I wouldn't say the USA is a sh*thole but it is true many cities have been struggling since COVID. It has become very expensive but then again I don't think it has been affordable in many large metropolitan cities for a while. My folks live in NYC and it has been expensive there for a long time. Their biggest complaint now is it is chock full of illegal migrants that are brought from all around the USA. I don't know what is going on with all of these millions of migrants but interesting to hear about not enough workers. Something is definitely going on.
But I have brothers and sisters that live in the USA and visit them each year. They are quite happy in the USA.
It isn't just since COVID. Many cities have been on a downward spiral for a while. I just got this email from one of my blogs I follow. I was reminded of it reading these posts.
One of the things that amazes me is the absolute decline of American cities. San Francisco is a sh*t hole, and has been for a long time. It’s not just post Covid. I took my kids there when they were in high school and it was a sh*t hole then. It wasn’t as bad as it is now, but still.
NYC became a sh*t hole under DeBlasio. Guiliani cleaned it up. Bloomberg kept it in stasis, but Bloomberg cow towed to the people Guiliani wouldn’t and it started to fray around the edges.
Chicago became a sh*t hole under Lightfoot. It frayed around the edges under Rahm Emanuel. The current mayor is a clown. He is merely a place holder for the powerful head of Cook County, Toni Preckwinkle, and the Chicago Teacher’s Union machine.
Joe Biden echoes all of the above. He’s a placeholder President. His staff lets the border run amok, the budget run amok, and our standing in the world degrade. He lays down and prostates himself in front of horrible people like Xi and the Iranian mullahs but tries to act tough with a horrible person like Putin. Why? Because he’s probably covering up something in Ukraine he doesn’t want out. Hunter spent a lot of time there and mined a lot of money there, and in China.
The Democratic Party parrots the line to stay in power. The Republican Establishment goes along with them so they might pick up crumbs left behind. For what it’s worth, this strategy didn’t work in places like Illinois and California that had vibrant Republican parties. They even won statewide races. Sacre bleu can you imagine that happening today?
In Illinois, look at one term Senator Patrick Fitzgerald. He was the Illinois Donald Trump, albeit nicer. He was chased out of town by Dennis Hastert and the Establishment.
Why you might ask do people in power deliberately run places down? What’s their goal?
Cities and states that are deliberately ripped apart by bad public policy crush the people who live there. Yet, the
chumbalones continue to vote for it. Even if they don’t vote for it, the machines are so strong it doesn’t matter if they vote. Change agents enter to try and make things better, like Garry Tan in San Francisco or Paul Vallas in Chicago. But, they try and work through the Democratic Party which is bought and paid for by the radicals so they have no chance.
Again, what’s the end game?
The people that run those machines don’t care a lot about money. They want enough, and they want to use taxpayer dollars to have the trappings that free-market entrepreneurs have. Hence you see them on trips to the Super Bowl or on some nice official trip, all on the taxpayer dime.
No, their currency and their economic desire is power. Pure power. The power to tell people what to do. The power to make people who don’t agree with them to kneel before them. That’s how they keep score.
Once you understand that it’s not about the pursuit of a normal free enterprise system company that engages in the free arms-length exchange of providing a good or service for something of value that improves human life and about the pursuit of raw power, eyes should be opened.
At that point, you can apply every single classical economics theory that you use to analyze the free market system to the political system. For example, the concept of elasticity of demand and supply, consumer versus producer surplus, where the marginal cost equals marginal revenue takes on whole new meanings when the utility derived is not economic profit, but power.
- How much is a person willing to pay in tax without leaving the marketplace?
- How much crime will a person endure?
- How many civilized inconveniences will a person do without?
- How much corruption will a person tolerate?
Looked at through the lens of economics, you can derive supply and demand curves for each. The powerbrokers who seek to gain power aren’t as sophisticated as PhD economists, but in their guts, they instinctively have a pretty good idea how far they can go, and how far they can push.
They also know that once they push to a certain limit, the market adjusts and people get used to it. Then, they can push again. Eventually, it’s totalitarianism.
They try to get you to tolerate things against your nature. That’s why there is such a
push for transgenderism now. It is also why intuitively, people support Trump. The editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal don’t understand it but average citizens do. Trump will call out and highlight the bad actors. People like Haley will play nice, and don’t. They work on the far edges. Trump bulldozes them head-on.
The abortion crowd has also pushed the limits. You can now murder your baby in some states after it has been born.
Here is Democratic California governor Gavin Newsome outlining what the pro-abortion crowd supports.
The people who have supported the Republican Party over the years have reached the end of their elasticity of demand rope. For them, it’s time to fight. The market price of the current situation is one they refuse to pay. It’s time to adjust the market.
Dan Proft made a terrific point on Twitter the other day.
Jones: mandate Chicago businesses hire security guards https://ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=1231&GAID=17&GA=103&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=143314&SessionID=112&fbclid=IwAR0Crk5DYiR8HIdF951eG1dfrB5IVX3a0mKZrL2rHD0GgBz3pD57_Z6aF50&mibextid=l066kq…
Stava-Murray: charge parents with child abuse if they oppose mutilating their kids https://ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=10300HB4876&GA=103&SessionId=112&DocTypeId=HB&LegID=152735&DocNum=4876&GAID=17&SpecSess=&Session=&print=true…
Yang-Rohr: mandate climate change propaganda in high schools https://dupagepolicyjournal.com/stories/654775408-state-rep-yang-rohr-bill-would-mandate-illinois-high-schools-teach-climate-change…
Flowers: mandate the DEI in med schools https://chicagocitywire.com/stories/654775619-state-rep-flowers-il-med-students-must-be-instructed-in-effects-of-institutional-racism-in-health-care…
Ortiz: make is easier for illegals to get in-state tuition for college https://prairiestatewire.com/stories/654775391-state-rep-ortiz-bill-would-lower-standards-for-illegal-aliens-to-qualify-for-illinois-in-state-tuition
Show this list to the next C-suite dipshit who tells you "I'm a fiscal conservative and social moderate. The GOP needs to stay away from the social issues." (bold is mine)
Instead of a free market capitalistic society that empowers individual freedom and thought, a feudal system not dissimilar from the Middle Ages takes hold. Instead of a familial monarchy, there is an “elected” official ruling.
So, Dan is correct. If you want to win as a Republican, you have to wade into the social issues. If you want to aspire to a small government society, yes, you have to wade into social issues and say what people are doing is wrong. It will piss them off. They will hate you. They will attack you. But, what’s the alternative?
You get fired from a job for not taking a vaccine that is proven not to work. You get to wear a mask in public when you know it doesn’t do any good. You mind your speech in order to not offend someone by using the “wrong pronouns” that we have used since the dawn of human speech. You kneel and take it and after they whip you the next thing you do is kneel and take it some more.
I think that Buck did a good job of setting the table for my thoughts in this essay. A lot of us on the right consider ourselves to be “libertarian”. We want small government, individual empowerment and to be left alone. But, as Buck correctly states, Libertarian societies are the same as communist societies in that neither are able to be achieved. There is no utopia.
He writes:
Decentralization goes beyond politics, obviously. Corporate monopolies, oligopolies, and cartels must be broken up so that authentic, competitive marketplaces can return. A greater number of smaller competitors might also rid us of global-celebrity CEOs who have more power and influence than do many heads of state - power and influence that they are using to pursue suppression of personal and economic freedom.
What is interesting about the points in the essay is a simple search shows that there are
a lot of academics talking about decentralization vs libertarianism. It’s a real point of debate.
There is one place where people can view the push and pull between the concept of centralized government, and decentralized government. It is in cryptocurrency and tokenization. Professor John McGinnis of Northwestern Law asks “Will the government allow competition to its own fiat currency that it controls, and gives it some control over its citizens?”
You might call crypto bunk and a bunch of tulip bulbs. But, there are some real things being built of value and it will be interesting to see if they cause people to be free of the economic ties that bind them to a centralized government. The old feudal Lords and Duke’s would never have allowed a private currency on their property either.
America is simmering. It reminds me of the 1850s.
