"Trump vs US" Supreme Court Case on Executive Immunity. Maybe a helpful visual?

Helps me to put a picture of what I see as the result of the Executive Immunity case recently decided by the Supreme Court (case decision HERE).

Here is the succinct summary of what the Supreme Court held:

Below are a couple of images I created to give students (or others interested in the issue) a nominal starting point to understand the result. I make no claims it is a perfect representation.  I think, for the most part, the logic of what is "held" written above is shown in the two images below.

The first one describes Executive authority BEFORE the case cited above.  Presidential authority is defined in Article 2 of the Constitution. The "fuzzy perimeters" of that power have been molded by historical events but have been expansionary in history and dictated by events (civil war, WW 1 and 2, 9/11, to name a few).

The second image below represents what I think happens with Executive Authority going forward.  It HAS to happen, right?

Executive power increases (White area).  The fuzzy "outer perimeter" (Roberts words) of what is acceptable within the Executive branch increases (Brownish area) and the level of criminality that an Executive can be held responsible for decreases (Red area).

It is this brownish area I think Chief Justice Roberts addresses with "And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.".  Not defined before in any Supreme Court case and the contours of it remain "fuzzy" BUT no question is an enlargement of Executive Branch permissible acts or actions.

ACT Reading Test Stratgies. My nominal suggestions.

I do a little ACT tutoring.  I have watched just about every YouTube video on every ACT subject tested.  Everyone has their own take on how to approach each test, which leads to a wide variety of opinions.  

The Reading Test (and Science test), as opposed to the English and Math tests, seems to have fewer moving parts overall.  The English test has a million grammar and sentence structure rules and Math, well, you know...

Professional tutors (ain't me!) are split on how to approach the reading test.  Some say go to questions first, and some say read the passage first. Some say read and annotate in the margins first, some say that takes too much time.  What to do?

I honestly don't know of a specific "go-to" strategy.  Below I will post my suggestions. I think they are useful if one is not the greatest/fastest reader in the world.  I think these provide some structure on how to approach the reading passages.  

Use at your own risk!

Additional Tips:

Read the source information at the very beginning of the passage. Depending on the topic, there can be useful information about the passage overall. It is good to know where it is going to take you before you start skimming the questions.

Don't read in any detail the answer choices that are wordy overall.  A question that has just one or two-word answer choices is worth a skim just to get the overall feel for the question.

Yes, this prep work takes valuable time. I think the time you save in having the questions mapped out will be more than worth the upfront investment of time.  Plus, it may reduce some of the reading you have to do overall.  

ACT does not care about how you arrive at an answer, nor do they care if you liked the passage or not!

"The History of the Chevron Doctrine"--things you may not have known...

Two cases regarding the so-called "Chevron Doctrine", Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, were argued this week at the Supreme Court. 

This very short article helps explain the issues in the original case that established the doctrine.

In short, when a statute's (law) verbiage comes into question, a court uses a "2-step" process to decide the case:

The "two-step" refers to the two stages of the review process:

1. Determine whether Congress expressed clear intent on the specific issue at hand in the statute. If it did, the court simply applies that meaning. If it’s not clear, go on to Step 2.
2. If the statute is ambiguous, then the court defers to the agency's interpretation if it is "based on a permissible construction of the statute." This is the "Chevron deference" stage.

 Source: FindLaw

One side says the doctrine is necessary so government agencies, that employ professionals with expertise Congress does not have, can use existing statutory language to respond to challenges that are not explicit (but implied or through precedent) in the statute. 

The other side says it gives government agencies too much power to interpret statutes beyond what is in the text of those statutes. The meanings of statutes should be interpreted by the judicial branch, not "unelected bureaucrats" or the Executive branch.

14th Amendment Section 3: Does anyone know what it really means?

 I divided up Section 3 by each subject referred to and used clause #5, "who, having previously taken an oath", as the mid-point where the dependent clauses that follow refer back to the prior clauses. 

There is a high level of parallelism/symmetry with the clause(s) but not a perfect correlation.  For example, "elector of the President and Vice President" is explicit in the first half but not mentioned in the second. Perhaps because Electors used to come from the State Legislatures, therefore subject to #8? 

This amendment poses more questions than answers.  If someone tells you they know for sure what it means and how to interpret it, they are not being completely honest.  My opinion: I dunno.

Here are some questions I have seen asked about this clause that apparently have no definitive answers.

Is this clause “Self-Executing”? Does it require a finding by the Legislature/Congress (House and Senate)/Court (Supreme or other)?  Is the President entitled to “Due Process” under this Section?

          Are the President and VP subject to the terms of Section 3?

Is the President considered an “Officer” even though he occupies an “Office”? Here are a YES and a NO perspective on the issue. HERE is another view on the Legislative history.

Is including “electors of the President and VP” (for Electoral purposes) a check on the President and VP and naming them explicitly not necessary?

What were the debates around wording at the time of the writing of this section?  Why was the President and VP not mentioned EXPLICITLY?

The wording is different in each oath. WHY? Note word "support" is not in the Presidential Oath. Some say this is significant.

Many questions, few solid answers... 

  

 

 

What is a "Fact" in the context of the Declaration of Independence? Jefferson is a clever dude...

 I was just re-reading the article I have previously posted (The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence). In this article, there are MANY nuggets of insight into the writing of the Declaration by Jefferson.  Words matter!

The analysis of the word "Fact" is one that made me think today.  This word is found in this line (underline/emphasis mine):

To prove this [the king's tyranny], let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

 

But "fact" had yet another connotation in the eighteenth century. The word derived from the Latin facere, to do. Its earliest meaning in English was "a thing done or performed"--an action or deed. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was used most frequently to denote an evil deed or a crime, a usage still in evidence at the time of the Revolution. In 1769, for example, Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, noted that "accessories after the fact" were "allowed the benefit of clergy in all cases." The Annual Register for 1772 wrote of a thief who was committed to prison for the "fact" of horse stealing. There is no way to know whether Jefferson and the Congress had this sense of "fact" in mind when they adopted the Declaration. Yet regardless of their intentions, for some eighteenth-century readers "facts" many have had a powerful double-edged meaning when applied to George III's actions toward America.19

 Shot fired, Thomas Jefferson!  So, King George III could have read the word "Fact" (emphasized by being capitalized?) to mean what we today would understand the word to mean OR he could have taken it to imply a crime of sorts---OR BOTH!

This is a nice reminder that when reading historical documents it is important to be mindful of every word and the context in which it is used.

 

 

My retirement hobby--Fantasy SCOTUS

Don't, err, "judge" me.  Since retiring in January 2021, I have been an active participant in Fantasy SCOTUS, an online forum for crowd-sourcing predictions of cases argued in the Supreme Court's current term/session.  My handle there is "geneh".

As they say, it is the journey, not the destination with this activity. Over the past year or so I have learned A LOT about how the Court operates through listening to the live arguments, reading the "writs of certiorari" (usually only the abstracts/syllabi---these things are LONG and Detailed!), responses to the writs, Google searches for objective analysis of the cases, and any opinion pieces I can find.   

Listening to the oral arguments is challenging.  The complexity/depth of the arguments from both sides of the case can be very hard to follow.  It is easy to mentally drift when the banter jumps to prior cases/precedents and terms are used that are definitely "inside baseball" between the judges and the advocates.

The best tool for me to understand the oral arguments is a combination of listening to the audio recording AND reading the transcript of the proceeding that is made available shortly after the live presentation.  Those two things would be very time-consuming to do separately, however, there is a YouTube channel that combines the two!

For me, it is helpful to hear and read the arguments at the same time. I can pause the video to Google terms/concepts used in the proceedings that I don't understand. Often that takes me down rabbit holes but the point for me is to keep my brain engaged and to model being a life-long learner.

Here is a video of a case argued this week regarding Social Media and how government officials use their pages for private and/or public purposes.  I highly recommend this YouTube channel for learning purposes.

The use of the word "Necessary" in the opening of the Dec of Independence was no accident...

And this is only the beginning!

This is a deep-ish dive into the historical AND literary meaning/structure of the Dec of Independence. Basically a word-by-word and phrase-by-phrase analysis. I cannot emphasize enough how informative this is on so many levels. Great for Social Studies AND for English Composition/Literature. Enjoy! It is not too long!

The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence

Quotes by Oliver Cromwell (Source HERE) that support the notion the Declaration of Independence was written with subtle/not-so-subtle language. 

 “we declared our intentions to preserve monarchy, and they still are so, unless necessity enforce an alteration. It’s granted the king has broken his trust, yet you are fearful to declare you will make no further addresses. .....look on the people you represent, and break not your trust, and expose not the honest party of your kingdom, who have bled for you, and suffer not misery to fall upon them for want of courage and resolution in you, else the honest people may take such courses as nature dictates to them." Cromwell’s speech in the commons during the debate which preceeded the “vote of no addresses”, recorded in the diary of John Boys, MM for Kent. 

 “since providence and necessity has cast them upon it, he should pray god to bless their councels.” Cromwell on the trial of King Charles I. Dec. 1648. 

 “cruel necessity”. Cromwell on the execution of King Charles I. Jan 1649. Oxford dictionary of quotations. 

 “necessity hath no law.” Speech to parliament, Sept. 1654.

Redundancy Trap with the ACT

These can be sneaky. Beware of "redundancy"---using different words that mean the same to describe or explain one thing. Here is a good example:

Source HERE

Source: ACT Prep Academy

Private vs Pubic Goods

Quick Personal Finance Lesson: What these 4 things are costing you each week/month.

I like the focus of this blog post here: Beware the Four Horseman of Personal Finance.

It cites 4 basic things to AVOID in order to vastly improve your personal financial situation: Cigarettes, Alcohol, the Lottery, and Dining Out.

Using average weekly spending on these items, I will show you how much these things cost you in time relative to some an hourly wage.

Depending on individual purchasing behaviors, the following numbers could be just right, too high or too low. You can adjust the numbers for your or your families situation.

1.  Cigarettes: Average price is $5.45. If you smoke a 4 packs a week it will cost you $21.80

2. Alcohol: A 24-pack of beer costs approximately $15.23. Assume only one per week.

3. Lottery: It is difficult to find accurate averages, so I am going to use $25 per week as a relatively low estimate (remember, these are averages).

4.  Dining Out: $50 per week. This number might be too low but I am going to use it to represent the difference between the cost to you of a meal out as opposed to one you would make at home.  Of all the things listed above, eating food is a requirement!

So, our total for the 4 categories is $112.03 per week.  If we divide this number by an hourly wage you can calculate how many hours you have to work in order to earn enough money to buy all these items each week.

If you earn the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour you would have to work 15 1/2 hours (nearly 2 days!) to make enough to purchase this items.

$9.00 per hour = 12 1/2 hours (a day and a half)

$10.00 per hour = 11 1/4 hours

$15 per hour = 7 1/2 hours (almost one day).

Keep in mind the wage is NOT taking into account a subtraction for taxes or other deductions, so effectively the hourly wage would be lower and the hours worked would be HIGHER.

If we were to extrapolate the spending out to a months worth (4.3 weeks in the average month), the $112 per week would be $481.60.  One year: $5,779.

$481.60 PER MONTH in spending the YOU CAN CONTROL.

Mic Drop!

Tariffs and Marginal Analysis--what economists care about.

A big issue this week is the Trump administrations levying of tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.  Just yesterday China announced that it would levy counter-tariffs on a whole host of US goods it imports.  Blah! A potential trade war coming down the road?

I am not sure, but I wanted to show you all how economists, for the most part, view policy changes like this. This applies not only to tariffs but to all other policies, from taxes, regulations to the minimum wage.  I see two aspects:

(1) The "Big Picture" is what economist call "Thinking at the Margins" (you learned this in Chapter 1). They are not so concerned about how the stronger participants in a market behave in reaction to changes in policy, but how it affects the smaller, less obvious participants.

The "marginal players", if you will.  Perhaps unseen, but not unaffected.  This is where the action lies for economists. It has the potential for making the most impact on buyers and sellers, therefore employment and production.

(2) Relative Elasticity (learned in an earlier lesson!). Elasticity is an underappreciated concept and is rarely discussed as a larger part of any policy debate. It underlies any/all decisions made by producers and/or consumers. When government imposes a policy that changes prices it will affect participants buying and selling behavior---some more than others but affect it indeed.

I quickly put together a couple of slides to give you a visual.  Going forward, always try to think "at the margins"  and relative elasticity as to how policy (any policy, not just tariffs) affects people. I think it puts issues more in focus and helps to narrow the debate.

I hope this is helpful! I welcome comments!

Thinking at the margin from Eva Hayward

I updated my 2007 in-class Stock Market Activity. I did pretty well in the over the last 10 years.

I recently found the companies I used for a stock market activity for class in 2007 and updated the value with current prices. The number of shares I purchased is in the second column.

I fictitiously invested $25,000 in each of these companies. You can see the results below.

Inflation was roughly 18% over that time span, so my overall rate of return is pretty darn good!

Wish I had the money at the time!  :)

When is the value of an export not the value of the export?

Here is a graphic I found on Twitter (lost the source).  It is a vivid example of how the trade numbers are a bit of an illusion.

The graphic on the right is the one I am interested in. It shows the dollar cost to produce an iPhone to be $600.00. This is the total value as it leaves its final assembly point in China.

When it is shipped from China to the US, China is credited with $600 in exports and the US is debited $600 for importing the phone.  It appears the US has a trade deficit with China at this point---which is the case with the conventional way export and imports are accounted for.  The final producer gets the spoils of being the full value exporter of the good. However....(see you below the graphic)

Source HERE

The graphic on the right tells a more complicated story.  The inputs that go into making the output (finished i-phone) come from a vast network of the supply chain. The pie chart shows China adds only $6.50 of the $600 total cost of the i-phone (caveat: there could be other Chinese suppliers that supply inputs in some of the other categories in the pie chart).

$6.50!  But they get credit for a $600 export and we get dinged for the same amount as an import.

Keep in mind what is good for the goose is good for the gander---the same logic applies to goods we make in the US with imported inputs (intermediate goods).

Bottom line: We have to be careful when we hear reported in the media about the "trade deficit" we have with China (or Mexico or...).  The number is not what it appears to be.

Another reminder of the importance of the supply chain for a good.

Here is a graphic from a French publication that nicely illustrates the importance of the regional and global supply chain for inputs that go into making an output, in this case the Honda Civic assembled in the UK/EU region.

These supply chains are very tight and help contribute to efficiencies that keep prices low(er).

It is also a nice lesson in Comparative Advantage.

Source HERE