OUT SOON FROM GARRETT JONES: The Culture Transplant: How Migrants Make the Economies They Move To a Lot Like the Ones They Left.. #CommissionEarned

SEEMS PLAUSIBLE:

Flashback: The left hates Elon Musk because he’s a twin threat that doesn’t tolerate BS.

SAME. My body is too dangerous for social media — I’m ‘naturally perfect.’

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Ridiculous Man-Child Dylan Mulvaney Is Biden’s New Voice of Women. “What do you call a crossdressing man-child like Dylan Mulvaney? If you’re the Left, he’s the voice of women, even to the alleged President of the United States.”

Plus:

• We all stand a ghost of a chance without you
• Dem pollster to Biden: Stop boasting about the sucky economy
• Soros DA does a Triple Lindy backflip on bail “reform”

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: Homicide rates surging in major cities run by Soros-backed DAs.

In fact, homicide rates rose by an average of nearly 10% in 50 of the most populated U.S. cities between the third quarter of last year and the third quarter of this year — and are still rising — according to a new study.

WalletHub compared 50 of America’s largest cities based on per capita homicides for the third quarter (July through September) of each year since 2020, using locally published crime data to compile its findings.

According to WalletHub, these were the ten cities with the highest homicide cases per 100,000 residents from July through September:

St. Louis, Mo. (19.69)
Kansas City, Mo. (14.86)
Detroit, Mich. (13.24)
Baltimore, Md. (12.45)
New Orleans, La. (10.99)
Milwaukee, Wisc. (10.46)
Memphis, Tenn. (9.99)
Philadelphia, Pa. (9.36)
Norfolk, Va. (7.78)
Chicago, Ill. (7.71)

The top prosecutors in most of these cities are backed by progressive megadonor George Soros, a billionaire who’s spent the last several years injecting tens of millions of dollars into local district attorney races nationwide, backing candidates who support policies such as abolishing bail, defunding the police, and decriminalizing or deprioritizing certain offenses.

Soros can’t make his omelet without breaking a whole lot of eggs.

FROM A FRIEND: “An economist on Bloomberg just said that the holidays will see a decline in consumer confidence because people will have to buy food and they’ll be upset by the higher prices. Apparently eating is optional til then?!?”

Hilarious. But I suspect the point is that people tend to prepare the same dishes for the holidays year after year, so the contrast with previous years will really be striking. I’m expecting to get raped for the turkey and the lamb.

It’s Thanksgiving as usual, but it may have to be Christmas Dinner in a Can. . . .

WEALTHY COMMIES. NEXT QUESTION? Who’s to Blame for the Damaged Adult Children Staging Sad ‘Milk Pour Protests’?

BE PREPARED: Vont 2 Pack LED Camping Lantern. #CommissionEarned

FINALLY: Breakthrough treatment eliminates kidney stones with little to no pain.

OUR VIOLENCE IS SPEECH, YOUR SPEECH IS VIOLENCE, EVEN IF IT’S SILENT: Student op-ed calls silent pro-life demonstration ‘violent.’

VIDEO: Fleeing Felon Bursts Into Flames After Getting Tased.

“STUDENTS DEMAND” IS AN ODD PHRASE WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT: Pitt students still demand resources to cope with Roe reversal.

SAME: Saudi Crown Prince regularly ‘mocks Biden, 79, by making fun of his gaffes and questioning his mental acuity’, insiders claim.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: It Will Be Fun to Finally Be Rid of Stacey Abrams. “Abrams is a Democrat in the Wendy Davis/Beto O’Rourke mode — greatly loved by Democrats almost everywhere but in her own state.”

JOEL KOTKIN: The Zaibatsu-ization of America: Our tech overlords have forsaken innovation for consolidation.

Enthusiasts of “the new economy” long cherished the notion that it would be different from the unenlightened, sluggish, and piggish older one. Yet our economy seems increasingly to resemble not some hippy capitalist utopia, but the deeply concentrated economy of pre-war Japan.

At the time, Japan had developed an economic model around a handful of large corporate conglomerates called zaibatsu. Organized as a “financial clique,” with a bank at the center, these firms extended their interests into virtually all economic activity. They included Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, and Yasuda. Mitsubishi led the way in shipbuilding, steel, and of course aircraft, being the creator of the famous Zero fighter.

Until bested by their onetime allies in the military, the zaibatsu dominated Japan. The war initially benefited them, but ultimately ruined their businesses as Japan was devastated. Yet they were so essential to the function of the economy that they were gradually rehabilitated during the U.S. occupation, recreating their historic pattern of using smaller firms as convenient subordinates.

Today we see the rise of a few companies, who have moved into virtually every aspect of our economy. The nerds of Silicon Valley are no longer just interested in gadgets to make life better but are seizing control of both the production and dissemination of information. Arguably the greatest beneficiaries of a pandemic that hooked people ever more on their products, the tech giants now have the capital to lead the drive into space and the forced march to electrical vehicles, while also looking into dominating more prosaic fields like healthcare and finance.

The zaibatu-ization of America’s economy presents an enormous problem of governance. Our constitutional structure is based on the notion of many competing players. When concentration became too evident, and politically potent, as during the early decades of the last century, measures were taken to slow, and even reverse, over-concentration. Yet in the past few decades, the largest emerging corporate interests—Meta, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon—and a handful of large financial institutions gained unprecedented control over the economy. By last summer six tech firms, including Tesla, accounted for half the value of the NASQAQ 100. By 2020, the five largest tech companies had total revenue amounting to half of those of all state governments combined. . . .

We are a long way from the early days of Silicon Valley, a remarkable mashup of new and old companies, full of enthusiasts eager to build new products that often challenged the existing corporate hierarchy. I personally witnessed the exciting birth of this revolution; now these same companies are the hierarchy, and like hierarchies in general, they have become oppressive towards competitors and far less creative than they once were.

They are busily taking control of the means of information. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google already dominate the cloud and are now seeking control of underwater cables; in the past decade the large tech giants have boosted their share of undersea cable traffic from less than ten percent to roughly two-thirds.

The CEOs may still wear hoodies and speak woke, but they essentially seek, like other monopolists, to consolidate their market position, making them both essentially risk-averse, anti-competitive, and overweening. Mike Malone, who has chronicled Silicon Valley over the past quarter century, sees the Valley as having lost much of its egalitarian ethos; the new masters of tech, he suggests, have shifted “from…blue-collar kids to the children of privilege,” while also moving away from the production ethos that made the Valley so inspiring and egalitarian. “An intensely competitive industry,” he suggests, has become enamored with the allure of “the sure thing” backed by massive capital. If there is a potential competitor, they simply buy it.

Yet in many ways, the new tech zaibatsu differ from their Japanese counterparts in critical ways, particular in terms of place and national loyalty.

Break them up.

Plus: “Our new chieftains have no national allegiance.”

LAUGHING WOLF: Nuclear Oz. “For reasons I won’t fully go into at this time, I remain concerned that if things don’t go well, Vladimir will go after every nuclear plant in the Ukraine in an attempt to damage the country and destroy it by other means. Again, they may attempt some maskirova and engage in false-flag operations, but there are those in Russia who feel that if they can’t seize the Ukraine, then no one — especially the Ukrainians — should be allowed to keep it either.”

Related: “I wrote months ago that what Putin can’t take, he’ll destroy, and what he can’t destroy, he’ll depopulate.”

I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY: Democrats are dodging debates in competitive races.

LIKE MOST BIDEN “ACCOMPLISHMENTS,” IT WAS SMOKE AND MIRRORS BOOSTED BY THE MEDIA: Biden’s marijuana pardons freed not one person.

“Psephologists of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your fibs!” How the midterm polls became Democratic fan fiction.

PUSHBACK: Free Speech Concerns Prompt Calls To Shun Yale Law Grads.

SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Your Kind Aren’t Allowed Here: Thugs Beat the Crap Out of GOP Canvasser Wearing DeSantis, Rubio Gear.

HAHA: Media gaslighting: economic recovery is here!

KAMALA HARRIS LIES, CLAIMING THAT SHE NEVER PROMOTED THE BAIL FUND THAT BAILED OUT BLM RIOTERS AS WELL AS MURDERERS AND R4PISTS; But the Tweet In Which She Promoted that Bail Fund Is Still Up!

CHRISTOPHER RUFO: The Real Story Behind Drag Queen Story Hour. “Drag Queen Story Hour pitches itself as a family-friendly event to promote reading, tolerance, and inclusion. ‘In spaces like this,’ the organization’s website reads, ‘kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where everyone can be their authentic selves.’ But many parents, even if reluctant to say it publicly, have an instinctual distrust of adult men in women’s clothing dancing and exploring sexual themes with their children.”

DEAL OF THE DAY: Vont LED Outdoor Solar Lights. #CommissionEarned