Category Archives: Economics

Business, Economics, Education, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Alexandria O-C

11 Comments

The unserious face of an unserious moment:

Speaking to a friendly Trevor Noah, Ocasio-Cortez revealed that she does not know the difference between a one-year and a ten-year budget; confused the recent increase in defense spending with the entire annual cost of the military; implied that the population of the United States was around 800 million strong; and, having been asked to defend her coveted $15 minimum wage, launched into a rambling and inscrutable diatribe about “private equity” firms that would have been a touch too harsh as a parody on South Park. If anything, she was worse this time than she had been during her appearance on Firing Line a few days earlier, on which newly revamped show she demonstrated her obliviousness to the fact that the United States economy exploded during the 1990s, to the manner in which unemployment numbers are calculated, and to even the most obvious facets of the Israel–Palestine question about which she has assured her supporters she is so passionate.

“It’s really weird!”

It is, yes. Especially given that, before her two interviews aired, Ocasio-Cortez had taken to exhibiting that jealous penchant for credentialism that so stains the world’s wannabe socialists, and to boasting about her intellectual prowess. At the beginning of July, she tweeted with self-satisfaction — and a noticeably premature use of the word “other” — that she was “Wondering how many other House Democrats have a degree in Economics like I do?” Two days later, she upgraded that claim: “If you think the GOP is terrified of my politics now,” she threatened on Twitter, “just wait until they find out about public libraries.” Just wait, indeed! From a BA from BU to the embodiment of all human knowledge in just 48 hours! At this rate it can’t be long before she gives it all up and becomes an honorary Krassenstein Brother: “We are the way, the truth, and the light. Retweet if you love Love and hate Trump!”

And as Stephen Green notes: “Graduated fourth in her class at Boston University, which costs $72,618 annually to attend.”

She’s a poster child for the high-cost worthlessness of a modern college degree.

[Update a while later]

Are people really this stupid? Well, they’re certainly mal-educated.

[Update a few minutes later]

Millennial socialism: Stupid, evil, or both?

[Update a while later]

The media rushes to protect Alexandria O-C from her own cluelessness.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Milton Friedman

1 Comment

Happy birthday, with some thoughts from Gail Heriot:

His mother—Sarah Ethel Landau Friedman—emigrated from Carpathian Ruthenia (a flea-bitten part of what was then considered the Kingdom of Hungary) when she was 14. She started out working as a seamstress in a sweatshop—an opportunity she was delighted to have. She later went into business with her husband in a dry goods store and an ice cream parlor (both of which she ran). Contrast that with John Maynard Keynes’s upbringing in a prominent British family. His mother, Florence Ada Keynes, who, like Sarah, was a formidable woman, is most often referred to as a “social reformer” or a “politician.”

Yes, what if?

Economics, General Science, Law, Media Criticism, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Terraforming Mars

20 Comments

There’s not enough CO2 there. Doesn’t seem like a problem to me; just import carbon and oxygen (and hydrogen) from carbonaceous asteroids in the belt. And of course, they have to throw this in:

If you believe it’s possible to terraform Mars, you also must believe in human-caused climate change, because it’s the same process. Even if it’s impossible to terraform Mars, it’s clearly possible to areoform the mid-latitudes of Earth. Because people are doing it.

Ummmmm…no. We’re not.

Meanwhile, Tim Fernholz says we’re going to have to be careful to not contaminate the water there.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The Hollowing Out Of The American Dream

5 Comments

…in California:

For generations, California’s racial minorities, like their Caucasian counterparts, embraced the notion of an American Dream that included owning a house. Unlike kids from wealthy families—primarily white—who can afford elite educations and can sometimes purchase houses with parental help, Latinos and blacks, usually without much in the way of family resources, are increasingly priced out of the market. In California, Hispanics and blacks face housing prices that are approximately twice the national average, relative to income. Unsurprisingly, African-American and Hispanic homeownership rates have dropped considerably more than those of Asians and whites—four times the rate in the rest of the country. California’s white homeownership rate remains above 62 percent, but just 42 percent of all Latino households, and only 33 percent of all black households, own their own homes.

In contrast, African-Americans do far better, in terms of income and homeownership, in places like Dallas-Fort Worth or greater Houston than in socially enlightened locales such as Los Angeles or San Francisco. Houston and Dallas boast black homeownership rates of 40 to 50 percent; in deep blue but much costlier Los Angeles and New York, the rate is about 10 percentage points lower.

Rather than achieving upward class mobility, many minorities in California have fallen down the class ladder. This can be seen in California’s overcrowding rate, the nation’s second-worst. Of the 331 zip codes making up the top 1 percent of overcrowded zip codes in the U.S., 134 are found in Southern California, primarily in greater Los Angeles and San Diego, mostly concentrated around heavily Latino areas such as Pico-Union, East Los Angeles, and Santa Ana, in Orange County.

The lack of affordable housing and the disappearance of upward mobility could create a toxic racial environment for California. By the 2030s, large swaths of the state, particularly along the coast, could evolve into a geriatric belt, with an affluent, older boomer population served by a largely minority service-worker class. As white and Asian boomers age, California increasingly will have to depend on children from mainly poorer families with fewer educational resources, living in crowded and even unsanitary conditions, often far from their place of employment, to work for low wages.

I would encourage Mike Schellenberger to work with the Cox campaign to oust Newsome and the entire corrupt “woke” CA establishment, by pointing out the insanity of the state’s energy policies, that hit minorities the hardest. A Cox win would be a political bombshell.