The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Read - part the second

The econ types have, for decades, studied the macro-benefit (limited in territory to the entity providing the moolah) of public money to build sports stadiums. Welfare for billionaires.

Well, the idiots of Nashville have broken the bank, quite literally. A city of 715,884 is ponying up $1.26 billion (how much in the end with the 'oh how suprising' cost overruns?) for this edifice. That's $1,760 for each man, woman, and child. I wonder how else they might want to spend that much?

financing for the project includes the largest public subsidy for a stadium in United States history

Just what Nashville's taxpayers most need.

They noted "nearly 70 percent of speakers opposed the deal" during a five-hour public hearing before the final vote, including council member Angie Henderson.

Let's see if this is, once again, minority rule. Let's start with the wiki
- since 1970 the jurisdiction has become less white
- since 1970 the jurisdiction has become more black
- since 1970 the jurisdiction has become a lot more hispanic
- while officially non-partisan, The Council is widely seen as leaning Democratic
- the Tennessee legislature has been meddling for some years (what's good for Mississippi is good for Tennessee)

Here's just one study of economic impact of publicly subsidized sports arenas.

[S]ports venues don't produce the expected economic benefits for two main reasons: the substitution effect, which holds that the money spent on sports would be spent on other entertainment in the area, and leakage, wherein public investment "leaks out of the community" via high salaries that are spent outside the local area.

Put another way, the way I put it, the only way for such facilities to positively affect the paying territory is for the facility to bring in 'aliens' who spend their money in the territory. So, naturally, the states abutting New Jersey and Connecticut made casinos legal, so that their gamblers would stay nearer my God to thee. Again, the econ types have, for decades, shown that gambling revenue to states, via taxes on facilities or their lotteries, is regressive taxation. Makes rich white people happy.

The economics literature supports the argument that gambling activities, particularly lottery activities, are regressive in nature and attract poorer population. Therefore, gambling often leads to reduction of disposable income for low-income households, particularly at a time when their income is not growing and is even declining in real terms.

The Leona Helmsley form of governance.

That Pesky Exponent - part the second

Once again, with feeling. Much of nature isn't linear or even normal (both in the sanity sense and the data distribution sense), no more so than the spread of disease, especially the resperatory contingent.

Another Covid-Ο variant has recently emerged, by the name XBB.1.16. Have a gander at the latest CDC page. If you're unfamiliar with the page, highlight the XBB.1.16 row in the right window and see the progression in the main window. Taking off more better than that SpaceX kludge. The Indian press is making a big deal of it. We'll see. Get out your masks, and get boosted.

Birs of a Feather, And All That - part the second

First there was Faux News running scardey cat from their viewers for the unforgivable sin of calling Arizona for Sleepy Joe before the other broadcasters. It was a correct assessment, but the knuckledraggers who make up the Faux News viewership would have none of such betrayal. Now, no surprise I suppose, but Bud Light has come under the same fire for adverting a trans influencer, whom I've never heard of. It's worth keeping in mind that the MAGA crowd is about 25% of the GOP. The only way they win is by pulling off a minority rule coup. Wait... haven't they tried that already? Just what the USofA needs, a damn gummint made up of stupid people.

There's been a spate of reporting in the last few days that GOP controlled state gummints are increasing the height of hurdles to citizens making law or state constituional change, to protect abortion 'rights'. Who wooda thunk the party of State's Rights could do such a thing?

The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Read - part the first

It's hard to find, at least for me, the coverage of the various flavours of 5G here in the USofA. What isn't in dispute is that "real 5G", aka mmWave, is as rare as hen's teeth. For reasons not fathomable, Verizon went all-in on mmWave from the git-go, and has reaped the pain. In recent times, it has acquired sub-6/C-band spectrum and works to correct its ways.

When AT&T and T-Mobile began rolling out their 5G networks, they stuck to the frequencies they already used and had licenses for. AT&T deployed its 5G at 850MHz, and T-Mobile rolled out its nationwide network using its 600MHz spectrum. Verizon went the other way and avoided the lower frequencies entirely at first. Instead, it chose the much higher frequency mmWave spectrum, giving it a considerable speed advantage at the expense of abysmal coverage.

So, for the last few years, you've seen adverts from AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint crowing about wide availability of 5G without mentioning that it isn't all that much different from 4G/LTE that has been around for about a decade. Verizon, on the other hand, crowed about its mmWave (under changing branding); you just couldn't find much of it anywhere. So, they admited defeat and bought them some sub-6 bandwidth in March, 2021 (the Verizon page lists in the search, but page no longer exists; one might wonder why?).

So, that's the backstory. Today's story is truly mind boggling. The White House, aka Sleepy Joe, is hyping the coming 6G!!

The more limited 5G adoption in the US can also be attributed to the fact that 5G network infrastructure developed slower than expected, Gergs said. As a result, 5G networks are less potent and consumers may see less incentive to pay a premium for 5G connectivity.

No shit, Sherlock. Yeah, 6G will be so much more better.

Never mind that physics has, so far, demonstrated that Real 5G is way too expensive to support other than in cavernous buildings and cavernous stadia. "Yeah, Billy Dick, let's go see the Jets work with Rogers at the stadium and watch it on our iPhone 12!!" Dumb and dumber.

Mickey Mouse

Avid reader here is, almost surely, also a viewer of John Oliver's Sunday show. This last one's major segment was on the evils of home owners' associations (HOAs). Here is the wiki page and even some of flak.

The point of HOAs is to shift the costs associated with new house development from the municipality (or county, depending on the state) to the new house owners. It would seem to be a win-win sort of idea; the government gets more housing, but avoids having to tax existing houses, to some degree, to cover the added costs of the added houses. Oliver's piece goes on to show how the HOA structure is ripe for corruption, and, it turns out, often is.

Where Oliver missed his nucular missile argument was in not comparing the HOA organization to Disney's special tax status in Florida. For myself, I fail to see how one is materially different from the other. I'm willing to bet there's at least hundreds of HOAs in Florida not named Disney.

In Florida, Colorado, and Vermont, over 40% of the population lives in an HOA.

I'm willing to bet that there's coffee table plotting in The Villages and such to get out from under the HOA regime. As Oliver so adroitly pointed out in his piece, residents have little recourse when the HOA goes on a rampage. And foisting off a considerable amount of the upkeep to the county is a win-lose proposition.

I Told You So - 16 April 2023

Well, someone in the lamestream press nearly gets it. It, in this case, being that raising the retirement age for SS isn't a fully good thing:

Other inequities are just as disturbing. The Congressional Research Service found that in 1990, a 50-year-old man would have lived, on average, to the age of 88 — as long as his income was in the top decile. If that man had an income in the lowest decile, he would have most likely died 12 years sooner.

That, naturally, is on top of two other facts that the author wasn't as interested in.

First, for those in the lower deciles of income and education tend toward physical work, which becomes difficult to impossible after one's mid-60s. Forcing such folk to continue in labor is cruel.

Second, it is well known that age discrimination in hiring is real, not imaginary. If workers manage to not become unemployed after 55 (for example), then continuing to work until 70 can happen. On the other hand, if a 56 year old gets canned, even because the XYZ corp. closed the plant s/he was working in, the chances of getting another job (at the same wage??) is slim. Well, make that 45.

Hiring managers admit they are reluctant to hire those over 40 or 45, arguing they probably won't be a good "fit," their experience won't be relevant to the workplace, and they'll be unable or unwilling to learn new skills.

And there remains the fact, offered here more than once, that life expectancy at 65 hasn't changed by very many years in decades. It hasn't changed by all that much at age 25 or 35 in decades. Anyone who makes it to adulthood since WWII, or thereabouts, lives about the same time. What has changed is the revelation (who knew??) that the Baby Boomers were/are a pig-in-the-python cohort that paid for SS and Medicare for the parents and grandparents, and there isn't another pig to bail out the Boomers as they exit the ass end of the python. Boo hoo.

You're Right Mr. Obvious [update]

Regular readers may recall the notion, offered here and many other places, that there really aren't any Red States. All states are made of two components, much as atoms are made of protons and electrons (for the picky, neutrons don't define the atom), the shithole empty Red counties and the smart Blue cities. After the 2016 and 2020 presidentials, I showed that all states have Blue (-ish in the more crimson states) cities surrounded dumbass Red counties. Aside: in last Sunday's "Last Week Tonight", John Oliver allowed as how 690,000 idiots did vote for wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024, which is more than those who voted thusly in both Dakotas combined.

So, what does David Brooks pontificate today (dead trees version)? Here's the headline - "Why People Are Fleeing Blue Cities for Red States". Which is a lie. All those Smurfs from Cambridge aren't heading for the shithole counties in Iowa and Texas and the like. No fucking way. They're all heading for the Blue cities in those Red, and increasingly desiccated, states. They ain't be flocking to the shithole counties.

He goes on through a bunch of paragraphs extoling the virtues of shithole states, but finally offers up some data from real demographers to tell the truth.

As the Democratic Party becomes more and more the party of the college-educated voters and as the Republicans become more the party of white working-class voters, Democratic prospects in the upper Midwest get worse. But Democratic prospects in the Southwestern growth areas get better. It would not surprise me if a different kind of Democrat emerged from these areas.

He mentions South Carolina. In recent days, Lady Lindsey has been all palsy walsy with bin Salman, since the Saudi has put in an order for a passel of 787s (if you search for '787 Saudi' you'll find a bunch of numbers), to be built in Boeing's scab assembly plant in that state. This is the plant that has been screwing up the 787 from the get go. Still is.

Boeing has been forced to halt deliveries of the 787 Dreamliner once again, just months after it resumed deliveries to customers following a year-long halt.

Ya caint tetch a shitkicker how to build something important. You can read more of the grim tale here.

When Boeing broke ground on its new factory near Charleston in 2009, the plant was trumpeted as a state-of-the-art manufacturing hub, building one of the most advanced aircraft in the world. But in the decade since, the factory, which makes the 787 Dreamliner, has been plagued by shoddy production and weak oversight that have threatened to compromise safety.

Many people say that Boeing went in the crapper after the merger with McDonnell-Douglas, and the ascendence of the MD Suits into the Corner Suites. So it seems.

[update, and only 1 day!!]
Boeing shares tumble as some MAX deliveries halted, airlines fret over impact.

The problem, disclosed by Boeing on Thursday, involves the installation of two fittings that join the aft fuselage made by Spirit AeroSystems to the vertical tail, which were not attached correctly to the structure of the fuselage before it was sent to the planemaker.

The latest quality issue is the second such problem to plague the planemaker this year, after it was briefly forced to halt deliveries of 767 freighters.

The assembly in question appears to be made in Witchita, which makes this bit from the Yahoo! report make some sense.

The recent discoveries can be attributed to two main factors: less experienced workers and more rigorous inspections of aircraft before delivery, Melius Research Vice President Scott Mikus said.

How many more planes need fall out of the sky while the ex-MD Suits run Boeing into the ground? The hapless French are eating their lunch as it is. Don't get on a 787!

Boeing's become just a clown car.

I Told You So - 7 April 2023

The headline reads: "Wages May Not Be Inflation's Cause, but They're the Focus of the Cure". Someone in the Lamestream Press is calling out Jerry Volker V2.0.

Mr. Powell has publicly made the case that the pandemic, the discombobulation of supply chains, war in Ukraine and volatile shifts in consumer spending trends are primarily responsible for price instability.

You won't see that on Faux News, since they know that all things bad that happen to the economy are the result of greedy unionized workers and woke politicians.

As the saying goes: don't listen to what they say, just watch what they do. Jerry Volker V2.0 is following the permanent game plan of the Fed, ruin the economy so the rich rise ever farther to the top.

I Want My Maypo!

The RRW, MTG in particular, calls for a 'divorce'. She either is too stupid to know how large the imbalance of payments is between the Red states and DC, aka Blue state taxpayers, or she assumes that all that largesse would continue after the divorce. Kind of like alimony, I guess. Wouldn't happen. On the whole, the Blue states would gain from dumping their white Red states' burden. Turnabout and all that.

One of the areas of the payments imbalance is FEMA. Another tornado report about one that ripped through Red states last year. Moreover, the egg head scientists know, and tell us, that tornado alley is shifting eastward, which is more populous (not just amber waves of grain), more forested, and prone to night time storms.

Say gooby to all that free moolah MTG.

This episode's first draft was on 25 March, and there's been a host of tornados since. MTG is such an imbecile. And it's such a wonderful map.

People who seek shelter in mobile homes are also 15 to 20 times more likely to be killed compared to those who take refuge in permanent homes.

This report is new since that first draft link, which mentioned the eastward shift. Well, that eastward shift is mentioned again, and can be seen in all its glory on that wonderful map. Which map documents just the early stage of the Tornado Migration to the Deep South. It will only get worse. One might wonder what the CSA 2.0 will do for its people?

There's a great line from Hiaasen's "Stormy Weather" (written to memorialize Hiaasen's view of hurricane Andrew) which goes something like this to describe such 'housing': 'fucking flying aluminum ducks'. Of course, only poor people, even some white ones, live in mobile homes. Hurricanes, tornados, and floods cull the herd of poor people even better than Covid-19 has (and still is) culled the herd of geezers. Who needs more of either? I ask you.

Clarence's Other Crow

Welcome back, Jim Crow, in Tennessee and every other Red state. Rumor has it that the Michigan legislature will impeach Protasiewicz even before she's installed. Ain't democracy wonderful?

Wanna know why? She serves a 10 year term. And, well, the court will face a challenge to the hyper-gerrymandered districts that the Republicans created last year. If you're in a fading minority, your only hope is to install yourselves into a permanent dictatorship. Well, just like Tennessee, home of Jack Daniels.

Thought For The Day - 5 April 2023 [we have the numbers]

What Wisconsin demonstrates is that if you allow everybody to vote, not just white, rural, rightwingnut, knuckleheads you find that these United States are not, and never have been, a Right Wing country. It isn't. Most folks, even the uneducated, understand that one way to run a damn gummint is to promote the general welfare of all citizens. Not just the 1%.

[update]
Now we have some numbers:

Protasiewicz - 55.5%
Kelly        - 44.5% 

That's an 11 point drubbing. Landslide by most metrics.

Mandates are the product of landslide victories, a margin of 10 percentage points or more in presidential politics.

1,839,656 total votes. That's a record. Mad Dictator Don finally told the truth.
And not cheap, either:

Spending in the campaign shattered the previous national record for a state supreme court election.
...
The race shattered the previous national record for spending in a state Supreme Court race. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, the old record of $15.2 million was set in a 2004 race for the Illinois Supreme Court. According to the center's tracking, nearly $29 million had been spent on political ads in Wisconsin's race. Another running tally by the Wisconsin political news site WisPolitics found total spending on the race had hit $45 million.



Bias

The reporting on the competing summary judgment motions in the Dominion/Fox suit hasn't, that I've found so far, answered the ultimate question. Which is: aren't judges supposed to be unbiased and not give a rat's sphincter about who wins? That's what is said, more than once (sans the rat reference), on "Law & Order". So what gives with the judge saying, in his ruling

"The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true," Davis wrote in a 80-page decision notable for the tough stance it took against Fox's legal defense.

I suppose, and The Little Woman has been asked to ask her DC lawyer (ret.) to confirm, that Fox cooked its own goose by suing for summary judgment. In order to rule, the judge had to say why he ruled as he did. And he did with both crystal clear barrels.