Last week, Joel Kotkin wrote in the Daily Beast about California's embrace of a new feudal order, with rigidly defined socioeconomic classes.

As late as the 80s, California was democratic in a fundamental sense, a place for outsiders and, increasingly, immigrants—roughly 60 percent of the population was considered middle class. Now, instead of a land of opportunity, California has become increasingly feudal. According to recent census estimates, the state suffers some of the highest levels of inequality in the country. By some estimates, the state’s level of inequality compares with that of such global models as the Dominican Republic, Gambia, and the Republic of the Congo.

At the same time, the Golden State now suffers the highest level of poverty in the country—23.5 percent compared to 16 percent nationally—worse than long-term hard luck cases like Mississippi. It is also now home to roughly one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients, almost three times its proportion of the nation’s population.

Like medieval serfs, increasing numbers of Californians are downwardly mobile, and doing worse than their parents: native born Latinos actually have shorter lifespans than their parents, according to one recent report. Nor are things expected to get better any time soon. According to a recent Hoover Institution survey, most Californians expect their incomes to stagnate in the coming six months, a sense widely shared among the young, whites, Latinos, females, and the less educated.

...
As in medieval times, land ownership, particularly along the coast, has become increasingly difficult for those not in the upper class. In 2012, four California markets—San Jose, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles—ranked as the most unaffordable relative to income in the nation. The impact of these prices falls particularly on the poor. According to the Center for Housing Policy and National Housing Conference, 39 percent of working households in the Los Angeles metropolitan area spend more than half their income on housing, as do 35 percent in the San Francisco metro area—both higher than 31 percent in the New York area and well above the national rate of 24 percent. This is likely to get much worse given that California median housing prices rose 31 percent in the year ending May 2013. In the Bay Area the increase was an amazing 43 percent.

It's a long column, and pretty depressing, but worth a read.

Matthew Continetti now picks up that idea (though Continetti often writes of the New Castes) and discusses the self-satisfied media-political elite.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 AM | Comments (151)
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No real details yet but House GOP members met with Obama last night and Senate Republicans are there now.

The very sketchy outlines...

In addition to ending the shutdown and increasing the debt limit, the proposal includes an easing of the across-the-board spending cuts that began taking effect a year ago, and replacing them with curbs in benefit programs that Obama himself has backed.

Among them is a plan to raise the cost of Medicare for better-off beneficiaries.

The idea of the shutdown was to take on an unpopular program in ObamaCare and the deal on the table is cuts in a popular program aimed at mostly GOP voters (wealthier Medicare recipients).

Anyone want to bet the new cuts won't offset the givebacks in sequestration and cover the costs of the new debt increase?

That's your GOP everyone.

We went into a lot of the horrors facing the country thanks to ObamaCare in the podcast (which will be up later today). One point I didn't get to make is, for all these terrible things the GOP can't get traction in fighting them. That's the real problem.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:41 AM | Comments (498)
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In a year that has seen the worst use of chemical weapons in decades, the Nobel Peace Prize goes to the group responsible for, um, eliminating chemical weapons.

Giving these guys a prize is like giving the GOP the prize for The Best US Political Party in 2012.

A lot of people thought it should have gone to a young girl from Afghanistan.

In order to make political points, thumbing their nose at rational and reasonable critics of the committeeÂ’s decisions over the past half-decade, the prize committee passed over Malala Yousafzai. At only 16, Yousafzai has become a symbol for women around the world living under regimes and in cultures that repress young women like her. After being shot in the head by Taliban rebels, Malala survived and now preaches peace. By surviving, she has won. By forgiving her attackers, she has shown magnanimity. Yousafzai is a truly special person.

Her very existence demonstrates the impotence of the forces of regression and oppression. But her survival and commitment to the cause of self-determination is also a testament to the beneficence of American military strength. She was attacked by the remnants of a regime toppled by the United States and its NATO allies under President George W. Bush – a regime which, if it were still in place, would have robbed the world of Yousafzai’s light. To elevate her to prominence is to tacitly endorse the war in Afghanistan. To acknowledge her accomplishments is to confirm that war yields victories which benefit humanity. This cannot be.

I'm not sure I agree with that.

In recent years the Peace Prize has become not only aspirational in nature but moved away from the original concept of creating and maintaining actual peace. As Alfred Nobel's will states the Prize should be awarded to a person who, "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

For better or worse, one man clearly stood out when it came to actually stopping a war between nations this year. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 07:41 AM | Comments (218)
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• It Appears 51,000 People Signed Up For Obamacare In The First Week
  
• Missing Episodes Of Doctor Who From The 1960s Found In A Nigerian Storage Closet
  
• Forced To Choose Between Food And Obamacare Premiums
  
• Nobel Peace Prize Awarded To A Group For Something That Hasn't Happened Yet
  
• A New Deadline For Fixing Obamacare Glitches Seen Around Mid-November
  
• Sebelius Event At Heinz Field A Major Flop
  
• Thousands Of Connecticut Doctors Fired By United Healthcare
  
• NBC Blasts Obamacare Exchanges
  
• Former Detroit Mayor Sentenced To 28 Years In Prison
  
• Obama Admin Will Let States Pay To Reopen National Parks
  
• Lesus Christ!
  
• Poll: Americans Find Little To Like In Washington
  
• Streaking Is A Prank, Not A Serious Crime
  
• Healthcare.gov- The Bad, The Bad, And The Ugly
  
• The October 1st Brigade
  
• Not Sure How I Feel About This
  
• Trucker Protest In DC Expected Today
  
• Proponents Of Raising The Debt Ceiling Want To Bankrupt Your Kids
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:19 AM | Comments (255)
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Happy Friday.

Andy will have the new podcast posted later. I gotta run, so no links from me this morning. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:36 AM | Comments (321)
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The National Park Service: Assholes in Green

There's not having money to continue your services and then there's going far out of your way to deliberately inconvenience people and spitefully deny them any pleasure whatsoever. Apparently the NPS has chosen the latter.

As we reported last Thursday, the historic Cliff House Restaurant - a privately owned profitable business which sits on land controlled by the National Park Service - was suddenly ordered to close by the Obama administration on October 3.

Then on Monday, October 7, with little fanfare, Cliff House's owners Dan and Mary Hountalas decided to defy the government's closure order and instead re-open for business, to the delight of the hundreds of tourists and locals who dine there every day. When word leaked out that the Cliff House had re-opened, the local National Park Service office consulted with Washington DC and then issued a second (and apparently firmer) order to the owners to re-close the restaurant -who were then forced to unwillingly comply for a second time last night at midnight

Not only are they closing off scenery and oceans, but they also shutting down facilities by force that they don't even run:

The Park Service told Claude Moore Colonial Farm to shut down.

The farm's administrators appealed this directive?-?they explained that the Park Service doesn't actually do anything for the historic site. The folks at the NPS were unmoved. And so, last week, the National Park Service found the scratch to send officers to the park to forcibly remove both volunteer workers and visitors.

Think about that for a minute. The Park Service, which is supposed to serve the public by administering parks, is now in the business of forcing parks they don't administer to close. As Homer Simpson famously asked, did we lose a war?

Bookworm doesn't mince any words in her post, Is The National Park Service The New Gestapo? Which includes an account of how armed NPS employees held a group of senior citizens prisoner for several days when they had the temerity to show up for their pre-paid pre-scheduled tour and stay in Yellowstone national park.

The term Gestapo may seem a bit harsh until you read about some of the casual cruelty of NPS employees directed towards the elderly tourists. But yeah, these are exactly the sort of people who need only the weakest excuse and opportunity to indulge their inner thug. Note that this was only a few days into the shutdown - imagine how they'll be if it goes on a few weeks.

At the beginning of their imprisonment (there's no other word for it), the seniors were shepherded onto a bus. The bus did what tourist buses do in Yellowstone - it stopped when it came abreast of a passing herd of bison. When the seniors attempted to take photos, however, the female ranger in charge took quick exception to this activity - even though the visitors' visual pleasure of the People's national treasure had nothing to do with preserving the park, which is the ranger's sole area of responsibility. Tourists, she said, were not allowed to "recreate."

Once the seniors were delivered to the Old Faithful Inn, which is immediately adjacent to Old Faithful, their captivity began in dead earnest. The seniors were not allowed to set foot outside the hotel, and armed rangers guarded each door - not to protect the tourists from any dangers lurking outside, but to ensure that, without federal permission, even their eyes were denied a view of Yellowstone.

"They looked like Hulk Hogans, armed. They told us you can't go outside," Vaillancourt told the Eagle Tribune. "Some of the Asians who were on the tour said, 'Oh my God, are we under arrest?' They felt like they were criminals."

There were further indignities to come. After two days holding the tourists as prisoners in their hotel, the park service eventually loaded the group onto a bus headed out of Yellowstone. ...Although there was a small toilet on the bus, it was inadequate for the number of seniors, and also difficult for people with impaired movement. Nevertheless, the Nazi Park Service representatives refused to allow the bus to make any bathroom stops during that long drive.

The NPS built up a lot of goodwill over the years and then has managed to completely squander it all over a few days by choosing to be complete dicks to the very people they're supposed to be serving. While the orders may have come from the White House and NPS Director Jonathon Jarvis, they were still willingly carried out by the NPS line personnel.

The NPS has made it clear where they stand with regard to the American people. And so when the shutdown is finally over, I'm expecting a Congressional reckoning for them. If they could pull off this much assholery with only 'essential' staff, then there's a whole lot of very necessary cutting to be done within the NPS.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:12 PM | Comments (849)
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We all know he has a problem with a Gerbil related anal rash now, but I'm sure there's some other interesting things people know.

For example, there was that embarrassing incident at the circus involving a cotton candy machine...

Open Thread more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 03:36 PM | Comments (461)
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The National Parks Service transparently nonsensical "First Amendment Exception" to recreating now even more nonsensically applies to only certain parks, to wit, those in which a big enough political stink has been made.

We used to have a media which was occasionally useful in criticizing the government for obviously self-dealing and corrupt maneuvers.

What is so filthy about all this is that Obama claims The Law -- the iron law -- compels these actions. Ergo, you should Blame Republicans. His hand is forced.

But the Administration's purely political "exceptions" to "The Law" disprove the claim that The Law mandates this nonsense. If The Law mandated this nonsense, it would continue mandating it even when Obama took some heat.

But of course it doesn't. These are all Obama's political choices-- that's why he can impose them and repeal them at his Imperial whim.

Posted by: Ace at 01:43 PM | Comments (214)
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Welcome To Connecticut! Please Hold Still While We Apply The Leeches

Ah, smell the crisp Autumn air in liberal utopia.

1) Amazon requested a tax abatement from the town of Windsor, CT because it wants to build a mammoth distribution warehouse on 90 acres of empty land.

2) Local deputy mayor Alan Simon started shooting off his mouth about how if Amazon wants to do business here, they need to agree to local hiring requirements and higher wages and a higher tax and fee load.

He actually views the difference between a tax-abatement and 'normal' taxation as a loss of money. Even though 'normal' taxation will prevent the development entirely.

3) Amazon suddenly withdrew their request.

SHOCKER, huh?

Advice to liberal government geniuses out there: don't show the knife to the golden goose until it is firmly in hand.

Well, anyway it seems that the deal has been re-struck, for now.

Simon declined to say whether he would still be seeking to have the town's abatement policy include provisions for wages and local hiring.

Yes, I'm sure he's in much better command of his tongue now.

Posted by: LauraW at 02:20 PM | Comments (237)
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I was thinking about this earlier today, or last night. Before the "Economic Traitor" bomb got dropped.

During the French Revolution, the leftist (they were leftists) totalitarian government attempted to inflate away its problems by just printing up a crapton of paper money. This was a very early example of paper money. Technically, it wasn't money per se, but rather each bill represented a share of the government's eventual "profits," if you can call them that, from the sale of property they had confiscated from the Catholic Church and from aristocrats declared traitors.

One of their cute moves was to declare someone a traitor, and then, when he fled to England or Austria to escape the lynch mob, to confiscate his lands as he had "abandoned" them.

So this paper money, called assignats, actually had, or was supposed to have, a fixed value -- each of the (say) ten million "bills" printed was supposed to represent one ten millionth of the eventual "profits" from selling off confiscated land. I guess rather like a bond? I don't know.

Now even though France had these assignats, they were by no means the standard currency; the standard currency of trade was still gold and silver coins.

The leftist government -- which was busily turning the plazas red by guillotining citizens by the thousand -- soon found itself getting into, get this, cashflow problems,* so they began just printing up more assignats to pay their bills.

Now you can see the first problem here: the total sum of wealth devoted to satisfying the facial value of each assignat remained more or less constant (oh, some new estates were added to the pile as more Traitors were discovered, the biggest pile of loot was stolen from the Catholic Church in the early days; for all intents and purposes, the value of the stolen property remained constant). And yet a lot more assignats were being printed up.

And the government insisted that assignats -- now thoroughly inflated so that they had but a fraction of their Official value -- still retained their official value. As regards, importantly, the exchange rate for gold and silver.

And now we come near to my point: Breadmakers in Paris sold bread for assignats, which is a currency the urban poor had (as the government was pumping it out in their hands), but had to pay for wheat in gold.

And wheat's price in gold did not go down. (In fact, it went up, as this was a tumultuous time with lots of blood and fire.)

So breadmakers were being forced to pay in gold for wheat, and then were required to sell the bread at maximum prices in assignats set by the state.

For a loss. For a drop-dead loss.

Well, many breadmakers realized they sort of would go bankrupt if they were required to sell a week's worth of bread for, say, the equivalent of twenty silver livres and yet also had to pay farmers thirty silver livres for the wheat required to make that bread.

So what they did was to begin storing wheat, in hopes that the price of bread would one day be high enough to make a profit on. And they made less bread, seeking to only sell to those who could pay in coin.

And so what then happened is that the government declared this Illegal Hoarding and trooped off a bunch of bakers to the guillotines for their appointment with the National Razor.

The charge? Economic Treason.

My point here is that this is inevitable in a socialist system. The schemers assert that they will impose their will -- their crude, ignorant, mewling will -- on the iron laws of economics.

They always fail, because, in the end, Math doesn't care about your Intentions and Five Year Plans.

And what next comes is that the Schemers have to begin offering reasons for their latest failure.

And their go-to excuse is that they're being stabbed in the back by Economic Traitors.

President Barack Obama’s senior White House adviser and former campaign manager David Plouffe accused House Republicans of “committing economic treason” during the partial government shutdown on Thursday.

This isn't just David Plouffe, either. Jeff Schweitzer, who identifies himself as a "Former Senior Policy Adviser for the White House," writes pungently of the New Treason at, where else, the Huffington Post.

When Radicalism Becomes Treasonous

...

Conservative opposition to Obamacare has transitioned from obsessive to treasonous. Here is the simple definition of treason: the betrayal of allegiance to the United States. One caveat: treason applies only to acts committed during times of war. Well, we are in the middle of the war on terrorism, no? So that qualifies.

I'm glad you've put so much thought into this accusation of capital treason against your fellow countrymen.

The GOP could point to a fuller definition of treason to argue their actions are not treasonous: "the betrayal of one's county by waging war against it or by consciously or purposely acting to aid its enemies."

Well. How could anyone argue that willingly damaging the good faith and credit of the United States is not purposely acting to aid our enemies? The shutdown and impending default already caused Obama to miss a critical meeting in Asia, allowing China to dominate; an outcome clearly aiding our enemy. How could our enemies not benefit from a weakened and insolvent United States?

This man, incidentally, says he's some sort of scientist. I imagine he fancies himself as a sophisticated, enlightened, nuanced thinker.

Mm-hm.

Just checking here: Despite a key administration official and his former flunkies making slapdash Stalinist accusations of Economic Treason, we're still the extremist, emotional, screaming anarchists, right?

Right. I thought so.

We've come an awfully long way from "Dissent is the ultimate patriotism," haven't we?

A government and its sycophants branding its critics "traitors."

This should work out well. There's nothing at all here to be alarmed about, except for Everything.

* I should say that they began with cashflow problems. The Revolution was sparked by... debt and an inability to pay for it. That's the whole reason the Estates General were called, in order to break the usual rules against the King's imposing higher taxes on the commoners.

And then it all went sort of sideways, squiffy, and pear-shaped, as a British guy might say.

Oddly enough, most nobles were not taxable, either due to straight-up Nobel Privilege or due to previous cash-generating schemes, like Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin selling future immunity to taxation in exchange for a lump-sum current payments -- a great way to raise money in the moment, but that will cause problems with income in the "out years," as they say.

I guess I should also point out that they were then in a bit of World War, as well.

Posted by: Ace at 12:33 PM | Comments (460)
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