USCE Autumn: Well Actually, This IS somethingpedantic.com

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE Autumn: Well Actually, This IS somethingpedantic.com

«‹›12 »

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

JPMorgan Chase (one of the largest credit card issuers in the country) is planning a move to kill credit cards and debit cards entirely.

It essentially is a commercial version of Zelle/Venmo that will transfer funds nearly instantly from the customer's bank account to the vendor's bank account - with no middle man and faster verification of funds than traditional debit/credit card transactions.

If they go through with this, they plan to use their market leverage to encourage adoption by merchants.

One of the biggest continuing legislative back and forths since the 80's is the Credit Card Companies vs. Big Retailers lobbying congress about credit card fees.

This could have a mixed impact on consumers, a negative impact on credit card companies and some banks, and a positive impact on vendors.

The biggest potential losses:

- Lose the ability to float payments by a month or two without paying interest by floating credit card payments (all transactions will essentially be debit transactions).

- If this is widely/universally adopted, then it will end the large sign-on bonuses, perks, and cashback programs that most credit cards offer.

- Special consumer protections offered by credit cards will become moot.

The biggest potential gains:

- This would end overdraft fees as a concept (although, many big banks have been ending them voluntarily/under threat of regulation) because transactions would be instant and balances could be checked before the charge went through.

- Vendors would no longer have to pay swipe fees for every purchase.

- Large payments that don't usually take credit cards (such as rent) could be done without checks or ACH.

Essentially, most of the things that are unique about credit cards compared to debit (both the good and bad) would disappear and debit cards would be replaced by bank-to-bank transfers that do not use payment processor networks like Visa.

https://twitter.com/ftfinancenews/status/1573160396982308864

quote:

How JPMorgan�s plan to kill credit cards split the bank

The diktat came from Jamie Dimon during a closed-door meeting at JPMorgan Chase�s headquarters in November. Facing growing pressure from nimbler fintechs, the chief executive of the biggest US bank pushed the leaders of his two largest divisions to put aside any differences and collaborate on a new payments processing system.

�If I hear that any of you aren�t sharing information with each other, or you�re hiding information, you�re fired,� Dimon told the 15 or so executives who had gathered for the meeting in New York, according to two people with knowledge of the remarks.

Dimon�s pronouncement was delivered in his usual wisecracking style, but it reflected the challenges big banks face as they try to modernise their technology.

The new system being developed by JPMorgan�s corporate and investment bank � the CIB � would enable merchants to receive payments directly from consumers, cutting out the need for debit or credit cards and posing a threat to the lucrative fees earned by banks and dominant card companies Visa and Mastercard.

The belief in some parts of the CIB that this �pay-by-bank� product had the potential to supplant plastic created inevitable tensions with JPMorgan�s consumer and community banking division � the CCB � which booked more than $5bn in card revenues in 2021.

Dimon, however, reckoned it was better to risk existing revenue than to allow non-bank competitors to beat JPMorgan to the punch.

It had happened before: Dimon has said JPMorgan should have built its own mobile payments platform for merchants before Square, the fintech company co-founded by Jack Dorsey and now renamed Block.

�Jamie wants to understand products that could be threats to banking institutions,� said one person familiar with the project. �If [pay-by-bank] is going to be widely adopted, the bank needs to be there. If long-term it fails, it�s a bit of an insurance policy.�

Discussion at the six-hour event last November focused on how the many powerful internal interest groups inside JPMorgan would divvy up the pay-by-bank project. Executives in attendance included Daniel Pinto, the bank�s president and CIB head, as well as Marianne Lake and Jennifer Piepszak, who had recently been promoted to co-run the CCB, replacing the more powerful Gordon Smith in 2021.

Pinto and Smith had given the appearance of engaging in a friendly rivalry, joking at company events that their division was the bank�s biggest, while citing different metrics. The two also temporarily led the bank in 2020 after Dimon underwent emergency heart surgery.

When Smith left JPMorgan, Pinto became sole president. Whereas Smith had been on level footing with Pinto, Lake and Piepszak did not have the same title.

The emerging game plan was to have the CIB deal with the technology and build relationships with merchants, while the CCB worked to clarify customer protections in the event of misuse or fraud.

JPMorgan declined to comment on what happened at the meeting, which also touched on other payments projects at the bank.

Takis Georgakopoulos, JPMorgan�s global head of payments for CIB, said the bank had spent �a great deal of time� working on pay-by-bank through talking to merchants and understanding consumer protections.

�The relationship between the CCB and CIB is as close as it�s ever been. We all know that innovation in payments is one of the firm�s greatest opportunities and we�re committed to it,� Georgakopoulos told the Financial Times.

JPMorgan�s move into pay-by-bank responded to demand from merchants, such as Amazon and Walmart, chafing at banks and card companies hoovering up interchange fees that average 1.8 per cent per transaction in the US, according to payments consultancy firm CMSPI. In the EU, interchange fees are capped at 0.3 per cent for credit card payments and 0.2 per cent for debit cards.

Skimming a little bit from every card swipe adds up. In 2020, merchants in the US paid about $110bn in processing fees for $7.6tn worth of card transactions, according to the Nilson Report.

Pay-by-bank, which would enable sellers to take payment directly from a customer�s bank account, is part of the growing movement towards �open banking� � securely allowing consumers to give financial providers the ability to access their financial information.

JPMorgan already allows account holders to instantly pay one another through Zelle, a mobile application launched by the largest US banks in 2017. However, Zelle�s use for retail payments remains extremely limited. Bankers have said this is partly because it is run by a separate company owned by a consortium of lenders.

Bank transfer payments have caught on in countries such as the Netherlands and India, but US consumers have been slower to take it up.

This is partly because of the country�s clunky bank-to-bank automated clearing house, a network that settles payments in days rather than seconds and whose roots trace back to the 1970s. This may change next year with the US Federal Reserve aiming to launch FedNow, a new rapid payments service for big banks, and is another reason why JPMorgan is moving on pay-by-bank.

In the short term, JPMorgan believes pay-by-bank is an alternative for rent and bill payments as well as cash, high-priced debit and cheques, rather than for credit cards, according to people involved in the project.

In the longer term, however, the bank is making sure it is ready for the potential demise of credit cards.

JPMorgan is not the first to try and disrupt the credit card industry. In 2012, a consortium of major US chains, including Walmart, Target and Best Buy, tried and failed to get a product past a trial stage before selling it to JPMorgan in 2017.

Executives at the big card companies privately remain sceptical that pay-by-bank will dislodge credit cards in the US anytime soon, given deeply ingrained consumer habits, generous reward programmes and fraud protections that are more clearly defined than competing payment options.

But despite their confidence, card companies have taken steps to bolster their ability to facilitate direct transactions, including the recent acquisitions of fintechs Tink and Finicity by Visa and Mastercard respectively.

And banks such as JPMorgan � long incentivised to maintain the status quo since they accrue the bulk of interchange fees from card payments � are hedging their bets too, hoping pay-by-bank can replace at least some of those threatened revenues.

That is why Dimon stepped in and urged his teams to push past the tensions and pre-empt any disruption.

JPMorgan is now aiming to take pay-by-bank live next year and is in talks with at least one fintech company over a partnership to provide infrastructure support, according to people briefed on the plans.

The CIB and CCB are still collaborating on the project. In July, the bank held a �Senior Leaders Payments Offsite� where around 40 senior executives from the two divisions gathered at the posh Cipriani restaurant in Manhattan.

This time, Dimon did not feel the need to turn up, let alone issue any warnings.

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Sep 26, 2022

# ¿ Sep 26, 2022 18:24

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 11, 2024 16:17

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Push El Burrito posted:

I'm not a huge economy dude but wouldn't that effectively kill the idea of credit ratings?

Because if so I'm all for it.

No.

You'd still have plenty of other things that credit ratings are based off of (personal loans, mortgages, car loans, boat loans, student loans, rental payments/evictions, tax liens, etc.).

It would just make personal short-term credit via credit cards mostly defunct by killing the rewards programs, cash back, and the downsides of credit cards all together. Which would leave no reason to use them when you have bank-to-bank transfers available.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2022 18:37

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

This could be a massive revolution in the way commerce happens, but I am personally kind of mixed on it.

On the one hand, it does suck for merchants that they have to pay a fee for every product they sell to a third-party just to take payments and nearly instant bank-to-bank transfers would be a massive improvement over ACH that can take days to verify or credit cards that take some extra fees from the merchant for no real reason.

On the other hand, from my personal perspective, I have earned a lot of cash back + rewards from credit cards over the years and basically never use debit cards anymore because I can get 2-5% of my purchase back for doing nothing. I also like floating money for a month with no interest and the consumer protections of getting an instant refund and saying, "it's the bank's problem now" when you have fraud on a credit card. It's not totally fair that the merchants are basically subsidizing all of that for me, but I also don't feel that bad for them.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2022 18:45

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Main Paineframe posted:

How does JP Morgan make money on that? Someone is going to have to pay fees at some point in the transaction, otherwise the service wouldn't make any money. They might subsidize it in the short-term to give themselves a foothold, but in the long run they'll be charging someone for this service, and merchants are the natural target to slap fees on.

JPMorgan Chase no longer has to pay Visa/Mastercard network fees and they can issue credit to their customers/shape the payment process however they want without having to work with or pay Visa to do so.

Right now, they pay Visa to do the thing this new bank-to-bank transfer system will do. By eliminating them, they can go from losing a portion of money on every swipe to them to gaining a portion of money on every swipe + being the cheapest/easiest creditor for anyone with a checking account at Chase.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2022 19:41

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Eric Cantonese posted:

I feel like many people use credit cards to purchase things over time that they don't have the funds to purchase all at once. Credit card companies are often like layaway lenders so that the businesses themselves don't have to setup their own programs.

I'm curious how far the individual consumer appeal is going to go. If going straight from your account was really that appealing, wouldn't everyone have migrated to debit cards already?

Debit cards don't go straight from your account. The bank and person receiving the money still pay fees for debit card transactions (they are just much smaller than credit card swipe fees). They still use Visa/Mastercard payment processors and ACH takes a few days to verify before the transaction is complete. That is why over drafting is a thing that is possible.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2022 19:42

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Solkanar512 posted:

I'm also wondering how holds work with gas, hotels and rental cars.

I think the significance of instant bank-to-bank transfers is that they wouldn't need to issue holds, worry about potential overdrafts, or have 3-day confirmation waiting periods that traditional ACH has to deal with.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2022 20:24

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

PhazonLink posted:

and yet checks still exist (in the US).

also as someone who responsibly used/treated my secure/student CC as a DC and thus started adult life with a technically good/great score , I dont like CCs dying? (even though the above line says they wont die)

CC's themselves probably won't fully die. But, the expensive perks/cashback/rewards around them most likely will. If your credit card becomes functionally the same as a debit card, except that you can float some money for a month, then they will lose a lot of the reason for using them. The entire thing that enables all the 2% to 5% cashback on all your credit card purchases is that it is subsidized by the swipe fees all the merchants are paying. The credit card companies want to give you reasons to use your card as much as possible, so they essentially give you a tiny cut of the swipe fees to encourage you to do so. That rationale kind of collapses when there are no fee options.

The banks are also going to use this payment system to set up "buy now, pay later" features that you can use, which will function similarly to the credit part of credit cards, now that they have cut out Visa and Mastercard. The availability of those features will also cut against credit card usage. They will still exist in some form, but the companies that are exclusively credit card companies (like AmEx) are going to get hit very hard if this becomes widespread, because there will not be any functional reason to use a credit card over your bank's BNPL system and merchants will strongly prefer that you not.

Part of the reason there is such a large perks/rewards system around credit cards in the U.S. that you don't see in other countries is that under Obama the credit card reform bill they passed severely restricted debit card swipe fees. That basically killed rewards checking/debit cards and most banks/payment processors made huge pushes into incentivizing people to use credit cards because that was where they still could get big swipe fees. If this does see wide adoption, then the golden age of credit card rewards and benefits (that was built on the backs of merchants) will have only lasted about 20 years. Credit cards weren't nearly as ubiquitous as they are now because there wasn't much reason to use them over a debit card in the 90's and early 2000's.

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Sep 27, 2022

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 00:55

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

evilweasel posted:

here's the problem (and it has been the same problem for every single "replace credit cards to cut down on fees!"): why do i, the guy getting 1-5% back by paying with my credit card and have all those fraud protections, pay with your bank thing instead?

so given that i'm not moving from my cc to the bank thing, why are you, the merchant, going to stop paying the CC fee?

According to FT, JPMorgan Chase is going to partner with retailers (who desperately want to get everyone to stop using CCs), use their market share to push adoption, and wind down their credit card rewards and business. Who knows how successful that will be? Chase also thinks that other major banks are going to get in on the idea by 2025 and go through the same process of pushing adoption, shuttering their credit card divisions, and trying to box out Visa.

But, Dimon has already said the goal is to get the credit card revenue down to $0 by taking over the payment processor role. They are already winding down the benefits of their major perk card, the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and implementing caps on perks and sign-on bonuses.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 01:09

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

LorneReams posted:

Mastercard and Visa are not going to allow this to happen, unless they are part of the transition.

That is sort of the wild card.

It's not really clear what they can do to stop the banks from developing that technology.

If they really try to pull something dramatic, then it will probably end up having to be decided through the courts or legislation, like the credit card bill under Obama, and you have Visa + Mastercard vs. Amazon/Wal-Mart/major retailers and big banks lobbying for a legislative solution. Visa and the payment processors lost on that one last time.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 01:17

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

PhazonLink posted:

since we're talking about banking, didnt one of the bills Biden signed actual try to help the unbanked by maybe starting a postal banking service??

They funded a pilot program for various financial services (bill pay, check cashing, cashing in savings bonds, wire services, and free ATMs) at some post offices. It's not a checking account/actual postal banking.

The Fed has said they are looking into options to provide free banking and a digital dollar, but those are just research and, even if they do end up happening, won't be for a while.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 02:57

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

That plan that Biden announced at the Detroit Auto Show earlier this month to providing EV charging stations along every major highway in 38 states by 2024 has apparently expanded from $900 million to $1.5 billion and covers all 50 states now.

I'm guessing Hawaii, Alaska, and Idaho were doing a lot of whining.

https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/1574752267718328321

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 14:31

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Online advertising companies are apparently the greatest marketers (of themselves) and the worst marketers (of their client's products) in the history of industry.

After the reveal that Uber was paying several billion dollars to online advertisers and only realized that they never saw any return when they accidentally shut down all online advertising, it looks like there is a similar thing going for podcasts.

Online advertisers have worked with podcasters to set-up "auto-downloading" episode programs in various mobile apps that count as unique users. Podcasts then use that very high figure to partner with online advertisers and reach out to companies to charge them for ads that will reach "millions of listeners," even if nobody is actually listening.

https://twitter.com/ashleyrcarman/status/1574776483171946497

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Sep 27, 2022

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 16:35

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

rscott posted:

This is basically in the same vein as all of Facebook's ad engagement numbers being basically totally made up isn't it?

Similar, except basically every large podcast network is in on it.

But, big companies that rely heavily on brand awareness (with the exception of Uber) all seem to realize that they don't know what the impact of online advertising is, but are all too scared to be "the one" who stops doing it and gets buried. So, it's become like a weird cost of doing business to just throw away a certain amount of your company's money as an insurance policy.

It's weird that online marketing companies are so good at marketing themselves to major companies, but don't seem to have any success marketing their client's products.

Like credit card rewards programs, a lot of the stuff we enjoy online is basically subsidized by huge amounts of internet ad money. If people finally start pulling back on that, it is going to lead to a bunch of weird situations for content providers that rely on ad-revenue (which is already falling).

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 18:39

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Reuters wire blurb says "All major railroad unions have ratified or are in the process of ratifying" the new union contract that Biden negotiated. So, no strike.

Probably be a full story on it available shortly.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 20:06

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Solkanar512 posted:

Wasn't there an account of eBay dropping all online advertising for several months and showing no differences in sales and traffic?

That was Uber; which is why I included the "(except for Uber)" part.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2022 20:18

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

We live in the worst possible timeline, so I bet she will still win her primary, but someone just asked Schumer about the DSCC's policy to support all incumbents and whether it applies to Krysten Sinema and he said, "Well, the policy is not to directly support primary challengers to incumbents."

Then, when asked specifically if he would endorse Sinema if someone else ran against her in 2024, wouldn't say that he would. But, he did say that "she has been there for some important votes and that is all I have to say right now."

# ¿ Sep 28, 2022 20:57

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Dubar posted:

The article estimates there are 8000 homes being purposefully held vacant for the purpose of turning a profit as prices increase. That is still more than the number of homeless. That is not a housing shortage.

A housing shortage isn't measured by the number of homeless people.

There is a massive housing shortage in SF and the actual vacancy rate is 3% (and about 2/3 of that vacancy rate are "technical vacancies" where a rental unit is vacant at the beginning of the month for repairs or moving out, but will be occupied by the next month). That means that only about 1% of rentals in SF are actually truly unoccupied for multiple months.

Even the article linked above talking about the homeless mentions that:

quote:

It's also interesting to note that the city's rental vacancy rate (housing available for rent) is only 3%, which reflects the tight rental market. San Francisco's rental vacancy rate is lower than the rate in other major metro areas

# ¿ Sep 29, 2022 13:58

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Posted this in the Student Loan Forgiveness FAQ thread, but FYI:

The Biden administration is kicking off the student loan forgiveness process.

If you have sent the DOE your tax returns for 2020 or 2021 for any reason (income verification, IBR, etc.) or filled out a FAFSA form in 2020 or 2021, then it should be applied automatically in the coming weeks and you don't need to do anything.

If not, then the form to verify will be going live on the DOE site in "the coming days." The form will be available from October 2022 to December 2023.

Form will be one-page long and does not require any supporting documents.

(It is basically just a one-page thing you sign digitally swearing you really are eligible and promising not to intentionally try to defraud the government.)

quote:

�In October, the US Department of Education will launch a short online application for student debt relief. You won�t need to upload any supporting documents or use your FSA ID to submit your application,� the email said.

It continued, �Once you submit your application, we�ll review it, determine your eligibility for debt relief and work with your loan servicer(s) to process your relief. We�ll contact you if we need any additional information from you.�

https://twitter.com/betsy_klein/status/1575498579535310851

# ¿ Sep 29, 2022 16:37

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Big Slammu posted:

There�s a paywall here. Am I correct in the impression that means if you were unlucky enough to have had your loans sold by the federal government to a private bank after taking them out through the government that you are no longer eligible? What�s the legal damage these loan servicers have to bring these suits that they�d win? Most importantly, how the gently caress did the administration not think of this before rolling out?

FFEL Loans are a certain type of loan from pre-2010 where the government just backed the loan that was issued by a private lender. Your loan would have been an FFEL from the start and doesn't become one later/get sold.

Post-Obamacare, they no longer exist.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2022 19:08

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

projecthalaxy posted:

I saw in the NPR article that 4 million borrowers hold these sorts of loans, but it doesn't say how much total they are. I wonder if the feds would be able to just absorb the cost of the loans to make them equivalently forgiven to the other fed loans and how many unnecessary, unwanted tanks and fighter planes (cash equivalent) it would take to do so?

The feds could do that, but congress would have to pass a law appropriating money for it.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2022 19:25

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

A big flaming stink posted:

This is literally worse than doing nothing for those 4mil. If that is truly a valid concern why in the absolute gently caress did Biden not think about that before he came out with the loan forgiveness?? He certainly dithered about it long enough to forsee this wrinkle!

Like those 4 million people had just enough time to start making financial decisions based on the incoming forgiveness. Forget about the emotional bait and switch their quality of life is going to be impacted by this!

FFEL loans were abolished in 2010 by Obamacare. Previous to 2010, if you got a FFEL loan, then it could be held by the DOE or issued by a private lender with private money and just guaranteed by the DOE.

Privately held FFEL loans were never eligible for forgiveness on their own. But, when they first announced the debt forgiveness, they had said that privately held FFEL loans could be consolidated into new federal loans and qualify for forgiveness. They never said when they had to be consolidated by and a lot of people thought it would be by at least the end of the year. But, the new guidance says you have to have started the consolidation process before today.

If your FFEL loan was eligible for the student loan pause, then it is still good for forgiveness. If it was never eligible and you didn't start the consolidation process by yesterday, then it is not.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2022 20:08

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Jaxyon posted:

Probably not heavily advertise a risky benefit that had a good chance of failing, right before the election, in multiple ways?

They didn't say those loans were going to be forgiven, but they did say that you could consolidate them into Direct Loans to make them eligible for forgiveness. They never gave a date for when the cutoff would be.

The change today was that they announced that the cutoff was yesterday.

This was the previous FFEL guidance:

This is the new one:

# ¿ Sep 29, 2022 22:54

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Big government's ban on flavored tobacco products and advertising to children is taking Juul into bankruptcy.

This is a "restructuring" bankruptcy proceeding and not a "liquidation to pay creditors" bankruptcy proceeding.

https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1577497576504434690

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Oct 5, 2022

# ¿ Oct 5, 2022 04:31

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

California has become the second state to legalize jaywalking (Virginia just barely beat them to it).

It is currently legal in California, Virginia, and Kansas City, MO.

https://twitter.com/badler/status/1577749464860790785

quote:

Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, on Friday signed the Freedom to Walk Act, which allows pedestrians to cross the street outside of an intersection without being ticketed, as long as it�s safe to do so. Until now, jaywalkers in California could receive a fine of up to $198, which could end up costing even more in court fees.

As with many minor offenses, enforcement had often proved arbitrary and discriminatory. In one high-profile 1991 case, rapper Tupac Shakur was stopped by Oakland police for jaywalking and, he alleged in a lawsuit that was settled for $42,000, cuffed and choked until he passed out, and was jailed.

L.A.�s population is only 9% Black, but �in L.A., nearly a third of pedestrians issued jaywalking tickets over the last decade were Black,� LAist reported in 2021.

But that�s about to change, although police officers can still stop pedestrians from jaywalking if they are creating an imminent risk of collision with an automobile.

This is already the unofficial norm in many large cities, and it was once the norm throughout the country, including in California. Photos of urban streets from the early years of the 20th century � including West Coast cities such as San Francisco � show the road filled with people alongside horse-drawn carriages.

�When you visit any city in America today, it�s a sea of cars, with pedestrians dodging between the speeding autos,� Smithsonian magazine reported in 2014. �It�s almost hard to imagine now, but in the late 1890s, the situation was completely reversed. Pedestrians dominated the roads, and cars were the rare, tentative interlopers.�

But in the 1920s and �30s, as cars rose in popularity and deadly collisions with pedestrians became a widespread problem, auto companies successfully lobbied local governments to outlaw crossing outside of intersections and without a green light.

�Their most brilliant stratagem: To popularize the term �jaywalker,�� Smithsonian wrote. �The term derived from �jay,� a derisive term for a country bumpkin. In the early 1920s, �jaywalker� wasn�t very well known. So pro-car forces actively promoted it, producing cards for Boy Scouts to hand out warning pedestrians to cross only at street corners. ... Only a few years later, in 1924, �jaywalker� was so well-known it appeared in a dictionary: �One who crosses a street without observing the traffic regulations for pedestrians.��

In the decades since, cities have largely been built to accommodate cars more than people. The result is that Americans drive a world-leading 16,000 miles per person every year. That�s why transportation is the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change, and it is one reason the United States has one of the highest emissions per capita in the world.

Now, climate-minded jurisdictions are beginning to unwind car culture and encouraging residents to use cleaner modes of transportation like bicycles and their feet.

�It should not be a criminal offense to safely cross the street,� said California Assembly Member Phil Ting, a Democrat from San Francisco, who sponsored the Freedom to Walk Act. �When expensive tickets and unnecessary confrontations with police impact only certain communities, it�s time to reconsider how we use our law enforcement resources and whether our jaywalking laws really do protect pedestrians. Plus, we should be encouraging people to get out of their cars and walk for health and environmental reasons.�

Advocates argue that criminalizing pedestrians hasn�t worked and that cities should instead improve pedestrian safety with traffic-calming measures that will force cars to slow down and proceed more carefully.

�California�s pedestrian fatality rate is almost 25% higher than the national average, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety,� noted Anne Stuhldreher, who directs the Financial Justice Project in the San Francisco city treasurer�s office, in a 2021 blog post. �But we can�t ticket our way to safer streets. The focus should be on designing smart streetscapes that are people-centric, not car-centric.

�Roadways should have sufficient sidewalks, multiple functional streetlights and abundant safe street crossings. Crosswalks should be broadened, better illuminated and timed to give walkers more time to cross the street.

�Let�s make cars slow down. Install speed bumps. Ban right turns at red lights, which increases pedestrian crashes by 60%.�

The new law follows California�s recent range of actions taken to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, including state regulators making a rule a week earlier banning gas-burning heating and hot water systems as of 2030 and a rule in August that new vehicles sold in the state from 2035 onward must be electric. (On the same day that he signed the jaywalking bill, however, Newsom announced an easing of restrictions on oil refining to allow more polluting types of gasoline in California, in order to ease the state�s high prices at the pump.)

The state Legislature also recently struck a blow against the state�s entrenched car culture in September, when it passed a law eliminating minimum parking requirements for new buildings near public transit stops.

California is not the first locality to decriminalize jaywalking. The state of Virginia did so in March 2021 and it had no discernible effect on pedestrian traffic fatalities through the rest of the year. Kansas City, Mo., fully legalized jaywalking in 2021 and there is not sufficient data yet to determine whether it has affected traffic safety.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2022 21:10

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

In 2021, NYC had a huge surge in pedestrians being hit by cars (but, not necessarily dying from it). The NYT article about it even semi-hilariously interviewed someone who got hit by a car after the interview and another person who said they had been hit by a car twice at the same intersection that year.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 00:24

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

GreyjoyBastard posted:

if there is one thing American courts are good at doing, it is moving money from one party in a lawsuit to the other based on judicial edicts

American courts are actually exceptionally bad at this 95% of the time. Most state civil judgements aren't even valid in another state until you file in that state and get a reciprocal approval. Wage garnishments are almost always handled by the employer and not automatically applied. It's also on the person who won the judgement to find out where the person works and get wage garnishment set up. That's why so many judgements go to collections or just never get paid.

The 5% of the time where it is good at this is in Chancery court, which is wear Musk's suit currently is. So, in this case, it would be pretty bad for Musk to decide he just won't comply.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 03:29

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Push El Burrito posted:

You mean to tell me those Jay Leno segments were against the law?

Leno never crossed the intersection to interview people.

Plus, it's only illegal if you get caught.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 16:40

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

The Urban Institute is out with their first comprehensive study on the U.S. housing market in two decades and the news not good. They also predict it will get worse without major changes.

- With the exception of California (whose changes are still too new to assess their impact) every state in the country has made it more difficult to build new housing in existing areas since 2000.

- Private and public development for new housing has also slowed dramatically since 2000 with especially huge slowdowns that never recovered in 2009 and 2020.

- Communities that have seen housing prices surge have walled themselves off from new housing construction out of a combination of desires by long-term residents to keep housing values high, avoid "gentrification," and backlash against an influx of new out of state residents.

- Poorer communities have also seen housing supplies dry up because these low cost communities don't draw anyone who wants to buy houses and the rents are too low to justify private developers building new rental units.

So, the U.S. has twin housing problems:

On the one hand, there are about 25 major metro areas where new housing is extremely hard to build, but huge amounts of people want to live there. But, local governments and property owners are doing everything they can to prevent people from being able to move there cheaply.

On the other hand, you have communities in the rust belt and similar areas that are dying and have cheap housing, but nothing to attract people there and nobody is building any new housing there to support a revival even if one did actually happen. These communities desperately want more housing and jobs to be built there, but nobody wants to move there or build there.

quote:

Housing construction in the United States has failed to match population growth for decades. Growth in housing availability depends on developer interest in responding to local real-estate market demand, but local governments also influence housing production through land-use regulations. Is the location of additional housing supply aligned with what we might expect given developers� interest in investing in more expensive, in-demand communities? Or do certain local characteristics undermine the production of new housing?

Adequate housing supply is critical to ensuring affordability. But for the past few decades, private investment in new housing construction has slowed, and government subsidies for affordable housing have failed to keep up. As a result, housing is more expensive than ever for many Americans.

Though the national story is clear, changes in housing supply vary considerably within metropolitan areas, with some communities adding plenty of homes, and others losing them as they demolish buildings and convert small multifamily buildings into individual homes.

In new research, I examined these patterns in municipalities across the United States between 2000 and 2020. I found variation within metropolitan areas stems from two primary trends: significant housing underproduction not only in undervalued communities that cannot attract development but also in many high-housing-cost communities that have leveraged land-use regulations to prevent new construction despite local demand for construction. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem; boosting supply will require federal, state, and local policymakers to collaborate and tailor production approaches to each type of community.

Both the lowest- and the highest-value communities underproduced housing

For my analysis, I examined median housing values, permitting data, and local demographics. I compare the amount of housing added in municipalities nationwide against overall metropolitan growth and specifically examine the most exclusive cities�those with high housing values in growing metropolitan areas, that feature little housing growth.

I found the US cities with the lowest-value housing stock (places where homes are worth less than half the regional average) experienced extremely slow housing-unit growth between 2000 and 2020. The median such jurisdiction added housing units at only 10 percent of the rate of its encompassing region.

This speaks to the difficulty such undervalued communities�places like Gary, Indiana; Reading, Pennsylvania; or Trenton, New Jersey�face in attracting development. Whether or not local decisionmakers want more housing, it simply isn�t being built within their boundaries.

On the other hand, many municipalities with housing values at or above those of their respective metropolitan areas built considerably more housing on average. Such communities include wealthy suburbs like Alpharetta, Georgia, and Glenview, Illinois, and central cities like Seattle. This suggests developers are building in areas where they believe they�ll get a reasonable return on their investment.

I found higher municipal housing-unit growth and permitting were also associated with higher median household incomes and educational attainment on average. Again, this indicates development is likely to follow the people who can pay for housing units in new-construction buildings.

But this story is nuanced. Many of the most attractive communities�with some of the priciest housing stock�block development. They are likely using land-use regulations that prevent apartments from being built to limit construction, reducing housing availability and increasing housing costs.

Indeed, of the nation�s most-in-demand municipalities�those where housing values are at least 30 percent higher than their respective metropolitan areas�less than a third added more housing than their encompassing region, despite plentiful developer demand to build there. In contrast, more than 40 percent of such jurisdictions added new housing at 50 percent or less of the rates of their respective metropolitan areas�and many actually lost housing units.

Municipalities with relative housing values between 110 and 130 percent of metropolitan averages added the most housing overall.

Development patterns vary by metropolitan area

Most US regions disproportionately added new housing in exurban, sprawling, unincorporated areas between 2000 and 2020. These areas typically have the fewest regulatory constraints on new construction and lower construction costs. But trends vary widely between metropolitan areas.

In the San Francisco Bay Area�the most expensive large urban region in the nation�San Francisco and San Jose added housing units at roughly the metropolitan average, or above it, over the past two decades (though the region is not adding enough housing to keep up with demand). But many of the smaller, wealthier suburbs surrounding them, like Belmont, added housing at only half of the regional rate. Those communities became increasingly expensive at the same time.

In the New York City region, several large suburban cities like Hoboken, Jersey City; Newark, New Jersey; and Stamford, Connecticut, added proportionately more new units between 2000 and 2020 than New York City. Meanwhile, exclusive communities like Tenafly, New Jersey�with median household incomes of more than $170,000�built very few new units.

The most exclusionary communities raise unique challenges

In some ways, cities like Belmont and Tenafly reflect nationwide trends. These in-demand municipalities don�t suffer from the deficit in development demand their low-value peers face. Yet evidence shows many local governments use restrictive land-use regulations, like zoning policies limiting development to large-lot single-family homes, to prevent construction. Though communities like Jersey City have allowed the construction of large towers, Tenafly has enforced a zoning code (PDF) that prevents anything but single-family homes from being built on most of its territory.

Similar stories can be told about the zoning rules in many in-demand, low-housing-production cities, such as Calabasas, California; Hudson, Ohio; Scarsdale, New York; and University Park, Texas.

Ultimately, this means many wealthy suburbs free ride on the attractiveness of their metropolitan areas, watching their property values grow in response to demand�while gas station attendants, teachers, and service industry workers are priced out because of limited housing availability.

How policymakers can address housing shortages nationwide

The Biden administration recently introduced a national Housing Supply Action Plan that proposes a set of new policies the federal government could undertake to address the nation�s underproduction of residences. This is a good start for what unquestionably will require action by local and state governments as well.

To address the housing development shortage within undervalued communities, governments at all levels should consider increasing place-based investment in residential construction, such as through direct investment in units through social housing programs. This could also attract private developer interest in undervalued neighborhoods, ultimately leading to more units and amenities that could give residents a better quality of life.

To address inadequate housing construction in high-value, in-demand communities, the federal government and states should consider leveraging financial and political tools to encourage or require these jurisdictions to do their part to house a fair share of the region�s residents of all backgrounds. Such leverage could include conditioning transportation, infrastructure, and housing grant support on land-use rules encouraging housing development. In France, a mandate that cities demonstrate real progress in providing affordable housing has been successful. States could also take lessons from California and Oregon and consider overriding local rules that limit housing construction to just single-family units.

The US�s housing shortage crisis is widespread but uneven. Policymakers must evaluate and understand housing stock variation within metropolitan areas so they can tailor production approaches accordingly for maximum impact.

https://twitter.com/yfreemark/status/1578054567169851392

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Oct 6, 2022

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 20:00

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Biden is de-scheduling weed, pardoning everyone convicted of federal weed charges, and asking states to do the same.

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1578097875480895489
https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1578097879390031874
https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1578097882070192129
https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1578097883395592207

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 20:06

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

This is almost as surprising a decision as Biden's weed declaration.

https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1578109819491258369

Senator from Nebraska quitting in the middle of his term to go work at the University of Florida?

Governor will appoint a replacement. It's too close to the election for a special election, so they will have a special election in 2024.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 21:02

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Tayter Swift posted:

Do we call him Doctor�s rear end or Professor�s rear end

He's taking an admin job as head of the University, so neither.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 21:33

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Jaxyon posted:

Don't know Nebraska politics was he facing a serious challenge or getting out ahead of a scandal? It's odd to give up a gravy train like that, though I guess being dean of a major school is an easier gravy train.

Nope. He just finished his first term too, so its not like he's been there forever. Plus, he was elected in his early 40's.

And not sure what series of events led to him being approached by the University of Florida.

His next election isn't until 2026 and he was expected to cruise. This kind of came out of nowhere.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 21:58

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

BonoMan posted:

I doubt it's scandal as it's for the job of Presidency so I don't think Florida would just invite that in wholesale (but I mean... it is Florida).

I'm assuming it's just money.

It is probably just money. The current President makes about 6x as much as a U.S. Senator. Florida has some wild salaries for University Presidents.

Just a weird series of events that lead to a new Senator in a lifetime safe seat in Nebraska to resign his seat in order to be President of a University in Florida. Was Florida reaching out to sitting Senators? Was he job searching while running for re-election?

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 22:20

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

American teens continue to love vaping tobacco products and (inexplicably) chewing tobacco.

~15% of high-schoolers are regular e-cigarette users.

1 in 4 high-schoolers who have ever used an e-cig use them daily.

Nearly 90% of them use flavored tobacco products.

9% of high-schoolers have used chewing tobacco/"chaw"/"smokeless tobacco".

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1578138894247280641

quote:

About 2.55 million middle and high schoolers in the United States reported using e-cigarettes, an increase of 21.5% from those who reported using those products last year, a new federal study shows.

The study, published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, asked adolescents if they had used e-cigarettes in the last 30 days.

In total, 9.4% of respondents said they were current users, including 14.1% of high school students and 3.3% of middle school students.

"Adolescent e-cigarette use in the United States remains at concerning levels and poses a serious public health risk to our nation's youth," said Dr. Brian King, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, in a statement.

Researchers analyzed data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey, a school-based web survey, administered between Jan.18, 2022 and May 31, 2022.

The results showed that among students who reported use, 42.3% were frequent users, including 46% of high school students and 20.8% of middle school students.

Additionally, more than one in four of those who reported use -- or 27.6% -- reported daily use.

When it came to types of devices used, 55.3% said they used disposables followed by 25.2% who used pre-filled ore refillable pods or cartridges and 6.7% who used tanks or mod systems.

The overwhelming majority of youth e-cigarette users, 84.9%, used flavored products, meaning other than tobacco.

The most commonly used flavor was fruit followed by candy, desserts, or other sweets; mint; and menthol.

Puff Bar was the most reported brand used by students the past 30 days. Rounding out the top five were Vuse, Juul, SMOK and NJOY.

According to the CDC, e-cigarettes have been the most commonly used tobacco product among American middle and high schoolers since 2014.

Nicotine exposure from e-cigarettes can hinder brain development in adolescents and young adults, which can continue into the mid-20s, the CDC says, and can also increase risk of addition to other drugs.

The CDC also says e-cigarettes can contain heavy metals and cancer-causing chemicals that can damage the lungs.

Politicians and anti-tobacco advocates have accused e-cigarette companies of using flavors and sleek designs to market vaping to U.S. children and teenagers.

"This study shows that our nation's youth continue to be enticed and hooked by an expanding variety of e-cigarette brands delivering flavored nicotine," Dr. Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, said in a statement. "Our work is far from over. It's critical that we work together to prevent youth from starting to use any tobacco product -- including e-cigarettes -- and help all youth who do use them, to quit."

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 22:53

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

On Terra Firma posted:

Vaping is down about 50% from 2019 among youth.

According to the article, it is because of a change in definition and issues collecting data during the pandemic:

quote:

CDC officials cautioned against comparing the results of the 2022 survey with those of recent years because of changes in data collection procedures during the coronavirus pandemic.

�What we are seeing is rates of young people vaping were very high before the pandemic, then took a dip during the lockdowns and now we see those rates creeping up again,� Koval said.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2022 23:28

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

A lot of kids used to get started smoking by stealing cigarettes from their parents.

Is it just absurdly easy to buy nicotine vape cartridges and chewing tobacco underage now? I can't imagine that most of them are stealing Juul pods and chaw from their parents and they would need a lot of product for ~14% + ~9% of teens to be using them regularly/daily.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2022 01:06

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Uncle Boogeyman posted:

I remember hearing the fiberglass thing about menthol cigarettes too

The fiberglass thing is an urban myth. They do put additives into chewing tobacco to make it more abrasive for "texture" that can cut up your mouth if you have sensitive gums.

They also can get tiny salt crystals growing on them from the preservatives used.

The urban legend comes from seeing the tiny salt crystals + knowing the companies put in additives to make it more abrasive and people saying that the salt crystals were fiberglass.

Also, some chewing tobacco formulas and cigarette filters do contain chemicals that are components to fiberglass, but in tiny quantities and not actually fiberglass. In the same way that every apple technically contains cyanide.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2022 15:06

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Uvalde has suspended their entire force following the city's investigation into their response to the school shooting.

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1578429626606620674

quote:

The Uvalde, Texas, school district -- still facing withering criticism over its police department's failings both during the May 24 elementary school massacre and since -- announced the suspension of the entire district police force on Friday.

The district said it's requested more Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to be stationed on campuses and at extra-curricular activities, adding, "We are confident that staff and student safety will not be compromised during this transition."

The length of the school district police department suspension is not clear.

Lt. Miguel Hernandez, who was tasked with leading the department in the fallout from the attack, and Ken Mueller, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District's director of student services, were placed on administrative leave. Mueller elected to retire, according to the school district.

"Officers currently employed will fill other roles in the district," the school district said.

Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter, Lexi, was killed at Robb Elementary, said Friday's news was "what we've been asking for -- it's more than we've been asking for."

She commended the suspension of the entire department. "They don't know how to hire people, they don't know how to vet officers," Rubio said. "They haven't provided proper training."

The school district's move comes one day after the firing of Crimson Elizondo, an officer who was hired by Uvalde's school district despite being under investigation for her conduct as a DPS trooper during the massacre, which claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers.

Elizondo was the first DPS member to enter the hallway at Robb Elementary School after the shooter gained entry. The trooper did not bring her rifle or vest into the school, according to the results of an internal review by DPS that was detailed to ABC News.

As a result of potential failure to follow standard procedures, the trooper was among seven DPS personnel whose conduct is now being investigated by the agency's inspector general. The seven were suspended, however, by Elizondo resigning from DPS to work for the Uvalde schools she was no longer subject to any internal discipline or penalties. Her conduct -- if found to be in violation of law or policy -- would still be included in the final report from the DPS inspector general.

The school district said in Friday's statement that "decisions concerning" the school district police department have been pending results of investigations from the Texas Police Chiefs Association and the private investigative firm JPPI Investigations, but "recent developments have uncovered additional concerns with department operations."

Results of the JPPI investigation "will inform future personnel decisions" and the Texas Police Chiefs Association's review "will guide the rebuilding of the department and the hiring of a new Chief of Police," the statement said.

The school district's police chief, Pete Arredondo, was fired in August.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2022 18:33

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

The DoD is going to remove and rename all government property named after confederate generals.

The biggest changes will be to famous military bases like Fort Bragg. But, they will also be removing plaques and statues from several academies, parks, and West Point.

The biggest name changes are:

quote:

Fort Liberty from Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Fort Moore from Fort Benning, Georgia
Fort Gregg-Adams from Fort Lee, Virginia
Fort Eisenhower from Fort Gordon, Georgia
Fort Cavazos from Fort Hood, Texas
Fort Johnson from Fort Polk, Louisiana
Fort Novosel from Fort Rucker, Alabama
Fort Barfoot from Fort Pickett, Virginia

They are also banning all confederate flags from being sold at historical army site gift shops and active bases.

There are also apparently dozens of roads owned by the government named after Robert E. Lee that are getting renamed as well.

https://twitter.com/jseldin/status/1578100829923450880

# ¿ Oct 7, 2022 20:08

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 11, 2024 16:17

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Evangelical Christian author Rod Dreher - who worked for the LA Times, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and the Weekly Standard - has put out an insane essay today in the American Conservative where makes weirdly anti-Semitic claims about Jews controlling culture and seems to out himself as bisexual.

There are also apparently "throuples" moving in all around him in his neighborhood and worries that humanity is at risk of extinction become they are becoming both too gay and too asexual.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1578369704137105413

Full article:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/forgetting-how-to-be-a-civilization/

quote:

Forgetting How To Be A Civilization

New survey data show that young people are losing the knowledge and the habits necessary to reproduce a stable society

The political scientist Eric Kaufmann is no bringer of good news for us conservatives. In his latest CSPI research, there's a lot of handwriting on the wall for our kind. I tell you this not to discourage you, but to help you understand the immensity of the task in front of us. I know reading my blog can be awfully discouraging, but I firmly believe that real despair is to turn away from hard truths because they are too discouraging. If we are going to resist this tide, we need to know exactly what we are facing. I'll be taping an episode of The General Eclectic with Kale Zelden later today -- after our long summer hiatus forced by my visa problems (not a good idea to leave your mike in a country you can't enter because you screwed up your visa -- and we'll be discussing this.

Here is the summary of the findings:

America�s elite university students are more demographically diverse than the general population, but more politically divided along lines of race, gender, sexuality, and religion.

Minority and female students are far more liberal on campus than in the general population, whereas straight white Christian men are somewhat more conservative on campus than in the general population. Current trends portend a politics in which elite women, minorities, gays, and the nonreligious are more left-leaning while elite whites, males, and Christians remain relatively conservative.

White Christians tend to cluster in red state flagship universities, which are the most politically balanced in the country and have similar shares of liberal and conservative students. Yet many flagship universities in flyover states with conservative reputations actually have more liberal than conservative students.

A quarter of students are LGBT, and there are roughly equal shares of Christian and nonreligious students. LGBT, Nonreligious, and Christians are set to become more important political groups among America�s future leaders.

Liberal arts colleges are the least politically diverse. Many have almost no conservatives, and thus very low viewpoint diversity. But they have high sexual diversity, at nearly 40 percent LGBT.

Ivy League schools average 10-15 percent conservative and 60-75 percent liberal. Across 150 leading schools, there are nearly 2.5 liberals for every conservative.

Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 55-23 margin on campus, and liberals outnumber conservatives 53-21. Elite students are thus two-thirds more Democratic and twice as liberal as the American population.

Among elite students, there is a 15-point gender gap in political ideology and party identification between men and women. This is 3 to 5 times larger than the gender gap in the general population. It is also 2 to 3 times larger than the gender gap among either the 18-25 or college-educated general population. The campus gender gap has grown steadily since 2004.

The university with the highest viewpoint diversity ranking is the University of Arkansas, whose students are 35% conservative, 37% liberal, 36% Republican, and 41% Democratic. The least diverse is Smith College, at 81% liberal, 1% conservative, 78% Democratic, and 2% Republican.

Thirty percent of students and nearly the same share of academic staff in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) fields identify as the furthest left point on a 7-point conservative-liberal scale. For Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) subjects, a smaller share � 20% of students and 10% of staff � identify as far left.

Self-identified Jews make up only 3% of elite students and just 7% of Ivy League students, suggesting a considerable decline since the early 2000s.

Homeschooled and parochial schooled undergraduates are as or more likely to identify as LGBT or non-binary as those from public or private school backgrounds.

One thing that is very, very hard for conservatives today to understand is that elites matter immensely. It is true that they aren't everything -- thank God -- but they matter far more than many of us like to think. The sociologist James Davison Hunter, a Christian, has made this point powerfully. Why is it, he wrote in 2010, that Evangelical Christians make up something like 40 percent of the US population, but have almost no effect culturally, whereas Jews are less than two percent of the US population, but exercise immense cultural influence? It's because Jews are heavily represented among elites, while Evangelicals are not. To be clear, Hunter was not making an anti-Semitic point. He was simply pointing out a sociological fact -- one that is highly unpopular today among progressives, who assume that any demographic over- or underrepresentation can only be explained by bigotry. This is how you get Communist regimes sacrificing the truly talented on the altar of ideological egalitarianism. We are busy doing the same thing in America today (witness the rich Virginia school district that is erasing the lack of academic achievement by black students by embracing "equitable grading" practices -- that is, lying for therapeutic and ideological reasons).

Anyway, a Catholic conservative friend, seeing that data, responded:

This shows how the Right is completely and comically outclassed on every front within the key institutions that we rely on to credential and staff our non-hereditary aristocracy. The issue is not how the Left won the culture war, but rather, how could they not?

You wonder why it is that our elites are pushing forward with implementing radical gender theory, even though polls show most Americans oppose it? This explains it. It doesn't matter what Joe Sixpack thinks. Look, I think this is wrong too, but that's how the real world works. It helps explain why Donald Trump could get elected president, but was hemmed in by institutional elites. If we are going to fight back effectively against woke hegemony, we need politicians who understand how elites think and work, and who is able to fight them on something like a level playing field. We do not have that now. We don't have anything like that.

It hardly needs saying (but I'm going to say it anyway!) that it's hugely significant that conservatives scarcely exist at the Ivies. As much as we like to make fun of Harvard, Yale, and the others for their crackpot wokery, the fact remains that those institutions produce the national elites. When I used to give talks to journalism students, I would tell them that one lesson I learned from actually practicing journalism, versus studying it in school, is that networking is far, far more important than we like to think. It's more important in terms of getting jobs, but it's also more important as a general phenomenon for how power works. In terms of one's career, for most people, it is more important who you meet at Harvard than what you learn there. When I was an undergraduate at LSU, two Louisiana friends who had gone to the Ivies to study came at different times to spend a semester at LSU, so they could participate in a study abroad program that their university and LSU participated in, while paying LSU tuition, not Ivy League tuition. Neither knew each other, but they both told me that they had been surprised by how much more they enjoyed studying at LSU than at the Ivy. Why? According to one (a liberal!), he appreciated how de-politicized LSU's campus was; even in the mid-1980s at that Ivy, proto-wokeness made everybody anxious about not making the wrong step. According to both of them, the classroom instruction was on the same level, but they got more attention from the professors.

Of course they returned to their Ivies (and both went on to prosper in their chosen fields), because if you want to get ahead in the world, you'd be nuts to choose a mid-ranked state school over an Ivy League university. I keep thinking about the testimony of a European friend who did a graduate course at Harvard. He was shocked by the attitudes of Harvard students to their studies -- they did not want to hear anything that made them anxious, and professors coddled them in that way -- while at the same time observing that they all assumed that it was their destiny to hold power. And they would hold power, because they were part of an institution that produced power-holding elites. My European friend left Harvard worried about the future of the West, because he could see that the US was going to be led by incompetent and neurotic elites who could not grapple with the real world.

Here's the thing: it does us conservatives no good if all we do is react to whatever the progressive elites (who are now the Establishment) do. We have to be just as competent and as ferocious as they are. This is my constant complaint to MAGA conservatives: if all you care about is scandalizing the liberal elites, your emotional satisfaction is no compensation for actually changing things in the real world. The MAGA dogs bark, but the caravan of professional elites moves on, changing society beyond recognition.

For me, the most shocking finding from Kaufmann et al was this one.

Homeschooled and parochial schooled undergraduates are as or more likely to identify as LGBT or non-binary as those from public or private school backgrounds.

You think you're going to save your kid from this contagion by homeschooling them, or putting them in Christian school? Think again. Why might this be? It shows that the general culture is immensely powerful. I know plenty of Christians who think that signing the tuition check for Christian school means that they have done their best. Wrong! What do you know about the ethos of that school? I guarantee you that there are few Christian schools in the US where the student body's views are not set by social media, because almost all the parents give their kids smartphones. My own kids attended a small conservative Christian school in Baton Rouge, one where smartphones were not allowed on campus. But the school had no authority to tell parents not to give their kids smartphones -- and most of them did. I often cite in this space something that a Polish high school teacher told me in 2019, trying to help me understand why Christianity is dying among the young in that solidly Catholic nation: because there are no institutions -- not family, not Church, and certainly not the state -- more powerful in shaping the moral imaginations of the young than social media, especially TikTok.

A lot of conservative families, despite their faith and values, are going to watch their children fall into arrangements like this "throuple":

When there are no boundaries, either external or internal, to sexual desire, how can these arrangements fail to exist?

I'm not saying it's hopeless! I am saying that this is going to require far more effort than we might have thought previously. You can't simply teach your kids to be against something; you have to shape their consciences and moral imagination around a positive model. Think about how Christians in the early church must have raised their kids in the sexual culture of the Roman Empire. That's what we have to do.

From the detailed report (you can see it by clicking the link above):

In terms of gender, 61% of the unweighted sample are female and 36% male, with 3% gender nonconforming. With survey weights applied the numbers are 50% female, 48% male, and 2% gender nonconforming. The unweighted figures are not far off the national student figures, in which around 60% of students are female. Nine institutions are more than 75% female in the data. This is accurate for mainly female colleges, though in some cases the samples overstate a particular university�s actual sex ratio. Clearly there is a certain amount of measurement error at the college level given an average enrollment of 20,000 undergraduate students and a sample size of around 250 students per school. This produces a margin of error of 6% for the typical college in the dataset.

Twenty-three percent of students identify as LGBTQ: 16% of men, 28% of women, and virtually all non-binary respondents. The bisexual and �questioning� sexual orientation categories account for 15% of females but only 6% of males, while the gay/lesbian share is around twice as high among male students (6.1%) as females (2.8%). Non-binary students comprise 3.6% of the 2021 sample, adjusted to 1.1% in the weighted data. In 2022, the question was broadened to 7 categories, leading to 3% of the weighted sample identifying as non-binary. In the HERI data, a lower share of students, 15%, identify as LGBTQ.

Much of this pattern can be accounted for by the share of LGBTQ respondents among young people, with 21% of Gen-Z identifying as other than heterosexual in the most recent Gallup survey. The unweighted Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) finds no difference between students and non-students in LGBTQ share. Regardless, the substantial LGBTQ quotient among the young is a trend that is independent of the effects of college, although LGBTQ individuals appear to be self-selecting into elite higher education institutions in somewhat larger numbers compared to lower-ranked institutions.

Across 159 campuses sampled, three schools contained a weighted majority of students identifying as LGBTQ � Oberlin (51%), Wellesley (61%), and Smith College (70%). Given the 6% margin of error in the data for these colleges and possible noise from any sampling biases, these figures should be treated as indicative rather than definitive estimates. On the other hand, the 38% share of LGBTQ students among the more than 4,000 students in the 23 liberal arts colleges sampled is accurate to within a 1% margin of error. This suggests several liberal arts colleges, such as those listed above, could be majority LGBTQ. At the other end of the scale, LGBTQ students made up no more than 15% of students in the weighted sample at BYU (10%), Utah State (11%), Bucknell (13%), University of Miami (14%), Notre Dame (14%), and Clemson (14%). Importantly, no institution had fewer than 10% LGBTQ students.

This is morally insane. I mean it. The number of gays and lesbians has held fairly steady in society at between two and four percent. I believe that is the actual number. Why, then, are massive numbers of college students of that generation -- 23 percent -- claiming to be queer ("queer" as a catch-all term to describe non-normative sexual desire)? As noted above, both Gallup and CCES had the overall number of that generation at similar numbers, so this can't be simply a matter of college kids. I think a couple of things are going on here.

First, there is simply the matter of social contagion. A reader of this blog who is in college now told me last year that identifying as queer is his generation's mode of rebellion against the older generations. Most of these people who say they are queer will settle back into more or less normative heterosexual identity. I suppose that is probably true.

But there's little reason for religious conservatives to take comfort in that. My generation (X) was the one that first extended real tolerance to gays and lesbians. I supported that then, and support that now. But as we know, tolerance is not tolerated; you must affirm, and not only affirm, but celebrate; otherwise, you are a bigot. I did not imagine that the humane, liberal ideal of tolerance for sexual difference would quickly morph into this Babylonian decadence we see today.

What we have now challenges a presupposition that I long held: that sexual desire was fairly fixed. I think we now see that it is more fluid than we once thought, and that heterosexuality is partly something innate, but also something that must be achieved. That is, sexual desire is an overpowering force within each of us, one that we must be taught how to channel. I believe that most people are either predominantly heterosexual or predominantly homosexual in their desire, but that these boundaries aren't as sharply drawn as I once believed. Taboos play a meaningful role in telling people what they should desire, and therefore guiding them to maturity.

I think back to the all-male dorm I lived in during my last two years of high school. Think of a dorm full of 100 high school juniors and seniors, in the early 1980s. Imagine the pent-up sexual desire. There were a handful of guys who were out, or semi-out, as gay, and nobody thought anything of it. I remember a couple of them took advantage of the dorm administration's inability to recognize what was happening to get themselves assigned a room together, even though they were quietly a couple. A bunch of us envied them, and all the sex they must be having. The thing is, the only thing preventing any of the rest of us from doing the same thing was the internalized taboo against gay sex. Even though everybody in my class (to my recollection) was quite tolerant of homosexuality, it was also something that very few of us had any interest in experimenting with.

I can imagine now that things are very different at that school. Students today grow up formed by a culture that tells them anything goes in terms of sexual desire, as long as consent is provided. In fact, you are rewarded with social status if you identify as queer. If you haven't yet seen the interview Kale and I did with Helena, a detransitioner, please don't delay. Helena talks about how she was lonely and alienated from herself and her body, and was drawn into an online trans community because by identifying as queer, she could achieve the status and sense of community she ached for. Moreover, the more queer she became, the higher she moved up the social hierarchy within that community. She ended up injecting herself with cross-sex hormones, and living as a man before she came to her senses and realized that she was not at all a man. What Helen (and other detransitioners) testify to is the power of social pressure to compel people to believe -- to genuinely believe -- that their sexual and gender identity falls into these queer categories.

You might think: So what? If people want to experiment, let them? Why is it your business?

There is an Orthodox Christian answer, having to do with sin, but I'm not going to get into that here. What I will say is that it is the business of this and every society to create the next generation, and to equip them to flourish, and to create the generation after that. Religious or non-religious, that is the core mission of every society that does not have a death wish. The best way for society to do that is to regulate sexual desire, and to channel it into socially constructive outcomes. Historically, most societies have done this through some form of polygamy (which has its own serious problems, but that is the historical norm). In Jewish and Christian societies (excluding, obviously, the Judaism of the Old Testament), the model has been one man and one woman, exclusively. The Harvard sociologist Carle C. Zimmerman's excellent postwar study Family And Civilization explains how the collapse of the stable family model is always a sign of civilizational collapse. He writes about how in the West, the early medieval church brought order to chaotic barbarian tribes by imposing a Christian model of family formation on them -- and how that led to the kind of social stability in which people flourished.

We have cast that into the trash bin today, just as the late Romans and late Greeks did. Note well that I'm not saying that non-standard sexual desire and practice did not exist in the Christian period. Of course it did! And it always will. But society had strong models around which people were expected to conform, as part of social and psychological maturity. Those models helped push and pull us past the fear of sexual maturity, and intimacy with people of the opposite sex. It is a scary thing for a teenage boy to think about sex with women. Women's bodies are so different from theirs, and the male ego can be awfully fragile. But most push past that, driven by sexual desire that has been channeled into courtship rituals, however messy they may be.

But now? Teenagers are told that whatever they desire must be good, and normal. It is forbidden to forbid. This rule has serious social consequences. As difficult as it is to form and to maintain a family -- remember, I am going through a divorce after 25 years of marriage -- it can only really be done at a mass level if society shares a binding belief that doing so is not only good, but is a greater good than rival goods. Where does that binding belief come from? It can come from custom, but mostly it comes from shared religious belief. I've just finished Louise Perry's must-read book The Case Against The Sexual Revolution. Perry is not (apparently) a religious believer, or even a conservative. She's rather an English feminist who sizes up the Sexual Revolution and concludes that it has been a disaster for women and children. Perry comes to the same conclusions that many Christians do, but she does so not based on religious revelation or Scriptural instruction, but rather through a pitiless appraisal of sociological facts and human desires.

If you want to see where a society governed by no marriage and family norms takes us, look at the inner-city black communities today. There is no replacement for the family. A white liberal Democrat who once served as a juvenile court judge in a violent, predominantly black city said that if you want to see the reality of what family collapse means, go spend some time in juvenile court in his city. It happened to black Americans first, but it is coming for us all.

Think about it: young people only have a certain number of years to get their acts together, pair off, and start to produce the next generation. We have created a society that lies to them about this. Our society is so given over to radical individualism that it pretends that all familial arrangements are equally good, and that to say otherwise marks you as some sort of bigot. By the time a young person makes it through the confusion of his or her teens and twenties, and settles onto a stable sexual identity (if he or she can manage), they will have lost more than a decade of maturing. The idea of queerness as a social norm has consequences.

This is where we are today. Everything about Christian civilization, in terms of its model of family and sexuality, has been turned upside down by the Sexual Revolution. Philip Rieff, a nonbelieving Jew, saw this as far back as 1966. We have created what Rieff called an "anti-culture" -- a culture that has chosen to become one incapable of sustaining itself. That is why our civilization is dying.

How do we, as conservatives, defend a civilization that has chosen suicide? I'm going to write separately about this, because it deserves its own post, but a friend sent me this latest screed by the Russian hypernationalist Alexander Dugin, in which he writes about Putin's recent speech:

Cultural (Russia swears by traditional values, man, his right to existence, faith, the normal family, freedom and justice, and rejects individualism, post-humanism, abolition culture, LGBT, feminism, the legalisation of perversion and the direct Satanism of the West);

And:

Russia is a civilisation whose basic code is Tradition. Opposed to it is another civilisation, whose code is anti-Tradition, dehumanisation of man, lies, aggression, exploitation of countries and peoples, neo-colonialism, terror and evil. At the same time, the collective West also claims the universality of its model, leaving no one the right to choose otherwise. One can choose one over the other. Anyone who disagrees is immediately branded with terrible labels: 'fascist', 'Putin's agent' or simply 'Russian'. Russophobia today is also an ideology, a Western globalist ideology, which reeks of hatred towards its opposite, the good and the bad. Being Russian, being with Russia, means being on the side of Truth.

There's a load of nonsense there; I don't see Russia as any kind of trad paradise, and I think any nation that assumes for itself a messianic mission is worshiping itself as an idol (the United States is this sort of nation, as Dugin understands, even as he is blind to his own idolization of Russia). Moreover, if you look at the entire speech, Dugin is legitimizing Russian imperialism as holy war. All of that I strongly reject! Nevertheless, I don't say Dugin is entirely wrong. The West really has become an anti-traditional civilization, one that despises traditional values, and that brands those who don't share those values as bigots, "domestic terrorists," "Putin's agent," and the rest. When all this first started, I joked about how the West was waging war to queer Donbas. I don't think it's too far from the truth now.

You don't have to back Russia's imperialism against Ukraine to recognize that we in the post-Christian -- and increasingly anti-Christian -- West are not the good guys here. I too would like Ukraine to be free to determine its own way, but if you think Washington and Brussels intend to let Kyiv govern Ukraine as Ukrainians, think again. I still believe that while nothing justifies Russia's attack on Ukraine, Washington made provocative moves, and bears some responsibility.

It's a time of great confusion for people like us religious and social conservatives. The most important revolution of all has overturned -- has queered, if you like -- all the values of our once-Christian civilization. We religious and social conservatives -- not just the Christian ones -- are now being pushed to the margins, and may well become outlaws. Even if we don't -- even if we are somehow tolerated -- our kids are growing up in a culture that will deform them, and wishes to take away their capacity to learn to love the right things, and to be able to form stable, healthy families, and communities of families.

In the country next to the country where I sit writing this, there is a war going on. But in truth, there is an unseen war going on around us in the United States, and all over the West, and it has been going on for some time. Our people are losing. I believe as a matter of faith that ultimately, we are going to win. But there will be a lot of suffering to go through on the way to that victory. And as a Christian, we have to realize that there can be no victory without suffering and sacrifice. Does that depress you? It shouldn't. If you are hearing me rightly, it should cause you to redouble your efforts to deepen your roots in your faith, and in the practices of faith; to work hard to cultivate courage; and to earnestly seek out others who see the world as you do.

Next week (October 11), Live Not By Lies will be published in paperback (follow the link to preorder), which will make its message far more accessible to church groups, student organizations, and young people. I hope that one or more readers have the knowledge, the time, and the ambition to create online platforms for those who agree with the message to find each other, and start forming networks. It's important. Read the signs of the times. It might not be the End of The World, but we are definitely living through the end of a world. Now is not the time to drink lotus smoothies and hope everything will turn out just fine if we only keep quite still and wait.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2022 20:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE Autumn: Well Actually, This IS somethingpedantic.com

«‹›12 »