GOP Cities Have Cheaper Houses than Dem CitiesOle Perfesser Instapundit:
WHY DO DEMOCRATS HATE POOR PEOPLE? Liberal Cities Like L.A. Face Much Higher Housing Prices.TownHall:
Most Expensive Housing Markets in US are in Liberal Districts
...Correlation or cause? Union work rules, land availability, and building restrictions (or lack thereof) are all likely in play.I thought these guys believed in the free market, but they seem not to understand that when people want something a lot, the price goes up, and when they don't want it so much the price goes down. Ordinary citizens pay large sums just to visit New York City; it makes sense they would pay top dollar to live in it, unless you've convinced yourself that it must be awful because of all the blacks and socialism.
Conversely, I don't see anyone paying top dollar to live in Fritters, Alabama, despite the many advantages of Republican government. Sorry for your self-esteem, comrade, but that's capitalism!
UPDATE. I can't believe people are still going on about this. (Oh, of course I can believe it -- it's standard-issue Liberal Plantation crap.) As he has in the past, National Review's Kevin D. Williamson suggests that if you can't buy a three-bedroom house in the liberal city of your choice, you're being oppressed:
Progressivism is a luxury good for coddled urban professionals; it immiserates everybody else.Why then, I wonder, don't New York's poor head out like the Okies of yore to the promised land of North Dakota? "Maw, I can smell the fracking from here!" Except the rent in those boom towns is no bargain either -- though of course you're probably closer to a Wal-Mart and a Chick-fil-A, so there are cultural advantages.
UPDATE 2. Williamson's other recent expression of sympathy for the poor is amazing: he would like to imagine shoeshine men paid more when they work on more expensive shoes, though he offers no method to accomplish this save the free market, which from recent evidence seems unlikely to come through. For this daydream philanthropy Williamson considers himself morally superior to liberal policy wonk Eva Longoria. I swear they recruit these people from nuthouses.
Yeah, now overlay that map of affordability with average (or median) wage and start looking at how affordable those cities really are. Paying $500 bucks a month for rent in Oklahoma doesn't sound as good when the poultry plant only pays $7.25 an hour.
ReplyDeleteIs adjusted in real terms, though?
ReplyDeleteConservative areas tend to have weak labor movements, minimum wages no higher than the federally-mandated one, etc.
In the case of my city, we have relatively cheap housing in many areas, but it coincides with areas in which 35% of the population isn't even making minimum wage.
So what's the difference between a McDonald's worker in Houston (making $7.25 an hour) trying to find housing and a McDonald's worker in Boston (making $13.50) an hour trying to find housing?
Stupid liberals and their desirable neighborhoods. Why won't they conform to our moocher stereotypes?
ReplyDeleteBuying a house in Houston sounds great until you realize those affordable houses come with a 1 1/2 hour commute. Plus your neighbors probably will be, let us say, a little too tan for old-white-Republican comfort.
ReplyDeleteUnderstanding shit is ELITIST.
ReplyDeleteThe worker in Boston can take the bus or subway to work. In Houston he needs a car.
ReplyDeleteI've learned a couple of things since yesterday.
ReplyDeleteAt the behest of the Democrats, angry, unmarried black Latino separatists are bidding housing stock into the stratosphere and ruining Manhattan for the poor people Ole Perfesser cares so much about.
I'll believe this shit when David Fucking Brooks moves to Enid, Oklahoma.
ReplyDeleteShorter these exact same people from their wingnut welfare sinecures in NYC/DC/LA/Knoxville(snicker): "If (insert commie Euroland place) is so great, traitor, why don't you move there?"
ReplyDeleteIs there a term for "too stupid even to be trolling"? There has to be. Then again, plain old "bullshit" will do, seeing how, per Frankfurt, the bullshitter is indifferent to truth.
ReplyDelete"Union work rules" - what's that supposed to mean? Is that even a thing?
ReplyDeleteIs he claiming that mandated rest periods or overtime rules add to the cost/value of real estate? I'd like to see how he extrapolates that, particularly, for the value of existing homes.
Yes, the value of my 1929-built home in LA is higher due to the IBEW's labor agreement with Morley Construction.
This is just petulance. They are tired of being at the bottom of literally every single list for anything. Worst cities for health care? Check. Worst cities to raise children? Check. Worst cities to begin a career? Check. Worst education? Check. Most poverty? Check. Highest unemployment? Check. Worst pollution? Check. Lowest wages per capita? Check, check, and check!
ReplyDeleteLike the dude in Mississippi said yesterday "we have to work hard to be on the bottom" in regards to health care. These people spend their whole lives sabotaging any forward movement...then get petulant when New York and San Francisco show up on "World's Best Cities for X!"
Is adjusted in real terms, though?
ReplyDeleteThe proper response to ANY conservative claim!
"Fritters, Alabama" will never, ever get old.
ReplyDeleteUnion work rules, land availability, and building restrictions (or lack thereof) are all likely in play.
ReplyDeleteA lack of building restrictions?
Liberal Cities Like L.A. Face Much Higher Housing Prices.You know, I actually agree that high housing costs in NYC, etc, are a serious problem for poor people, my newfound conservative friends. Clearly, we need more publicly-subsized housing and rent stabilization laws, amirite? ... Hello? Hello?
ReplyDeleteRight, because Benghazi, it can't possibly be because of supply and demand.
ReplyDeleteI once had a white-collar co-worker tell me all about the Public Union-Thug workers who were just standing around when he drove through a construction intersection on the way back from lunch. After delivering this sermon he went back to researching his fantasy football team on company time.
ReplyDeleteIt's much nicer than Ratsass, Missouri.
ReplyDeleteI am gobsmacked by such incoherence. If nothing else, this SHOULD indicate that liberal policies/Democrat-dominated local government is producing wealth for the individuals who live under those policies/governments. According to these rightwing assholes, producing wealth is the raison d'etre of American capitalism. So what the fuck is there problem?
ReplyDeleteAh! I think I see what their problem is--the wealth being produced is NOT being funneled exclusively into the hands of Waltons and Kochs. Thus, impoverished Tickyodel, VA is actually more American than, say, Waltham, MA.
GOP Cities Have Cheaper Houses than Dem Cities
ReplyDeleteThere's an old adage about "you get what you pay for", isn't there? That used to be a rock-ribbed conservative value. So, yes, Oklahoma City is way cheaper than Brooklyn. But then...
To support my argument I give you (A). If not (A), then (B). Or it could be (A) and (B). Or in certain cases, neither one. Even if it's (C), my complaint is valid. You still with me?
ReplyDelete(D)
ReplyDeleteOh, sure, in blue states it may be just a matter of market demand, but in red states the cost of housing is determined by a much more complicated formula:
ReplyDeleteMedian IQ ╋ ⎡ ⅗ (minority population)⎤
√ Total # of guns ⎣ ( white people - 1 ) ⎦
═ Fox News audience × Cost of 12 oz beer
And by their new logic, Detroit is the most GOP of all cities.
ReplyDeleteI's like to bake this comment a pi.
ReplyDeleteAh, it's ClownHall... they never pay attention to what they're saying.
ReplyDeleteIf you want lack of building restrictions, you're going to be in Texas, where every hogwhistler has the right to build an exploding fertilizer plant right next to a nursing home, and then thinks that raises the value of the nursing home.
And a lot warmer than East Testicle, North Dakota.
ReplyDeleteOr a tax structure that doesn't promote non-resident ownership of whole goddamn cities.
ReplyDeleteddoright Wrote: 3 hours ago (9:41 AM)
ReplyDeleteThere is no surprise here. Libtards are never forced to deal with issues such as high crime etc., so they sit behind their walled or otherwise segregated communities and tell those who have to deal with societies' low life on a daily basis how to act.
===============
And now you know...
Less than you did a moment ago.
~
That's strange. That's my misspelled comment.
ReplyDeleteNow, there's a guy I can practically assure you spends an inordinate amount of time in his parents' basement.
ReplyDeleteIf you've ever bought home insurance, you may notice there's a big gap between "cost to rebuild + land" and "what I paid for this house." This is the premium for the location. It may be distorted by some kinda asset bubble, cozy developer-city relations, or other bad stuff, but that doesn't explain away all of the premium.
ReplyDeleteJesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick, am I ever getting tired of typing "It's always projection."
ReplyDeleteToad Vine, Alabama is much nicer...
ReplyDeleteIt's so cold there, you'll turn blue!
ReplyDeleteIt will be, just as soon as they can dehydrate all the black people out of their homes.
ReplyDeleteThat quote from Mississippi broke my heart. It is good to be reminded that even in backwards places, there are people working hard -- uphill, against the system -- to make things better. I just wonder how long until they give up. And not just in health case, also in education.
ReplyDeleteWell iota warn you, but thought you nu -- and now disqus has delta you bad spelling. Maybe next time you gamma the system, but till then... psi.
ReplyDeleteSuburb of Branson, right?
ReplyDeleteAre they freeze drying them, like in that Star Trek episode, so they can be stackable cubes of salt?
ReplyDeletestopitstopitstopitstopit.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm thinking of a variant of that bit from The World According to Garp.
ReplyDelete[Couple are looking at otherwise-attractive Texas home next to fertilizer plant]
REALTOR: Don't worry, with the prevailing wind directions, you almost never--
[Fertilizer plant explodes, demolishing side of house]
GARP: We'll take the house. Honey, the chances of--
[Fertilizer plant on other side of house explodes]
GARP: --another--
[Fertilizer plant behind house explodes]
GARP [Waits silently for a full minute]: --fertilizer plant exploding next to this house are astronomical. It's been pre-disastered. We're going to be safe here.
WORKMAN: Excuse me, folks, comin' through. This lawn's gettin' a new fertilizer plant.
It's not like they're not doing something about it. The billionaires at One57 will enjoy a 94% property tax break thanks to a handful of affordable apartments behind a "poor door." Oh wait, One57's billionaires got that tax abatement without even having to endure lesser folks at their building at all.
ReplyDeleteUpvoted only because there's no upchuck arrow.
ReplyDeleteThe billionaires at One57All of whom are "libtards,"
ReplyDeletewill enjoy a 94% property tax break thanks toall those "libtards" in Albany who voted to take a huge chunk of tax revenue from the conservative city government. Or something.
Ssshh, don't give them any ideas.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to bake it 3.14159265359 pies.
ReplyDeleteAll thought all "societies' low life" WERE Dems?
ReplyDeleteOr McArdle.
ReplyDeleteStanding around eating government cheese sandwiches, no doubt. Shameful.
ReplyDeleteWow, that is one confused individual.
ReplyDeleteUm, yeah. It's expensive in NY because a) people want to live here, b) some people who work on Wall Street, etc. make shitloads of money and can afford to live here, jacking up prices for the rest of us c) rent regulation laws favor landlords, and d) the free market, which I would assume conservatives are all in favor of.
ReplyDeleteBrought to you by people who ran, in their last two presidential campaigns, a man who owned eight houses and then a man with three, including a car elevator.
ReplyDeleteTalking on their Obama phones, too.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting whiplash. I thought libtards were moochers on welfare?
ReplyDeleteWatching the shitheels in eastern Washington knash their teeth because Seattle has a booming job market warms my cold, dead libtard heart.
ReplyDeleteLess'n, of course, y'all happen to live there.
ReplyDeleteMcArdle would only do that to Himalayans.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to bake it a Mile o' Pi...
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/0r3cEKZiLmg?list=UUoxcjq-8xIDTYp3uz647V5A
Oh no, DO give them McArdle.
ReplyDeletethese are all good points. please join me, comrade reynolds, comrade pj, and comrade hall, in the critical work of overthrowing capitalism.
ReplyDeleteOMFGA! Another free phi all of math puns. Lemma me outta here.
ReplyDeleteTo be completely accurate, the right side of the equation should be divided by the annual number of tornadoes per Stuckey's.
ReplyDeleteIt can look a little ... odd. But for every person "just standing" at a roadwork site, there are usually a couple of people working hard, digging or whatever. I'm told the "standing" person is for safety purposes. He can scream "A truck is coming!" or something to the workers.
ReplyDeleteI think his job is saying "Hey, you missed a spot!"
Our understanding of economics is so deeply flawed that we've all become rich enough to live in mansions and gated communities. So, because we're successful capitalists, we're all communists, and that's why we don't understand what it's like to live in the hellhole cities that we live in because we can afford to live in them.
ReplyDeleteI'll bake it a pi when I get around to it.
ReplyDeleteI want to flip every mansion in Channel View Estates with this comment.
ReplyDeleteThat places like SF are largely pricing poorer POC out of living in town is cause for concern, mind you.
ReplyDeleteNot that these wingnuts are actually addressing it or anything.
Did McCain have eight houses? I can't remember how many houses he had.
ReplyDeleteIt stopped applying to labor a long time ago. Didn't think it would stop applying to real estate.
ReplyDeleteGlancing at the graph at the first link, then checking teh google, the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota MSA had a 2010 median household income of 45,283, ranking 238th nationwide.
ReplyDeleteSan Francisco ranked 5th.
Or Pig's Knuckle, Arkansas
ReplyDeleteAnd of course it never occurred to your cow-orker that as he was on his lunch break, everyone else in sight including that road crew were also on theirs. (I had that exact conversation with a dude at work once. We went out to get some burritos to bring back to the shop and on the way back he's complaining that the road crew are all standing around eating, drinking coffee, smoking. Like they're on break or something. At 12:15 pm on a weekday.)
ReplyDeleteLook over there! Choc-o-mutt ice creams factory
ReplyDeleteGood place to get some thinking done
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB9W8St1pDc
At least Hell, Michigan (yes, it's a real place) will always have a thriving business selling novelty t-shirts.
ReplyDeleteIsn't real estate in SF a perfect storm of terrible? Between property owners resisting the construction of more housing, wildly inflated property values from 30+ years of proposition 13 and software millionaires who won the IPO and stock option lottery, there's no downward pressure on housing prices at all. The only way I can imagine to bring housing prices back down would be another earthquake, (or the repeal of proposition 13) either one would pop the bubble in a way that would have every mortgage holder within 50 miles of the city underwater.
ReplyDeleteNot only that but Texas has some of the most craptacular regulations in re housing law so if you buy a good looking mcmansion that basically falls apart immiediatly you are shit out of luck.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, but none of these people live near the people they find so authentically "American." Why is that?
ReplyDeleteThat's right. I also see subdivisions in the middle of nowhere with tiny yards. It's the worst of all worlds.
ReplyDeleteYes, the mean old Citicrats force the poor people to stay in the city when they're really pining for the fjords purple sage.
ReplyDeleteOr is the entire point that "they" would be happier if they went back to where they came from? Hard to say, and since the writers clearly don't know, I'm not going to waste my time thinking about it.
This made me giggle:
building restrictions (or lack thereof) are all likely in play.
Obviously a little research figure out which of the two opposite things is true is out of the question!
You and Juanita Jean are the best things in Texas. Mind you there's plenty of ugly housing and suburban sprawl here, in the North East, as well. They are building the most god awful condominium/townhouses out next to Concord Mass, where Emerson's house and Louisa May Alcott's house are. It used to be a gorgeous, walkable, little new england town right next to Walden Pond. Now its going to be tiny fake balconies on ticky tacky condos as far as the eye can see.
ReplyDeleteBack in my yoot I worked as a laborer on a Federal make-work project reclaiming industrial land along the Vancouver waterfront. For PR reasons, they wanted to hire as many young people as possible, so their were dozens of us using hand tools and wheelbarrows to do what a few pieces of heavy equipment could have done.
ReplyDeleteOne day a boat putted by close to shore with a guy standing on deck pointing a camera at us. We all stopped working and stood leaning on our shovels laughing and posing for the photographer. The picture of us ended up on the next day's front page and caused predictable John Q. Taxpayer outrage.
Is he claiming that mandated rest periods or overtime rules add to the cost/value of real estate?
ReplyDeleteDon't forget the salaries. Housing would be much cheaper if developers didn't have to pay construction workers!
Neither can he!
ReplyDeleteSo: it's blue-staters who force red-staters to share their states with the poor people they hate.
ReplyDeleteThat's how you can tell Democrats are evil.
Define "inordinate". The last time he came out there was a Negro as President, like hell he's coming out again.
ReplyDeleteOne might also suggest "building codes".
ReplyDelete"Yeah, all that exposed wire's a danger, but we wanted to make it affordable for the common patriotic American, so we went with it."
Which obviously means the NEXT GOP candidate will have to have seventeen houses, each with three car elevators, and an underwater bubble.
ReplyDeleteBecause salt of the earth, y'know.
I'm sure they'll be delighted when they learn of Obama's plan to build low-cost federal housing in rural sections of America, which is totally not a rumor I just made up.
ReplyDeleteWell, duh, that's where he keeps his guns, MREs and colloidal silver!
ReplyDeleteToo unsafe to ever go upstairs.
It's in the running, unlike the water.
ReplyDelete1. No light.
2. No heat.
3. No motor cars. (Not anymore, especially if Romney has anything to say about it.)
4. Not a single luxury.
5. No law enforcement you can trust.
6. Beaucoup guns.
7. As certain rightie culture warriors like to remind us, it's primitive as can be.
8. Goopers don't want to pay the vig for the public parks, so they've decided to, uhm, encourage the slumping-back of Detroit to the Great North Woods. It'll be like, uh, a new national wilderness area. Teddy Roosevelt oughta be pleased. "The Teddy Roosevelt Memorial Edgewater Barrens."
9. Why should a museum chock-full of world-famous top-class bric-a-brac be plumped down in the middle of a town full of people with no money? It's a tragedy and a solecism. Better sell all that stuff off to the kind of society which can appreciate it (in every sense of the word "appreciate") while leaving the unruly natives to carve out some...folk art. Hey, they've got trees, haven't they? And planks from their houses? Isn't that all they need? What more do they want? Picassos?
Please oh please let ME ME MEagan be the one that gets crushed.
ReplyDeleteGoddamnit, Disqus really needs an "upvote all posts in this thread" button for people like you.
ReplyDeleteAnd a DIVINE SMITE for those puns. They hurt my brane.
Thus deriving Stuckey's Identity.
ReplyDeleteLeonhard Stuckey, that is.
Listen to Aimai. You'd beta stop that!
ReplyDeleteDisqus also needs an upchuck arrow.
ReplyDeleteWho do I talk to about this?
Stay out of West Testicle, though.
ReplyDelete" they seem not to understand that when people want something a lot, the
ReplyDeleteprice goes up, and when they don't want it so much the price goes down."
Upton Sinclair:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Cow-orcer
ReplyDeleteThat's the second favorite pastime of us poors, next to planning which lightpoles we're going to hang rich people from.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I more or less live in Bumfuck, and I'd like to suggest a small correction. Out here it isn't "Fox News audience × Cost of 12 oz. beer" but "Fox News audience × Cost of 24 oz. lager." (Thank you for your support.)
ReplyDeleteYou should move to Fritters, it sounds way nicer.
ReplyDeleteGive my regards to Bumfuck,
ReplyDeleteRemember me to Shitstain Square
But I don't like fritters (though I do like waffles).
ReplyDeleteI've always had a warm spot in my heart (or is it a damp spot in me trousers?) for French Lick, Indiana.
ReplyDeleteFritters has never been the same since Nixon went there
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there's a Waffle House in Fritters.
ReplyDeleteBut is there a Fritter House that waffles? (What a waste of time...but maybe a savings of space.)
ReplyDeleteSouth Carolina was doing so bad in education, we instituted a Education Lottery to support it. Unsurprisingly, it's not doing much.
ReplyDeleteThat was also about the time we banned video poker machines from our state because GAMBLING BAD.
Waffle fritters at the Fritter House in Waffles.
ReplyDeleteWhat about Gnaw Bone?
ReplyDeleteFritter away your time and waffle about the result. If you're lucky you'll end up on a roll, but only if you donut take it seriously.
ReplyDeleteDammit, I have a BIG BOOK full of town names like this and it's packed and 900 miles away.
ReplyDeleteCould you have been more cruller?
ReplyDeleteCheese sandwiches? Why not get some free filet mignon and malt liquor with your EBT card. Some liberal you are.
ReplyDeleteJust trying my best at an eclairissement.
ReplyDeleteProvided the tenants are of light build and relatively sedentary, you don't need building restrictions.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyL5mAqFJds
That's what they eat at the dinner hour inexcusable work stoppage.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably waffling about its decision to be in Fritters.
ReplyDeletealso part of the problem is that housing is cheap in remote areas BC THERE ARE NO FREAKIN JOBS THERE so if they charged higher prices nobody cld afford it
ReplyDelete( once tried to warn a soon to be former coworker who was all excited abt moving to the middle of nowhere bc they looked online & saw how cheap rents & mortgages were there - told em there was a reason it was that cheap but they didnt listen ... sigh! )
Ha! It's just names in a book to you. I've actually been to Gnaw Bone. I've suffered for my knowledge.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that Big Bone ,Kentucky is between Beaverlick and Rabbithash?
ReplyDeleteYou've seen things we people wouldn't believe?
ReplyDeleteAttack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion?
C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate?
Translation: You people don't know what it's like, besieged by black thugs all day long with their sidewalks and hoodies and iced tea!
ReplyDeleteHe ought to watch his step. Cow-orcing is illegal in 28 states.
ReplyDeleteFEMA camps isreal!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to stop but I was on a rho.
ReplyDeleteAnd now you're the toast of the town! But the town is Fritters.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he better steer straight.
ReplyDeleteHey, that's the place to be!
ReplyDeleteWait I'm not sure what rabbithash is.
Oh, no, NO NO NO NO DO NOT WANT NO MORE PUNS
ReplyDeleteThese are hardly ringing endorsements for Red State living.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the explosive fertilizer plant is next to the school and the old folks' home is a feature, not a bug. That was a Freedom Fire!
ReplyDeleteeither one would pop the bubble in a way that would have every mortgage holder within 50 miles of the city underwater.
ReplyDeleteLiterally, in the case of an earthquake.
To the Urban Dictionary!!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm insulated from the mean streets when I'm taking the subway from the end of the line in the Bronx to downtown Brooklyn.
ReplyDeleteThat's how Saruman created the Muruk-Hai.
ReplyDeleteIt's a cultural hellscape, but you can live in the middle of nowhere for practically nothing!
ReplyDeleteYou have to live outside of rifle shot of your neighbours. But that's probably a good thing.
ReplyDeleteIn the Clownhall article, does Mr Shedlock (Lock the shed, Timmy, we's got company) think that the places that voted for Romney keep house prices low out of concern for the poor folks? Otherwise he is questioning the infallibility of the unseen hand of the market lifting all the boats while gathering no moss.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Instapundit is a professor at a mid-grade law school and spouts facile, illogical junk like that quote just shows that it really isn't all that hard to get a law degree. Why, just slightly off the subject, I know for a fact that John Mitnick, the newly appointed GC of the Heritage Foundation and an alumnus of mine, is an idiot and a punk. Wingnut welfare is the boundless cornucopia, the tit that just won't quit.
ReplyDeleteHow does ebola and ISIS fit into this?
ReplyDeleteThe tit that just won't quit, the teat that just can't be beat, the nipple that...
ReplyDeleteummm...
BENGHAZI!
Where the traffic's always in a jam.
ReplyDeleteI'm bacon you guys to stop.
ReplyDeleteAbt 35 miles away. Ridden through the place many times.
ReplyDeleteAs a kid it always amused me*. They have/had some killer mountain bike trails.
*Always pronounced it ganaw bonnee.
...
Isn't bumfuck in Egypt?
ReplyDeleteI thought it was more Greek style.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's what I keep telling people. They're not evil geniuses. They're just dumbasses with a lot of cash a big megaphone at their disposal.
ReplyDeleteThe nipple that can't be tippled?
ReplyDeleteAfter living in a red state for 14 years, I'm wondering what would be.
ReplyDeleteThe areola that'll never rolla?
ReplyDeleteNo use getting irrational about it. That would be a cardinal sin.
ReplyDeleteYou even got the umlaut. Time to...cheer.
ReplyDeleteOh no oh no. Is that what happened to Checkers? Fritters? Never eating a fritter again. Gonna skip waffles, too, just to be safe.
ReplyDeleteCOMMUNITY - TY + ISM = ?
ReplyDeleteDo the math liebruls!
"Naw Bow-NER" if you're particularly immature.
ReplyDeleteIt's that elitist forcefield that surrounds liberals. It comes with the money tractor-beam you get after your third vote for a Democrat.
ReplyDeleteThe breast that never rests.
ReplyDeletePaul Waldman's been a-thinkin' 'bout city folk & country folk.
ReplyDeleteEvery time you hear a politician extoll the virtues of small towns, the first thing you should ask is: "Does that guy actually live in a small town?" Because chances are he grew up in one, then moved to the big city to make his way in the world. If he hadn't, you wouldn't have ever heard of him; he'd be the mayor of Smallville, not a candidate for president. If you have big ambitions, staying in a small town is going to be a big problem. So today, the politician tells you of his small town roots and all the valuable things he learned there to assure you that he's still connected to the common folk. But as for himself, he got the hell out a long time ago.
A lot.
The equation of small-town roots with groundedness and empathy is beset with ironies, however. First, most Americans no longer come from small towns where the owner of the general store knows everyone and tractors lumber down Main Street. In the census of 1850, 85% of Americans lived in rural areas. By 1900, that figure had declined to 60%, and in 1950 it was down to 40%. The 2010 census showed the rural population declining to about 16% of the population, or fewer than 1 in 6 of us. No political ad maker shoots 30-second spots romanticizing the suburbs, but that's where a majority of Americans now live. Whoever the candidate from a small town is, in 2011 he's definitely not "us."
The second significant irony in the praise for small-town life is that our campaign narratives assume that an upbringing in a small town connects the candidate to regular folks. But are we really supposed to believe that encountering fewer people in childhood is what leads to greater empathy?
Well, at least the undersea bubble will let him talk about how he comes from a small town (population 1), so he's familiar with the problems of tiny town.
ReplyDeleteI circled 6. Does that count?
ReplyDeleteNone of those toads understand that you can't do something in the same area where heavy equipment is in use, that the asphalt or concrete may be setting & nothing else can be done until it is set, or anything the hell else about the process.
ReplyDeleteNot that I know a thing about it, but those were two possibilities that weren't too hard to figure out.
It's okay. They buried Checkers in Pat's plain cloth coat.
ReplyDelete"those who have to deal with societies' low life on a daily basis"
ReplyDeleteWater finds its own level there ddo.
For Joe Whitebread in his Dockers and loafers, construction is some kind of baffling alchemy. All these guys who look like they're just standing around, or just walking around--and so few people actually doing anything.
ReplyDeleteBut many seemingly simple jobs are more complex than you might realize. I got to watch what should have been a simple water-vault replacement. It wasn't just a dig-it-up and drop in a new one job. Had to break the pavement. Then lift the sections. Then confirm the locations of the gas and phone lines. Then hand-dig around those lines and move them aside and secure them. Then came some back-hoe work to get to the top of the old vault. Then more hand digging to uncover it without breaking it. Then the guys with the special cutting tools to disconnect the vault. Finally, lift the old vault out.
Now, remove and repack all the gravel under the old vault to prep for the new vault. Drop in the new vault. Connect it at both sides, then repack it with gravel and soil.
I'll stop there, but you get the idea. A team of at least a dozen specialists were on hand at all times as every step required men with specialized skills and knowledge (and sometimes special tools). Obviously, they guy running the backhoe couldn't be swinging the bucket into the hole while the guys with the shovels were down there. So the shovel guys and everyone else leaned on their equipment while the backhoe guy worked.
But I guess having even a vague knowledge of how construction work actually gets done is too elitist.
Yes, the feeble "upper-down vote" could be improved. But NO emotiocons (or whatever they're called). Maybe there could be a $$ upvote where you give the commenter some cash-for-quips. I'd use it.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the brand of lager? Surely Coors would be factored differently than, say, Tecate? And let us NOT get into the 'rounding' difficulties with Bud.
ReplyDeleteBTW: Whatever happened to Olympia ("Oly" to my parents) beer? Did their Artesian well go dry?
Alinskyite distractions. As you no doubt recall, comrade, the real struggle is the one for the Motherland, when we break the running dogs of capitalism to the collar.
ReplyDeleteThat made me LAUGH OUT LOUD. Shame on me.
ReplyDeleteWe used to make loud "crunch! crunch!" sound effects as the Captain & crew walked down the hallways in that episode. Till my dad got mad and yelled at us to shut up. Then we whispered "crunch".
ReplyDeleteOnly if she's wearing a red shirt.
ReplyDeleteBig Otter, WV. (No otters.)
ReplyDeleteGold Bar, VA. (No gold.)
Bat Cave, NC. (No Batman. Or Robin.)
ISIS is sending infected terrorists over the Mexico/US border? Or is it the Canada/US border? Or maybe they'll slam an ebola-bomb into a major US landmark, like, uh, uh, the Alamo?
ReplyDeleteHaving any knowledge at all about anything is elitist. /Palin
ReplyDeleteHey, if you're taking the subway, you aren't on the mean streets, are you? Checkmate, lib!
ReplyDeleteI would like to use some of my petrodollars to buy this comment a unit in one of the new high rise apartment buildings on the Lower East Side.
ReplyDeleteWell, in this case, it was a deliberate decision by the feds and the city NOT to use heavy equipment, instead throwing hundreds of bodies at the job Egyptian-pyramid style in order to get people off the unemployment insurance rolls.
ReplyDeleteLots of griping about wasting tax money, coddling young people, lack of accountability, government interference in the construction industry. Looking back, it was a bit of a joke. I mean, we worked for our money, but it definitely wasn't efficient.
In the end, though, the real benefactors were the developers who got to build waterfront condos on the land we reclaimed.
Checkers became bitter in his later years and gave a, frankly scurrilous, interview to David Frost. On his way home from a Kiwanis meeting his car hit some ice and he plunged into the Potomac. G.Gordon Liddy tried to revive him but couldn't.
ReplyDeleteHe said Benghazi.
ReplyDeleteNoe good day, sir!
A solid 64 out of 64.
ReplyDeleteSo you fricassée
ReplyDeleteBu-u-u-u-t at least they're pissing off liberals (they firmly believe),
ReplyDeletewhich is pretty much the limit of their mental
capacity and/or political analysis.
"Ow, my nose!"
You should be able to sine off by now
ReplyDelete(just be careful not to go off on a tangent...
it'll pay dividends later).
Ah, yes, the ubiquitous Texas "patio home." Tiny lots, a 4000-sq. ft. home stretched out to the perimeter, and a miniscule patch of grass. Cheap materials and obligatory cathedral ceilings, so that the heating and cooling bills will eventually make paying the mortgage impossible.
ReplyDeleteA triumph of American engineering marketing.
Hey, it's all Greek to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for someone to own up to having one of those Bond-movie style secret volcano lairs (you just know that Chaney must have at least thought about having Halliburton build him one). I mean, if you're act like cartoon supervillains, you might as well do it with some style.
ReplyDeleteAlas, Olympia is no more. It was bought by Pabst in 1983, was then sold to SABMiller, and was closed in 2003.
ReplyDeleteHad a good run, though, for a mediocre beer. Founded in 1896. Still, I wonder if they were the ones that created the mythology behind the one to four dots on the back of bottle's label, just to improve sales.
Yep they're blowing up Route 2 but I don't know about tacky condos "as far as the eye can see." I don't see that.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, virtually all of the recipients of said welfare heard "suckling" and thought "sucking."
ReplyDeleteAnd they've sucked ever since.
I've never trusted the cracker barrelers who portrayed themselves as somehow above the fray by virtue of having learned small-town ethics. From what I've seen, small towns are just as corrupt as large cities--the money changing hands is just smaller in keeping with the size of the burg.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't exactly good advertising, either, for small-town purity that Nixon never failed to wrap his stump speeches in some homily about his humble beginnings. That seemed to say, to me, that in a politician, one could count on those beginnings creating a grasping, duplicitous, avaricious, unpleasant bastard. And then Reagan came along and made Nixon look like an amateur.
You know what would really bring down the cost of housing? Cutting out the profits to developers and the kickbacks to local authorities.
ReplyDeleteBut under the mean streets sounds even worse.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just a Texas thing--when southwest Connecticut was booming, there were many developments featuring houses that went from setback line to setback line and rose on up to tickle the height ordinance. People bought them like they were going out of style, paying 650,000 and up for 1/8 acre and 4,500 square feet (and this was back in the early 1980s). Many such homes remained mostly unfurnished as the owners couldn't afford furniture or carpets. Titans of capitalism, every one of 'em!
ReplyDeleteYeah . . .like a Quip Tip Jar.
ReplyDeleteEuler's Rule!
ReplyDeleteIsn't Ferguson and the surrounding 90 little police state's technically a "small town"--the corruption, racism, and outright terrorism by the local populace by its judges/police/representatives is outright jaw dropping.
ReplyDeleteI was going to vacation there once, but decided to bag it at the last minute when something came up.
ReplyDeleteFlying over the desert southwest, you can frequently find entire subdivisions with the streets laid out, and maybe even one or two model homes built. These planned subdivisions are anywhere from 5 miles outside of town to as far as 30 miles from the nearest town. All the joys of living in suburbia with absolutely none of its conveniences.
ReplyDelete