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

Link won't open but I am anticipating utter havoc in Missouri today.

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

Assuming there will be no indictment, and disorder will ensue, I'm initially inclined to think, "Is this the straw that breaks the camel's back? Is this tragedy, which is almost as much about class as race, the thing that causes radical action on inequality?"

Then I remember, there is no real fix for inequality, just silly talk about tax redistribution that wouldn't even dent the problem. And so even if this thing did start some huge dialogue, it wouldn't go very far. There'd be a lot of media attention for a time, but inevitably, things would return to stasis, the poor being subject to harsh law enforcement, the rest of us temporarily concerned, but our attentions quickly diverted by the rat race. And as we have more inequality, and with it more incidents like Ferguson, we'll all get numb to it the same way we're numb to school shootings.

I can live with turning into Brazil, I guess. But at least expand Mardi Gras into a full blown national Carnival.

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

Hmmm, some of these ideas sound so familiar. If only I could remember where I first heard them.

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

It's a link to an article in the Israeli press about how the Mayor of Jerusalem and the Police have asked everyone with a license to carry to bring their guns down and join the security forces.

Marvelous idea.

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

Hell, this is in Missouri. I do more business with and have more reason to spend time in Sao Paolo than St. Louis. In America today, the red states ARE the third world, more than so much of what we used to call the third world.

At some point maybe we'll be shamed into action. Or, alternatively, maybe they'll find their JLaw to lead them in rising up against our little carnivales.

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

Ridiculous. What kind of pussy country requires people to have a license to carry a gun?

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

I'm sure if Alabama could just license whites to carry guns there would be a lot more gun control fans down there.

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

You know this is racist bullshit that white people tell themselves so they don't have to think about things like this, right?

Yes, "silly talk" about policies that unequivocally work when implemented, both here, historically, and abroad.

We've been there. Policy, in part driven by fear of actual leftist revolution, led us toward something better and then led us back as that fear receded.

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

No, I think that's your simplification of my point. Race is a primary issue here, of course. But so is class. The police don't treat minorities badly solely because they are minorities. They treat them badly just as much because they assume or know they're poor, and for that reason, the police can get away with doing so.

The only cure is to create demand. Redistribution does not do this. More stimulus could, but that's off the table. (Yeah, that's right -- I agree with Krugman.) For some dumb reason, we've decided the only cures for inequality to be debated involve increased taxes.

We haven't been there in a Citizens United world. The govt is a wholly owned tool of big corporate America.

Re: Gruber
 

True, a guy who'd gain more from the ACA than the cost of his tax increase is irrefutably stupid. But equally true, a guy who looks at the cost/benefit and concludes that it probably is not going to be a net gain for him is not stupid. He falls in the selfish bucket. I think there's a lot of the latter out there being lumped in with the former.

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

They shoot young black men (and harrass, stop and first, prosecute, suspend from school, etc.) because our culture says young black men are inherently dangerous. Class has nothing to do with that.

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

This is wrong. Demand is there among the poor and the marginalized. They are not refraining from buying food and shelter because they are Spartan by nature. Redistribution does a ton for giving people the means to satisfy their demand, and in the process it creates more demand.

You are also wrong about increasing taxes being the only way to cure inequality. What needs to increase is not the rate of tax, but tax revenue. Do away with the tax break given to capital gains (nothing but transfer payments to the rich), tax carried interests like the compensation that they are, eliminate subsidies to the big farmers, energy producers, Pharma, and the other big beneficiaries of government largesse, and you will reduce inequality and create demand, jobs, and economic stability, without raising most people's tax bill one whit.

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

You are oversimplifying, here, Adder. Race is a big component of class in America. Far more so than whether you went to a first-tier or second-tier law school or where you prepped. Young Black men are inherently dangerous because they come from the underclass. That statement is every bit as true as young Black men are part of the underclass because they are Black.

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

There are a lot of poor whites and poor Asians, who do not get treated the way that poor blacks do. And there are middle and upper class young black men who continue to get looked upon as dangerous.

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

I never said there weren't. I just said that class and race are very closely tied in America and the fact that people need to point to outliers to dispute the matter only proves the rule.

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

This is simply untrue and ignores a vast body of history and culture that is specifically about dangers of blackness.

Other members of the underclass may also be viewed as inherently dangerous too, but that does not erase the racial component.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

White rage.

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

You missed my point. The two feed off of each other. To ascribe to either one what is the product of both is to oversimplify.

Re: Gruber
 

Bull. Shit. If you think there a lot of people doing a cost/benefit analysis when it comes to any issue that politicians debate, you just arrived here from another country and don't speak the english so good.

TM

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

Ummm, I'm having trouble with one of those sentences. I'm hoping I'm just not catching you being facetious.

TM

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

Sidd, order me a cheap scotch.

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

I was being ironic more than facetious. To talk of the underclass in America is to give a sanitized name to racism, sure, but it also obfuscates that what keeps so many Blacks part of the underclass is poverty and lack of opportunity, which then leads to Black frustration and lack of options, so crime is one response in a world where nothing else is available, etc.

If you look at crime, domestic violence, literacy, homelessness, and drug use among poor Whites and Asians, the numbers don't differ that much. What differs is the when we speak of the underclass, everybody knows what color we are speaking about.

You can't attack one issue without also dealing with the other.

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

Um..... huh?

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

It would be good to attack both issues, but they can be attacked separately. In some ways, they have been -- I would say that we've made a lot more progress in dealing with racism in this country over the past 40 year than we have in dealing with persistent poverty. Doesn't mean there isn't a long way to go, but.

Even when black people are not poor they are treated differently and badly, as TM has pointed out so many times in the past. Racism and class division are related, but they are different things.

I remember the "joke" people used to tell when I was growing up -- what do you call a black millionaire nuclear physicist? That really underscored the way black people were seen

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

There's always demand for the basics. To grow, we need demand for a broader basket of things. This comes when people at the lower levels have more dollars in their pockets.

I do not believe that increasing people's tax rates is the sole way to fix inequality. I'd support almost all of the things you listed. Unfortunately, however, as I noted, the discussion doesn't focus on removing these loopholes. It seems to always revolve around blunt rate increases, including some of the stuff you list only as an afterthought (where it is even mentioned).

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.