I don't read Reich's nonsense unless someone puts it in front of me, so I have no idea what you're talking about. If you point me in the direction of whatever he said that you think vindicates him, I can explain why it doesn't.
It's important to note here that household income data for 2019 were collected in 2020, and the Census Bureau claimed at the time that some portion of the huge year-over-year increase (3 percentage points was their estimate at the time) was an artifact of problems with data collection in 2020.
That said, the rest of the decline in median household income is kind of a mystery, because median earnings didn't decline, and the labor force participation rate is only down about half a percentage point. And in Pennsylvania, CPI-adjusted median household income is actually down relative to 2015, which is certainly not the case nationally.
People who buy into Robert Reich's conspiracy theories aren't really in a position to talk down to anyone. Did gas prices come down because of Generosideflation?
Odd that it defaults to a view that makes it look like traffic citations have risen. You'd think they'd want to shout from the rooftops about their anti-racist achievement.
Reminder that "Let's Go Brandon" is a euphemism for "Fish Joe Biden."
That aside, what are you giving Biden credit for? Reappointing Powell, a Trump appointee, as Chair of the Federal Reserve? The decline in inflation is due to the Fed raising interest rates, and Biden's reckless overspending is a major part of the reason why rates had to be raised as high as they have been. Can't buy a house? Thank Joe Biden!
"For what it’s worth, my former hero Ken White at Popehat thought the university presidents had the correct philosophy, but he spent half the time pushing bogus Great Replacement Theory charges against Rep. Stefanik, who correctly criticized the mainstream 'Demographics is Destiny' argument made by people like James Carville and tied it to immigration policy."
I was never a regular Popehat reader, but I have a vaguely good impression of Ken White from ten years ago that's sticky enough that I'm still kind of surprised every time I'm reminded what a sleazebag he's become.
Huh? I'm attributing the fact that we have not done that to people who believe that homeless people have an inalienable right to live in extremely high cost of living areas.
Surely you're not suggesting that, in California, Republicans are the ones preventing the government from doing this, or anything at all? Aside from the Democratic supermajority, it's not like California and its city governments are holding back on spending---they're just spending as inefficiently as possible.
There's no such thing as "reverse rapism." Rape is penetration plus power, so it's literally impossible for Palestinians to rape Israelis. To do that they'd have to go back in time to 1948, win the war, and spend the last 75 years occupying Israel.
That's incredibly stupid wording, but the following two tweets seem reasonable:
"The Department will continue to work with any protest organizers to facilitate lawful demonstrations while protecting the safety of all involved including surrounding communities. Violence of any kind will not be tolerated"
"The Los Angeles Police Department is asking that all individuals and groups involved in protest or counter-protest activities not allow individuals who express the intent to commit violence or property to compromise the otherwise lawful demonstration."
Of course, that does take on a rather sinister tone now that we know that words are violence. Here's hoping that nobody told the LAPD.
Why would you even try to claim that those stats are true and accurate immediately after being shown that one store accurately reporting shoplifting stats for a month (or part of a month?) doubled the citywide tally of shoplifting reports for that month? This implies that retail theft is underreported by at least an order of magnitude, making the stats totally unreliable.
I think it's plausible that crime is going back down---the backlash to the crime-positive movement has started, and the incarceration rate is ticking back up---but with stats being so incomplete, they really can't be relied on for anything, especially comparisons between cities.
"When asked why the shoplifting reports had decreased again in October, Abbott said she wouldn’t be able to answer any more questions and directed The Chronicle to the Police Department as well as Target’s media team, which did not answer questions either."
For decades, the Supreme Court has been handing Democrats (and sometimes even libertarians) Constitutionally dubious (and often just blatantly unconstitutional) policy wins. As such, they feel entitled to have the Court rule in their favor. They've convinced themselves that that's obviously the right thing to do.
As they say, losing privilege feels like oppression. When people feel entitled to have the law bent to favor their own policy preferences, and equate that with good jurisprudence, of course they're going to see actual good jurisprudence---ruling on the basis of what the Constitution actually says---as illegitimate.
A few years ago, when I first heard that the Substack author with the most subscribers was a historian, I was surprised. It all made sense when I actually started reading some of her output and realized that she was just a shameless hack cashing out her credentials to give a thin veneer of credibility to midwit lefty talking points.
"the cost per homeless individual served comes out to $567 per night, or $17,009 per month."
Even in California, prison costs about half as much.
That said, we can do better still. Find cheap land in a rural area and build housing out there. Tell vagrants that they can stay there or in jail, but that they don't have the right to live on public property. The money saved can be used to provide supplies and hire staff to serve them.
Most of the problems here stem from the insane belief that people contributing less than nothing to society have an inalienable right to free housing in the top 0.1% most valuable real estate in the world.
"Marvel _comic_ fans are almost exactly split 50/50 on gender"
I'm mashing (x) pretty hard on this one. If we're talking about comics generally, including manga, well... maybe. But Marvel? What's your source on that?
Sure, that's an example. I wasn't trying to imply that there are no non-idiots who have a beef with him, just that being the richest person in the world is pretty much guaranteed to get a lot of idiots flinging their own feces at you.
That's a weird thing to say. Of course the richest man in the world is going to get sh*t from idiots. Socialists hate billionaires, and they're among the dumbest people alive. He should be worrying about the sh*t he's getting from non-idiots.
Do you think "bespoke" means "spoken well of" or held in high esteem? I assumed that for years, but it actually means custom-made. The morpheme "spoke" is in there because the specifications of custom-made goods are discussed prior to production.
I suppose you could say Tod is bespoke because he wasn't mass-produced.
The surprising part is that both of these are fairly extreme outliers given their demographics, so it's inappropriate to generalize. A city with Portland's demographics has no business having a homicide rate even half as high as city with the Bronx's demographics, yet somehow they manage, due to the Bronx greatly outperforming its demographics and Portland spectacularly underperforming.
Note that many large cities, like New Orleans, Baltimore, Detroit, Washington DC, Chicago, Memphis, and Philadelphia really do have homicide rates that are multiples of the national average. As I pointed out before, large cities actually are overrepresented among cities with the highest homicide rates, when you account for the fact that they are greatly outnumbered by small cities.
I found this surprising: In 2022, the Bronx had 131 homicides. With a population of about 1.5 million, that gives it a homicide rate of less than 9 per 100k. The same year, Portland had 101 homicides, with a population of about 640k, giving it a homicide rate of more than 15 per 100k.
Portland's homicide rate is 2/3 higher than the Bronx!
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “It’s The Economy, Stupid, But That Depends on Your Definition of “Economy””
I don't read Reich's nonsense unless someone puts it in front of me, so I have no idea what you're talking about. If you point me in the direction of whatever he said that you think vindicates him, I can explain why it doesn't.
"
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSPAA672N
It's important to note here that household income data for 2019 were collected in 2020, and the Census Bureau claimed at the time that some portion of the huge year-over-year increase (3 percentage points was their estimate at the time) was an artifact of problems with data collection in 2020.
That said, the rest of the decline in median household income is kind of a mystery, because median earnings didn't decline, and the labor force participation rate is only down about half a percentage point. And in Pennsylvania, CPI-adjusted median household income is actually down relative to 2015, which is certainly not the case nationally.
"
People who buy into Robert Reich's conspiracy theories aren't really in a position to talk down to anyone. Did gas prices come down because of Generosideflation?
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/11/2023”
I suppose that's the next best thing to actually understanding the issues.
"
Odd that it defaults to a view that makes it look like traffic citations have risen. You'd think they'd want to shout from the rooftops about their anti-racist achievement.
"
Reminder that "Let's Go Brandon" is a euphemism for "Fish Joe Biden."
That aside, what are you giving Biden credit for? Reappointing Powell, a Trump appointee, as Chair of the Federal Reserve? The decline in inflation is due to the Fed raising interest rates, and Biden's reckless overspending is a major part of the reason why rates had to be raised as high as they have been. Can't buy a house? Thank Joe Biden!
On “Demanding “Yes” or “No” On Free Speech in Higher Education”
From the "Demanding 'Yes' or 'No' On Free Speech in Higher Education," by Michael Hirschbrunnen. I think I saw a copy up at the top of this page.
"
"For what it’s worth, my former hero Ken White at Popehat thought the university presidents had the correct philosophy, but he spent half the time pushing bogus Great Replacement Theory charges against Rep. Stefanik, who correctly criticized the mainstream 'Demographics is Destiny' argument made by people like James Carville and tied it to immigration policy."
I was never a regular Popehat reader, but I have a vaguely good impression of Ken White from ten years ago that's sticky enough that I'm still kind of surprised every time I'm reminded what a sleazebag he's become.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/4/2023”
Huh? I'm attributing the fact that we have not done that to people who believe that homeless people have an inalienable right to live in extremely high cost of living areas.
Surely you're not suggesting that, in California, Republicans are the ones preventing the government from doing this, or anything at all? Aside from the Democratic supermajority, it's not like California and its city governments are holding back on spending---they're just spending as inefficiently as possible.
"
There's no such thing as "reverse rapism." Rape is penetration plus power, so it's literally impossible for Palestinians to rape Israelis. To do that they'd have to go back in time to 1948, win the war, and spend the last 75 years occupying Israel.
"
That's incredibly stupid wording, but the following two tweets seem reasonable:
"The Department will continue to work with any protest organizers to facilitate lawful demonstrations while protecting the safety of all involved including surrounding communities. Violence of any kind will not be tolerated"
"The Los Angeles Police Department is asking that all individuals and groups involved in protest or counter-protest activities not allow individuals who express the intent to commit violence or property to compromise the otherwise lawful demonstration."
Of course, that does take on a rather sinister tone now that we know that words are violence. Here's hoping that nobody told the LAPD.
"
Why would you even try to claim that those stats are true and accurate immediately after being shown that one store accurately reporting shoplifting stats for a month (or part of a month?) doubled the citywide tally of shoplifting reports for that month? This implies that retail theft is underreported by at least an order of magnitude, making the stats totally unreliable.
I think it's plausible that crime is going back down---the backlash to the crime-positive movement has started, and the incarceration rate is ticking back up---but with stats being so incomplete, they really can't be relied on for anything, especially comparisons between cities.
"
"When asked why the shoplifting reports had decreased again in October, Abbott said she wouldn’t be able to answer any more questions and directed The Chronicle to the Police Department as well as Target’s media team, which did not answer questions either."
"
For decades, the Supreme Court has been handing Democrats (and sometimes even libertarians) Constitutionally dubious (and often just blatantly unconstitutional) policy wins. As such, they feel entitled to have the Court rule in their favor. They've convinced themselves that that's obviously the right thing to do.
As they say, losing privilege feels like oppression. When people feel entitled to have the law bent to favor their own policy preferences, and equate that with good jurisprudence, of course they're going to see actual good jurisprudence---ruling on the basis of what the Constitution actually says---as illegitimate.
"
A few years ago, when I first heard that the Substack author with the most subscribers was a historian, I was surprised. It all made sense when I actually started reading some of her output and realized that she was just a shameless hack cashing out her credentials to give a thin veneer of credibility to midwit lefty talking points.
"
"the cost per homeless individual served comes out to $567 per night, or $17,009 per month."
Even in California, prison costs about half as much.
That said, we can do better still. Find cheap land in a rural area and build housing out there. Tell vagrants that they can stay there or in jail, but that they don't have the right to live on public property. The money saved can be used to provide supplies and hire staff to serve them.
Most of the problems here stem from the insane belief that people contributing less than nothing to society have an inalienable right to free housing in the top 0.1% most valuable real estate in the world.
On “Rule of Tod Video Roundup”
"Marvel _comic_ fans are almost exactly split 50/50 on gender"
I'm mashing (x) pretty hard on this one. If we're talking about comics generally, including manga, well... maybe. But Marvel? What's your source on that?
"
Sure, that's an example. I wasn't trying to imply that there are no non-idiots who have a beef with him, just that being the richest person in the world is pretty much guaranteed to get a lot of idiots flinging their own feces at you.
"
That's a weird thing to say. Of course the richest man in the world is going to get sh*t from idiots. Socialists hate billionaires, and they're among the dumbest people alive. He should be worrying about the sh*t he's getting from non-idiots.
"
Do you think "bespoke" means "spoken well of" or held in high esteem? I assumed that for years, but it actually means custom-made. The morpheme "spoke" is in there because the specifications of custom-made goods are discussed prior to production.
I suppose you could say Tod is bespoke because he wasn't mass-produced.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/27/2023”
Won't somebody think of the teachers' unions?
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/20/2023”
Is perceived likelihood of reoffending a factor in whether pretrial release is offered at all?
"
Oof:
"I’m not a 'leftist' I’m a communist. And communism is the only force that can liberate LGBTQ+ people."
Well, you know what they say. If you're a socialist at 30, you don't have a brain, and if you're not a socialist at 20...you do.
"
The surprising part is that both of these are fairly extreme outliers given their demographics, so it's inappropriate to generalize. A city with Portland's demographics has no business having a homicide rate even half as high as city with the Bronx's demographics, yet somehow they manage, due to the Bronx greatly outperforming its demographics and Portland spectacularly underperforming.
Note that many large cities, like New Orleans, Baltimore, Detroit, Washington DC, Chicago, Memphis, and Philadelphia really do have homicide rates that are multiples of the national average. As I pointed out before, large cities actually are overrepresented among cities with the highest homicide rates, when you account for the fact that they are greatly outnumbered by small cities.
"
I found this surprising: In 2022, the Bronx had 131 homicides. With a population of about 1.5 million, that gives it a homicide rate of less than 9 per 100k. The same year, Portland had 101 homicides, with a population of about 640k, giving it a homicide rate of more than 15 per 100k.
Portland's homicide rate is 2/3 higher than the Bronx!
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.