Some of the projects China has "invested" look pretty corrupt and/or poorly thought out where the West has refused to get involved because of poor previous performance.
And one of the typical conditions of a Chinese loan is that it gets paid back first. So if a country has serious fiscal issues and it asks for aid from the West, the West will probably refuse because it'd just go to pay off China.
Ideally we'd have general debt forgiveness from all interested parties, but as far as I know China has thus far refused to join that table.
At best some of this was poorly thought out. More likely it was self serving and we'll see loan sharks-ish behavior.
The World Health Org (which includes the US) already approved this year's flavor(s) at a meeting last week. Manufacturer(s) are already starting the process to make it.
The way to bet is whatever caused the cancellation of this week's meeting is much stupider and mundane than suggested.
...headed down a dangerous path of increased executive power...
This is a statement I bring up whenever Team Blue argues we should use the Fed to force the states to do something and/or increase the size of gov's regulation and entitlements.
Is this nutpicking (i.e. in a large bureaucracy it's expected that there will be miscommunications and dropped balls when dealing with large numbers of events) or is it Trump's minions saying FU to the judge?
If it's "completely lawless" then we should find lots and lots of this sort of thing.
If it's nutpicking (or if you prefer, "never event picking") then this sort of thing has always happened, even under Biden, but we haven't paid attention to it because it's rare.
DavidTC: ...it is accompanied by _overtly bigoted decisions_...
It says a lot about the current debate that I can't tell if "bigoted" means "treating people unequally" or if "bigoted" means "insisting on treating people equally".
That last would mean, "no anti-whiteness training". DEI has the rep of promoting the idea that whites are responsible for inequality because they're white, inequality needs to be measured by outcomes, and whites need to shut up and accept the opinion of minorities on reality.
Chris: black people are approved for credit at a much lower rate.
Serious question, why is that? Modern credit practices are likely run by robots. I'd hope no one put "race" into the math model.
If I'm wrong and someone did put race in there, then that's great news because we have an easy solution
Another possibility is there is a flaw with the disparity studies.
Oh, and please source this. My one minute internet search found lots of studies but they all seemed to have the flaw that they weren't adjusting for anything.
IMHO elite colleges should be stripped of the ability to set racial quotas and we should stop pretending they don't. We outlawed this sort of thing for good reason.
The best solution is daylight.
Have colleges come up with a point system and publish it. If they want to include a "poverty" category in there, then fine but they have to document what they're defining as "poverty".
If they want to include a "discrimination" category then that needs to be "proven discrimination against that person personally" and not "group membership".
An example of what's unacceptable is Harvard's subjective "personality" test which magically all Asians don't do well on and all Blacks do.
Chris: By invoking an individual vs group rights framework, you elide all of those questions entirely, which is awfully convenient.
My framing cuts through the self serving nonsense. "Fair" should be defined at an individual level, not at a group outcomes level.
Chris: The anti-DEI folks seem to fall into two camps...
Put me in camp 3 then. Disparities exist, but that's fine and expected if they're the result of a fair system.
Different cultures have different levels of parental involvement. It is expected for the children of involved parents to do better. That's why various ideologies need to exclude cultural effects.
Similarly a gender pay gap is unacceptable if it's the result of pay discrimination but acceptable if it's the result of free choices.
Chris: group rights vs individual rights is a straw man
I disagree. The entire "structural injustices" ideology, which includes Young's work, has gotten into measuring oppression by looking at group outcomes.
They even have vast amounts of work trying to justify why they mostly can't point to individual discrimination anymore.
So we're supposed to believe Red Lining still has massive ongoing effects even though it was outlawed in 1968, however parental marriage and other cultural issues are to be ignored.
Chris: I think they’re pretty basic societal values, the sharing of which are necessary for the common ground required for conversation and in fact the basic fairness and justice,
The conflict is over whether or not group rights are more important than individual rights.
If you believe that a group has the "right" to be successful according to it's percentage of the population, then for you justice and fairness include being ok with quotas and such.
Thus opposing quotas is racist even though quotas means checking someone's skin color before deciding if they're going to go to college and so on.
This handwaves cultural impacts and individual responsibility as unimportant because the group is what matters.
If your definition of "basic societal values" is individual rights being more important than group rights, then you create a "fair" process that will have "unfair" group results.
"If you don't believe what I believe then you are a racist" is not very convincing, nor is it an answer for the legit criticism about those ideologies.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/3/2025”
It would be much easier to get and pay for Universal HC if HC were much cheaper.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/24/2025”
Road maint problems vary wildly by state. NY has massive pot holes that can't be fixed. Florida does not.
At a WAG I'd guess this is some flavor of corruption.
"
Some of the projects China has "invested" look pretty corrupt and/or poorly thought out where the West has refused to get involved because of poor previous performance.
And one of the typical conditions of a Chinese loan is that it gets paid back first. So if a country has serious fiscal issues and it asks for aid from the West, the West will probably refuse because it'd just go to pay off China.
Ideally we'd have general debt forgiveness from all interested parties, but as far as I know China has thus far refused to join that table.
At best some of this was poorly thought out. More likely it was self serving and we'll see loan sharks-ish behavior.
"
China's belt and road program gives loans, not grants. And you need to use Chinese labor and sourcing for your whatever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative#Debt_sustainability
"
The World Health Org (which includes the US) already approved this year's flavor(s) at a meeting last week. Manufacturer(s) are already starting the process to make it.
The way to bet is whatever caused the cancellation of this week's meeting is much stupider and mundane than suggested.
"
The problem with false accusations is it says more about you than about them. It also detracts from the actual problems this crew will create.
"
That's basically a rumor. We don't know what's going on.
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2025-02-28/health-experts-sound-alarm-as-fda-cancels-key-vaccine-meeting
On “In Times Without Norms, All Laws Fall Silent”
...headed down a dangerous path of increased executive power...
This is a statement I bring up whenever Team Blue argues we should use the Fed to force the states to do something and/or increase the size of gov's regulation and entitlements.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/24/2025”
Or more specifically, "several reported incidents" sounds a lot more like "reporting never events" than "FU judge".
"
Maybe a Gas leak?
"
So it's happening at about the same rate as the cops killing unarmed civilians?
"
Is this nutpicking (i.e. in a large bureaucracy it's expected that there will be miscommunications and dropped balls when dealing with large numbers of events) or is it Trump's minions saying FU to the judge?
If it's "completely lawless" then we should find lots and lots of this sort of thing.
If it's nutpicking (or if you prefer, "never event picking") then this sort of thing has always happened, even under Biden, but we haven't paid attention to it because it's rare.
"
Gene Hackman is dead: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewkkkvkzn9o
On “Musk vs Gore”
DavidTC: ...it is accompanied by _overtly bigoted decisions_...
It says a lot about the current debate that I can't tell if "bigoted" means "treating people unequally" or if "bigoted" means "insisting on treating people equally".
That last would mean, "no anti-whiteness training". DEI has the rep of promoting the idea that whites are responsible for inequality because they're white, inequality needs to be measured by outcomes, and whites need to shut up and accept the opinion of minorities on reality.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/24/2025”
Chris: black people are approved for credit at a much lower rate.
Serious question, why is that? Modern credit practices are likely run by robots. I'd hope no one put "race" into the math model.
If I'm wrong and someone did put race in there, then that's great news because we have an easy solution
Another possibility is there is a flaw with the disparity studies.
Oh, and please source this. My one minute internet search found lots of studies but they all seemed to have the flaw that they weren't adjusting for anything.
"
IMHO elite colleges should be stripped of the ability to set racial quotas and we should stop pretending they don't. We outlawed this sort of thing for good reason.
The best solution is daylight.
Have colleges come up with a point system and publish it. If they want to include a "poverty" category in there, then fine but they have to document what they're defining as "poverty".
If they want to include a "discrimination" category then that needs to be "proven discrimination against that person personally" and not "group membership".
An example of what's unacceptable is Harvard's subjective "personality" test which magically all Asians don't do well on and all Blacks do.
"
Chris: By invoking an individual vs group rights framework, you elide all of those questions entirely, which is awfully convenient.
My framing cuts through the self serving nonsense. "Fair" should be defined at an individual level, not at a group outcomes level.
Chris: The anti-DEI folks seem to fall into two camps...
Put me in camp 3 then. Disparities exist, but that's fine and expected if they're the result of a fair system.
Different cultures have different levels of parental involvement. It is expected for the children of involved parents to do better. That's why various ideologies need to exclude cultural effects.
Similarly a gender pay gap is unacceptable if it's the result of pay discrimination but acceptable if it's the result of free choices.
"
Chris: group rights vs individual rights is a straw man
I disagree. The entire "structural injustices" ideology, which includes Young's work, has gotten into measuring oppression by looking at group outcomes.
They even have vast amounts of work trying to justify why they mostly can't point to individual discrimination anymore.
So we're supposed to believe Red Lining still has massive ongoing effects even though it was outlawed in 1968, however parental marriage and other cultural issues are to be ignored.
"
Chris: I think they’re pretty basic societal values, the sharing of which are necessary for the common ground required for conversation and in fact the basic fairness and justice,
The conflict is over whether or not group rights are more important than individual rights.
If you believe that a group has the "right" to be successful according to it's percentage of the population, then for you justice and fairness include being ok with quotas and such.
Thus opposing quotas is racist even though quotas means checking someone's skin color before deciding if they're going to go to college and so on.
This handwaves cultural impacts and individual responsibility as unimportant because the group is what matters.
If your definition of "basic societal values" is individual rights being more important than group rights, then you create a "fair" process that will have "unfair" group results.
"
My company tried to force everyone to go back to the building then they realized the building wasn't big enough to hold everyone.
"
Chris: I’m saying the way GG played out... looks a lot like the way anti-DEI has played out.
I never followed GG so I lack the references.
However thus far I don't see DEI being defended on it's merits. Worse, from the times we've talked about it here, I don't think it can be.
That suggests we should simply get rid of it, no matter how many claims of "back DEI or you're racist" there are.
If that's the strongest argument, then it indicates that there is no actual argument.
"
I'm not defending GG.
I'm suggesting that there are legit problems with DEI (etc) and one can reasonably have problems with those ideologies.
"
Sure.
Maybe someone is motivated by racism when they say they think Obama's children don't need affirmative action.
However if that accusation is the only way to defend that result, then you have no argument. Ergo racist or not, they're correct.
"
He's claiming that to be [anti-“woke”, anti-“CRT,” and anti-“DEI”] you have to be pro-GG or look like that.
"
"If you don't believe what I believe then you are a racist" is not very convincing, nor is it an answer for the legit criticism about those ideologies.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.