Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

No one said it does. Rich, poor, middle income -- Blacks suffer unique police racism. The point is, events like Ferguson occur not only because the victim is Black, but because cops police areas filled with poor people much, much differently than they do more affluent areas. They also treat people of less means, regardless of color, worse than they do those who can clearly afford to call them out for bad treatment.

Never underestimate the nihilist bent, or laziness, of law enforcement. The poor are fish in a barrel. In some instances, racism is also a part of it - Blacks being the easiest targets based on the assumption more of them are involved in crime than other groups. But generally, they're just looking for easy arrests. And the most of those are found where people are poor and desperate and forced into crime.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Wrong. They harass them because they think most young Black men are involved in some illegal act, and have outstanding warrants or drugs on their person. The average local cop has zero interest in tangling with truly dangerous people. He's looking for easy targets.

Re: Gruber
 

This could possibly make a little sense only if you ignore the point of the ACA, which is to provide health insurance. On average, people who buy insurance always come out behind from a cost/benefit standpoint, because otherwise the insurance company wouldn't make any money to pay for nice branding and office chairs. People buy insurance nonetheless because they are risk averse, and would rather pay an amount certain than take the risk of being ruined. The reason for the ACA is that the healthcare market was increasingly unable to provide viable insurance for the middle class.

Re: Gruber
 

smh

Re: Gruber
 

The calculation is a simple, person by person one. A guy looks at what he has now versus what the ACA provides. If the ACA provides him with better bang for his buck, he's foolish not to get behind the law.

The point of the ACA is immaterial to the question of whether it's smart or dumb for any individual to get behind the law. It either makes economic sense for a person, or it does not. (We can save the analysis of whether people voting against it where is does not make sense for them in the immediate are short term smart, long term foolish for another day.)

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

I was going to throw the scotch in Wonk's face on this one. So it didn't have to be any good.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

That's a great article, but again - the focus exclusively on race detracts from analysis of the broader list of causes that need to be examined. Mixed in with that racism is strong economic paranoia. Middle class whites are seriously scared of falling down the economic ladder right now. (Obviously, they've good reason to be.) So they're tribalizing. They know the Kochs and their ilk are not their friends, but they nevertheless support policies of the plutocrats because, when faced with picking a side, it's logical to go with the more powerful group. And the right wing of the GOP is telling them minorities are the "47%" ruining the economy. Additionally, the plutocrats offer (at least in the short term) the promise the status quo will remain. Whereas alternatively, "If we let all those uppity Blacks and those illegals vote, things might change... And I'm barely hanging on to my middle management gig at the cracker factory."*

It isn't rage as much as fear.

________
* Simpsons reference. NPI.

Re: Gruber
 

Of course, this is about insurance, so calculating economic benefit inevitably requires looking at long term and not just short term, and calculating some odds.

43% of men and 38% of women will develop cancer in their lifetimes according to American Cancer Society stats; anyone who lives more than a few years with cancer, either their own cancer or that of a family member, will get significant benefits from the elimination of the lifetime cap alone. Thanks to ACA, almost every insurance plan is now a better one.

Re: Gruber
 

Actually, it's almost always massively less expensive to buy healthcare through insurance than a la carte, since the insurance companies sit in those expensive chairs and negotiate better rates.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

There's always demand, but there isn't always the means to satisfy it. Hence the first step down a long road. Increase the money poor people have to buy milk, and you increase the supply of milk. Increasing supply for that milk leads to more dairy farms and less farms growing row-to-row soybeans and corn. Increase the ability of lower income (or no income) families to rent a decent apartment or house, and you increase the supply. I know this isn't news, so I'll just stop here.

That's why I work so hard at changing the discussion.

An interesting sidenote here: if Pharma is no longer getting subsidies from the VA and HHS, then it has less money and less incentive to spend so much buying Congress.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

The thing is, dealing with race and not dealing with poverty at the same time winds up leading to assholes like Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson, with their "let them eat cake" philosophy and bigger, more insidious assholes like Bill Cosby telling Blacks to stop whining and just get rich like him, so you can rape women and get away with it instead of doing it and winding up in Soledad, making the rest of the Black folks look bad. I have actually heard Black people in a higher income setting complain about those lazy, shiftless thugs and welfare moms in the inner city making them look bad.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

The cops police different areas based on the ability of the people to fight back as a matter of policy. That's what's behind all of the stories we've been seeing lately about police seizures of assets. There may be a lot of cops for whom that is racially driven, but there are a lot for whom the revenue is the only consideration.

Say I get a parking ticket. The ticket is $100, which I get two weeks to pay. If I don't have the money, the ticket doubles, then doubles again, then doubles again. Now I owe the city $800. If that happens twice, they boot my car. The boot costs $250 to get removed, plus the $800 for the ticket. And I have to pay in cash, because well, let's face it, I don't have any credit. I also need to go in person to some place that is half the city away from where I live, because that's where they put the places. So I have to take a day off of work, leave my kids home alone, if I have any, and ride three buses to pay the fees to get my car unbooted.

If I can't do that in 24 hours, they take the boot off and tow my car. If they tow my car, then I have to pay the $800 ticket, the $250 boot fee, the $125 to tow my car, and $35/day for "storage" in an open lot where they throw the cars around with fork lifts, grab anything they see inside that looks good, and usually flatten a tire or something so the tow truck guys that hang around like vultures can make some money on the back end, too.

The garage, by the way, will be at least 30-35 miles from the city office where I have to go to pay the tickets and fees. Which means another day spent riding buses or begging a ride from someone. Oh, by the way, my job, if I had one? I lost that the first time I took a day off to try and get my car back so I could get to work.

I get five days to two weeks, at $35/day or more, to redeem my car. If I am unable, the city sells my piece of shit 1998 Corolla at auction. If it brings more than what the city is owed (which it won't because the lot operators tell the bidders what the city has into it and that's what they bid), I can get the balance, if I file a claim with the city. I can do this, by going downtown, paying the $125 filing fee and posting a $250 bond, against the possibility that I don't actually own the vehicle and instead am some sort of con man, trying to get rich by scamming the city out of $75 on the car they auctioned off.

That's not a black or a white thing. It's a poor people thing. The fact that most of the poor people are Not White is purely coincidence for this purpose.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

Really. It doesn't matter to Wonk. All that shit tastes like ass, good or bad.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Rage is fear turned outward.

Re: Cue the villagers with pitch... ah... automatic weapons
 

You're talking about these things as if they are conscious decisions.

Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin (and many others) did not get killed because someone went out seeking to be a racist asshole that day.

The power dynamics you guys are talking about play a role too, absolutely. But their blackness is absolutely key to some dumb asshole thinking they are dangerous and deciding to shoot.