April 20, 2024

Stinky is literally stinking up the court

April 20, 2024

це про чортів час, you fucking Putin punks

How many people died because you dragged your feet?

April 18, 2024

On this day 1863, Robert E Lee shouted "Never fight uphill, me b'hoys!" ... So beautiful

April 18, 2024

I don't know who this lawyer dude is, but he does a good job explaining Trump's legal & financial situation

Caveat: the name of his podcast "Really America Network" is unbearably hokey. I almost didn't watch cause of that. But he's a clearspoken New York lawyer and rolls out the facts in simple nonlegalese. Thought a few would appreciate this. Kick, please, so our late night friends can catch up.

Speculates on Trump's drug use or lack thereof at 3:30
Explains the financial troubles at 4:00

April 15, 2024

WaPo: "Could You Judge Trump Impartially?" 12 New Yorkers opine

Of course personally, no Trump defense attorney worth their salt (irony noted) would ever allow me on the jury. On the other hand, I like to think that I may judge Trump harshly, but I'm not prejudiced against him. I do try to be objective. If a lawyer could convince me that his hush money payment was still a legal transaction and that his fiscal monkey business was only a misdemeanor, not a felony, I could see me voting "not guilty" on the felony charges and only "guilty" on the relevant misdemeanors. I feel like I could be objective about those kinds of fine distinctions.

As a teacher, as a supervisor of teenagers who are inclined to rebel against authority, I have to make objective judgment calls all the time about teenagers kicking out their heels against the arbitrary rules and perceived humiliations at the directive of my fellow grown-ups. Sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes I'm too blunt with a kid who's really just laying his face down, not texting his friends during classwork time. I've learned it's critical to know how (and when) to question my own judgments.

On the other hand, I also am a "fool-me-twice" authority figure. When people show a disregard for the system that protects the rights of all of us, they get no slack. Punishment needs to be swift more than it needs to be sure. People who feel trapped are cats and need to herded with certainty... when they feel trapped, when they feel disinvested from the overall fairness of the system. I think of Sam Adams, that boisterous advocate of oppositional incivility and popular rebellion, who, when he heard about Shays's Rebellion, declared that the people who had the right to rebel against a tyrant had absolutely no right to rebel against a republic--despite the Massachusetts courts clearly acting tyranically against the farmers of central Massachusetts.

Of course for his part, Trump's team is probably banking on getting a sleeper agent in there. A closet Proud Boy or a too-lazy-to-protest fellow traveler from the 3%er crowd or just some bitter middle class resenter of all things foreign who wants to get into that jury and stand up for Bigot #1. As usual, the people who believe in justice are carrying the load of fairness for the slackers who mooch off the system that creates a more equitable system than allowed by a pure free market or a centrally controlled economy. But that's the price of freedom, or as JFK put it, that's where we have to step forward and ask what we can do for our country.

COULD YOU JUDGE TRUMP IMPARTIALLY?
Here is what 12 New Yorkers said

Trump is facing 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election, to keep her from accusing Trump of a long-ago affair.

If you’re 18 years old or older, a citizen, live in Manhattan, can communicate in English and do not have a felony conviction, you are, technically, eligible to serve on a jury, according to state officials. Prospective jurors will have to answer a survey and questions from lawyers to determine whether they can judge the evidence fairly.

One prominent jury consultant said the issue is more nuanced than gauging partisanship or voter behavior. “It’s about evaluating how strongly they feel about him and his actions, and their ability to identify their own impressions about him,” says Richard Gabriel, co-author of the book “Jury Selection Strategy and Science.”

The key, he said, is “to have people talk about the strengths of their feelings about Donald Trump.” In other words, jury selection isn’t about finding people without any opinions about the former president, rather it’s finding jurors that are able to put their biases aside.

April 15, 2024

WaPo: Dude puts his "whole nest egg" into Truth Social/Trump Media stock. Price halves. He's not worried tho

The man has faith. Faith is powerful. To be fair, he's 71 and his nest egg is only $25,000.

“I know good and well it’s in Trump’s hands, and he’s got plans,” he said. “I have no doubt it’s going to explode sometime.”

Faith, folks. It moves mountains.

Small-time investors in Trump’s Truth Social reckon with stock collapse

Jerry Dean McLain first bet on former president Donald Trump’s Truth Social two years ago, buying into the Trump company’s planned merger partner, Digital World Acquisition, at $90 a share. Over time, as the price changed, he kept buying, amassing hundreds of shares for $25,000 — pretty much his “whole nest egg,” he said.

That nest egg has lost about half its value in the past two weeks as Trump Media & Technology Group’s share price dropped from $66 after its public debut last month to $32 on Friday. But McLain, 71, who owns a tree-removal service outside Oklahoma City, said he’s not worried. If anything, he wants to buy more.

Mountains.

April 14, 2024

John Bolton (on CNN): Israel's response to Iran's strikes should be 'far stronger'

He's convinced Iran has nuclear weapons and says Israel's response "should not be proportionate."
If people weren't dying, I'd want to laugh at Bolton's predictability.

April 13, 2024

(Combat Veteran on YouTube) Russian State TV: Speaker Johnson is "Our Guy"!

I suspect Johnson is toying with us when he says he wants to bring Ukraine aid to a vote in negotiations. He's just fending off any "NATO-backstabber" talk.

April 13, 2024

Combat Veteran: "Russian State TV: Speaker Johnson is 'Our Guy'!"

I suspect Johnson is toying with us when he says he wants to bring Ukraine aid to a vote in negotiations. He's just fending off any "NATO-backstabber" talk.

April 13, 2024

Minimum Wage and inflation and living

I drew the following table based on the Dept of Labor's webpage on the history of the minimum wage.

year - wage - 2024 adj How low it got before changing
1949 - 0.75 - 9.84
1955 - 1.00 - 11.65 - (By 1961, that was like making 10.45 today)
1961 - 1.15 - 12.01
1963 - 1.25 - 12.76 - (By 1974, that was like making 7.92 today)
1974 - 2.00 - 12.67
1976 - 2.30 - 12.63
1978 - 2.65 - 12.69
1980 - 3.10 - 11.75
1981 - 3.35 - 11.51 - (By 1990, that was like making 8.01 today)
1990 - 3.80 - 9.08
1991 - 4.25 - 9.75 - (By 1996, that was like making 8.46 today)
1996 - 4.75 - 9.46
1997 - 5.15 - 10.02 - (By 2007, that was like making 7.76 today)
2007 - 5.85 - 8.81
2008 - 6.55 - 9.50
2009 - 7.25 - 10.55 - (By 2024, that is like making 4.98 today)

What you should note is that the minimum wage was steadily adjusted every few years: 1955, 1961, 1974, 1979, 1990, 1996, and finally in 2007. Mostly this done under Democratic congresses. But each time minimum got to about $8/hour in today's money, Congress would bump up the minimum. In the 60s and 70s, the resulting increase was to the equivalent of $12 in today's money, or about 50% greater than today's nominal minimum (or 2½ times the amount of today's effective minimum of under $5/hour).

In the 90s & aughts, that minimum was tapered down to only adjusting up to the equivalent of $9 to $10 in inflation-adjusted dollars. This was less ambitious than in the past, but was still foresighted enough to recognize that the truly poor are not quite getting by even if they're working full time. We were lucky enough to have a long ride of low inflation in America since the end of the Cold War.

But having allowed the minimum wage to go unadjusted for a decade and a half, regular old free market principles are passing up the supposed "state intervention" in protecting the most vulnerable workers. Today only 1.3% of wage workers are paid the bare minimum. The average American hourly employee earns $11.11 per hour, which is $22,000 if they're full time (and not getting paid vacations). The average one-bedroom apartment costs $1117 per month or $13,400 per year. That would constitute 61% of an average wage earner's annual salary (or 92% of a minimum wage earner's salary). Assuming you're in the average or below average counties for rental prices, of course.

As long as you don't drive around or have any hobbies or have a problem going around naked or bother to eat, that's doable.

Of course apartments are a good deal more expensive in other locales. My main point being that even with the "rising tide lifting all boats" on wages, that tide seems to be lifting the cost of living a lot faster. Wage hikes are inflationary, this is true. But they aren't the principal cost of inflation. Housing costs are only 17% of the consumer price index, but housing costs account for 40-50% of most wage earners' expenses. Only we're told housing should only cost 1/3rd of your income. But one study found...

For instance, 64% of households that earned less than $50,000 annually spent more than 30% on housing costs. That share rose to 75% for lower-earning households where the householder was younger than 30.

Of course if you're under 30, that 30% rule is kinda bullshit. It's based on the idea that you're not putting any money aside for the future (Americans' biggest financial sin) and it ignores the runaway costs of both student loans and real world housing costs. Plenty of Americans are paying up to half of their income for a roof over their heads and the student loan crisis exists because people can't wiggle out of enough expenses to pay off their loans.

A minimum wage hike won't fix this, of course. But it will be a step in the right direction. It would act as a stimulus for growth. But with inflation stubbornly hovering at over 3%, no one with any economic power wants a stimulus. The Fed is holding back growth (which is inherently inflationary). But this makes the Americans most vulnerable to pricing even more in need of relief. The economy is going gangbusters for the middle and upper middle class (and it's always a good time for the truly wealthy, so fuck them). I think it's time we just got used to 3% inflation rates and allow those at the bottom of the stack to get a 10-20% income boost. It'll accelerate automation, but that's gonna happen anyway. It'll suck to see my 2024 dollars only worth 97¢ by next year, but the real solution, creating some "artificial" deflation in housing costs (the "real" inflation in housing is also artificially boosted by pro-landlord laws), would be politically untenable.