Gora Obso

They all raised their hands when asked this. As recently as a few years ago, anyone who said "Democrats want to give illegals free health care" would be dismissed as a wacko misrepresenting the Democrat position. How times have changed. The radicalization of Democrats on this issue is astounding.

Talked to an attractive, intelligent girl a few days ago. Typical sorority girl but probably more intelligent than average. She complained about the misogynistic behavior of fraternity guys she knew and was angry about how fraternities covered it up. Every story, and there were many, involving some terrible action by a guy and a coverup by his friend in the fraternity had at some point a line like “and I was dating this guy’s best friend” or “he was in the same fraternity as my boyfriend”. Why on earth would any guy ever join a fraternity with how misogynistic they are? Maybe the attractive, yet outraged girls that date fraternity guys should ask their boyfriends?

Warren is the only one with a real chance at winning who is in the debate tonight. She’d be a terrible general election candidate. Her backers love to talk about how much of a “policy wonk” she is. She is admittedly intelligent unlike Hillary who was of a rather ordinary intellect (but we were supposed to pretend she was brilliant). But, like Hillary, Warren lacks charisma and creativity. And her campaign stunts are incredibly transparent and lame, even by political standards. Her policies might be detailed but they are basically grounded in the same ideological priors as other liberal democrats. So it’s more a difference of style than substance.

Import tariffs basically put domestically produced items at a huge competitive advantage over foreign produced items in the domestic market. Tariffs make sense when it comes to protecting or fostering domestic industry (whether it be because of the workers or some national interest in domestic production). They are more efficient than regulations and rules and can raise revenue to boot. Of course, the big downside is that they lead to higher consumer prices and can hurt exports if there are retaliatory tariffs. They also lead to less economically efficient outcomes on net. The thing is that economic efficiency and low consumer prices, while desirable, aren’t the only things that matter. So there are situations where tariffs are worth the cost.

In terms of pure identity, more voters will vote for a candidate because they're a woman than against. But, women politicians also often come across as HR lady types (like Hillary Clinton). It's simply hard for a woman to have the kind of presence that many successful male politicians have in terms of size, body language, etc. Humans tend to look for leaders with alpha male qualities and it therefore helps to be, well, male.

Vox reports on a new study finding that the new Medicaid work requirements being put into effect in some states seem to lower medicaid participance but not increase employment participation. Here is a tidbit that was quoted in the Vox article: "Using a timely survey of low-income adults, we find that Arkansas’s implementation of the nation’s first work requirements in Medicaid in 2018 was associated with significant losses in health insurance coverage in the policy’s initial six months but no significant change in employment. Lack of awareness and confusion about the reporting requirements were common, which may explain why thousands of individuals lost coverage even though more than 95% of the target population appeared to meet the requirements or qualify for an exemption ." People poor enough to qualify for Medicaid are either unable or unwilling to even figure out the new paper work requirements, even if it means they'll lose their healthcare. Of course, Medicaid ...

Good on Joe Biden . I suppose he actually wants to beat Trump. The mob of the woke might be a powerful force the primary but they're gonna vote for and support whoever is nominated, even Biden. But the kind of candidate who appeals too much to them (excites them) will turn off the kind of voters that Democrats need to win in order to beat Trump. I've said before that I think Democrats are the favorites to beat Trump for reelection, but that's mostly because I think Biden is a favorite to win the primary. Typically, I don't think which candidate a party nominates matters all that much for their general election chances, but I really do think there's a huge difference between a Joe Biden and, say, Kamala Harris.

I've expressed doubts as to the eugenic effect of abortion but I found an old post by LOTB referencing a study suggesting that, yes, abortion is eugenic after all.

Centrists, liberals, neocons, etc have gotten in the habit of accusing populists, nationalists, leftists, etc of being, at least, stooges of Russia and, sometimes, active agents of them. The core idea behind this accusation is that there was a Western consensus and order that Russia wants to see crumble. So they undermine this order in nefarious plots to get candidates who oppose this order elected. Or something. The most high profile manifestation of this theory was the Trump-Russia debacle which, predictably, turned up totally empty. But accusations about Russian "ties" has been lobbed at anti establishment movements throughout the west, both left and right. So, what's the purpose of all this? We now pretty much know that the Russian efforts were, at most, some extremely paltry low budget internet ads and memes and, possibly, some Russian hacker lucked out with the DNC emails. But why has the establishment across the west latched onto this as some grand conspiracy? ...

Much better and more accurate than the exit polls , which underestimated the share of the electorate that is white working class.

Trump won in 2016 because the Romney 2012 coalition held up better for him than the Obama 2012 coalition held up for Clinton in 2016. Primarily, a small but key subset of Obama voters, disproportionately concentrated in midwestern swing states, shifted to Trump and the black vote failed turn out in the same numbers that it did for Obama. Furthermore, Trump did lose a small number of upper middle class Republican voters, but these voters were small in number in addition to being disproportionately in safe blue and redstates- and many broke for a third party (such as the significant number of Mormon voters that voted for Evan McMullin) rather than Clinton. There was an increase in Asian and Latino turnout but it was so small and, again, concentrated in safe blue and red states that it wasn't really a major factor. These, and a few other, changes in turnout and voting preferences accumulated to allow Trump to eke out an electoral victory by maintaining blue-trending but tradition...

I made a post yesterday where I challenged LOTB on his logic that abortion legalization has a eugenic effect. I found an old post from Steve Sailer that further adds to this . Sailer even adds a new element to the theory: perhaps legal abortion discouraged the underclass from taking more measures to reduce pregnancy but then increased the illegitimatacy rate as the underclass failed to get abortions. He puts forward some other theories as to how abortion may fail to have a eugenic effect as well.

Lion of Blogosphere shares this comment on abortion: in his latest post: No one that I personally know has ever gotten an abortion. My main objection to pro-lifers is that they create a burden on taxpayers. This is my main reason for supporting abortion. My family pays way too much in taxes as it is. It’s unfair to my mother, who has worked so hard to create wealth, and to support myself and my chronically ill father, to have to pay for the Section 8 and food stamps for low IQ people’s children. As for myself personally, I don’t have any reason to ever get an abortion. I’m getting married soon to the only partner I have ever had, whom I started dating in high school. I just want other women to get abortions, because i don’t want my future kids to have to share a classroom with low IQ violent bastard kids. LOTB seems to approve of this quote and agree with its underlying logic.... but is it accurate? Does abortion have a eugenic effect? Personally, I don't really ca...

I didn’t even know about this . Chinese state sponsored migration is essentially being used to... erase Tibet. Interesting. From the wikipedia page: According to the  government of Tibet in exile , Chinese policy has resulted in the disappearance of elements of  Tibetan culture ; this has been called " cultural genocide ". [1] [2]  The government in exile says that the policies intend to make Tibet an integral part of China and control desire for Tibetan  self-determination . The Chinese government maintains that its policies have benefited Tibet, and cultural and social changes are consequences of  modernization . According to the government, Tibet's economy has expanded; improved services and infrastructure have improved the quality of life of  Tibetans , and the  Tibetan language  and  culture  have been protected.

I just learned that there was an astonishing 7.3% increase in US workplace fatalities from 2015-2016. Granted, there was some media coverage of it that I found by googling it and looking down, but I was a fairly avid follower of trends and what not at the time and I don't recall seeing anything about this at the time. I mean, it seems to me that nobody who wasn't looking for data on workplace fatalities would even be aware of the rather substantial spike from 2015-2016. Why? Well, I'd venture that it is somewhat related to the fact that 92% of the workplace fatalities in 2016 were males. If, this were an issue that impacted primarily women, I don't think I'm going too far in saying there would be a lot more outrage and coverage of it. Indeed, I imagine that Facebook feeds around the country would be inundated with content centering on this topic. But this differential treatment isn't all that surprising. Men, after all, are more  biologically expendable  in t...

Some say they might. Personally, I tend to still be hungry if I don't get some carbs as well as meat.

Looked at Buzzfeed and there's a mix of lame posts trying to relate to millennial posts, lame "trying to be funny and cute" sjw themed articles, and then some thinly veiled corporate advertising. What a depressing microcosm of what a modern media outlet (Buzzfeed is sadly a media outlet now) is.

The Washington Post is furious  that officers are looking at the social media of visa applicants when considering their applications. Indeed, they are so angry that they are even mad at Obama for allowing such a policy to be put into place: he should've known there was a risk that the American people might let us all down by not electing Hillary! Of course, American citizens are more or less used to having employers (and prospective employers) and even US government agencies track their social media. But, making sure that huge tech companies don't have employees who engage in crime think is FAR more important than a silly thing like deciding who we let into the country. That would be downright UNAMERICAN.

Apparently Justin Amash is leaving the freedom caucus, presumably because of his calls to impeach Trump (I guess). The Freedom Caucus is pretty much just the tea party wing of the party. They've generally supported the Trump administration although they've been against him on a number of issues like the awful 2017 health care bill (although they were opposing it for the wrong reasons).  Still, Amash's statement on impeachment was idiotic and self serving. He wanted to be congratulated by the media about how brave and principled he was. That's fine. But what he said was wrong as impeaching Trump is a pointless exercise at this point and, even if there were a possibility of removal, there aren't any sorts of grounds for impeachment.

Vox has a new article  freaking out that the US government isn't doing enough to make sure tech companies get cheap labor from abroad to code. They might even have to (GULP) pay competitive wages in order to get techies to work. Or else they might move to Canada! Canada! I'm a former libertarian and someone who's area of study was economics. So I understand the logic of "if we aren't nice enough to big corporations they might move abroad" type argumentation. Indeed, you might find me on one of my old blogs making the same kind of argument when I was opposing minimum wage hikes or supporting corporate tax rates. It's one of those things that's tempting because there is a bit of truth to it. If a nation puts onerous enough regulations, taxes, etc on companies and there are much more convenient alternatives abroad that are easier to move to, it can have adverse impacts. One thing I also learned as I moved away from libertarianism/free markets (whateve...

I think that our CJ system should impose the option of harsher penalties in exchange for no criminal records (expungement) in more cases. For example, someone convicted of a DUI should have the option of serving a significantly tougher sentence and then not having a record. The idea of a "criminal record" is two fold: it is part of their debt to society (?) and it alerts those who do screenings of their past. Okay. But, if their sentence doesn't fully meet what counts as their debt to society, then that should be covered by the harsher sentence option. For the second question, I'd say that there are some cases that maybe ought not be expunged, but the reality is that when you make it harder for someone convicted of a crime to get a job, you're increasing the rate of reoffending. And, in the cases like DUI (most of the sorts of crimes i'm talking about), it's probably an overcorrection to have a permanent black mark on their record. I don't care if ...

Geoffrey Rush quite recently got a decent settlement  suing a newspaper (I think) for defamation for publishing #metoo type allegations against him for being "creepy" or whatever. These #metoo things haven't tended to have much success in legal settings because of the whole lacking in evidence thing. More than that even, a lot of them, even if they are true, don't allege behavior that is, actually, illegal in any real sense. But, the primary consequences are not legal but SOCIAL. So, woman accuses X of some vaguely defined misconduct in the news media, media and public (with exceptions of hardcore supporters of X) go nuts and demand all private organizations end all ties with X and there his career goes. No legal consequences for X, but most Xs would probably prefer some legal penalty and keeping their careers (even significant legal penalties). Defamation laws might be a good counterbalance or remedy to this. I think they should be strengthened. If someone goes t...

Post (#1): There are a lot of blogs. Hell, I've started several myself. I only had three (all blogs focused on policy and economics) of them that had anything near continuous posting for any extended period of time. The first blog had essentially no following at any point that was anything beyond people randomly coming across it by some weird google search about some economic concept. The second two had small followings (and the following was pretty small in both cases). One of them got a following because I made a post that got attention among more prominent economics bloggers and got cited in their blogs and so forth. The other got a small following by diligent self promotion (mostly on places like reddit) and finally a few people started reading. Most of the posts on there were about "debunking" various points of view popular among mainstream journalists and "normies". So I guess a certain kind of self styled, early stage internet dweller might have had a c...