A "Pro-Life Hero"? Trump Becomes First President To Speak At 'March For Life'
Trump is leaving the Democrats the moral swamps and morasses. At a time when the Democrats are becoming known as the party of liars and dilettants, this is a spectacularly good move. The Millennials and Gen Z are both far more conservative than are the Boomers or Gen X. They have yet to come around to the idea that abortion is a moral evil, but this is mostly because Gen Z is so young. As they age, they will likely follow their generation members towards a more conservative worldview. After all, Millennials have been far more willing to marry and stay married than were the Boomers. And the younger generations are generally more grounded than the Boomers were at the same time in their lives. The real difference is the Boomers live high because their past generations were frugal, careful, and willing to sacrifice to create and build infrastructure which the Boomers and later generations could use to leverage their wealth and lifestyles. The Boomers are the opposite, choosing to not even maintain the preexisting infrastructure and failing to pay for simple things like their own taxes, pensions, medical care and far more. The result is that the Boomers benefited financially and economically from both prior and later generations and paid far less than they should have paid into the system. The Me! generation shows the most shocking unalloyed selfishness and greediness of any generation in human history. They have the morality of ally cats and the fiscal responsibility of a grifter with a found wallet stuffed with money. Boomers need for the Millennials and Gen Z to remain indoctrinated, stupid, and aligned with the deeply corrupt progressive model. If that happens and the Boomers die out before the Millenials, and Gen Z discovers the grift, the Boomers win. If not, the Boomers lose. Dear Millennials and Gen Z, WAKE THE F#@$ UP!!!!! Don't stop with the moral grifts, you will also need to look at the financial grifts, and the great grifts like socialism (your new serfdom), environmentalism (see socialism), and climate catastrophism (see socialism x2).
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Why The Coronavirus Is A Real Threat To Oil Markets
There is no reason for oil prices to be where they have been for the past many years. The oil bulls have been Jonesing for a price run. They have failed and only triggered minor price bubbles, not a major bubble or a real price run. Optimistically, this will finally put the stake through the heart of the oil bulls. The real problem is the Federal Reserve Banks' money pumping. This easy money is what is driving the myriad price bubbles we see today, whether oil, metals, or housing. We have been fortunate that the Feds dereliction of duty has only been able to blow bubbles in the commodities markets and not trigger large scale inflation. I lived through the 70s Stagflation, it is not something to repeat. We should not see a repeat of Stagflation or inflation, our population is too old now, and the young people are too debt riven to pursue family formation, housing, and all of the rest, which would allow general inflation or Stagflation to take hold. The Coronavirus is terrible and dangerous. The dense living in China will continue to spin off these deadly viruses. The CCP's inability to admit a problem until it has become serious is a real problem for world health. All of this will trigger more discussions on decoupling from China (we should), and whether density is the right direction. It is not, the city was a mistake. The Big (Senate) Sleep: "Please God, Hurl A Lightning Bolt At The Podium..."
The Dems keep sawing on the trunk of the tree of the Democratic Party. Deadpool on how long before the tree topples?! Comments are open. So Long, California? Goodbye, Texas? Taxpayers Decide Some States Aren’t Worth It
California, New York, Illinois are all dying due to high taxes, and foolish political policies which manufacture the problems they putatively seek to solve. I have two brothers living in California. One can hardly swing a cat without hitting someone who is planning to leave California due to the abusive tax rates and awful political direction of the state. The real problem is whether those leaving will understand that it is the voters of the state who have created the problem. The politicians were just the messengers of the voters. The only way this will work is if the voters leaving either do not vote in their new homes or if they adopt, at a minimum, the voting predilections of the people of their new home state. It's you voters, stupid! NY Governor Andrew Cuomo Named 2019 U-Haul Salesman Of The Year
The question - who can destroy their state through mass exodus first? Boy howdy, I would be hard-pressed to bet on either one in this deathmatch, they are that closely matched! Greta Thunberg: 'Immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction'
Greta, you have no experience, no knowledge, no understanding of the facts, no understanding of the alternative or the economic analysis necessary to evaluate the alternatives, but you are a climate cultist, so why should anyone listen to you? Plus, you are little more than the bossy 6-year-old harridan who used to annoy the high school kids at the bus stop each morning before school. Please go away now, or I might be forced to trim your sails. I do like how she shows up at events sponsored by and filled with progressives and socialists and proceeds to yell at them for their climate sins. Good, they deserve to be yelled at by a child for believing nonsense that even children have begun to see through. Time gave this pompous twit its person of the year cover. I know, Time is still a thing? What about the Hong Kong protesters Time? But then Time has outed itself as a mouthpiece for tyrannical totalitarians, not for those yearning for liberty. The progressive left has let the cat out of the bag; they are tyrannical totalitarians. Warren's Joe the Plumber moment
"We are fortunate to have video (below) of a great “Joe the Plumber” moment (as Megan Fox calls it at PJ Media) earlier this week featuring Elizabeth Warren on the campaign trail in Grimes, Iowa. The Daily Caller reports on its here and The Hill here After waiting in line to get his moment with Warren, a voter “vent[ed] frustration that her promise to wipe out student loan debt would not reimburse him for the tuition that he’d already paid,” as The Hill report has it. I would put it slightly differently. I would say he wondered if Warren understood that her proposal would make him a chump of the first order. “My daughter is in school,” the man said, as captured in The Hill’s transcription of the exchange. “I saved all my money just to pay my student loans. Can I have my money back?” “Of course not,” Warren responded. “So you want to help those who don’t save any money and the ones that do the right thing get screwed?” he responded. The Hill notes that the man cited his friend who makes more money than he does and, instead of paying off his loans, bought a car and went on expensive vacations. “I saved my money,” the man said. “He made more than I did. I worked a double shift, worked extra … so you’re laughing at me.” “No I’m not,” Warren responded. “Yes that’s exactly what you’re doing,” the man said. “We did the right thing and we get screwed.” That is a sentiment that is widely applicable to the Democrats’ policy proposals." It is easy to buy the votes of the profligate, harder to buy the votes of hard-working savers. Democrats understand this and make the most of it. Perhaps the problem is that Congress created this student loan problem and would like to fix it by bandaid so it can be fixed again next year. Perhaps these are not the politicians you are looking to elect! Iowa dad gets into heated row with Elizabeth Warren over student loans
Congress created this mess, and deserves to be hounded, and harassed because of their hubris. The cure is less government largesse, not more as Warren seems to think. Once a community enacts urban containment policies and home prices begin to rise, it becomes impossible to undo the damage. The homeowners quickly believe that the new prices which are inflated by the artificial lack of supply are the "real" value of the home. This makes it all but impossible for these homeowners to accept the elimination of the urban containment policy and the resultant home price depreciation, which will follow. This is compounded by the fact that these homeowners will often use their homes as collateral to borrow money, making the loss of value deeply problematic. The initial result of the urban containment policies are home price appreciation, and unaffordability, Portland finds itself in this phase. Later as the unaffordability becomes acute, a harsh boom and bust cycle take hold where property values run to unacceptably high levels, then implode and then start again; this is where the large Calfornia markets find themselves today. The last phase is best seen as Detroitization, where the market has chased out all of the rational people due to the boom/bust cycle and the inability of businesses to pay sufficient wages to support homeownership. At this point, the market faces a permanent decline in collapse, with home prices falling to near zero. If the tech boom in California falters, housing prices in California are likely to collapse. If Tech cannot regain its footing, the housing markets in California are likely to implode. Standard of Living Crisis Evident in New Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey | Newgeography.com "One of the principal advances of the past two centuries has been the drastic reduction in poverty and the rise of a large middle-class, a process expertly detailed by economists Diedre McClosky and Robert Gordon. At the heart of this trend was the increase in the homeownership rate among the rapidly growing metropolitan population, which increasingly located in the suburbs, where land and houses were less expensive per square foot and which had good access to jobs, shopping and recreation. For 16 years, the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey has rated housing affordability for metropolitan areas (which are both housing and employment markets) in multiple nations. Genuine analysis of housing affordability requires consideration of house prices in relation to household incomes. The Demographia Survey uses the Median Multiple, the median house price divided by the median household income to rate housing affordability (Figure 1). This article summarizes the 16th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, including extracts. This year’s survey also includes an introduction featuring Singapore’s innovative and successful housing policy (“Focus on Singapore,” (Note 1) and a report on housing affordability in Russia (Note 2). Housing Affordability in 2019 The Demographia Survey indicates that housing affordability has generally deteriorated over the last three decades in the 8 nations covered. By contrast, as late as three decades ago, (Figure 2) the national Median Multiples were “affordable” (3.0 or less) in six of the nations (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States). Nonetheless, 10 of the 92 major markets remain affordable, all of them in the United States (Figure 4). The affordable major housing markets include Rochester, with a Median Multiple of 2.5, followed by Oklahoma City and Cleveland (2.7), Buffalo, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and St. Louis (2.8), Indianapolis and Hartford (2.9) and Tulsa (3.0). The least affordable metropolitan areas, however, there has been considerable house price escalation relative to incomes, which has been associated with urban containment regulation. There are 31 severely unaffordable major housing markets in 2019 out of a total of 92 (Figure 5). Hong Kong is the least affordable, with a Median Multiple of 20.8. Vancouver is second least affordable major housing market, with a Median Multiple of 11.9. Sydney ranks third least affordable, at 11.0, followed by Melbourne, at 9.5 and Los Angeles, at 9.0. Toronto and Auckland are tied for sixth least affordable, at a Median Multiple of 8.6. San Jose has a Median Multiple of 8.5 and San Francisco 8.4. London (Greater London Authority) has a Median Multiple of 8.2 and is the 10th least affordable major market. The deterioration in housing affordability has made it nearly impossible for middle-income households to purchase the median price home, at least in the most unaffordable metropolitan areas. For example, in the United States, middle-income households (in the second through fourth income quartiles) did not have sufficient income in 2017 to qualify for a mortgage on the median priced house under typical financial terms in San Jose and Honolulu. Only top quintile (high-income) households qualified. The situation is nearly as dire in the San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego metropolitan areas (Figure 6).
The Standard of Living Crisis This housing affordability crisis is really a standard of living crisis, since the higher costs of living in the expensive metropolitan areas are largely attributable to higher housing costs (Figure 8). This conclusion is supported by the analysis of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in its recent report, Under Pressure: The Squeezed Middle-Class. OECD finds that the middle-class faces ever rising costs relative to incomes and that its survival is threatened. Again, the cost of housing is the issue. According to OECD, “Housing has been the main driver of rising middle-class expenditure.” Further, OECD notes that that the largest housing cost increases are in the costs of ownership, rather than rents. The middle class used to be an aspiration. For many generations it meant the assurance of living in a comfortable house and affording a rewarding lifestyle, thanks to a stable job with career opportunities. It was also a basis from which families aspired to an even better future for their children. At the macro level, the presence of a strong and prosperous middle class supports healthy economies and societies. Through their consumption, investment in education, health, and housing, their support for good quality public services, their intolerance of corruption, and their trust in others and in democratic institutions they are the very foundations of inclusive growth. However, there are now signs that this bedrock of our democracies and economic growth is not as stable as in the past. The report further noted that households of the millennial generation are being “squeezed out of the ranks of the middle class” in advanced economies around the world.OECD expresses concern that “there are now signs that this bedrock of our democracies and economic growth is not as stable as in the past.” Adult Children to be Less Affluent than Parents An important characteristic of the historic transition to middle-income affluence has been that children have generally had higher incomes than their parents. In his The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth, Harvard University economist Benjamin Friedman expresses the issue: …what matters most is not so much how people’s incomes and living standards compare to the year before or even the year before that but whether the average citizen can see the evidence of progress over the last decade or even over the last generation: whether people have a sense of getting ahead compared to how their parents live, and whether their experience gives them confidence that their children will do even better. Yet, consistent with OECD’s findings, there are indications that this is no longer the case in (at least) the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and elsewhere. A recent United Kingdom study indicates that millennials will be the first generation to be worse off than their parents since the 1800s. National economies have already been injured. In talking about his nation’s housing affordability problem, New Zealand’s Minister of Urban Development Phil Twyford referred to “the consequences of this market dysfunction have had a harmful systemic effect on the health of our urban economies.” Similar points have been made on the consequences of restrictive land use regulation on national economies and inequality, such as by Herkenhoff, Ohanian and Prescott (2017), and Hseih and Moretti (2015) as well as by La Cava (2016). Facilitating better standards of living should constitute the principal domestic policy priority. This requires urban policy that focuses on “people rather than places,” as Paul C. Cheshire, Max Nathan and Henry G. Overman of the London School of Economics have posited. Planning requirements that undermine prosperity need to be eliminated. It took millennia to create the incomparably broad prosperity of the modern middle-class. Where a prosperous middle-class remains it is worth preserving and where it has been lost it should be restored. 16th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey. Note 1: The Introduction, “Focus on Singapore,” describes that nation’s more than half-century commitment to ensuring middle-income housing affordability. The lesson of Singapore for the world is not so much the intricacies of its housing market design. Rather, it is that Singapore pro-actively and successfully prioritized affordable home ownership for its citizens, and developed means to accomplish that objective based upon its unique conditions. Note 2: The Demographia Survey summarizes data from a report by The Institute for Urban Economics (IUE) in Moscow Housing affordability in the major Russian metropolitan areas:3rd quarter 2019. IUE finds that two of the 17 metropolitan areas have Median Multiples that are seriously unaffordable, three that are moderately unaffordable and 12 that are affordable. The median market has a Median Multiple of 2.6. Moscow, now Europe’s largest metropolitan area with 17 million population, has a Median Multiple of 4.2." |
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