Archive for 2023
August 17, 2023
HEY, WE’RE NO BANANA REPUBLIC! The White House, according to Babylon Bee, corrects the record.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S FIVE BIGGEST LIES: There were so many to choose from! The Washington Stand’s Joshua Arnold winnows it down to five, but I suspect that will be an ever-changing compilation as he updates it.
THEY CAN’T DUMP BIDEN UNLESS THEY CAN DUMP HARRIS FIRST: It’s Getting Serious Now: L.A. Times Kicks Off the Dems’ ‘Dump-Harris’ Movement.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (CHINA EDITION): China Shadow Bank Misses Dozens of Payments, Sparking Protests.
Videos of the incident appear to show around two dozen protesters at Zhongrong, at least one representative of the company, and around 10 police and security officers. It’s the latest sign of turmoil at the trust company, whose liquidity crisis has fuelled alarm within financial markets and among Chinese regulators.
In one of the clips seen by Bloomberg News, a woman angrily asks about a product she owned that matured on July 28. “Why doesn’t the company pay us back?” she says. “It has already matured. Your financial statements said there is a profit.”
Another woman shouts: “Give us the money back, or we will die here.” A third says: “Why you don’t give us a clear explanation?”
A man with a loudspeaker who apparently represents Zhongrong says: “We don’t think this is a regulation-violating project or a regulation-violating product.” The exact timing of the protest couldn’t immediately be determined.
A reporter who visited the Zhongrong office on Wednesday (Aug 16) afternoon didn’t see any protesters, but there was an unusually heavy police presence around the building.
I’m sure.
“INCLUSION” DOESN’T MEAN, YOU KNOW, ACTUAL INCLUSION: Taxpayer-funded ‘inclusive science’ fellowship excludes white faculty: Legal group calls fellowship a ‘blatant violation’ of federal law.
HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Medical School Professor Says Trans Kids Can Identify as ‘Gender Hybrids’ Like ‘Minotaurs.’
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, 21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS EDITION: UW-Milwaukee tells students polyamory has many ‘benefits’ like extra pets, or ‘petamours.’
GEN Z MIGHT ALREADY BE ON PACE TO OUTDO MILLENNIALS: Gen Z teens want practical skills, on-the-job learning. “Sixty-five percent say they’ll need education and training after high school, but not necessarily a four-year degree. They want flexible options, such as boot camps and online courses, writes Manno. Two-thirds say their ideal post-high school learning should be on the job through internships or apprenticeships or through hands-on learning in a lab or classroom.”
JEFFREY CARTER: “If you look at political polls over the last twenty years, some of the most unpopular people in the world are in Congress. Yet, when you look at those unpopular people they continue to be re-elected over and over again.”
WHAT OUR FUTURE LOOKS LIKE: 20 Things That Will Happen When No One Can Afford to Live in America Anymore. “Although I haven’t been to San Francisco since COVID, one of the things I always noticed visiting there was that none of my Uber drivers in San Francisco actually LIVED within 30 minutes of San Francisco. They couldn’t afford it. When I lived in Alexandria, Virginia, and worked in DC, there was one guy who literally commuted 4 hours each way, every day, because that was the only way he could afford a decent house for his family. And guess what? Things have gotten significantly worse since then because the Fed printed so much money during COVID that it massively spiked inflation. Supposedly, the yearly target number for inflation is 2% and it reached a high of 9.1% in June of last year, but since the government has a lot of leeway in determining which products count towards the consumer price index, it’s very easy to rig the numbers – and they do. Big time. In fact, we may actually be at the beginning of the horrible economic trap people concerned about the deficit have been warning about for decades.”
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: It’s 1776 — Do You Know Where Your Normie Neighbors Are? “Today, some Americans, who we will call our ‘normie neighbors,’ are afraid to speak out against massive shoplifting gangs lest they be called ‘racist.’ Our normie neighbors dutifully bent their knees and raised their sleeves for a BS shot because they didn’t want to be called ‘granny killers’ They are afraid to say, ‘No, that dude in a dress isn’t a woman.'”
Kevin Downey Jr is filling in for Kruiser today.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Media Downplay Oliver Anthony’s Overnight Success. “The far-Left outlet bemoans that Anthony lacks a sizable paper trail, all but saying the reporter dug for any dirt possible but came up empty.”
Related: Record debt and inflation from the ‘Rich Men North of Richmond.’
According to the Treasury Department, for the first time ever, spending on interest on the debt not only surpassed military spending in July but tied the cost of our health care leviathan! At $67 billion, the cost of servicing our debt was eclipsed only by Social Security and education (because of student loans) and was 20% costlier than national defense. Put another way, more than 50% of all tax revenue collected from all payroll taxes of all U.S. workers went toward interest on the debt. Headed forward, assuming interest rates aren’t forced up even higher, we will pay an annualized rate of $1 trillion in interest on the debt of government programs and functions that shouldn’t exist even if they were free.
I wrote about that part two weeks ago, but here’s what it means for the not-so-rich folks south of Richmond, and most other places outside the Beltway:
Average mortgage rates are now close to $7.5%, the highest since 2000. However, housing prices are much higher than ever before. The median home price is now 560% of median household income. Even during the record 2008 housing bubble, it was only 360% of income. Homeowners are now spending a record 40% of their gross income on mortgages, aside from record-high down payments. The average mortgage is now over $2,800 – up from $1,427 in 2021 – before we get to the high levels of real estate taxes on inflated prices. This has created such a shortage of people willing to sell homes that even older homes now cost the same as new homes for the first time.
And:
In total, the annual expenses of a family of four have now outpaced the median male income by over $12,000 a year. In 1985, the median family of four on one income would net a surplus of $5,450.
The memes almost make themselves.
Bidenomics, it’s working!
DOUBLING DOWN ON CORPORATE CENSORSHIP: Amazon bans Scott Adams “for life;” Apple removes Glenn Beck. “People who make money creating content need access to customers, and these “platforms” have a stranglehold on the means of distribution. YouTube, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter are the conduits to the customer base and have inordinate power to make or break a content creator should they so choose. Unsurprisingly these platforms often collude through ‘independent’ third parties, which in turn are largely funded by Left-wing organizations which create phony ‘safety’ guidelines and ‘fact checks’ which are used to gatekeep access to the public.”
HMM: Biden Administration Investigates Vanderbilt University Over Release Of Transgender Clinic Patient Records. “Federal health officials have launched a civil rights investigation into Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) after the hospital turned over trans-identifying clinic patients’ medical records to the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office. The AG’s office is investigating the Nashville-based center for potential medical billing fraud connected to transgender medical treatments for minors.”
MARK SIMON: No WSJ, the US does not need China for Science. The WSJ looks for a new engagement rationale, and fails.
I meant to post something about that article, which I found quite unpersuasive. It read like the product of an interest group.
PRINT HARDER AND FASTER: Don Surber: Another Trillion-Dollar Bailout?
As the Insta-Dad said back in 2008: “The bad thing is that the federal government has figured out that it can borrow a lot more money than it previously thought.”
IF THEY DON’T HURRY, THEY WON’T BE THE LAST TO LEAVE: Historic SF Luxury Department Store May Close its Doors Over City Squalor.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Keurig K-Iced Single Serve Coffee Maker. #CommissionEarned
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY:
The housing market affordability index is now ~10% BELOW the 2006 lows.
This is officially the least affordable housing market in US history.
Mortgage rates in many states are approaching 8% and the median house now costs 560% of the median income.
In 2008, the median home… pic.twitter.com/43hdgbTZCs
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) August 16, 2023
Plus this: “US population is up about 12% since 2006, but the percentage of renter occupied housing units is up 28% since 2006. It would make sense given the lack of affordability that renter occupied housing would continue to grow faster than the population does.”
You’ll own nothing, sit in the dark, and eat the bugs.
A SMALL MEASURE OF JUSTICE: Harvard Loses $15 Million Insurance Claim For Legal Fees In Famous Race Discrimination Case, Appeals Ct Calls Arguments “Gaslighting.” “What is happening here? First it was Oberlin College, now Harvard, where I’m rooting for insurance companies. First Circuit Court of Appeals finds Harvard failed to comply with claims notice requirement of insurance policy, and its main argument was ‘little more than gaslighting.'”
HEADLINES FROM 2005: It’s Time for the GOP to Punch Back.
DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS:
Where are the 41,000 hours of J6 tapes?
Where is the Nashville Trans Terrorist manifesto?
Where is the Ghislaine Maxwell child
Trafficking client list?Where is the “J6 bomber”?
None of these things have been released for the same reason:
They would destroy the MSM narrative
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) August 10, 2023
Related: It’s democracy in the dark without Nashville shooter manifesto’s release.
NOTHING IS EVER WHAT HE SAYS IT IS: Gavin Newsom Opened His Newspeak Dictionary and Found the Goodthink for ‘Gun Control.’ “California Gov. Gavin Newsom remains determined to ride gun control all the way to the White House in 2028 — or (shhh!) in 2024 — but the problem is that he can’t call it that.”