Month: July 2021

Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through July 19. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

This photo was taken a few years ago. Where is this plane taking off from?

UPDATE: golack was the first to correctly guess that this was good ol' John Wayne Airport here in Orange County, but gunther gets special props for detail: "To be more specific, the picture was probably taken in the parking lot a little south/southwest of the ACI Jet building off Campus Drive."

The Washington Post reports that Republicans are really and truly committed to a bipartisan infrastructure bill but have one itsy bitsy little problem still to solve: how to pay for it. What's their answer? To reduce funding by insisting that Democrats remove a provision that increases IRS auditing and forces rich people to pay all the taxes they owe. Can't have that!

Naturally, this means Republicans need more time:

Without that provision, Democrats and Republicans were left scrambling into the weekend to try to identify alternative ways to pay for their infrastructure blueprint.

....In the meantime, though, the clock continued to tick on their talks: On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) is planning to set in motion a Wednesday procedural vote to begin debate on the infrastructure proposal. With the package still in flux, the deadline greatly troubled Republicans, some of whom blasted Democrats for rushing already fragile negotiations. “Unless Senator Schumer doesn’t want this to happen, you need a little bit more time to get it right,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) stressed during an interview on Fox News Sunday.

Just a "little bit more time." Just a little bit! After months of negotiations, Republicans just need a few more days. Honest.

And if they don't get those few more days? Then the failure is all the fault of Democrats.

ffs, does anyone actually believe this stuff?

If you've been watching Fox News since last November, you believe that:

1. Democratic voter fraud was rampant in the 2020 presidential election, which Donald Trump probably won.
2. The 1/6 insurrection was a false flag operation of some kind that was planned and carried out by liberals, the FBI, and other parts of the Deep State who then tried to blame it on Trump supporters.
3. There is no reason to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
4. Our nation's public schools have been taken over by left-wing teachers who tell white kids that they should all be ashamed of being white.

If I were a multi-billionaire, what would I do with my money? Unfortunately, the really big problems—climate change, national healthcare, racism, etc.—are too big even for a billionaire. Only national governments can really address them.

Instead I would dedicate my fortune to destroying Fox News. I would do it any way I could. Marketing. Lawsuits. Boycotts. Talent poaching. Cable access. Making Rupert Murdoch's life miserable. You name it. Nor would I have any qualms about playing fair. You have a plan for a space-based laser that interferes with Fox News broadcasts and makes them unwatchable? Great! Here's a hundred million to give it a go.

Fox News may have started out with narrower goals, but today it's explicitly aimed at undermining American politics and getting us to hate each other. Why? Because it adds to the fortune of an Australian plutocrat who thinks that plundering the American public is a great way of becoming ever richer. Ditto for the on-air "talent," which has become rich by figuring out ever bigger and better ways of scaring the poor schmoes who trust them.

American politics is unlikely to recover until Fox News is reduced to rubble. Anyone know a billionaire who agrees?

Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through July 18. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

I'm not trying to get everyone even more depressed about COVID-19, but I assume we all understand that the Delta variant isn't the worst possible thing that could happen, right? In fact, until we get the whole world vaccinated, it's almost a certainty that new, even more deadly variants will pop up now and again.

Anyone who's resisting vaccination should think about this long and hard. Sure, maybe your odds of getting/dying from COVID-19 are pretty low even with the Delta variant spreading around the country, but that might not be the case with future variants. They might be twice as contagious. Or three times. Or ten times.

What is a good bet, though, is that current vaccines will continue to work pretty well even on future variants. That's not guaranteed, but it's for sure where you ought to put your money.

Matt Yglesias linked to an old piece of his about homelessness today, and that reminded me of a conversation I had a few days ago. I was telling a friend that homelessness is mainly a reflection of high housing costs, which is why Los Angeles has such a high homeless rate. OK, he said, but what about Irvine? Housing is expensive in Irvine too.

And that's true. But income is also high in Irvine, and it's average rent as a share of average income that's the real driver of homelessness. Here's a chart from a paper written by a team of researchers a couple of years ago:

Needless to say, there are lots of things that affect the homelessness rate. The cost of rent is only part of the story, which is why LA and Irvine are both off the trendline a bit.¹ Nevertheless, the trend is clear: As rent goes up as a percent of income, homelessness goes up. When it passes 32%, homelessness goes up really fast. This is the state of affairs in lots of big cities.

So what's the answer? To a certain extent, there isn't one in the short term. As long as housing costs are high, you're going to be stuck with lots of homeless people. And as we all know, the most common view of homelessness is (a) we should build more shelter (b) somewhere else.

Oddly, though, there is a partial answer, but it's one that's largely ignored. It's called Housing First, and it has two parts. The first part, which everyone understands, is to build permanent housing. The second part, which gets a lot less attention, is to skip all the rules to qualify for this housing. Just let people in, regardless of whether they have drinking problems, or drug problems, or need mental health treatment. Just let them in.²

You see, it turns out that a big part of the problem with getting the homeless into homes is that many of them would rather be in a tent on the street than in an apartment with lots of rules. So skip the rules. Surprisingly, to many people, this doesn't cause a lot of problems.

Another thing is to stop whining about the cost of cheap housing. It's true, for example, that the cost of a trailer or a tiny home or a plexiglass dome is fairly modest, running maybe $10-20,000 apiece. But you have to put it somewhere, and an acre of land in central Los Angeles will run you $5-10 million. Then add in the fact that you need some security, and maybe showers and food depending on your goals, and you're up to $500,000 per shelter. That's outrageous! Maybe, but that's how things are in a big city.

Based on my (limited) experience, I'm all in favor of this. The problem, as always, is that no matter what kind of shelter you're talking about, no one wants a bunch of homeless near their neighborhood. And there's no way to finesse this. All it takes is one person to start a lawsuit and you'll chew up years of time. This is by far the most fundamental problem facing projects to build housing for the homeless, and no one seems to have a serious answer to it. I certainly don't.

¹There's also politics involved. Irvine, for example, has been accused for years of picking up its homeless and dumping them in nearby Santa Ana. This is something that smallish cities can do but bigger cities can't.

²Obviously this doesn't account for everyone. Some homeless people, especially those with families, very much want a normal apartment while they try to get back on their feet. Not only are they willing to follow rules, they prefer a place where everyone else follows some rules too.

At the other end of the spectrum, some people will resist assistance no matter what. That's a very tough nut to crack.

Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through July 17. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

Here’s the officially reported coronavirus death toll through July 16. The raw data from Johns Hopkins is here.

I don't get it. Why is President Biden willing to go medieval on Facebook over vaccine disinformation, but isn't even willing to mention Fox News, a far more influential purveyor of vaccine falsehoods?

Priorities, people.