Don’t know how they did the poll, but if I am paranoid jew and someone called me up, asked me a bunch of questions, then asked at the end to self-identify I might say “none of the above”.

Are there enough mainstream protestants left to do a poll? or did they include southern baptists and methodists.

Strange that white men can get laid pretty much anywhere except the old USA….

Or is that white american women care more about status than sex?

Well, as someone who dated an irish-argentine there seemed to be plenty of natural blondes around.

That said, I think what you were seeing was a lack of hair dye.

If you go north you’ll see the mixing. BA, no, not much.

The problem with Brat and his ilk isn’t quoting Weber, it is their astonishing lack of any historical sense or cultural differences.

You can posit that the “Establishment” has overinvested in this various voodoo stuff in the past 40 years, and has a real lack of intellectual grounding.

Catholic/protestant differences in Germany, however, are fairly meaningless after the 20th century (two wars, partition, and carpet bombing).

As a previous person said, the problem with Calvinism is it works, people copy 75% of it and it spins into hersey. Just like the pope said it would.

Brazil is a useful model for the US, where I don’t think in 50 or 100 years we will have a “black race” or “black people” although the number of people with dark skin will be about the same percentage as today. Intermarriage and african/caribbean immmigration will destroy what we know as the black race.

I can’t say for certain with Italian immigrants to Brazil, but you can clearly see that the ones to Argentina were mostly 1) from northern italy; 2) came with families; and 3) tended to stay as opposed to immigrants to the USA. That is why italian food is better there — the women actualy cooked it as opposed to men re-creating momma’s food.

All these studies are leaving out the massive arab immigration as well.

I’d agree there are some logical disconnects in the Fallows piece. I’m not sure that the smog problems in the Valley are automotive or transporation oriented. And that power for HSR will come from somewhere, which creates it own pollution.

Also true are the problems of topography and stops.

People like Europe because it is full of nice things. But in terms of trains, the days of cheap travel on Europass are long over. Lots of older people have nice memories of that. Cheap air travel is the new way forward there. We can’t seem to get that right either.

That said there is any easy way to convince railroad companies to build HSR — give them a lot of free land. Or money. Worked well before, will work again. There is a reason state owned railroads are pretty common now.

Wait, you mean if we build a wall on the mexican border people will just take boats?????? Well that blows border security out of the water.

http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/julyaugust/feature/how-did-cool-become-such-big-deal-0

“Next, I tally up three ingredients that my vague sense of history tells me are essential to cool at this point in time: Cool is urban; it is strongly associated with jazz; and it has something to do with race.

In a word, cool is black. Or, to be more accurate, there was a historical period in the evolution of the modern concept of cool when it seemed to be a property, largely but not exclusively, of African Americans.”

I think Steve is missing the point; the re-rise of glass boxes is directly related to fracking and cheaper electric costs.

I live in a glass box. Having a wall of windows is great, but also $200 electric bills right now at 9.9 cents a kwh. go up a bit in the summer and I wont’ take it.

Apple has a very anti-urban style, although hipsters who love apple products haven’t figured that out yet.

I’m calling BS.

If you look at the study, the number on race aren’t based on age — they are based on political ID. Or rather how Pew categories them.

“But Solid Liberals see the issue differently. Among this group, eight-in-ten (80%) say racial discrimination is the main reason why many blacks can’t get ahead, making them at least 49 points more likely to hold this view than any other group.”

The 19% figure is attributed to “Next Generation Left”

This is how they define solid liberal:

“BASIC DESCRIPTION: Highly educated and affluent, Solid Liberals strongly support the social safety net and take very liberal positions on virtually all issues. Most say they always vote
Democratic and they are unflagging supporters of Barack Obama. Solid Liberals are very optimistic about the nation’s future and are the most likely to say that America’s success is linked to its ability to change, rather than its reliance on long-standing principles. On foreign policy, Solid Liberals overwhelmingly believe that good diplomacy – rather than military strength – is the best way to ensure peace; in addition, most say that relying too much on military force to defeat terrorism creates hatred that fuels more terrorism.”

NOthing about age.

And this is the NGL:

“asic description: Young, well-educated and financially comfortable, the Next Generation Left have very liberal attitudes on many issues, including homosexuality and abortion, the
environment and foreign policy. They are supportive of an activist government, but wary of expanding the social safety net. They also have relatively positive views of Wall Street’s impact on the economy. While most affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, few consider themselves strong Democrats.”

“Who they are: About two-thirds (68%) are non-Hispanic whites and 15% are Hispanic. One of the two youngest groups, the average age is 41 and a third (33%) are younger than 30. Roughly three- quarters (74%) have some college experience and 62% are financially satisfied.”

Basically, white college educated non-religious.

Pew has an interest in saying there is value to “mainstream” and “independent voters” but the overall trend, based on money, is the party eats politics.

well, then it is pretty pointless to build a wall on the mexican border if people can come in by sea.

Large number of Filipino immigrant are actually ethnically Chinese.

So the classic chain effect isn’t taking hold to degree the numbers suggest.

Is this really about “racial minorities” or about women?

They days when Rainbow Push could really blackmail corporations into hiring more blacks are pretty much over. Maybe would work for Walmart but not Google or Apple.

And eyeballing the numbers, I’d say they are about right in terms of blacks/hispanics. You can argue there are too many asians there but that is also reflective of the talent pool.

But TeamObamaTM needs women. White women. And while republicans do a good job of scaring away educated white women by themselves, the one thing white women love more than themselves is little gay people. They really are so cute and adorable. So the politics of this is “We love gays, so therefore we love women, although we don’t hire any because they aren’t smart enough”.

I’d agree that is basically nonsense, but it is nonsense that is working so far.

It is rather like Nixon.

I don’t know if Nixon was a “racist” (and I don’t now if Obama is a “anti-feminist”) but just as Nixon brought us affirmative action and the EPA, Obama is bringing us 30 years of women rights.

I’m surprised steve doesn’t talk more about how the african american matriacry is a reason the black race is dying. I know he doesn’t reallly believe in nuture but it is pretty telling.

And it is more of a second term phenemenon. I know his political team realized they needed to win white women and you’re right they calibrated the message to go after the weaker ones.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/07/plagiarism/374999/

Nothing to do with Obama Red Meat, but interesting that hyper-women Atlantic is suggesting, I don’t know, that disciplining children may be good?

Given how well Chinese-orgin and Indian students in the US test on math, it would be interesting to see the immigrant results with those two groups stripped out.

1. The number are pre-Great Recesssion, so if you believe them, they are probably substantially worse now.

2. If you look at Detroit, you see widespread tax evasion and lying on wealth/income. I suspect the same is true here. So I don’t believe the numbers but the trend is correct.

3. The great thing about living in the ghetto it is keeps the housing costs very very low. Make a place where only blacks will live and you’ve solved the affordable housing problem. For good effect, leave a lot of trash out, don’t take care of the yard, and have you son’s friends wander around during the day. Guaranteed to reduce you housing costs.

1. Yes, it was a second term thing.

2. I’m suprised you didn’t link this:

http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/democrats-are-ready-to-declare-victory-in-the-war-on-women/375469/

on how ineffective the “war on women” thing has been. Also on Ginsberg’s comments that women’s political/social games are being torn up, despite the rhetoric.

3. Given the current state of the Republican party, the obama coalition could probably hold for one more cycle. I’d focus your attention on the race for DC mayor — Gay white man vs. establishment black woman. Could be telling.

This would be logical, if immigration was really such an Existential crisis.

It isn’t, of course, but it needs to be better managed.

The problem with immigration is 70% mexico, 20% central america and 10% everything else.

(Just as the immigration problem in Europe is mostly Arab and balkan)

I’ve tried to calculate what are the chances that the average black man on the street is a felon, commmited a felony, or been in jail.

It comes down to something like fifty percent.

Chances of the same ethnic Italian American in the 1970s? Chances of being in the mafia? chances of having relatives in the Mafia.

I have no doubt that the discrimination against Italians prior the the Godfather movies was high — even in the 1980s we assumed every Italian with any money was mobbed up.

Three big differences:

1. Starting in the 1980s, Italy became cool. Or we became aware of it being cool. Hard to make fun of Italians when you’re buying zegna suits.

2. There was a big divergence in the perception of italian mob crimes and the reality. Eventually the reality won, but it took a long time. I don’t think people today see an Italian name and think of mobsters if they drive a Benz.

3. A huge and massive crackdown on the mob removed most of the reality of Italian crime.

Differences with black crime:

1) you can push black males as the ultimate alphas, but mostly they are reverting to roles they have always been good at — athletics, singing and dancing. They make sweet music.

2) The reality of black crime is much much larger. I agree that if I see a black doctor I don’t think he is dealing crack on the side. But that is the talented tenth, everyone else may be. Opposite of the Italian situation. Lack of a family structure is a key difference.

3) Despite 30 years of “broken windows” theory being applied, it hasn’t broken black crime. Either more application or a different approach is needed.

Petworth, for what it is worth, was ranked the #1 flipping area in the county. It is rapidly gentrifying and very popular with young white families. Hence the outrage about being called “sketchy”

Much like when Anne Lowery called it lower middle class. Which it is (or was?). You can buy a rowhouse there but it isn’t that nice. It is, however, a rowhouse and not a condo.

That said, I don’t like going there at night.

Somewhat off topic, but might be of interest:

http://www.designboom.com/architecture/inside-jonathan-ive-san-francisco-home-08-12-2014/

Contrast to your recent piece on everything becoming an Apple store.

I hear you on the gold courses, but it isn’t just aesthics, you do have to play them. Modern courses play nice. Go play a 19th century course and it isn’t very fun.

You can say that the current problems started after ww2, or nixon, when we started thinking of people as “white”.

White means non-black, which may make sense in Mississippi but not elsewhere.

(Had a lovely time there with some old friends and his new Lebanese bridge who is a country music singer)

Do we want an America where “acting white” means people treat you as white, or do we want one where we quanifty every 1/8 part of your ancestry?

The more interesting aspect is that after a week of this — the myth-meme of evil Southern racism — public opinion is not consolidating.

Black people have their view of events, and white people have theirs.

Obama, as usual, is blowing a good oppotunity here. This is a potential great pivot on police militarization, and a terrible pivot on race.

Sending Holder is weak sauce, and trending towards the race size.

My own view is everytime the police shoot someone, you need a mandtory outside truth commission — not guilt or innocence. I have no doubt that 95% of the time the shooting is justified legally. Doesn’t make it right.

I’m not shocked that the feds are not investigating the hate crimes being visited on the local Indian shopowners.

Really, the question to be asking is there are the and G and T on this?

If anything, this could open up a wedge between the G&T and blacks. They love black junk, but they love pretty little houses more. Riots are scary.

While I do think an Obama-style coalition can win national elections, this shows how hard it is to keep it together.

I’m waiting for G&T for gun rights soon.

Between actual African immigration (Obama’s dad) and caribbean immigration native born blacks will be a minority within a few generations.

At an elite level, it is probably already happened.

You can contrast this to the UK, where black identity is being merged into the mainstream, while Muslim idenity gets more pronounced.

Opposite in the US — where you have a much larger and distict black idenity, but Muslim (Zakaria? Aziz Ansari?) gets absorbed much easier.

If you want something on Holder, dig up the old story on the pardon at the last minutes of the Clinton adminstration. That alone should disqualify him from public office.

Also left unsaid is whites don’t want a repeat of the 1960s and riots every summer.

If you define white race liberals as people whose interactions with minorities is based on media consumption, I’d say you argument is correct.

A good chunk of white race liberals were also pretty disgusted with their parents and their attitude of racial differences. Rather like Germans and Jews these days.

( I define a white race liberal as someone who has never been to Walmart in the past 5 years).

The real question is black leadership. Have the gains of the past 50 years been good? Clearly this is the best time in American history to be black and educated. But outside that narrow sliver of professsionals and businessmen, you’ve got musicans and athletes. That is all.

http://www.benzinga.com/general/entrepreneurship/13/03/3413569/the-top-20-african-american-ceos-in-business-today

I’d say for the other 90%, life is as bad as post-civil war in the South.

My sister and family are doing that migration this weekend.

And yes, the brother in law has high hopes of buying a house in new “low-cost” area but that is probably not going to happen either.

@ASF;

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2014/08/where-private-school-enrollment-is-highest-and-lowest-across-the-us/375993/

I can’t speak for California, but there is plently of affordable housing (If you are making a decent salary) although it may not be very cool near DC or NYC.

Somewhat related:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/08/19/why-its-so-hard-to-find-a-cheap-apartment-in-washington-d-c/

“Rick James” at 11:52 is a great expression of the conservative race myth.

Not to minimize the threat to white women with their flabby asses and lululemon in Columbia Heights (there was, after all, a police notice about that yesterday) but the black belt of DC hasn’t been scary for about 10 years.

The liberal race myth is someone these black people provide authenticity and local color, while in reality it would be better to bulldoze those Section 8 and DCHA projects.

The post 9/11 explosion wasn’t just companies; the number of people who served abroad with danger pay and then managed to buy million dollar houses in DC is staggering. Also the same with people with security clearances. And condo prices in DC are around the same as queens or Jersey city (500 to 600 a sq foot). SFH houses are incredibly expensive, row houses expensive compared to what you get.

Dont’ remember when Lockheed moved, but it was a while ago. Northrup-Grumman just moved into Falls Church as well. Boeing has a large regional HQ under construction within view of the Pentagon.

I’d say, after looking it, that “Burly” had some racial connotations 100 years ago, and some echos of that 50 years ago.

Rather like calling the Indian shopkeeper “effete” or “skinny”.

I know this isn’t Steve’s world, but I am a bit surprised that nobody on jumped on the “Bisons” name with the Redskins brouhaha. Wait, that word is racist as well? Well, the Howard U football teams is named the bisons — you know, Buffalo Warriors and all that. Genocide. Terrible. I am offended.

are we assuming the “victim” — technically the brother of the victim — is white?

I’d say it started with the cosby show. Or maybe Different Strokes.

I can see the interest in selling the idea to the broad masses that there are funny, intelligent middle class african americans living in Park Slope.

And I don’t doubt there are. If you believe the numbers, there are 20,000 african american physicians in the country.

But that is the one half of one percent of black people. You can’t sustain that narrative over 30 years without it becoming a joke.

In contrast, again, if you believe the numbers every Indian-American in this county is part of a millionaire family. (About 1.5 million, about 300K millionaires.) And yet the narrative is they are all shop-owners.

I can’t say I am a member of the old money crowd — my great great grandfather lost his fortune in great crash of 08 — but I’ll make a couple of observations based on friends growing up:

1. The majority of them live productive lives, and have very little interest in income.
2. A strong minority has substance abuse problems
3. Almost none have interesting lives in exotic foreign locations. They do have some nice houses, though.

Also a strong correlation that their parents were assholes, and their grandparents even worse.

I enjoyed Mr. Stillman and his movies, but there is little old money there. There is a lot of an idealistic children growing into something else. I’d recommend Stephen Birmingham as a more accurate guide.

Looks like Steve is pulling a Dave Chapelle and looking for a better class of fan?

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/rich-people-exercise-poor-people-take-diet-pills/378852/

Leptin and satiety. Can overcome weak will anytime!

I remember visiting London in the 1980s and realizing it was twice the price of the US, and everyone was making half the income. And I just saw the report that the UK is around the level of Mississippi.

One advantage of a hyperlocal view of the world is you can see the change. Step back a bit. The air is cleaner. You have 500 channels of TV. You carry around a supercomputer in your pocket. Your honda civic has more power than a Ferrari from 1970 and probably drives better, and will certainly last longer.

That is the biggest danger of conservatives — they get rooted on an early vision and don’t want to change.

I’m glad in DC, for instance, we are finally getting Mexcian food after years of Central Amrican copies. Is my life better? Not sure I should ask an economist that.

http://fortune.com/2014/09/04/peter-thiels-contrarian-strategy/

““In the last 40 years in the technology world,” as Thiel puts it, “we’ve had enormous progress in the world of bits, but not as much in the world of atoms.” The notion is encapsulated in the tag line of Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founders Fund: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”

As a general observation not sure I can disagree. Makes me think of internal combustion engines in the first half of the 20th century, where even american farmboys could service tank engines in WW2, and thsoe clever Germans were used to horses.

That said, the Germans were ahead of us in chemistry and physics until they went all national orgin on us.

But biotech is perhaps not the best example. There is a lot out there — perhaps not for cancer — but we are seeing the benefits of DNA sequencing and computers 15 years in.

Take infection diseases (ID) which wer largely wiped out from the 1950s onward (before Steve?). I could imagine in 50 years we say the same thing about many cancers.

Getting fat, however, is a constant problem. Heart disease and diabete are largelly under our control.

It is all part of the plan — a constant slow genocide on blacks, and replacing them with mexicans and african immigrants with much better food.

yes, and another example of white guilt racism that can’t be named:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/04/the-states-where-americans-are-the-most-and-least-obese/?tid=hpModule_4697cf50-868d-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394

“Nowhere in the U.S. are Americans more overweight than in Mississippi and West Virginia, where more than 35 percent of the adult population is now obese, according to a new report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The two southern states, however, are hardly alone in their alarmingly high obesity rates—another 18 U.S. states, including just about all of the U.S. south, have obesity rates at or above 30 percent.”

The headline is “blame the south” which really means “Blame the blacks” but you can’t say that.

While Steve’s point is true — as long as Hispanic means mexican, I do think he could benefit from being more hyperlocal on Miami. The South American experience is very different from the Mexican one.

Sofia Vergara is the highest paid actress on TV for a reason.

However, to the main point, you’ve got this:

https://www.aamc.org/download/87306/data/physiciandiversityfacts.pdf

Which suggests that Hispanics are trailing blacks in the number of medical students in the US.

If you are middle or upper-middle class in Mexico, very little reason to immigrate to the US. Better quality of life and less hassle (language, educational qualifactions, etc). That is not true of India, Philippines and other places.

Thoughts on Ray Rice?

What he did wasn’t that much different from Michael Brown.

In both cases the criminal justice system would write off the crime.

If a cop saw Rice, then shot him would cop be a hero or a dog?

; actually I suspect Anonymous is more correct. It was the Labour party covering up.

As Steve would point out, after all, it has largely been Democrats persecuting the black man since 1965.

As I said yesterday, if Ray rice beats up a woman, that is horrible. If Michael Brown beats up an arab, he is an angel.

Steve — point of correction.

You say “Black leaders in Washington, DC” which really means Marion Barry.

And Barry loved cutting deals with white leaders. That is how you get shakedown money.

Barry did fire/not retain good chunks of the pre-Home role bureaucracy. There were largely white. The replacements were black. Both to them were broadly inadequate. Those former workers fled to the suburbs and spread the myth as Marion as a baby eater.

In fact, Barry was elected on a pan-racial platform, and didn’t go black nationalist until his second term when the corruption and shakedowns became too obvious. But as I said, you’ve got to cut deals to get corruption.

The problem with subprime is the people borrowing the money.

You give them a higher rate because you are afraid of default.

The problem is then you sell that debt to someone else. That new party may not be aware of exactly how crappy the loan may be. That has been changed with regulations, but the incentive remains, since you are buying a crappy loan as a hedging instrument.

And by creating a market, you are pushing the cost of borrowing down.

Subprime is ok. Securitizing those loans is dangrous, but right now you are going to have a MUCH harder time selling them. If a bank is willing to continue to keep them on the books I don’t see much issue.

I’d be more worried if the Fed came out as said, yes, subprime non-fannie mae mortages are excellent things for us to hold.

Also this:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/09/bill-black-time-end-ethnic-profiling-prosecuting-mortgage-fraud.html

“If the FBI were compiling an accurate list of ethnic and demographic groups leading the epidemics of accounting fraud the list would consist of two descriptors ”Jews” and “high status white male banking executives.” For obvious reasons, the FBI will never use either descriptor to create a “suspect ethnicity list.” In the rare studies that have been done of the ethnicity and demographics of the most destructive white-collar criminals in the U.S., being Jewish, an adult, male, with high social status, a college degree, business executives, and owning a home are the variables that best predict those crimes. The classic white-collar criminology study of perpetrators, “White Collar Crime and Criminals,” was published in 1988 by Stanton Wheeler, David Weisburd, Elin Waring, and Nancy Bodett. Their study found that Jews were far more likely to have been convicted of white-collar crime than any other religious group, but were underrepresented among blue collar criminals. (Protestants were substantially underrepresented among criminals of both the streets and suites.)

Jews, although roughly eight percent of the population of our districts, make up only three percent of our common crime sample, but fifteen percent of our white collar sample?” It would be a fair summary of our data to say that, demographically speaking, white collar offenders are predominantly middle-aged white males with an over-representation of Jews.

As a brown man, there is a certain level of trauma you get in childhood from Isteve type commentators.

And as brown man you don’t have to interact with any latinos or blacks. I remember meeting one or two in high school — they were pretty cool dudes — but never saw one growing up.

And then you have to take a larger view after you grow up and realize that you are NOT being oppressed. There may be some girls that don’t think you are hot and may not date you. However, you will find that if you earn a lot of money girls will eventually throw themselves at you.

@jefferson; since Indians are too small a group to be properly polled I’d be suspicious of those numbers. If anything, Indians are natural Republicans (See Bobby Jindal and Nikky Haley) but they more importantly they like winners. McCain is NOT a winner, even if he has a brown child, and neither was Mitt. Both have many great qualities and achivements, but any objective observer could see they were not going to win their elections.

As I keep saying, in a a generation or two slave ancestry Africans will be a distinct minority among black people.

At the elite level — and it is a tiny elite — it is already happened.

At the middle class level – which is still pretty small — is will happen in a generation. What percent of medical students who are black are immigrants or one generation removed?

For the remaining 90%, we are squeezing them enough into slow genocide.

@OSrazor; You’ve hit on the essential point, which is everyone has truama in childhood, and an essential part of growing up is just getting over that.

In terms of your second point, Kalki Koechlin seems to be doing very well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalki_Koechlin

Or Sonia Gandhi. Granted her son lost the recent election. It isn’t a popular position, but cosmopolitans are always with us. The fight is over the degree.

, I could share with you that the poll you cited was only 68%, and that there is no money to do a real poll (call 10K people, ask them to ethnically self idenity, then ask political preferences). Obama, for the reasons mentioned above,i s popular. Democratic candidates generally don’t do well. Doubly true with donors as opposed to voters. Bush gained the majority of dollars in both elections.

When I set up meeting on hill, immigration almost never comes up. Indians in this county desperately want to shut the door behind them. H1B visas have a lot of corporate support, little ethnic support. Trust me, I’ve tried. Facebook offered me a lot of money to drum it up, I had to turn them down.

Well, there may be a nugget here but not a lode.

At least in Washington, the number of “media elites” who actually own houses in the District is not large. In fact I am not sure what a “media elite” is. Wolf Blitzer? Chuck Todd?

And again, in DC proper, gentrification works with privately owned houses, not Section 8. Very little Section 8 projects have been closed. There was a good idea a few years ago to tear them down, replace them with something newer, and add a low-income component there. There is an outflow, but the classic case is grandma sells her house that 15 family members live in, and the large townhouse gets turned into a condo.

I’d agree that Section 8 in DC tends not to be around the whiter parts of the city.

In terms of traffic violations to drive people out, big thing on that recently.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/withering-inspector-general-report-criticizes-dc-parking-and-traffic-ticketing/2014/09/08/da6ae324-3781-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html

Again, no numbers on DC residents but the perception is traffic cameras are aimed at commuters from Maryland.

So I’d say this is just more kvetching about Race,by which I mean Blacks, the Great and Important Topic In America for the second half of the 20th century and Maybe the first part of the 21st century. I have no doubt that in the rest of the 21st century the Great Original Crime of the American People will return to stealing the land for the native Hispanic inhabitants.

Contrast to Brazil:

http://www.cfr.org/elections/marinas-post-racial-brazil/p33417

@conatus; you must be pretty suburban. U st has been gentrifying for the last 10 years. And again, contra Steve’s point, Section 8 remains. One section 8 project on 15th and U is scheduled to be taken down, and replaced with a mixed market rate/section property but the number of units remains the same. If you want a shocker, go into Petworth or further NE. White people with babies everywhere.

Gentrication takes places where it is easy to throw up new (large) buildings when the old ones were burned down in 1968, or where you can offer a lot of cash to get private owners to sell.

, again your point may be valid but one fact isn’t. PG County has a lot of “middle class” blacks. But in the area inside the beltway it has huge concentrations of Section 8, and that is where 75% of the crime is taking place. I use middle class in quotes because my rule of thumb is use n-1 when applying social class to african americans. PG county, to me, looks mostly lower middle class, and a few sections of upper middle class. They are finally getting a whole foods, though.

“The problem with our schools isn’t standards or choice or teacher quality. The problem with our schools isn’t money or poverty. The problem with our schools is our expectations, and the pointless demands we make of kids who don’t want to and/or can’t do the work.”

I’ve always thought the teacher hype is partly our inability to talk about race and values. The core of our concern is how bad our high schools are. Take a nice, white, upper middle class high school. Decent SAT scores, great programs, but the outcomes are pathetic. Contrast that to say, a British school — even with all their problems with sorting.

And while it looks like college solves the problem, it really is just sorting rather than outcomes again.

And teaching, like taking care of roads, is just something we are not very good at.

So we get hysterical, and blame urban minorities and poor people generally. But they have zero interest in learning, and no amount of money can change that.

Meanwhile our middle class just getting dumber and dumber.

@Laban; not sure that it is exactly.

Very much agree on your first point, I don’t remember the film but one of Hanif Kureshi’s films captured that dynamic.

And I agree that the second generaton is different, but I am not sure that re-creating villages is the goal.Yes, one can create their own ghetto now — not in the American black sense but in the old jewish sense — with enough of your cousins or brothers.

But that ghetto is widely different from the villages.

And I agree that sexualizing girls as young as 12 might be part of South Asian culture,* although a larger American/UK culture seems to be doing pretty well on its own.

A bad analogy is the ultra-orthodox in Isreael – are they recreating Ukrainian villages or something else?

* Is it is South Asian (loaded term)? Muslim? Kashmiri?

A pretty clear sign this run of VC money is petering out.

Cost of capital is high enough that the only way you can assume success (if even it is just one of your 100 companies) is monopoly rents.

I find it interesting that “empire hating’ is now a part of Scots nationalism, because as Steve points out the Scots were not integral to the Imperial project. So were the Irish, but I don’t seem them apologizing on that point.

And really, has anyone worried about the Empire since Suez?

And to be clear, what they are voting on is a referendrum to have a long and extended discussion on what independence means. There is a reason they call it Perfidious Albion.

Might it be as simple as what your parents liked isn’t cool anymore.

I remember meeting a girl from Portland (well, Lake Oswego) in high school and realizing there was something different. I think her family was orginally from LA. That was in the 1980s.

Pretty sure she ended up in NYC.

I have no doubt that hipsters children will think vanilla suburbs with cars will be the greatest thing ever. Why did their stupid parents want to leave that paradise?

I’m not sure that study says what you think it says.

Bascially, you had a choice of Section 8 housing in a bad area, or Section 8 in a semi-bad area.

The control stayed in public housing.

Section 8 is bad everywhere.

And I’m trying to imagine what Section 8 housing is available in areas that have a 1990 poverty rate of less than 10%. Basically ares that have gone downhill in the past 20 years.

(In DC, that would be large chunks of PG county)

I don’t want to go as far and say that poverty is a choice. But I’d agree that the best way to get out of poverty is get away from other poor people.

The ability to withstand contadictions — or absurb realities — is key precursor for success in modern society.

Perhaps a more polite way to put it you change your mind when the facts change. In that form, it is a longer intellectual pedigree.

Or in pop culture, a reality distortion field.

That said, you also have to have a goal. After all, the key to strategic thinking is not skating to the puck; it is skating to where the puck will be.

At least in DC, a larger number of hair/nail saloons appear to be drug fronts. Or rather business that are set up by drug guys for their mothers/baby momma/girlfriends. Not necessarily to launder cash, but to keep them busy.

I’m not saying Koreans are in the trade, but them seem more restricted to dry cleaning (which really only works for people who have jobs) or bodegas. You have the ubiquitous Chinese mambo food places as well. The best case is Ben’s Chili Bowl, which is run and staffed by the Muslim grandchildren of the (Indian) founder. They don’t eat pork.

Interesting theory on the advertising, but I suspect the numbers don’t work out.

The real driver is Facebook and sharing; these sorts of articles have much higher chances of being shared.

Whether that can be turned into advertising dollar is another question. I suspect the numbers are not working out in favor of the Atlantic or other places.

(there is a similar dynamic on the conservative websites)

And I doubt any of this is new. Look at communist/socialist literature in the 1930s. Or, hell, even neocons.

The best bet for AG is kamala harris.

You have to seperate Eric Holder “reinvigorating” the Civil Rights department with the actual conditions of minorities. Are Civil Rights better or worse than 6 years ago? 10? 14? The people working there certainly are better off.

I’d agree that the easiest way to create a nice urban environment is move the black population down to around the sub-10 percent mark.

That said, at least in Washington, Steve’s hypothesis of Section 8 isn’t quite true. It would be nice to tear down Section 8/public housing here and replace it with (white) yuppie high rises. But in most cases that isn’t what happened.

There are certainly some examples of that. But most of the new housing was built on empty lots.

In terms of schools and teaching, (again, DC specific) at what point are we going to acknowledge that 25 to 40 percent of the students are functionally retarded? That has actually been the biggest success in charter schools.

There has been a spate of dirt bike/ATV incidents in DC in the last few months.

I isn’t fear of the black man, it is fear of being run over and killed. Already happened once. It will happen again. I could not tell you the race of the riders although I’ll make an educated guess. In the alley it even more dangerous.

White yuppies in DC should be the biggest race realists in the country. A lot are. Some are not. A friend of mine wanted to tutor children in the DCPS. I pointed out it was useless and they are they to be criminal, not learn. Average IQ and all that. She does mentor lost dogs so is a classical liberal although votes republican for president.

In terms of MoCo, the above comments are incorrect — you can’t build housing unless you turn it a section over for affordable. The result has been floods of third world immigrants. They may be better than getting PG blacks but it is scaring the white people away.

Gentrification is DC is developer driven, but a significant number are individual investors. Buy an old town house, turn it into 3 condos. Rinse and repeat. That is actually driving the spread more. The biggest barriers are the some what interesting title history of a lot of DC property — owned by someone who died in 1948 and passed through “Family” since then.

The DC mayor election in a month will be an interesting test. If white people vote their interests, the gay white guy will win. The whites who won’t do that live up in upper NW and have carefully kept the ghetto out — see Jim Fallows and his complaints about leaf blowers.

A good resource for the marion barry days is Dream City, which is being summarized here:

http://shortarticlesaboutlongmeetings.blogspot.com/2014/06/cheaters-guide-to-dream-city-part-1.html

I don’t know if you would call Marion Barry’s arrest a federal coup.

1. The feds retains an ultimate ownership.

2 It was the DC police. Yes, in DC the federal prosecutors does everything, and the FBI was involved as well.

3. But other that the drama — and questionable legality* — pretty standard public corruption case.

Congress taking over the city a few years later with the federal control board was a coup.

* Like many criminals, Barry was guility, but perhaps not guilty for the crime for which he was charged.

DC got a lot worse after Barry was removed. No question gutting the bureaucracy didn’t help, but the real issue was Sharon Pratt.

We need to shut down the refugee program.

I’m not anti-immigration, but there is no way to run a refugee program in this legal framework. Refugee programs can work in the pre 1920’s model of open borders — screen undesirables at one point of entry. In that case there is no refugee program per se but everyone can get it.

They make a lot sense in the 1920 to 1965 legal framwork.

Post 65? Very hard to make a case for it.

It was an ad hoc solution that got turned into policy.

overall, the article is correct — if you want a lobbyist, hire a lobbyist. Don’t hire amateurs.

Immigration as a topic is prety toxic. But like must things, there is a huge gap between what people feel and what they want. Really smart lobbyists can play that gap.

I agree that Cantor’s loss ended the issue. Well, that and the calendar. Nothing going to happen in the next two years.

Alternatively, young people are just deaf from a decade of living with ear buds.

10 years of depression and 10 years of war-austerity really did in cities. It is expensive to keep them up, and need constant investment. After 20 years of that, I can see why people in the 1950s wanted to get the hell out.

If anything, noise in cities is probably worse than 20 or 50 years ago thank to over-powered sirens. Polllution is far far better.

The biggest change that I see is that people are tired of drunk driving. Stumbling home from a bar is a nice luxury. Violent crime is largely abated, but property crime remains a big issue.

Urban life isn’t for everyone, but it has some good points.

Well my favorite part is the alleged eyewitness are scared to come forward in public because of fears of retribution.

Off topic, but interesting:

http://www.businessinsider.sg/emory-aepi-offensive-flag-football-2014-10/#.VEkfiShVlJc

(Jewish frat in Emory — the ones with the swastikas — now under civil rights investigation)

It is an interesting study in contrasts in incentives.

Take voter ID/Fraud. Both parties are very aware of it after 2000. Voter ID calls just make blacks nervous and tend to vote early Likewise, voter registration drives just make white republican people paranoid and drives them to vote more.

I think you can calibrate this message a bit better so nice suburban housewives don’t see it. That said, the overwhelming TV presence of Ferguson tends to make white people think why are all those dangerous people wandering around and gets them to vote for the other guy.

Professionals tell me that this stuff is more about voter suppression than persuasion but I suspect they are undercounting the effect.

Yes, western michigan is nice. It is still cold.

Northern shore of Lake Erie is surprisingly warm. They also have topless beaches there.

Georgian Bay is absolutely amazing.

I have no doubt that the “hipsters” — which is 1920s slang for black people — will discover the Great Lakes as the new paradise in 2040.

In terms of “Liberal” cities, you are forgetting the magic element that black people have. If you rub on top of head you get good luck! No, seriously. The token racial liberalism is really the modern equivalent of putting a black jockey out front to show you are hip and cool.

On a more serious note, I think a lot of the mythology on urban living is based on gays and their need to both have a public life and a community for sex partners.

There are a lot of good things about urban living. I like being able to walk 4+ miles a day. Not having to worry about drunk driving home is nice. Constant low level property crime is annoying but you can deal with that. Having the ability to harass women constantly on the street because they wear Lululemon pants — priceless.

Yes, Indians are natural democrats. Ask Neel Kashkari, Bobby Jindal, or Nicky Haley.

High income people tend to vote Republican. Indians have by far the highest incomes in the county. The fact they are not voting 90% republican is the amazing part.

The Ro Khanna/Mike Honda race is a good indicator of the money issue.

Well, the point is there is a lot more trickle down in housing booms than in stock market booms.

That said, yes, the majority of direct jobs are going to low education workers. Who are very flexible.

Yglesias’s turn towards economics has led him to his current economic views:

http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/03/matt-yglesias-12-million-house-stokes-class-envy-conservatives/63440/

300K at slate or whereever he is now? No wonder why media companies are going broke!

I’d hazard a guess than Ben Bradless was pulling down a lot less in the 1970s that a mid-rate blogger does now.

“Overwhelming blonde”

Fascinating. http://www.virginia.edu/Facts/Glance_Enrollment.html

About 30% minority. There are a few blonde hispanics — I dated one, an Irish-Argentine — but they are pretty rare.

I’ve heard plenty of frat boys boast about running a train on a girl. Wait, actually I haven’t.

This is nothing more than a 21st century salem witch trial.

Influence has been, and always will be, a monetary function.

Of the groups Beinert mentions (muslims, hispanics, Indians, hispanics) the only ones collecting significant amounts of wealth are south asians.

That is majority hindu, but with muslims and christians as well.

That said, South Asians have zero culture of philanthropy and spending money on “influence” or soft power.

And that is the difference with the Jews. I don’t see Vinod Kholsa, Sundar Pichari, or Satyla Nadella spending 15M for a little magazine.

And their kids won’t either. Khola’s kids are extra fun if you follow the story.

As someone who as been in the SFHB at W&L, I’d say that you are right in general but some details could be stronger.

1. W&L has a pretty harsh honor code — violate it and you’re out. It is also completely student run.

2. Everyone agrees the honor code does not apply to relations with women. Also, the adminstration wants to have some adults on this.

3. The SFHB system “works” in the sense of due process. I’d say the student I represented got due process but still got shafted.

4. The basic problem is you have adults there — and they have little regard and memory for who students hook up these days and what happens if something goes bad.

5. A student run SFHB woud be more fair, but would not meet federal requirements.

The idea that W&L is some hotbed of blonde activism is offensive. It is true there is a heavy frat culture — W&L only went co-ed in the late 80s, you have 23 some frats and half the number of men around.

I get depressed when I think about the genetic influences on intelligence. My family, while somewhat upper-middle class, is certainly not Ivy League material, nor are they as accomplished as I would wish they would be. I do not consider either of my two sisters particularly intelligent, though they are almost as smart as you would expect SWPL kids to be. It sucks to know that there is a genetic ceiling that you will never rise above in life.

Racism is alive and well in the United States.

The ONLY group calling for cops to only arrest when you have to is folks like you: racists.

@Lot, interesting theory. Not saying it is correct, but it trends that way.

Also, it would be a validation of the obama-consenus but without the cult of personality.

I’ve been fascinated with how many spanish expression parallel those of English.

“have you cake and eat it too” which is almost the same in Spanish, as opposed to the French “get your wife drunk and have a full bottle of wine.”

We are almost all familiar with the expression “coast is clear” which is a nice counterpart to the spanish “moors on the coast”.

Also this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/02/09/the-complicated-history-of-a-d-c-block-smeared-by-rep-shocks-former-adviser/?tid=pm_local_pop

“This block and its residents had unknowingly made the political equivalent of tabloid headlines last week. This was the block where Republican Rep. Aaron Schock’s former communications director, Benjamin Cole, lived when he wrote racist screeds on social media about his neighbors.

Cole, 38, resigned from his post last week after news media outlets unearthed offensive and racist comments he wrote on his personal social media accounts over the past few years condemning his neighbors as “black miscreants” and “zoo animals.”

TNC had a nice piece about how his mother picked his father as potential alpha-male breeder, rather than as a father.

Speaking of minorities loving the movie….

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121436/fast-and-furious-7-defies-franchise-conventions-and-honors-paul-walker

“managing editor?” wow. from an intern to managing editor.

The trope that high school resentment drives your future achievement is a powerful one, but it hides more than it conceals.

Rather like pretending in the 1920’s that hard work would make you a millionaire. Or that if you stay up all night and drink Mountain Dew you can invent facebook.

Maybe nostalgia for Matt Weiner it is a lost past when people could be jews and remember what it was like to be persecuted. The past is a distant country.

But using the high school resentment as a way to drive success in life? I don’t know. I’d hate to see what Korean guy looks like in Mad Men.

I think there are some serious question on why the FBI shot him, but this article actualy paints a pretty good picture of someone who might crack and go after a FBI agent with a stick.

We need to end refugee status. I’m surprised that isn’t a theme here more –but it is the jewish guilt thing again.

Says a lot about DC traffic that every cabbie/uber is an Eritrean or Ethiopian.

That said you could overlay the US map with republican turnout and you’ll see that Republicans like to kill people with cars.

Steve, I must be one of the lowest-performing members who reads your great blog. I had to leave college because I had an illness, and now I collect welfare in the form of SSI. Yet even I think I can spare some money for you. You provide so much value, and have been hugely influential in my intellectual development.

The “80% democratic” thing is a bit overstated.

In my experience, it is more like 50 or at best 60.

And plenty of republicans out there as well.

And all very suspicous, as you said, of the core/fringe arugment based on family history. Sure, maybe we couldn’t get dates for prom or got beat up by rednecks(?) or jews in high school, but then you look around and realize that every Indian you know is worth well over $1M. Well except those guys who own Dunkin Donuts who are worth a hell of a lot more.

Now for a variety of reasons Jews who think the same thing tend to stay in the “Fringe” but the pull elements on the Fringe are a lot less strong.

, yes, I am familiar with that poll.

In fact, they asked me about it and it isn’t very good. Also take it into context. It was an asian american poll, which is trying to show that indians-americans (not hindu-Americans) are good solid democrats. Although the vietnamese and Philippines Indians are suspect of republican tendencies by the Asian American movement. ALso you’ve just muslims indians and pakistanis who self identify with Muslim movements rather than Asians.

(When you have Bobby Jindals and Nicky Haley, as well as Neel Kashkaris running around you can why).

Second, it is very hard to these polls. The only real way is call 100K people and ask them to self identify. Even with that number you might only get 500 indians. So instead you have to do a few tricks to make a poll affordable. Those tricks really screw up the results. For instance, Indians tend to be highly educated, live in Blue areas, and skew young. All democratic tending statistic.

Third, in terms of core-fringe, while there are some pushes into the fringe (micro-aggressions, high school, country clubs) there are a lot of pushes into the core as well. Being actively discriminated against in medschool is a huge grievance. Taxes are another.

Anyways, while I am a democrat (but fear the fringe enough that I read this crap) you’re welcome to come to my brothers in laws party in the summer for the republicans Tennessee, Louisiana and (maybe) South Carolina delegations at the convention.

On this sort of contest, I think Herbert Hoover deserves a vote.

1. He is widely known (and despised)
2. Amazing background, business success (richest US president?), personal life, Stanford funding.
3. What he did as Secretary of Commerce is amazing. Standardized tool sizing, for instance. Radio and TV industries. The entire concept of industry associations. Poke a stick into DC and you’ll find some trace of Hoover.
4. I don’t want to venture into his presidential term, but lets put it this way — his failure to deal with the great flood (as Secretary) led to the largest, and final migration of the worst of the mississippi blacks to the rest of the country. We had 60 year of urban unrest as result. Also, if he kept his deal African Americans would have stayed with the party of lincoln.
5. After being president, his work on the Hoover commission led to the GSA, which again has been a massive hidden hand.

In terms of Ohio and gas, the Marcellus shale formation includes large chunks of Ohio.

Perhaps state level is too high up to reflect that difference.

But gay people are going to get to marry tomorrow! Can’t we all get along?

Who could imagine that the 1950s Vann Woodward consensus “if we just give blacks a share of the elite racial problems would go away” model is breaking down.

Steve, it’s your blog, but I don’t think the line of inquiry is helping you.

Accidents happen. They probably could not determine whether it was the fall, head trauma, heart trouble, or a stroke that was fatal.

He is also a private person — 99.995% of Americans don’t give a FF who the husband of the COO of facebook is.

You’ve had a great run this year. I really mean that — you’ve been nailing it. Your timing has been perfect. I’d rather have your arguments gain credibility rather than lose them.

P: shoud have been more clear.

The delay in reporting the cause of death was having to do an autopsy. You can’t tell at the scene, although you can have an idea.

Is this 1% wealth or 1% earnings?

Also, if you are really that rich you don’t actually live in Manhattan — that is why you have second (and third, and fourth) homes.

Also curious on the role of multi-racial declarations on this.

what that’s quote from Winston Churchill about what happens if we all wake up one morning being exactly similar?

Education in the US has been, and will continue to be, all about triage.

don’t buy the Muslim vote thing.

5% of the UK population. Far less than than on voting day.

Pre-election polls had 75% voting Labour.

Turnout may have been lower, but as others said minority heavy areas voting Labour anyway.

Also see Michelle Obama’s comments today.

There is a tremendous amount of dislike of black people and black culture.

There are even a lot of racists out here, who have some sort of psychological hangup and hate black people and feel they are inferior.

There is almost no “structural racism”. On notable exception, of course, is Hollywood. Hard to sell a black leading man. Of course there is plenty of success there by individual blacks.

On the other side, you have the NBA.

We do live in an economy and world where little differences start to add up.

If you want creepy, Michael Jackson is a better example. Or Selena Gomez. Or Gwyenth Paltrow.

Treating half-blacks as blacks has a long tradition in the country. If you look at popular culture, a lot of being black has always been dealing with these mixed kids.

This is where the DNA stuff gets interesting, despite that narrative (Sally Hemmings, Walter White, DuBois) most African Americans would have been better served by a sailer raise the mean (or a Booker Washington/Atlanta compromise). This is contrast to true multiracial societies like Brazil, which was all about the white man raping black women.

So a big split between the multiracial leadership and the majority of African Americans.

I think Steve is on to something here, although I suspect it more to do with looks than being a half jew.

And height.

Sure, we have “diversity” but there are a lot of physical standards that can’t be so easily removed. I don’t know what he looked like in high school, but he looks like George Costanza and isn’t tall.

On a side note, that is what makes Bobby Jindal’s ascent more remarkable — he does look like a scrawny dark Indian geek. As opposed to Nicky Haley, or Kamala Harris, who are fine looking women.

So a lot of micro resentments there.

Certainly those some qualities have been oppressing, say, Mark Zuckerberg to take a random example.

Paging Clark Rockefeller…oh wait, he is in prison.

http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2009/01/fake_rockefeller200901

I’d be curious to know about what crimes are committed in Finland.

And who gets caught.

Also when it was done because the racial mix has changed in the past 15 years.

I raise the first issue because, well, dumb criminals are the ones that are caught. Also, at least in black-dominant areas the amount of property crime is staggering but only 2% or less results in someone being caught.

I’d be more inclined to take STEM proponents seriously if they would explain what STEM graduates do after 40.

At least when I went to college, it was well known that engineering classes were hard, you’d get a good job out of college, and if you didn’t have people skills you’d be screwed by age 40.

Hell, that has been true since the 1920s. Ask Herbert Hoover.

In terms of H1b programs, they are the dull edge of the sword. Various J visa programs are where the abuse takes place. IN most cases were are in a globalized market for services. Shut down h1b and you increase outsourcing.

If anything we need more programs like H1b for immigration reform. Cut down the number of people eligible to become immigrants. Remove family preferences. Abolish asylum. Allow people to come to the US and work for 3 years, extending it once but not based on employer.

“NO more ready” — maybe, but might be a bit more eager. And with less english skills.

But your point about that externalities is quite true, but that is less an issue for companies like Microsoft/Facebook/Yahoo hiring h1b workers and more of an issue when a tech company hires a consultant that uses h1b.

And people make that complaint on consultants all the way up to McKinsey — the client is paying to train the consultant and get him a higher rate.

(again, I wonder how much people understand the difference between a j1 visa woke and a h1b. The “we’re flying a bunch of indians to learn your jobs in two weeks and then firing you” is the j1).