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Great post. Couple of reactions:
- At some point, the government will take the Willie Sutton approach to tax,; e.g., wealth is where the money is. Someone like AOC, Bernie, Zohran is going to get elected to a position of power.
- The system is working pretty well. Total value of all American assets (corp/ personal/government) is over $200 trillion. Total liabilities, including unfunded obligations (not social security) is estimated at $93.8 trillion.
- We do have a spending problem, to the point that it encourages support of nonproductive members of society. 200 years ago, those people were incapable and ceased to exist. Today, those people migrate to wherever they will be best treated; ergo, 1/3rd of the nation’s homeless live in California, the best economy in the USA by far, and would be fourth best in the world if it were its own country.
As AI develops, it is going to stripmine the white-collar workforce at some very high levels, seriously. My profession, the legal profession, is tailor-made for this devastation.
The only thing that is holding back the pervasive and successful replacement of lawyers by artificial intelligence is…marketing.
Even without AI, the legal environment is finite. We have a finite number of laws, courts, judges, rules, etc. They change, but slowly.
AI can interpret them instantaneously — at about a paralegal’s level at this point.
There are two major drawbacks to AI. First, unfortunately, it comes with hallucinations. It gets a lot of things wrong. It misinterprets, under- or over-analyzes. Basically, it knows enough to be dangerous.
Second, it isn’t advanced enough, not yet. It can draft a contract, but it can’t review, edit or finalize a contract. It’s not there yet.
Marketing, for lawyers, has one goal and one goal only. It isn’t to position the firm as a good option, or a great option, or even the best option. It is to frame the firm as the only option.
This is quite a trick when legal training, the courts, the judges, the laws are all finite, researchable and easily understood by those well trained. And we marketers have to convince a client that our lawyers are the only ones on planet Earth who can understand the applicable laws and draw up the right strategy.
The effective outcome is that clients don’t force law firms to compete. Between 79% and 87% of all clients select law firms without requesting a competitive event. Competition alone would cut legal fees by 1/3rd. Clients leave a ridiculous amount of money on the table, and they don’t have to. Law firms have no conscience when it comes to stripping fees from clients.
One good sign: the very largest firms are aggressively working towards the day when AI replaces 85% of what lawyers do. They are building AI tools that the other firms can’t afford to do. Once they come to the realization that they can gain market share and keep their ridiculous profits while they become more efficient — a very Silicon Valley approach — then it’s game over for 3/4ths of all law firms.
Meh. 🙂 An attractive young lady interviewed for an admin job (20 years ago.) I thought her email address looked like a web address. Yep- Full on lingerie model. Fortunately, she disqualified herself by answering her cell phone a second time after I asked her to turn it off during the interview. Thinking back to my first office job in ’73, micro minis were a thing. 🙂
Even my Second Wave Feminist diehard mother wore those back then. She’d be about thirty at the time.
And the dollar has dropped like a rock, not surprisingly. Makes our imports more expensive and our exports more affordable overseas. Thing will be more expensive if you travel overseas, but more Americans want to stay put…it’s a dangerous world.
7% total drop against a basket of international currencies, leading banks are estimating a further 10% drop.
The US dollar is on track for its worst year in modern history | Semafor
June jobs report was a robust 147,000 jobs added.
June jobs report shows 147,000 jobs added; unemployment dips to 4.1%
Here’s an interesting new poll by Emerson College, conducted in two separate tranches of between 2,000 and 2,400 CA voters. Kamala Harris has 95% name recognition among California voters. She is still the preferred favorite, but of just 24% of the voters.
The next most widely recognized name is, fundamentally, nobody. The name recognition for the other candidates is minimal, no one else has more than 9% support; e.g., Rick Caruso (ran against Karen Bass for mayor), Xavier Becerra, Katie Porter from Orange County, Eleni Kounalakis. 40% say they aren’t sure.
In other words, it’s a wide open field. And for someone with such wide name recognition, Harris is not a preferred candidate.
A separate Morning Consult poll conducted with 1,000 voters reveals Harris to be the leader for the 2028 Dem ticket with 34% support. Buttigieg is the leader in a separate Emerson survey.
Could Kamala Harris lose California gubernatorial race? What new poll says
TIPP is the only polling company to identify the winners of the last six consecutive presidential elections. In their most recent poll, Trump’s approval rating has improved by three points, from 42% to 45%.
Donald Trump’s approval rating reverses course with most accurate pollster
Bondi fires three prosecutors involved with the January 6 prosecution.
Pam Bondi Axes Jan. 6 Prosecutors in ‘Horrifying’ Purge – DNyuz
On the one hand, I don’t like politically targeted grief, either on the right or left. On the other hand, I’ve seen so many people fired for specious reason in private, it seems to me that it would be unfair for government employees to have complete employment security. Shouldn’t they be able to enjoy the capricious whim of getting fired by some a-hole? Those of us in private certainly do.
BTW, I don’t like the word “horrifying” unless you apply it equally across the political spectrum.
Apparently, Democratic donors based in California are worried that Kamala will do to California’s Democrats what she did to the Nation’s Democrats.
Great story, Beeg Dawg. Good question, too, and I remember thinking the same thing at that age.
My dad used to say “If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you will always have Paul’s vote.” So Mamdani is calling for:
- Free buses
- Free child care
- City owned grocery stores
- Rent freeze
- Defunding the police
And he’s going to pay for all of this with tax increases on corporations and the wealthy. Governor Kathy Hochul has already said “no” to these tax increases, BTW.
The typical voter doesn’t understand that they’ll ultimately pay for it, they just hear “free stuff.” And Cuomo and Adams and Sliwa will split the anti-Mamdani vote.
Zohran Mamdani on Why He Beat Cuomo and What Happens Next
Billionaires don’t like the 33-year-old socialist, what a surprise.
Zohran Mamdani and the Total Freak-out of NYC Power Brokers
The city’s 350,000 millionaires and 123 billionaires are threatening to move:
Why millionaires are planning to escape from New York
Buttigieg is ahead of Harris in the most recent Emerson College poll, 16% to 14%. In November, 2024, Harris was ahead of Buttigieg 37% to 4%.
Results:
- Buttigieg, 16%
- Harris, 13%
- Newsom, 12%
- AOC, 7%
- Shapiro, 7%
- Bernie Sanders, 5%
- Cory Booker, 3%
- Gretchen Whitmer, 3%
A McLaughlin poll in May had Harris ahead 29% to 10%. A Morning Consult poll last week had Harris at 34% with Newsom at 11% and Buttigieg at 7%.
There has been mixed economic news recently. GDP is down, but jobless claims fell and durable orders soared.
Jobless claims fall, GDP revised lower, durables orders soar | Watch
Here’s an article on a recent focus group which indicates that 80% of workers are scared sxxtless about the economy, and 90% of respondents think the politicians are in bed with rich folks.
Diverse focus groups surface pervasive economic pessimism | Semafor
In Newsom’s budget, there is a $750 million tax break for fabulously wealthy Hollywood, so…the survey was right. Politicians are in bed with rich folks.
California Reaches $321 Billion Budget Deal Boosting Hollywood
The budget eliminates Medi-Cal coverages for popular drugs, and other steps to balance the budget by targeting the poor and middle class. It will also draw down the rainy day budget and borrow from future years.
The big question…will AOC take Chuck Schumer’s seat or the Presidency in 2028?
Zohran Mamdani’s upset over Andrew Cuomo fuels AOC 2028 buzz
Who controlled the autopen? The woman who actually executed the process was interviewed for five hours on the topic. She doesn’t know who made the final decisions, whether it was a non compos mentis President Biden, or someone on his inner circle:
He’s being described as the new Democratic star, this additional splinter on the Left. I’ll say this for him: affordability/rising cost of living is the right message. Dems have had a tin ear on that topic for a very long time, not surprising given that their six key constituencies (Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, law firms, academia, the media) don’t really care about the economy or inflation’s impact on the little people.
My sister is a diehard Socialist, she feels quite strongly that it is the only moral social/economic/political platform. She’s quite clear that she’s not a Communist and states that “real” Socialism has never been tried.
We were discussing capitalism vs. socialism in front of my eight year old, and he asked what the difference was. This was the conversation, not paraphrased:
ME: Capital is money. We use money to invest in designing products and services that people purchase. People have the choice as to which to buy, and they buy the better products/services, so society continually improves. And how much money you make depends on three things: your talent, a little bit of luck, and how hard you work. That last part is most important.
SIS: That’s all great, but Socialism is MUCH better. Remember when you were in kindergarten and everyone got the same thing? That’s Socialism. Everyone gets the same thing, and everyone cooperates and no one is jealous. Everyone does the job they want to do.
8 YEAR OLD: So…no matter how hard I work, I would get the same money?
SIS: That’s right!
8 YEAR OLD: Then why would I work hard?
SIS: (Long soliloquy on the joys of proletarian cooperation, etc.)
8 YEAR OLD: I’d rather just work hard and make a lot of money.
If an eight year old can destroy your political argument, your system probably won’t work…
