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The current crop of Democrats voice ideas that just a while while ago were kept hidden — 49 Comments

  1. The simple answer, of course, is to make college loan debt the same as any other debt when going through bankruptcy. I wonder how many people know it isn’t BEFORE they go $75,000 in debt to get a degree in 17th century French poetry or intersectional feminist studies.

  2. I saw Amy in Atlantic this week. She’s smart, slick and savvy. She sounds reasonable but her policies are unworkable. She’s so darn nice!

    As to the typical Dem audience, one senior citizen was surprised to learn that the President is the Commander in Chief of the military. She was dismayed to learn Trump was in charge. I could write something nasty about Iowa civics education, but maybe she was sick that day.

  3. I’ve tended over the years to be irritated with Republicans who chuffer about ‘the free sh!t coalition’, but Klobberherworkers is just dangling a bag of cash over her target audience, no obfuscation about it.

    The simple answer, of course, is to make college loan debt the same as any other debt when going through bankruptcy.

    Not up on the literature, but IIRC, there is some impediment to a credit market for these purposes emerging if it is treated as ordinary consumer debt. Megan McArdle has discussed this issue. Not sure it is necessary to have the absolute protection for creditors currently in place.

    One thing we might do is end the subsidies, so that lenders undertake serious underwriting.

  4. A.H.Lloyd has a solution (tongue in cheek) in AceOfSpades’ Morning Rant
    (http://ace.mu.nu/archives/382061.php):

    “Everyone knows that the student loan racket is a complete scam, and should be fixed. Now, I could make some market-oriented modifications into the student loan programs, but not yet. That’s the ‘peacetime’ conservative solution, which is no longer applicable as we’re fighting for our country and our lives. So we need to take the fight to the enemy, which in this case are the colleges and universities. They have been waging war on normal Americans for decades, and it’s about time they paid the price. They have been cranking out sub-standard and bogus scholarship for years now, so they need to be replaced. And by ‘replaced’ I mean ‘nuked from orbit.’ Therefore, the federal government needs to seize the endowments of every institution of higher education in America and liquidate all of the assets and use the cash pay off every student loan once and for all.”

  5. I enjoy all your thoughts about various subjects but I would never get upset at you NOT subjecting yourself to listening to the entirety of the recent Democratic debates. Thank goodness for Dennis Prager.

  6. ” She’s smart, slick and savvy. She’s so darn nice! Cornhead

    If she’s that smart and savvy, she knows full well that her proposed policies are unworkable.

    Which brings into question the veracity of her actually being a nice person. Never forget that sincerely nice people never pretend to be evil but very often “wolves come in sheep’s clothing”.

    Klobuchar could care less about student indebtedness. It’s simply a useful issue to garner more votes from the irresponsible and gullible.

  7. From the top down, and the bottom up

    Boy did they (feminist leaders and educators and government) do the women in!
    (don’t get angry, there was no way to put a brake on that handle, they fought to win that)

    the empowerment movement was not about empowering women as much as it was to empower government under the idea of one day, fixing enough things the ladies wouldn’t wail for the next change!

    you’ve come a long way baby ended funding the messages that were digested that ended up being over payed educations in stuff which ended up mostly useless to others, and so unable to earn a wage in kind for the money spent (which was never a question either)

    in less than half a century, the educational system of the western world been torn apart, made facile and political, created a desire for utopia potentials, solidified inter sex and inter race hate, and is bringing us where in terms of civil war, and other things?

    the nicest thing they did (for guys) was drive the guys out of school so that they didn’t have to pay!! oh, the side effect was to lower the number of prospective mates to the point the ladies would debase themselves trying to get one (hookup culture anyone?).

    and now, after they have run up 2.5 trillion in loans… they are trying to make up for the lack of replacement births by bringing in various groups with higher birth rates… you can even read the darn policy papers from the UN and other places.

    so somehow, these ladies, are going to have to earn enough to pay for the poor who they are fighting to let in too… cause after all, the men are not getting promoted as before, the ladies are being fired upwards (one we fired as a manager was grabbed as a vice president of citibank)…

    High jobs have high taxes and of course they are going to vote for that too…

    and it was all done from the top down and bottom up

    top down the government turned bus drivers into social police and forced them to control the seating of the bus… it was NOT bus company policy, but it was state law (what party?).
    as they did that, Rosa Parks took courses to prepare for her protest (at the highlander school)… come that fateful time, you saw top down bottom up coordination

    same with the feminists and the ladies and schools… the leaders of the movement with government did all that work to guide protests to make changes not only to what we would learn, but what we would pay… and government would get these ladies to side with socialism because it made the loans real easy to get, so easy they went up in price fast. accreditation kept others out..

    [while at the same time, the lower education areas were focusing on equality and so, as Cheryl Iserbyte from the feds blew the whistle on the dumbing down]

    now what are we as a society going to do about it?
    nothing…
    this train has no brakes and i will probably be hung for the stuff above
    while it may be crude, its short and its pretty true…

    oh, and the boomers got old, are dying out and dying soon, have the not my problem attitude… so, that’s going to be fun putting in their pipe and smoking that when they find out the position the progressives manipulated them into!!!!!!!

    pull up a chair and have some popcorn..
    gonna get interesting, as these are “interesting times” as the curse goes…

  8. What about someone who, instead of going $100K in debt to obtain multiple degrees, went $100K in debt to start a business? No one is talking about publicly-funded loan forgiveness for *that* guy or gal.

  9. “Not up on the literature, but IIRC, there is some impediment to a credit market for these purposes emerging if it is treated as ordinary consumer debt. Megan McArdle has discussed this issue.”

    Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s nonsense.

    https://info.legalzoom.com/did-laws-effect-preventing-bankruptcy-student-loans-26426.html

    It’s about Big Banks and Big Education getting PAID behind a fig leaf of intellectual justification from libertarian dorks. I’m sure the student loan system would have to work differently if the loans were treated like any other debt during bankruptcy but if you can have a market for “air rights,” you can have a market for student loan debt.

    Mike

  10. There is more than $1.5 trillion of student debt owed in the United States.

    While women account for 56% of undergraduates nationwide, they hold almost two-thirds of the total student debt ($900 billion).

    2 million of those people owe more than $100,000 and
    0.5 million of them have a loan for more than $200,000.

    Not only are women more likely to take on debt, but their average debt is also $2700 greater than a man’s

    Women also take longer to repay their debt, resulting in more total interest. This is partially due to the gender pay gap – women make on average 26% less than men, resulting in less discretionary money to pay off debts.
    [that’s been debunked for ages – good going chamber of commerce]
    (oh, so this is why nationalize tampons so they are paid for by the state, to increase discretionary money)

    for women especially, the illusion of finally getting on a “level playing field” with men ends up masking hidden hardships that disproportionately hold women back
    [wow.. whats it like growing up constantly being told the universe hates you so much?]

    On paper, the gap may seem fairly small; the average cumulative debt owed by women with bachelor’s degrees was about $20,900 in 2012 versus nearly $19,500 for men. But across all degree levels, the year-to-year financial burden is crushing: women face an estimated 14% higher debt burden in a given year than comparably educated men. So within about four years of graduating, women generally lag farther behind men on their college debt repayments.
    [anyone want to translate this from fancy to plain?]

    About a third of women with student debt reported they had trouble covering their basic living expenses over the past year due to their student loan burden. When race is factored in, women of color fare even worse, with about four in ten Latinas and six in ten black women saying they’ve struggled to cover the essentials and juggle monthly debt payments.

    and of course the disproven over and over gender pay gap…

    here, you read it… they give all kinds of “reasons”, which usually on some level are choices not accidents, and rather than family or evil husband all of society is on the hook (for not making life so unproblematical they could somehow pay off what they voluntarily got into?) https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/21/women-two-thirds-student-loan-debt-slow-burning-crisis

    whatever….

  11. Neo is almost entirely correct in writing “the added benefit to the left of shoring up endangered academic institutions that serve as leftist indoctrination camps. The left needs the colleges, and at this point many colleges need the left to bail them out.”
    Almost…because “many colleges” has yet to be substantiated for me.
    Here is a bit of endowment info-
    http://haverfordclerk.com/how-do-we-stack-up-a-comparative-look-at-haverfords-financial-aid/
    From this it would appear that, of these elite institutions, only Bates (which is truly a low 2nd rate) seems potentially financially embarrassed. Look at Oberlin! See Grinnell, in Iowa! The author notes, “it (Haverford) is also joining the trend of colleges leaving need-blind for need-something-else.” Whatever that may be…likely more federal student loans as instituted by the Obama regime.

    Public schools have the taxpayer as the fall-back, so it is the private colleges’ finances which are at issue.

  12. The simple answer, of course, is to make college loan debt the same as any other debt when going through bankruptcy.

    Oh, good heavens, no! You can’t make student loan debt dissolvable in bankruptcy without nearly every student loan holder declaring bankruptcy immediately upon graduation. We’re talking about people with zero financial assets and $200,000 or more of debt. In addition, the object obtained through the debt — job skills and knowledge — cannot be repossessed.

    Student loans are incompatible with normal bankruptcy law.

  13. I love that idea from Ace (I read it earlier and even took a screenshot on my phone) because it “fixes” multiple issues at the same time — skin in the game for the universities, ridiculously huge endowments for supposedly non-profit institutions, helping with student debt, and all without passing the buck to the taxpayer.

    It’s a genius plan. Of course it could never be implemented.

    We have to do something about the “skin in the game” issue. Changing incentives to change behavior is the only way to make effective policy.

  14. 1) Over the last 30-40 years the two costs that have grown fastest are health care and tuition.

    2) Both are afflicted with screwed-up financial incentives involving the consumer not paying the bill directly and having it subsidized by third parties.

    This is not a coincidence. We have to get a grip on both of these because they have been spiraling out of control for 10 years or more already.

  15. Great post, but I’d pick a nit on your complaint, “How are we to pay for it?” Neo.

    1) The question is worn out, 2) the Dems don’t care, 3) It doesn’t address the root issues.

    Don’t. Provide. Anything. For. Free. Ever.

    Ever heard the phrase, “Turning children loose in the candy store.”?
    Know why there are always deductibles and co-pays in health insurance? The UAW union members used to have unlimited health care with very small or zero deductibles and co-pays. As a result, years ago it was said that GM was a health care company that made cars as a side line. (Health expenses were bigger than all non-salary auto building expenses.)

    I used to work in a dept. that provided basic office supplies, toolbox tools, and lab glassware for free. A co-worker of mine had a motto about using those supplies. “If there is a lot, take a lot. If there is a little, take it all.” Decades later he claims it was a joke, but I was there when he acted in exact accordance with his motto.

    A guy in a small department was put in charge of a $20K or so, “morale and entertainment” fund. He and his co-workers couldn’t agree on how to spend it, until someone hit on free beverages from the vending machines. His boss asked him, “Are you sure you want to try this?” and gave him a funny look.

    The beverage consumption doubled; Then doubled again, again, and again. A guy was hired to hide behind a large ficus plant to watch the machines. Two people from an adjacent dept. were emptying the machine when no one was looking, and they were re-marketing the drinks for $0.75 on the dollar.
    ______

    I know a couple children of friends and relatives who finished 95% of a four year degree and then just quit. You see, a grandmother or a rich uncle had paid for it, and they did get a bunch of partying in, while attending.
    ______

    Interesting comments by Art Deco, MBunge, and mkent on ed. loans. Anyone here really know the lending/debt facts prior to Obama screwing it up?

  16. “. . . most students aren’t going to get jobs that make them billionaires, either.” [Neo]

    Wage-paying jobs never make a wage earner a billionaire. Look at the list of self-made billionaires (not inherited or divorce settlement wealth), J. Clement Stone, the Mellon Family, the Walton family, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos; they were all businessmen who started and grew businesses not people who worked for a paycheck.

    </b". . . Klobuchar leaves out one pesky little detail: how will this be paid for?" [Neo]

    This is the classic and consistent omission in any leftist argument. Medicare-for-all, the green nude eel, college loans, healthcare for millions of illegals . . . pick a fantasy, any fantasy, the cost is ignored.

    “Taxing those evil wealthy people, and not just those billionares with their yachts?”

    Just like DeBlasio’s comment that ther is enough money, it’s just int he wrong hands, leftists ignore the fact that money is both fungible and mobile. See:

    https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2019/01/18/new-jersey-area-lost-5-700-millionaires-2018/2605414002/

    “. . . ridiculously huge endowments for supposedly non-profit institutions, . . .” [Jeff Brokaw @ 9:16 pm]

    Jeff,
    This is a common misconception. There is a world of difference between a not-for-profit institution and and unprofitable institution. Not-for-profit organizations are fully and legally able to turn a profit (and they do so all the time); they just do not have stockholders to pass that profit on to. That is the only difference between Harvard’s endowment, The Red Cross Blood Bank and General Motors/Dupont/ExxonMobil. In my mind that not-for-profits pose as “charitable” or unprofitable institutions is the greatest scam ever foisted on the American public .

  17. Art . . . one point. Please quit calling these people ‘ladies’. Try ‘women’. As a southerner, I know a lady when I see one. These women aren’t.

  18. T: I understand that non-profit doesn’t imply unprofitable. Non-profit is a tax status. It offers several tax advantages and, one presumes, makes it far easier to just accumulate cash without the tax burden that a for-profit entity faces.

    My point was, something about that seems a little “off”. Granting special tax treatment comes with some strings attached, or it should. Universities enjoying special tax treatment while charging 75 grand a year for an increasingly worthless product and concurrently building up their billion dollar endowments has all the appearances of a scam, it seems to me.

  19. Jeff Brokaw on July 3, 2019 at 9:27 pm said:
    1) Over the last 30-40 years the two costs that have grown fastest are health care and tuition.
    * * *
    Thomas Sowell:

    “If we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical drugs now, how can we afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical drugs, in addition to a new federal bureaucracy to administer a government-run medical system?”

    https://www.aei.org/publication/happy-89th-birthday-june-30-to-thomas-sowell-one-of-the-greatest-living-economists/

  20. “Taxing those evil wealthy people, and not just those billionares with their yachts?” – Neo.

    Some of you may remember this Blast from the Past.

    https://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/tax-the-rich-good-luck-with-that/

    I’ve often said that I wish there were some humane way to get rid of the rich. If you asked why, I’d answer that getting rid of the rich would save us from distraction by leftist hustlers promoting the politics of envy.

    Not having the rich to fret over might enable us to better focus our energies on what’s in the best interest of the 99.99% of the rest of us. Let’s look at some facts about the rich laid out by Bill Whittle citing statistics on his RealClearPolitics video “Eat the Rich.”

    This year, Congress will spend $3.7 trillion dollars. That turns out to be about $10 billion per day. Can we prey upon the rich to cough up the money?

    According to IRS statistics, roughly 2% of U.S. households have an income of $250,000 and above. By the way, $250,000 per year hardly qualifies one as being rich. It’s not even yacht and Learjet money.

    All told, households earning $250,000 and above account for 25%, or $1.97 trillion, of the nearly $8 trillion of total household income. If Congress imposed a 100% tax, taking all earnings above $250,000 per year, it would yield the princely sum of $1.4 trillion. That would keep the government running for 141 days, but there’s a problem because there are 224 more days left in the year.

    Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

    This is Bill Whittle’s video with the fill-in-the-tax calendar.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ

    Bill Whittle
    Published on Mar 31, 2011
    Is America really broke? Michael Moore (and others) tells us that there are oceans of cash being hoarded by the wealthy. But Iowahawk (iowahawk.typepad.com) did a little addition, and armed with these statistics Bill and the ‘Hawk blow a hole in the “hoarding” lie big enough to fit a documentary filmmaker through.

  21. TommyJay on July 3, 2019 at 9:31 pm said:
    Great post, but I’d pick a nit on your complaint, “How are we to pay for it?” Neo.

    1) The question is worn out, 2) the Dems don’t care, 3) It doesn’t address the root issues.

    Don’t. Provide. Anything. For. Free. Ever.
    * * *
    Thomas Sowell:

    “Economics and politics confront the same fundamental problem: What everyone wants adds up to more than there is. Market economies deal with this problem by confronting individuals with the costs of producing what they want and letting those individuals make their own trade-offs when presented with prices that convey those costs. That leads to self-rationing, in the light of each individual’s own circumstances and preferences. Politics deals with the same problem by making promises that cannot be kept, or which can be kept only by creating other problems that cannot be acknowledged when the promises are made.”

    AND

    “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

  22. Here’s another problem we’ll have if the Democrats win the general election.

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/your-dishwasher-takes-too-long-and-its-the-governments-fault-heres-the-solution/

    n 1978, the average dishwasher only took an hour to wash plates, cups, and silverware. By 2014, the average time had increased to between 2 and 3 hours, despite advancements in technology. The culprit? Federal regulation. Yet on Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DOE) under Secretary Rick Perry granted a petition to consider new standards to make dishwashers great again. More than 2,000 Americans supported the petition, launched by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

    “CEI’s petition, for dishwashers that benefit consumers by cleaning fast and well, was supported by an avalanche of comments from individual Americans who were fed up with today’s slow, lousy models,” CEI attorney Devin Watkins said in a statement. “This situation is the result of government so-called ‘efficiency’ rules that, over the years, have more than doubled the time that dishwashers take to operate.”

    While this rule change may seem small and relatively inconsequential, it impacts thousands of Americans — and many of them are well aware of the problem. Sadly, the DOE under former President Barack Obama actually considered imposing newer, more strict regulations, which would have made the problem even worse. Obama’s DOE wisely dropped this approach because it would make dishwashers even worse for Americans.

    It seems that 2020 Democratic presidential candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), with their plans to throw gobs of money at the exaggerated threat of climate change, would double down on the plan Obama’s DOE rightly rejected.

    Trump’s DOE may make dishwashers great again, but it seems the modern Democratic Party would push more regulations. This is in keeping with Trump’s general strategy. In 2018, his administration issued the fewest new regulations since records were first kept in the 1970s.

    Suffering under red tape, Americans have to wait twice as long for dishes that are half as clean. Trump’s administration is finally addressing this issue. Under another Democratic president, the petty tyranny of long dishwasher cycles is only likely to get worse.

  23. Can we all go back to school for free? Since we’re paying for it and it could be fun.

  24. Well, it appears to be taboo to question giving loans to students to study economically worthless fields. Seems we need them for an “educated” populace. One simply is not educated with studies in engineering, accounting, etc.

    This latter leads to the amusing “under-employed” label for those who did nothing to improve their economic value and end up in a job that doesn’t require an economically valuable degree. Far fewer graduates with economically valuable fields of study are employed involuntarily in jobs that don’t require a degree to be successful.

    Loaning money to a kid to study, say English, is the same as loaning money for them to spend 4-years at a beach resort. Historically, the liberal arts major came away from college with decent writing skills, debate skills, perhaps even study skills, but that is no longer the case for most graduates today. So if they learn anything in the studies it simply means that they can think of Proust rather than the Kardashians while making lattes.

  25. There is nothing new about democrat ideas. A hundred years ago radicals were blowing up bombs on Wall Street while unions were chanting Marxist philosophy. Bolshevik money infiltrated the left in an attempt to spark a overthrow of the government by the masses.

    What’s missing from today’s democrat candidates is the Marxist vocabulary. I’m surprised that Bernie and Walking Eagle haven’t started peppering their speeches with the words “proliteriat” or
    “bourgeoisie”.

  26. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s nonsense.

    Did you consult the literature on financial economics?

  27. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need”. Without regard for how the need arose. They are Marxists, plain and simple. I’m actually glad they are willing to admit it openly, makes it easier to argue against.

    Happy Independence Day!

  28. This is an aside as there is no where to put it
    a while back, under sea cables got cut, and i said the russians did it
    they just commissioned a new satellite, and cutting moved business to it
    and the ability to monitor

    well, this just out..

    Russian Sub That Caught Fire Possibly Sent to Cut Internet Cables
    A possible reason for Russia’s caginess? Multiple sources are now claiming the sub was an AS-12 “Losharik,” a nuclear-powered submarine some speculate was designed to cut the undersea cables that deliver internet to the world.</b.

    a war in which one side keeps their actions below the level of response
    as the people in the nation of the friendly, would oppose it given their 'beliefs'

  29. Francesca,
    i agree… but the problem is i am a man, and have you ever called women like this something else and see their lady behaviors? you know, the kind that is vindictive, mean, nasty, etc…

    (oh, and thank you oh so much that you didnt assume that that was my attitude for all women, it isnt… in fact i feel quite sorry for the place they put themselves in listening to people who didnt love them, vs those that did)

    as a gentleman i am stuck using the appellation of lady when its undeserved
    i would get no support even if i gave a true answer
    given my incredible ability to be blunt, it could be shocking…

    while i have been greatly harmed, i still feel pity for them
    (and for the world they made from what they had)

  30. T,
    they are not ignoring it, they are selling to economic idiots… oh, and if you want to know who is dumber, just check out who has over 2/3 of the debt, and took more than the others! money is a tool and it has its own properties and either you become aware of it and how to use it, or…. you use it like a person uses a car and has no idea how a combustion engine works… the latter is who the former is punking and the latter would beat you up if you told them anything other than they are smart…

  31. “Universities enjoying special tax treatment while charging 75 grand a year for an increasingly worthless product and concurrently building up their billion dollar endowments has all the appearances of a scam, it seems to me.” [Jeff Brokaw @ 11:47 pm]

    You will get no argument from me on this point! As more federal money became available, tuition costs increased to grab more of that available money; many universities used that additional money to “improve” their universities by hiring more and more administrators with the financial burden falling on those who took the loans (i.e., the institutions have no skin in the game).

    When it comes to cutting positions, the “fat” is always ready to cut the “muscle” and claim that budget cutting never works. Likewise with hiring, the “fat” is always in a position to hire more “fat”. Rabelais’ Gargantua lives today on the college campus:

    https://www.wikiart.org/en/honore-daumier/gargantua-1831

  32. “. . . money is a tool and it has its own properties . . . .” [Artfldgr @9:53 am]

    Absolutely!

  33. steve walsh on July 4, 2019 at 8:16 am said:
    “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his need”. Without regard for how the need arose.
    * * *
    Indeed.
    And our educational system and job environment are increasing the number who have lesser and lesser ability.

  34. If Ms. Klobuchar would like the Federal government to pay for education at State colleges, perhaps she should run for Congress, write up a bill, and get it passed into law.

    Heh.

    Since Senator Klobuchar hasn’t done this while she actually has the authority, I think she isn’t really telling us what President Klobuchar would do.

  35. Steve Walsh and AesopFan,

    I could not agree with each of you more; I especially like Steve’s addendum.

    I repeat for your consideration my acid test for socialism/communism: In a society based upon from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, please explain to me why Leonid Breshnev needed his antique automobile collection.

  36. So apparently Senator Cory Booker now admits to helping illegal aliens cross the border illegally. Let’s see if I understand this: A sitting legislator admits to breaking a law that his legislative body (congress) has passed as a law-of-the-land.

    The obvious question is then why should anyone abide by any law of we feelz it is wrong? It makes one almost hope that true anarchy is just around the corner.

  37. Sarah Hoyt also has a few things to say about this whole socio-political chaos:

    I’m saying the horrific point to which we’ve come is a good thing. It’s a good thing because it’s a sign they [the left] no longer have a death (and it was a death) lock on the industrial-communications complex, to include entertainment, art, and news.

    [snip]

    New tech came just in time to unseat them. And it’s shaking them to the core, and pushing them to take off the mask far too early, and run around being crazy in public.

    https://accordingtohoyt.com/2019/07/04/and-our-flag-was-still-there/

  38. I can’t wait for when Red and Blue reacts to Marianne. It’s gonna be like watching Donald at the Republican primaries. Kind of funny and scary at the same time.

  39. T on July 4, 2019 at 2:30 pm said:

    The obvious question is then why should anyone abide by any law if we feelz it is wrong? It makes one almost hope that true anarchy is just around the corner.
    * * *
    Almost but not quite the same:

    “I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” ? Robert A. Heinlein

    The difference is the last sentence.

  40. T on July 4, 2019 at 6:40 pm said:
    Sarah Hoyt also has a few things to say about this whole socio-political chaos:
    * * *
    I’ll see your Hoyt, and raise you a Roger Simon:
    https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/july-4th-hate-in-the-time-of-peace-and-prosperity/

    …Our managing editor Paula Bolyard asked me to write something. about how great America was for the Fourth of July and this (sorry!) is what came out.

    But there is a good side. Things are pretty great. We do have peace, prosperity and, more importantly, freedom (if we could only get rid of Google and Facebook and some government agencies).

    Equally importantly, the left has gone so crazy (free medical care and college for illegal immigrants when our own citizens don’t get them?) they have made their anti-American insanity evident to the country. This is a gift to the rest of us, those my friend Kurt Schlichter calls the Normals. The future looks good for us if we play our cards right. Our adversaries are imploding before our eyes. Things, already good, could actually get better….

  41. In my mind that not-for-profits pose as “charitable” or unprofitable institutions is the greatest scam ever foisted on the American public .

    Correct.

    In NGOs and other such orgs, when they make a profit, they just increase the staff’s bennies. When corps do this, people complain the CEO is getting too much.

    When NGOs pay their CEos and staffs more than 50% of the profit “cut”, nobody complains because apparently nobody is paying attention if the media says so.

  42. The never ending Democrat givaway, their bidding for votes–continues apace, as the bidding gets higher and higher.

    Thus, Kamala Harris has just announced her new, $100 billion dollar plan to help black people buy homes–the plan to pay closing costs, and down payment money up to $25,000 each, to people living or renting in “historically red-lined communities,” supposedly four million home-buyers.

    It’s really easy when you’re handing out other people’s money.

    Man, are the Democrats pulling out all of the stops.

    First there was talk of Reparations, and now this.

    Looking back, it seems to me that this country has already paid an enormous amount in blood–620,000 casualties in the Civil War, and treasure–the estimated cost in 2014 was cumulatively $22 Trillion dollars (who knows how much more it is today?) for Great Society programs like Head Start and others–to improve the condition of blacks, plus several Constitutional Amendments as well.

    But that apparently isn’t enough.

  43. P.S. Add to the above, affirmative action in the civilian workplace, the Federal government, and in the Academic community, and Federal government set-asides–the Federal contracting opportunities that are preferentially open to “minority business owners” (gamed though that program is).

  44. We need to remember that when institutions hire based on membership in a minority or victimized group rather than on the basis of competence and merit, the entire system will eventually implode. People are already making the distinction between credentialed rather than educated, and the competence and validity of institutions is already held suspect by some; the push back to “climate change” is just one example, Sarah Hoyt’s essay is another.

    In the words of economist Herb Stein, what can’t go on forever won’t. IMO we are seeing the beginning stages of just that.

  45. Aesop, at July 4, 2019 at 12:23 am —

    Tell it to my bro the Proud Progressive. In 2009 he was sending e-mail spam to his then-Senator, Max Baucus, begging him in various type-fonts, italics, caps, underlining, and highlighting in red and yellow to remember people like him, age 62, who weren’t yet old enough to qualify for Medicare, importuning him to vote for ObamaCare, a.k.a. the Health Fraud Act.

    I made that exact argument to him, in a phone conversation, and pared down to two short sentences easy for your average 6th-grader to understand.

    I needn’t report that it went right over his head, not even make the whistling sound you’d expect from in-one-ear-and-out-the-other.

    Thanks to all, and especially Neo, for allowing me to vent on this incident, which has been a burr under my saddle for 10 solid years! GRRRRRRRR….

    .

    Thus, we hope Dr. Sowell’s point will sink in with some of those who still have an unpoisoned, properly functioning brain cell.

    And we are glad that he’s made the point so that sensible people who haven’t yet thought of it can incorporate it into their armory of arguments.

    (Brad DeLong once referred to “the idiot Thomas Sowell.” Watch whom you’re calling an “idiot,” moron! *g*)

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