The Romantic Idea of a Plentiful Past Is Pure Fantasy - "Jason Hickel from the University of London rejected the generally-accepted estimate of reduction in absolute poverty “from 94 percent in 1820 to only 10 percent today.” In “Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing. He couldn’t be more wrong,” Hickel critiqued academics, like Max Roser from Oxford University and Steven Pinker from Harvard University, journalists, like Nick Kristof from The New York Times and philanthropists, like Bill Gates, for suggesting that “global extension of free-market capitalism has been great for everyone.”... Hickel’s critique of the claim that absolute poverty in the world has drastically declined over the last 200 years rests on his belief that monetary income overestimates poverty in the past, when people enjoyed a lot of non-monetary benefits “from abundant commons” (more on that below) and underestimates poverty today. Incremental growth of income at the bottom of the global income ladder (the absolute poverty level is set at $1.90 per person per day), Hickel contends, falls far short of what’s needed for human flourishing. As such, he prefers poverty measure of at least $7.40 per person per day... I wish to focus on Hickel’s assertion that people in the past didn’t need money “in order to live well.” In fact, lives of ordinary Western Europeans prior to the Industrial Revolution were dismal and fully in accord with Roser’s definition of “absolute poverty.” Put differently, poverty was widespread and it was precisely the onset of industrialization and global trade that Hickel bemoans, which led to poverty alleviation first in the West and then in the Rest... Up to the 19th century, poor people wore woolen clothes and underclothes that itched and did not wash easily. That practice or, to be more precise, necessity, exacerbated the across-the-board problem of poor hygiene. Lest we forget, most people lived, and slept with, their domestic animals, including chickens, cows and pigs (to guard the livestock from thieves and predators). Eggs, milk and occasional meat enriched the usually bland diet of bread, and animal waste was needed to fertilize crops. The dangers inherent in using waste as fertilizer were compounded by the fact that people seldom washed their hands and clothes. That led to epidemics, and contributed to sky-high mortality rates among our ancestors. As late as the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, during which 55,000 men were either killed or wounded, the dead soldiers were stripped before burial. Why would anyone bother stripping the dead, when every hour increased the danger of putrefaction and spread of disease? The most likely reason for the practice was that clothing was still very expensive and the uniforms were washed, patched up and reused. Jules Michelet, a 19th century French historian, who was a ferocious critic of capitalism, was honest enough to recognize the material benefits of the Industrial Revolution... Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were no less fawning with regard to the material improvements taking place all around them"
Richard Hanania on X - "Unions don't like Elon Musk, so the Swedish post office won't deliver Tesla license plates, and the port workers won't unload the car you paid for. We all know that Europeans are poorer than Americans. But it must be demoralizing to have your life controlled by these thugs."
Meme - Matt Huang @matthuang: "Stocks are worth $100. Print a lot of money, stocks are now worth $200. Tax the unrealized gain of $100. Rinse, repeat"
Sparky Wilson @SparkyWilson3: "Your house is worth $200,000. Print a lot of money, your house is now worth $400,000. Tax the unrealized gain of $200,000. You don't have that kind of cash. Blackrock buys your house at auction."
Of course, the left wing solution is to exempt owner-occupied property from taxes on unrealised gains, then to complain about loopholes (e.g. family members owning property)
Opinion: It’s no coincidence we have shortages in the most regulated sectors of our economy - "housing, health care, and childcare all rank near the top of the public policy agenda... they’re all cases of a persistent supply-demand gap that’s leading to shortages and in turn driving up prices or producing long wait lists... Take childcare. The economist Pierre Fortin, for instance, has described how after the introduction of $10 per day daycare in Quebec, spaces in non-subsidized care (which, together with non-centre based care, still make up the majority of spaces in the province) “understandably crumbled” as a result of the province’s intervention... policy interventions such as stringent land-use restrictions, strict licensing requirements for childcare, and prohibitions on the use of private clinics have both muted the signaling device and blocked those who can still faintly hear it from responding by building more homes or creating more childcare spaces or carrying out more surgeries... In order to make these decisions in an evidence-based and rigorous manner, however, policymakers must understand the inherent trade-offs and how the public thinks about them. Yet so much of the campaign debates about housing, health care, and childcare seems to neglect these trade-offs. This matters because many of those who argued for existing interventions now want another round of policy interventions to account for the costs imposed by the previous ones. The layering of interventions on top of interventions fails to grapple with the root causes of the problem. It reflects a weird myopia where people can’t seem to see the full consequences of their policy preferences."
Of course, the left wing solution is more regulation
Billions at stake as Doug Ford government prepares to change booze retailing in Ontario : toronto
The Ford government is about to change booze retailing in Ontario. Billions of dollars are at stake | CBC News : ontario
The comments are interesting. So many left wingers hate competition and choice and love monopolies. Though I'm sure part of this has to do with their hatred for Doug Ford
A new study by Minneapolis staff says what we have been saying all along about rent control - "When both Minneapolis and St. Paul proposed rent control on their ballots in 2021, American Experiment recommended voting against those proposals, citing the harmful consequences of rent control. Specifically, our report concluded that in the places where it has been enacted, second-generation rent control — also commonly known as rent stabilization — has only managed to
Reduce the quantity and quality of housing supply
Almost exclusively subsidize housing for middle- and high-income renters (who do not need assistance), since it is not targeted toward low-income renters
Reduce the mobility of renters
Lead to housing misallocation
Reduce property values and erode the property tax base
A new report commissioned by the Minneapolis city council is, more or less, echoing these findings... in economics, there is a wide consensus that rent control has a negative impact on the housing supply. Results in the Minneapolis study are merely a reflection of the existing body of research on rent control. Studies that support rent control often point to the fact rent control reduces or prevents the displacement of renters. But rent control is not the only mechanism for preventing displacement. Increasing the housing supply through the market, for example, would make housing more affordable, which would reduce displacement. Unlike rent control, however, the market would achieve the same goal much more efficiently. Artificially reducing the mobility of renters through rent control comes with other costs. For one, the housing market benefits from the constant churn of tenants. When people don’t move because of rent control, future renters — some of whom might even have lower incomes than current renters — have fewer housing options, which translates to high prices. Additionally, some renters may be reluctant to move to a place with better economic opportunities because they do not want to lose the savings that come with rent control, which leads to economic stagnation."
Some left winger dismissed this as being from a right wing think tank. Weird how left wing think tanks must be believed unconditionally. And of course he blamed rent control not being adequately enforced, ignoring all the other problems
In first months since passage of St. Paul’s rent-control ordinance, housing construction is way down - "When St. Paul’s rent control ballot measure passed in November, it contained a unique provision for national rent control policies: there was no exception for new housing construction. Typically, in order to make sure that new homes still get financed and built, rent control policies only apply to older apartments, either exempting buildings for a certain period of time or only including buildings built before a certain date. The policy laid out in the St. Paul referendum had no such exception. With the passage of the rent control ordinance, there’s now a useful real-world experiment taking place... in Minneapolis overall construction is up as the economy has rebounded... Overall in the U.S., 2022 is looking to be the largest year for apartment construction in almost a half-century... “Every single city that we can find with a rent stabilization policy in place provides an exemption to incentivize construction of new housing units, and so should St. Paul,” Mayor Carter said. “Simply put, we are in a housing crisis because we have more people than homes at every income level. And our population is growing fast. Anything we do to slow the production of new units will only make this problem worse.”"
Of course, the left wing "solution" is for the government to build housing
Aaron D. on X - "It's 80,000 BC. You are immortal. The world is still frozen in an ice age. You decide to save $10,000 EVERY DAY, never spending a cent. 82,021 years later, it's 2021. You still don't have as much money as Elon Musk. TAX. THE. FUCKING. BILLIONAIRES."
Left-wingers don't understand compound interest, or the difference between cash and net worth (which is why they keep going on about wealth taxes)
Billionaires are already taxed, so what they mean is to tax them into penury, because they hate the rich
Existential Comics (find me on bluesky) on X - "What's funny about rich people complaining that poor people don't work and are a drain on society is that every rich person does negative work. That is, it takes far more work to accommodate their life than their labor could possibly produce. They are the real drain on society."
Left wingers just hate the rich on principle
Meme - Jesus: "HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR AND TAKE CARE OF THE POOR AND HELPLESS"
Crowd member: "BUT JESUS CAN'T WE JUST GIVE OUR MONEY TO THE ROMANS AND LET THEM DO IT FOR US?"
Jesus: "... OKAY I'M GOING TO START OVER FROM THE BEGINNING. LET ME KNOW WHERE I LOST YOU"
Weird. Liberals keep claiming Christians advocating for laws they agree with (even if done in a non-religious way) is a violation of Church and State, but they keep imagining that Christians are hypocrites if they don't support taxation being used for social welfare because Jesus supposedly said to do that
Grocery prices fact check: Viral TikTok about price of carrots misses a major detail - "A TikTok video that's gone viral for the apparent shocking discrepancy in carrot prices in the U.S. and Canada actually has a very simple explanation: The bags compared are completely different sizes. The video by @missjanet shows her munching on an Ontario carrot that came in a bag she says she bought in Mississippi for 98 cents. “I’m in Mississippi right now and these are from Brandford, Ontario,” she says. She crunches on the carrot some more as she continues to wonder aloud. "How does it make any sense at all that these were grown in Canada in Ontario, and put on a truck, and I bought the whole bag for [98 cents]," she says. "Who's making any money? Probably nobody." Well, it turns out, it doesn't really make sense. While many commenters were understandably irate at what looked like a massive price difference, the TikToker's bag contained only one pound of carrots for under a dollar. When you compare it to the three-pound bag sold at Loblaws for $3.99, the difference is negligible. In fact, when factoring in the exchange rate, we're likely getting a better deal here (2.96 USD = 4.01 CAD). Steven Kamenar is the general manager of Hillside Gardens, the Bradford, Ont.-based company behind the bag of carrots featured in the video. He says while they don’t sell directly to retailers, he confirmed they do sell products to exporters and adds “it’s a pretty open market” when it comes to pricing. But Kamenar was unsettled by the reaction to the video. He says too many angry people are ignoring the fact that the TikToker's bag is just one pound, which is a size generally not available in Ontario... Additionally, American Thanksgiving just passed and many retailers discount certain products that they may have a surplus on. “It was pretty likely it was part of a Thanksgiving promotion,” he says. “Especially around Thanksgiving, we do export a lot more products.”"
A lot of left wingers kept raging about this. Too bad they fell prey to misinformation, as usual
Saving Rates and Poverty: The Role of Conspicuous Consumption and Human Capital - "Poor families around the world spend a large fraction of their income consuming goods that do not appear to alleviate poverty, while saving at low rates. We suggest that individuals care about economic status and interpret this behaviour as conspicuous consumption intended to provide a signal about unobserved income. We show that if human capital is observable and correlated with income, then a signalling equilibrium in which poor individuals tend to spend a large fraction of their income on conspicuous consumption can emerge. This equilibrium gives rise to an increasing marginal propensity to save that might generate a poverty trap."
Left wingers get very upset when you point out that many poor people are poor because they have poor spending habits. Of course one cope is that poor people deserve to enjoy things too, or that their lives are very sad so they need to enjoy themselves
20% of Americans would go into debt to buy a new iPhone reveals interesting survey - "more than 1 in 5 Americans believe it is worth going into debt to purchase one of the new iPhone 15 series handsets. That is half of the 2 in 5 who do plan on buying one of the new 2023 iPhone models... Phone shaming is a thing. If you don't believe us, watch the reactions of an iMessage chat group made up of teens when an Android user joins the discussion. Text bubbles turn green from blue and features like end-to-end encryption, read receipts, typing indicators, and high-quality images all go away. The Android user gets to hear insults like, "What's the matter, your pops can't afford to buy you an iPhone?" Of course, what these iPhone-totin' teens don't care to understand is that if they were to join a chat between two Android users using RCS (found in the Messages by Google app and others), text bubbles turn green from blue, and features like end-to-end encryption, read receipts, typing indicators and high-quality images all go away. The only difference is that Android users are less likely to mouth off with insults."
Clearly the system is broken and capitalism has failed
Meme - James Lindsay, manspreading into feminist angst @ConceptualJames: "Dismantle private property, they say. Probably need to start taking them seriously and saying no. They won't go easily, but it's the better option than continuing to try to appease them. Where's your Woke breaking point? Finding it is important."
Teen Vogue Retweeted: Kandist @kandistmallett: "While we're working to abolish the police, we must also work to dismantle what the police were put here to protect: property. What is more evident of the legacy of settler colonialism and its violence than the idea of the ownership of land?"
"Abolish Landlords: Housing Is a Human Right"
Weird. We're told no one wanted to abolish the police
Meme - "SO YOU WERE SAYING YOU WANNA OWN THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION..."
"WELL, YES"
"BUT YOU DONT WANT TO INVEST, TO START A BUSINESS, OR TO WORK..."
"WELL, NO"
Housing Should Be Free for Everyone - YouTube
A lot of people claimed no one is asking for free housing
Meme - Culture Critic @Culture_Crit: "Reminder that Argentina was once one of the richest nations on Earth and a rival of the U.S. - hence the well-known phrase, "as rich as an Argentine'.
Incredible facts about the Argentinian economy in the early 20th century:
As rich as the U.S. per capita at the turn of the century
GDP grew 6% annually during the 43 years to 1914 (fastest in the world)
Top 10 wealthiest nations globally per capita by 1914
Argentinian exports peaked at ~4% of world trade during the 1920s
Argentina was still as rich as much of Europe as late as 1950"
Jannik (Kilmawandel Connaisseur) @kineyDE: "It all came to an end with socialism and peronism...
Posicion de Argentina en el Ranking Mundial de PBI per capita
Constitucion liberal de Juan Bautista Alberdi
Reforma Constitucional de 1949 Abandono definitivo del Modelo Liberal
Modelos economicos populistas, proteccionistas y desarrollistas"
A New Study Suggests Private Companies Outperform Public Utilities When It Comes to Meeting Regulations - Bloomberg - "When it comes to complying with important health regulations, private companies far outperform the public sector."
The left are going to be very upset
The National Study of Millionaires - "The top five careers for millionaires include engineer, accountant, teacher, management and attorney.
79% of millionaires did not receive any inheritance at all from their parents or other family members...
Most of them did it through consistent investing, avoiding debt like the plague, and smart spending. No lottery tickets. No inheritances. No six-figure incomes. Really... 8 out of 10 millionaires invested in their company’s 401(k) plan, and that simple step was a key to their financial success. Not only that, but 3 out of 4 of those surveyed also invested outside of company plans. But they didn’t risk their money on single-stock investments or “an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.” In fact, no millionaire in the study said single-stock investing was a big factor in their financial success. Single stocks didn’t even make the top three list of factors for reaching their net worth. Three out of four millionaires (75%) said that regular, consistent investing over a long period of time is the reason for their success. So, the story about the young computer genius who developed an app that earned millions overnight is the exception, not the rule. Even when millionaires don’t have to worry about money anymore, they’re still careful about their spending. Ninety-four percent of the people studied said they live on less than they make, and nearly three-quarters of the millionaires have never carried a credit card balance in their lives! These millionaires also said they spend $200 or less each month at restaurants. And 93% of millionaires use coupons all or some of the time when shopping. By staying out of debt and watching expenses, they’re able to build their bank accounts instead of trying to get out of a financial hole every month... only 3% received an inheritance of $1 million or more. In fact, the majority of millionaires didn’t even grow up around a lot of money. According to the survey, 8 out of 10 millionaires come from families at or below middle-income level. Only 2% of millionaires surveyed said they came from an upper-income family... only 15% of millionaires were in senior leadership roles, such as vice president or C-suite roles (CEO, CFO, COO, etc.). Ninety-three percent of millionaires said they got their wealth because they worked hard, not because they had big salaries. Only 31% averaged $100,000 a year over the course of their career, and one-third never made six figures in any single working year of their career."
Joel Landoe - "There's a bunch of backlash to Dave Ramsey's recent tweet about top five millionaire careers. Almost nobody thinks a "teacher" is on that list. This all makes perfect sense though once you realize the teachers are just marrying the engineers. 🚀🤣"
Liberals are going to be very upset
Majority of Torontonians concerned in wake of rideshare freeze: Poll | Toronto Sun - "A new survey by Pluriel Research on behalf of Uber Canada found 64% of Torontonians are concerned about increased wait times and 72% about higher prices in the wake of city council’s freeze on rideshare driver’s licences. The poll also found that 58% of Toronto residents think the freeze will “only make life more difficult and more expensive,” while 59% think it will “impact working people and lower income people especially hard.”... of all the 11 issues tested, regulating rideshare companies came in last in terms of priority with only 3% putting the issue in their top three concerns, and 77% preferring council’s focus on other, more important issues. The top three issues were housing affordability, homelessness and economic issues."
The liberals were very upset (replies), because they hate market competition
Spike Cohen on X - "Imagine finding out on the news, or on social media, that your 3 year old with special needs was abused in school. And no one told you prior to that. Say hi to Michelle Carpenter. She was a special needs preschool teacher who is now facing 20 counts of neglecting and abusing her students. All of her superiors covered up her alleged abuses for years, and they've been given immunity for it. Some of them have even received awards. And they kept the parents of her child victims in the dark for months, and even years for some. In fact, a few the parents first heard that their children were abused after it was reported on the news. Carpenter is accused of dragging 3 year olds with special needs around by their wrists, grabbing their faces, calling them names, and other acts of physical abuse and neglect, for years. And for years, @kcs__district administrators and superintendents received allegations of her multiple abuses, from multiple eyewitnesses. And for years, even after being ordered to pass along the information they had to investigators and get out of the way, they continued to stonewall. And why did they do cover for Carpenter? Because she was tenured. Even after they suspended Carpenter in 2022, 3 years after allegations began, they refused to tell parents, or investigators, why she was suspended. In order to get the school administrators to cooperate, they were all granted criminal immunity from prosecutions for their attempted coverup. A grand jury had now indicted Carpenter on 20 counts of felony child abuse and neglect. But not only are the people who covered up her crimes not going to be punished, some of them have even been given awards, and the school itself was named a "Reward School" by the TN Department of Education. Imagine finding out that 3 year olds with special needs are being physically and verbally abused, covering it up for years, receiving no punishment for it, keeping your job, and getting an award. Only in government schools can children and parents be so profoundly harmed and disrespected, with no accountability. Here are the names of the people who received immunity.
Jeff Moorehouse - District Superintendent
Stacy Edwards - Principal; Awarded "Principal of the Year"
Jennifer Guthrie - Head of HR "
Time to bash the Catholic Church and police unions
Durham Region paid $5M more for a homeless shelter site than a developer did. Residents have questions - "A decision by Durham Region to convert an empty long-term care home into an emergency homeless shelter is prompting criticism after the municipality paid a developer millions more for the property than he paid for it months earlier. A group of residents and a regional councillor say they're concerned about the use of taxpayer dollars after the region acquired the former Sunnycrest Nursing Home this past August at a price tag of $13.7 million from a company that paid just $8 million for it. The region is defending the move, saying it will rapidly address a recent rise in homelessness and will save money over the long term... They also say the region didn't adequately consult the public on the plan to locate the shelter in a residential area and worry it could disrupt the safety of the community, particularly given that the facility will operate as a "low-barrier" shelter. According to the region, low-barrier shelters aim to remove systemic barriers —which can include having to produce identification, for example — to be more accessible to people with disabilities, seniors, those with pets, people from the 2SLGBTQI+ community, and those experiencing mental health and addiction challenges. "With a low barrier shelter, there are no caps on the kind of people who would be let into the shelter," Sagar said. "I'm deeply concerned about the safety and the security of our children."... Members of Durham's regional council voted behind closed doors at a meeting on June 14 to authorize the purchase of the Sunnycrest building to address that need. The decision to purchase the property came after the region was unable to successfully negotiate a lease with the property owner"
The left hate private companies and love government, so presumably they see no problem with this
Meme - "American leftists trying to explain how them not getting a job and being able to afford a house after doing a useless liberal arts degree and burrying oneself in student debt is capitalism's fault"
Meme - "1920s Soviet Poster: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat!"
Authoritarian Left: SOUNDS REASONABLE
Authoritarian Right: SOUNDS REASONABLE
Libertarian Left: Nooooooo that's literal slavery, you cant force people to work autom*something* luxury sociali*something* fuck capitalism. The *something* in the face *something* Trotsky *white *something* inbred rednecks fuck landlords this is ridiciulous...
Libertarian Right: SOUNDS REASONABLE"
Meme - just maureen @ASewcialist: "I don't even want them to pay their fair share anymore. I want them stripped of everything they own."
The left just hate the rich and want them to be poor, like them. Left wing ideology is basically the seven deadly sins
Meme - "PLEASE DON'T FEED THE BEARS, IT CREATES A DEPENDENT POPULATION UNABLE TO TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES"
"...YOU MEAN LIKE WELFARE PROGRAMS?"
Meme - "Whenever they come at you with "okay boomer" just retaliate with "okay renter". It usually either shut them up or sets them off. It's a real soft spot for millennials knowing they will never own their own home."
Meme - NPC: "Big real estate companies intentionally keep apartments vacant because it's more profitable than renting them out"
Normal person: "Really? How does that work?"
NPC: *upset*