Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Most Americans agree there should be different standards for different classes: children have fewer rights than adults; felons have fewer rights than innocent; military have fewer rights than civilian.

Not so with Liberals. It’s taken for granted that Liberals have more rights than the rest of us, and the Queen Liberal, like the Boy Emperor, have ultimate rights including the right never to be doubted and certainly not prosecuted.

I suspect the double standard of preferential treatment toward Hillary’s email problem cost her more than Democrats will admit.

Joe Doakes

I suspect that a fair part of the left thinks of media and other lefty groupthink sort of like a court system; once their starchamber has decided, the issue is over.

I think this past election showed that, at least for now, it’s not true.

Posted

January 6, 2017

Progressive Tyranny, Urban Progressive Privilege

Mitch Berg

Tags:

Comments

59 responses to “Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others”

Emery

January 6, 2017

I hear that Trump has set up a GoFundMyWall site.
Troy

January 6, 2017

Less than a week in and we’ve given up on the “on topic” goal?
Emery Incognito

January 6, 2017

Good morning Troy: when are you going to answer my question I asked of you yesterday? Or is drive by your schtick?
Alt-Good Swiftee

January 6, 2017

The GOP House took the first step towards funding the wall yesterday by promising to strip (love that terminology) half a trillion dollars from the infanticide industry. Better yet, they’re doing it as part of the Obamacare repeal bill…talk about a salt in the wound, finger in the eye, kick a reprobate leftist while he’s down celebration! Yeee haw!

Say Emery? Look deep into my eyes ya slob!
Alt-Good Swiftee

January 6, 2017

[EDIT: half a billion dollars]

Got a little carried away in my exuberance, but I’m sure everyone will forgive me.
Emery Incognito

January 6, 2017

As long as we’re off topic. Is mandating health insurance for pre-existing conditions like mandating fire insurance for houses that have already burned down? I am not sure what the right term is for this, but is it “insurance” ?
Prince of Darkness_666

January 6, 2017

question, if Hakim X gets elected chaor of the DNC could that singal the end of Democrats being a viable national party.
Also dont forget race privilege. 4 black teens beat up a mentally disabled white kid and were saying fuck white people and fuck Trump. Just imagine if 4 white kids had beat up a mentally disabled black kid while saying fuck black people and fuck Trump. It would cause riots all over the country
Emery Incognito

January 6, 2017

So here is my question about the #BLMKidnapping: How did the only four people like this in Chicago manage to find each other? Sadly, that mentally challenged victim now has a better understanding of America than most liberals do.
Alt-Good Swiftee

January 6, 2017

POD, the percentage of blacks that are climbing the socio-economic ladder rose exponentially through the aughts. There are lots of successful blacks out there practicing good parenting. They have turned their attention away from their dindu brethren for the same reason whites don’t really care about what the dindu’s are up to; it doesn’t effect their lives, and they don’t believe their intervention will have a successful outcome.

That’s just life. There will always be a segment of society, irrespective of race that decides that living off the fat o’ the lan’ is the way to go.

What we need to do is get the successfully integrated segment of all minority cohorts, to ( stealing a leftist chanting point) stop voting against their best interests.

As their financial wealth and physical well being increases, they will see that voting for pandering progressives not only violates their fiduciary responsibilities to their own families, it breeds more of the same.
bikebubba

January 6, 2017

The only four people in Chicago like that? Seriously? In a city that recorded over 4000 shootings and 762 murders last year, you’re acting as if there’s a lack of seriously sick people there?

Looks like this particular gang of four was two sisters and their boyfriends, for what it’s worth, but sad to say, they’ve got a lot of company in the Windy City.
Alt-Good Swiftee

January 6, 2017

So here is my question about the #SSOLSEmery question: How long do you have to leave that dry cleaning bag on your head before that kind of stupid shit pops into it? Or is stupid shit always on tap, and you do the dry cleaning bag thing for the fun in it?
Alt-Good Swiftee

January 6, 2017

Ooooo, Bubba! He hooked you, man.
Emery Incognito

January 6, 2017

BB, you missed the snark!

Swiftee, are you a retard? Do you know what “trolling” is? It is the art of getting idiots like you to reveal their true selves for everyone to see. It is a surprisingly pleasant and addictive pastime once you get the hang of it. As it turns out, I only ever jump to accurate conclusions.
Alt-Good Swiftee

January 6, 2017

Sorry, #SSOLSEmery.

That kind of trolling doesn’t work for proven idiots such as yourself. No one can ever tell when you are either A) Plagiarizing someone smarter than you; B) Posting your own stupid shit; C) Posting while also engaged in your surprisingly pleasant and addictive pastime of asphyxiating yourself with a dry cleaning bag or; D) Trying to be clever.
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 6, 2017

Here is the reason we have President Elect Trump:
-Blacks and other minorities who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 did not vote in 2016.
-Non-college educated whites who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 voted for Trump in 2016.

The single answer that explains this is that Hillary was rejected by Blacks, other minorities, and non-college whites. The problem with the “white racist idiots put Trump in the White House” theory is the “white racist idiots” turned out for Obama x 2, while Blacks and other minorities were so unimpressed with the “Trump is a racist” meme they stayed home rather than vote for her opponent.
Joe Doakes

January 6, 2017

If that’s what trolling is, Emery, you need to up your game.

Your version is more like the guy who farts in church just to get a reaction from people. The more disgusted they are, the funnier he thinks he is.
Emery Incognito

January 6, 2017

Put me on ignore and you can be first.
Emery Incognito

January 6, 2017

MP, Obama is one of the top three people we have to thank for President Trump.
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 6, 2017

. . . the other two being Hillary and Podesta?
Troy

January 6, 2017

Emery Incognito wrote:

“Good morning Troy: when are you going to answer my question I asked of you yesterday? Or is drive by your schtick?”

What is the matter with you, Emery Incognito? Were you entirely unable to read Joe Doakes responses to you? I thought he said it better than I could have, so … go back and read those and see if they answer your question.
Emery Incognito

January 6, 2017

Troy, in other words; if you don’t repl to a direct question, assume someone else is posting your reply?
Emery Incognito

January 6, 2017

MP: Trump did not win by running as a conservative. He won, in large part, by not being a liberal. He is not Hillary Clinton, he is not ultra-PC and he has nothing but contempt for the Legacy Press. Ideological consistency may trouble the Republicans in Congress but I doubt that it matters much to Trump voters. They are convinced that he hates what they hate. Trump doesn’t have to be consistent. He just has to be super-sized. The liberal press does that for him.
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 6, 2017

Bad things about a federal system: It’s hard to do things like free slaves, win world wars, and send men to the moon.
Good thing about a federalist system: It’s hard to break.
Emery Incognito

January 6, 2017

To recycle a saying from the Vietnam War, “If you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” And, Trump has a hold on the GOP in just that way. It is the Republican Party that will have to change — not Mr.
Trump.
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 6, 2017

It is the Republican Party that will have to change — not Mr.
Trump.
I agree, Emery. Reaganism has been dead since 1988. GHW Bush did not run on a 3rd Reagan term. GW Bush’s election in 2000 put the nails in the coffin.
I won’t miss it.
There has always been a tension between capitalism and conservatism. Capitalism grinds down valued social institutions. Conservatives want to preserve valued social institutions.
Prince of Darkness_666

January 7, 2017

Reganism is Dead, long live Trumpism
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21713857-conservatives-are-working-hard-reconcile-their-beliefs-next-presidents
Prince of Darkness_666

January 7, 2017

MP who thawed your ass out?
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 7, 2017

PoD, after this election year, it is harder then ever to believe that Americans are going to march down to polling places in droves to elect the reincarnation of RR.
One way or the other, it is going to be an exciting 4 years. With just a little luck, by 2020 I will be enjoying early retirement based on my boundless optimism in America.
We have had a government that has openly embraced economic globalism for the last two decades. So far it has produced one market crash, subnormal GDP growth, and a record low number of people in the workforce.
To coin a phrase, where’s the beef?
Emery Incognito

January 7, 2017

Industrial automation has been reducing the number of manufacturing jobs, particularly middle skill jobs, since the 1980s. It has also been increasing the productivity of the economy as a whole. Given the recent drop in productivity progress, I am more afraid of not enough automation than too much. Yes, 50% of today’s jobs won’t exist in 50 years, just as 50% of the jobs in 1967 don’t exist today. That’s called progress. We have an unemployment rate of 5%.
Joe Doakes

January 7, 2017

The “unemployment rate” cited by this administration is worse than useless because it doesn’t count people who have no jobs but have given up looking because there ARE no jobs for them. Using that measurement, if everybody in the nation went on welfare, the unemployment rate would be zero even though nobody in the entire country would have a job.

Honest to God, you’d think that sooner or later, regular readers of this site would understand that.
Emery Incognito

January 7, 2017

The few thousand SiTD readers Joe?
Emery Incognito

January 7, 2017

I fully support my felllow commenters saying stupid things.
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 7, 2017

Emery, there are a lot of ways to increase GDP. Free trade, Increased automation and importing low wage immigrants are just three of them. Other factors that can increase GDP growth are spending less on government (thus increasing consumer spending with its > 1.0 multiplier), greater specialization of labor, and increased exploitation of the natural environment.
Our elites are obsessed with the idea of increasing GDP through freer trade, free movement of migrants, and automation.
The debate has reached the level of foolishness. Automation reduces the need for labor, which is economically more efficient, but it leaves lower skilled workers unemployed, so they have to be paid anyway (UBI or otherwise subsidized), which means paying them to produce no economic goods, which is economically inefficient.
Cui bono?
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 7, 2017

A typical economist’s thinking, from Stuttaford at NRO, commenting on a tentative British plan to move to a cashless society. The quote comes from academic economist Narayana Kocherlakota.

Because electronic cash can have any yield, interest rates would be able go as far into negative territory as the market required. Some groups of people, particularly retirees and soon-to-be-retirees, might react with horror to such an idea. That’s to be expected. After all, consumers in poorer countries respond similarly to removing distortionary price ceilings from bread and milk. That doesn’t make price controls desirable. If a government wants to redistribute resources to the elderly or the poor, it’s much better off just giving them money.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/443646/camerons-downing-street-and-war-against-cash

You see the slight of hand? Your wealth, accumulated from savings and investments over a lifetime of labor, are equal to “government resources”, which may be distributed to you based on some political accommodation. Or not.
Emery Incognito

January 7, 2017

We manufacture as much as we ever have, only we do it with fewer workers. The loss of low skill manufacturing jobs, is a manufacturing phenomenon, not a US or Chinese phenomenon. The $50-70K/year middle skill manufacturing job has disappeared everywhere. It is not coming back. A relatively small number of $70-100K/year jobs are there for those who acquire the skills which are in demand. There will be a lot of $30K/year jobs until robots become much cheaper and much more versatile. That is the future of manufacturing. Any industry sustained through tariffs and duties is already dead; it’s just waiting for the burial. I have worked as an engineer for 25 years in manufacturing, and I have seen this change happen. It will not be reversed by any politician.
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 7, 2017

That is the future of manufacturing. Any industry sustained through tariffs and duties is already dead; it’s just waiting for the burial. I have worked as an engineer for 25 years in manufacturing, and I have seen this change happen. It will not be reversed by any politician.
Emery, radical, revolutionary movements gain strength when people believe that their lives are at the mercy of faceless, uncontrollable economic forces.
You need a plan B.
Emery Incognito

January 7, 2017

The US economy is close to full capacity already. Adding a large fiscal expansion in the form of public investment and tax cuts at this stage of the business cycle will boost demand growth beyond what the economy can produce. The result will be a combination of higher inflation, higher interest rates, stronger capital inflows, a stronger dollar, and a widening trade deficit. Protectionist measures would mean that the excess demand would add further pressure on inflation, interest rates, and the dollar. With a hard landing down the road.
‘ You may want to consider a plan B’
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 7, 2017

“The US economy is close to full capacity already.”
That explains the awesome 3% GDP growth!

Release Date: December 14, 2016
Annual Revision Notice Below
Industrial production declined 0.4 percent in November after edging up 0.1 percent in October. In November, manufacturing output moved down 0.1 percent, and mining posted a gain of 1.1 percent. The index for utilities dropped 4.4 percent, as warmer-than-normal temperatures reduced the demand for heating. At 103.9 percent of its 2012 average, total industrial production in November was 0.6 percent lower than its year-earlier level. Capacity utilization for the industrial sector decreased 0.4 percentage point in November to 75.0 percent, a rate that is 5.0 percentage points below its long-run (1972–2015) average.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/current/
And I thought the problem was deflation?
Y’know, as I was looking at the Kocherlakota quote I commented on above, I thought “Gosh! Here is woman who knows just how to organize world economies so we have steady, long term growth! I bet that she saw the crash of 2008 coming!
She didn’t.
The elites insist on monkey wrenching things when they not only do not have enough information to make a decision, they do not know that they do not have enough information to make a decision. It is heartbreaking to them, but there are limits to what central banking can do. They never admit this until they f*ck up monumentally. Then they ask for more power.
The Soviet Union famously had more working economists than any other nation on earth in the 1980s. They went bankrupt.
kel

January 8, 2017

EI chirruped: “I fully support my felllow commenters saying stupid things.”

Bank of England experts and EI are HUMILIATED

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/750843/andrew-haldane-brexit-bank-of-england-economy-forecasts-ihtmarkit-michael-fish
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 8, 2017

The problem with the people who have joined the cult of experts is that they will take action on the advice of expert astrologers.
Economics is one of the humanities. It is a humanity because the object of its study is human behavior. The number of independent variables can get out of hand and you can’t always tell when they get out of hand, and the predictive value goes down.
I used to believe the common wisdom that central banks had been demonstrated to reduce the depth and length of business cycle recessions, but lately I am not so sure. It’s just a correlation, and an awful lot of other things were going on with the Western economies when central banking was introduced.
kel

January 8, 2017

speaking of expert astrologers:
https://williamstickevers.wordpress.com/accuracy-track-record-for-the-2016-u-s-presidential-general-election/
Emery Incognito

January 8, 2017

kel: The plan of action for Brexit, which is due to be triggered in less than 3 months, remains undefined in any but the vaguest terms, and seems increasingly chaotic. Get back to us when and if Brexit reaches that point.
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 8, 2017

So the market hasn’t priced in the chaos?
Your economic ideas are rather . . . eccentric . . . aren’t they, Emery?
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 8, 2017

Wherever could this distrust of the elites come from? Why, here, probably:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/unemployment-predictions/?tid=a_inl

Here’s Ezra Klein on the “we are clueless elites who can’t be trusted with your money” graph:

Romer and Bernstein gathered data from the Federal Reserve, from Mark Zandi at Moody’s, from anywhere they could think of. The incoming administration loved their report and wanted to release it publicly. Romer took it home over Christmas to double-check, rewrite and pick over. At 6 a.m. Jan. 10, just days before Obama would be sworn in as president, his transition team lifted the embargo on “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” It was a smash hit.

“It will be a joy to argue policy with an administration that provides comprehensible, honest reports,” enthused columnist Paul Krugman in the New York Times.

There was only one problem: It was wrong.

The issue is the graph on Page 1. It shows two blue lines sloping gently upward and then drifting back down. The darker line — “With recovery plan” — forecasts unemployment peaking at 8 percent in 2009 and falling back below 7 percent in late 2010.

Three years later, with the economy still in tatters, that line has formed the core of the case against the Obama administration’s economic policies. That line lets Republicans talk about “the failed stimulus.” That line has discredited the White House’s economic policy.

But the other line — “Without recovery plan” — is more instructive. It shows unemployment peaking at 9 percent in 2010 and falling below 7 percent by the end of this year. That’s the line the administration used to scare Congress into passing the single largest economic recovery package in American history. That line is the nightmare scenario.

And yet this is the cold, hard fact of the past three years: The reality has been worse than the administration’s nightmare scenario. Even with the stimulus, unemployment shot past 10 percent in 2009. (See the updated graph here.)

My God, were they wrong. The best and brightest, graduates from the best schools, fully vetted and accredited. They had no frikkin’ idea what they were doing.
Ezra Klein is a liberal. He says that Obama’s economic team didn’t have good data when they came up with the stimulus. So they didn’t have good data and they spent a trillion dollars anyway? A lot of the article is picking winners and losers by hindsight, which I imagine must make some economists roll their eyes. “Stiglitz was right all along, but there was no way to know this because Stiglitz wasn’t working from data — he was guessing, like us!”
When you screw up this badly, you can’t even correct and say “this would have been the right thing to do.” Obama got the biggest stimulus he could given political reality, and when your numbers are this wonky, when your prediction was this far off, you can’t say with confidence what the right course to take would have been. Once you’ve run the Titanic into the iceberg, it’s a challenge to get another captain’s berth, for good reason.
Emery Incognito

January 8, 2017

The US markets are at all time highs. Does that tell us about the US (Obama’s) economy?
Emery Incognito

January 8, 2017

Well this is a circle to nowhere then.
Mammuthus Primigenius

January 8, 2017

*shrugs* I’m just along for the ride on the market, may the rally last for decades!
But if I had to guess at why the market is where it is right now, I would say that it is in anticipation of higher economic growth and, possibly, a reduction or elimination of corporate taxes.

Here’s my economic plan (which will never be enacted): Promote overall GDP growth by reducing regulation on business. It’s not efficient to have American companies spend so much effort on diversity and environmental laws.
To keep the demand for American labor high, increase the economic costs of immigration and outsourcing.
I like my plan because it is scalable. You can adjust regulation and limits on immigration and outsourcing fractionally, until you hit the right spot.
And you can do it all within the constitution. A lot of it wouldn’t even require new legislation.
kel

January 9, 2017

emery embraces the contrarian view that the stock market is a trailing indicator rather a leading indicator.
Troy

January 9, 2017

Here’s what _you_ can assume, Emery Incognito:

If I don’t directly reply to a question you asked me, the question was too stupid or the answer too obvious for me to waste my time pressing keys.

You obviously can’t learn, so I am not going to try and force the issue. *shrug*
bikebubba

January 9, 2017

The argument that the economy is at full capacity already is nonsense–just look at the workforce participation numbers and try to tell me that. We’re at historic lows, but at full strength? There is nothing to be gained if the five million extra people who went on disability in 2008 and 2009 are induced back into the workforce? It’s impossible that median family income would rise again to 2007 levels?

Emery, I think ya gotta think about this one a bit more. 2% GDP growth, about the same as population growth, doesn’t generally indicate an economy that is firing on all cylinders, to put it mildly.