Category Archives: Economy

NEW COLUMN: Homeless In Seattle, Part 1: High-Tech Harm The Homeless

Business, Economy, Globalism, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Technology

NEW COLUMN is “Homeless In Seattle, Part 1: High-Tech & The Homeless.” It is currently on Townhall.com , The Unz Review and WND.com.

To expatiate on the subject of homelessness in Seattle, Tucker Carlson regularly invites on his Fox News show a Republican liberal who broadcasts out of Seattle.

Aside from a pastiche of liberal ideas, Sleepy in Seattle has nothing remotely perceptive or probative to say about homelessness in the Emerald City. Eventually, this young know-nothing will read this column and parrot it back to Tucker.

Then, perhaps, will Carlson’s viewers stop being gulled by Big Tech and the other multinationals who are exacerbating the problem of homelessness in Washington State.

For these stateless corporations are the major importers, into King County and the surrounds, of a high-tech, feudal elite that compounds the homeless quagmire.

If anything, the corporations who straddle the globe rely on immigration ignoramuses to perpetuate the single-cause theory of homelessness: addiction or mental illness.

However, even if drug addiction and mental illness are seen as necessary in causing homelessness, they are seldom sufficient. Substance abuse and mental anguish can, in themselves, be the consequence of other exogenous, existential and intractable circumstances.

Like being priced out of your homeland’s housing market. For good.

Big Tech must be quite pleased to see homelessness attributed exclusively, by the usual cast on TV, to addiction and mental illness—when, in fact, homelessness is driven, primarily, by the systematic and permanent eviction from the housing market of vulnerable, working-class people.

In truth, our country is consigning its economically weakest members to the homeless encampment, through the never-ending importation of a high-rolling, high-tech elite, which, in turn, artificially inflates the price of housing. In perpetuity.

According to the Seattle Times, “fewer than 50 percent of people without homes are addicts.” “There are more families with children than chronically homeless people” in the encampments.

Underlying homelessness are factors such as “loss of a job,” “eviction,” medical bills and foreclosure, the last of which “destroys credit ratings, making former homeowners no longer eligible for loans or, in many cases, rentals.” Forever.

“We must no longer allow politicians, policy influencers and the media to get away with the laziness of conflating substance abuse and homelessness,” inveighs Lola E. Peters.

Peters, a local writer, is correct. Alas, while implicating the tech-driven population explosion in our state’s housing crisis, Ms. Peters frames the unrelenting influx from China and India as an organic, natural, made-in-America population explosion. …

 

… READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN, “Homeless In Seattle, Part 1: High-Tech & The Homeless,” is currently on Townhall.com, The Unz Review and WND.com.

WHITE MALE MISERY In America

America, Drug War, Economy, Multiculturalism, Psychiatry, Race, Racism

The Economist’s writer is no angel. But he is dancing like so many angels on the head of a pin in order to minimize the effects of systemic hostility toward white men in America:

… thoughts of suicide were slightly higher on average amongst less-educated whites than other groups.
… heavy drinking was higher amongst whites than other groups.

… opioid abuse along with other prescription drug abuse and illegal drug use remain much higher amongst non-college educated whites. Other research has shown that whites commit suicide at a higher rate than blacks and Hispanics: according to the CDC, white non-Hispanic Americans commit suicide at around three times the rate of blacks and Hispanics, with the highest and growing toll amongst older men.

…increased suicide rates among white men may be caused in part by a decline in income and status.

The Economist also cleverly attempts to minimize the dire situation of white men in America by implying that these “poorly educated” white ingrates are still “better off than women and minorities.”

Then of course, there are the solutions of shallow economic reductionism:

Increase the minimum wage. Provide more generous earned income tax credits. (“Because of lower incomes, minorities and women are more likely to be eligible for EITC payments, and to benefit from minimum wage increases.”)

READ: “Depression is increasing among Americans reaching middle age: Misery is spreading across all groups, but poorly educated white men remain the unhappiest.” (5/15/019)

UPDATED (4/3/019): The American Dream? Forget The White Picket Fence And The House

Business, Economy, Globalism, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Nationhood, Private Property

CBS News:

Even with rising wages and falling mortgage rates, Americans can’t afford a home in more than 70 percent of the country. Out of 473 U.S. counties analyzed in a report, 335 listed median home prices more than what average wage earners could afford, according to a report from ATTOM Data Solutions. Among them are the counties that include Los Angeles and San Diego in California, as well as Miami-Dade County in Florida and Maricopa County in Arizona.

Naturally, realtors prefer a tight housing market driven, in part, by an unending influx of immigrants:

… swaths of America have seen local housing fundamentally altered by an influx of new immigrant groups—sometimes in surprising ways that fly in the face of prevailing narratives.

There are now about 42 million immigrants from just about every country in the world living in the U.S., making up about 13% of the overall population, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. They’re a wildly diverse group, but they’re bound by a common desire: to build a better life for themselves and their families.

“Immigrants are a big driving force for housing markets across the nation,” says Kusum Mundra, an economics professor at Rutgers University, Newark. “Most want the American dream, which is to own a home.”

UPDATES (4/3/019): Kushner vs. Deplorables:

Deplorables:

Democrats Crack The Whip; GOPers Grovel. What’s New?

Democrats, Donald Trump, Economy, IMMIGRATION, Politics, Republicans, The Establishment

Today, Karl Rove, whose idiocy springs eternal, remarked (on TV) and wrote (on one of the GOP media organs) that Republicans and their president should “Move On From Robert Mueller.”

There is a reason the Democrats have banged on about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report and the “collusion delusion” for two years. It’s a winning issue FOR THEM. And rubbing Democrats’ snouts in their loss is a winning issue for the Republicans.

But, oh no. Republicans are good sports (a euphemism for losers). They want to be nice—and to hell with winning or representing their base. Mr. Establishment, Karl Rove, preaches it:

Team Trump should use the Mueller report to pivot to issues, like the economy and the opioid crisis, that matter to swing voters who will decide the 2020 presidential election. … reiterating old grievances about the investigation’s unfairness won’t materially change those ratings.  The president should focus his time, voice and tweets on the roaring economy, impressive job creation and bigger paychecks.

AND, don’t mention immigration. That’s implicit in the Rove-cum-Bush worldview.