or a deed to land), so these purchases do not count as investment in the national income accounts.
People may also save in ways that they don’t think of as saving. If they cashed their paycheck and put a few hundred dollars aside to buy a television or some other appliance, but didn’t get around to doing it, then they have saved this money from the standpoint of the national income accounts.
The same would be the case if they pulled a few hundred dollars out of the bank that they intended to spend but somehow lost the money. If the money remains lost, it is saved from a national accounting standpoint.
This is even true if they deliberately destroyed the money. If someone cashes their paycheck and then burns $1,000 to protest George Santos being in Congress, this will be treated as savings in the national income accounts. They did not buy a newly produced good or service.
Capital Gains are Not Income, Therefore They Don’t Increase Savings
If saving is defined as income that is not spent on a newly produced good or service, then we also need a definition of income. Income in the national income accounts is money generated from services provided in the current year. Most obviously, this would be the wages people get from working. It would also be rent paid on land or housing. It also would include interest and dividends paid on bonds or shares of stock.
However, the capital gains on stock do not count as income. (The same applies to capital gains on houses.) The idea here is that stock prices fluctuate month to month and year to year. If we envision a situation where we had the exact same stock of capital on January 1, 2023, as we did on January 1, 2022, and the same labor force, but the value of the market was 10 percent greater (roughly $4 trillion), there would be no asset (tangible or intangible) that corresponds to this $4 trillion increase in value. Therefore, it does not count as income.
If that sounds strange, consider the opposite situation where the market falls by 10 percent over the course of a year. Would it make sense to deduct $4 trillion from national income as a result?
This is important in the current context because many people sold stock after the large pandemic run-up in the market, and have substantial capital gains as a result. Suppose that a household has a normal income of $200,000 from wages. (Yes, this is a rich household.) If they sold stock last year for $300,000, with a capital gain of $100,000, they would have lots of money in the bank.
However, from the standpoint of the national income accounts, their income is still just $200,000. If their consumption was unchanged, then their measured saving would be the same in the year they realized these capital gains as it had been before.
Actually, the situation is somewhat worse than this. They are supposed to pay capital gains tax on this money. If they pay capital gains tax at the 20 percent rate, then they will pay an additional $20,000 in income taxes as a result of their capital gains.[1] This would reduce their disposable income, which is defined as income, minus taxes.
If their consumption is unchanged, their savings would be $20,000 lower because their after-tax income is $20,000 lower. For the country as a whole, if we have a large sell-off of stock after a big run-up, we will see an increase in taxes, which will mean a lower saving rate, other things equal. We did in fact see a big jump in tax payments in 2022, which explains most but not all, of the drop in savings last year. (The saving rate rose in January, despite the big jump in consumption, due to a sharp drop in tax payments.)
The other part of the story is that households may increase their consumption based on their capital gains. If they used some of their gains to remodel their house, buy a new car, or take a vacation, this would mean they have increased their consumption and reduced their savings. Undoubtedly, this is part of the story of the decline in savings reported for 2022.
This is not sustainable in the sense that we would not expect households will have large amounts of capital gains to draw on every year. But this is not a story of households drawing down their savings in any meaningful sense. If the household with the $100,000 gain, spent on extra $20,000 on one-time expenditures, after paying an extra $20,000 in capital gains taxes, their reported savings would be $40,000 lower than in the prior year, but they would still have $260,000 in the bank from selling their stock. This is to a large extent the story of the decline in the saving rate that we saw in 2022.
Dividends and Share Buybacks: An Inconsistency in the National Income Accounts
While households cannot anticipate large capital gains every year, corporate share buybacks is one case where this view would be wrong. The basic story is that share buybacks are a way for companies to give out money to shareholders as an alternative to paying dividends. Buybacks are desirable from the standpoint of shareholders since the money paid out is not immediately subject to taxes, as is the case with dividends. Shareholders will only pay taxes when they sell the stock at a gain.
This situation leads to an inconsistency in the national income accounts. Suppose corporations pay out $200 billion in dividends to shareholders. This money counts as income for shareholders and as an expense for the companies, which reduces their profits and corporate savings.
However, if they instead pay out this $200 billion by buying back shares, this money is not treated as income for shareholders. That is true even if the shareholders immediately sell their stock and take advantage of the higher prices resulting from the buybacks. From the companies’ standpoint, this $200 billion in buybacks does not count as an expense and reduce their profits. Instead, it is treated as though they purchased an asset (their own stock), just as if they had bought land or shares in another company.
This matters when we look at household saving rates since companies can in fact indefinitely pay out the money that would otherwise go to dividends, in the form of share buybacks. For consistency, we really should count this money as part of household income. This would raise disposable income and therefore increase savings.
The Whole Picture
The figure below shows the reported saving rate from the national income accounts from 2015 to 2023. It also shows the ratio of saving, plus taxes, to total income in the years since 2015. While the Trump tax cut did change this relationship in 2017 and 2018, since 2019 we have had no major changes to the tax code. That means that changes in the relationship between tax collections and income were driven mostly by changes in household income, most notably capital gains income. (There were timing issues associated with the pandemic, but using annual data eliminates most of this effect.)
The third line uses a measure of savings if we count share buybacks as part of personal income. This adds dollar to dollar to savings, since its inclusion does not affect consumption. It also raises income (the denominator), since we have to add share buybacks to the measure of personal income in the National Accounts.
Source: BEA, S&P, and author’s calculations.
As can be seen, including personal taxes (Table 2.1, Line 6) eliminates most of the drop in saving reported for 2023. While the official saving rate shows a drop of 3.6 percentage points from the average for the four years prior to the pandemic to 2023 (7.3 percent to 3.7 percent), using the combined taxes plus savings measure the drop is just 0.7 percentage points (18.6 percent to 17.9 percent). Calculating a saving rate that includes share buybacks as income, there is a drop of just 0.3 percentage points (21.7 percent to 21.4 percent).
In short, if we use measures of saving that are more consistent with both what households actually see, and economic logic, there is very little to the idea that the saving rate is falling through the floor. The plunging saving rate is almost entirely an illusion caused by the failure to think about the issue clearly.
[1] Much of these gains would in fact be taxed at a rate lower than 20 percent for a family earning $200k.
The post Savings, Taxes, Share Buybacks: Fun with National Income Accounts appeared first on Center for Economic and Policy Research.
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Hosted and written by Andy Zaltzman with additional material from Alice Fraser, Davina Bentley, Simon Alcock, and Cameron Loxdale.
Producer: Sam Holmes Executive Producer: Pete Strauss Production Co-ordinator: Becky Carewe-Jeffries Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
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