Paul M. Jones

[T]ake Philly out of Pennsylvania, the Big Apple out of New York, the Motor City out of Michigan, the Windy City out of Illinois, Cleveland out of Ohio, Milwaukee out of Wisconsin, St. Louis out of Missouri, etc., and a lot of blue states would instantly be red. What explains this pronounced and hugely significant partisan divide between urban and nonurban areas?

One obvious explanation for the overwhelming Democratic majorities in big cities is the Curley effect with the corresponding concentration of Democratic constituencies like welfare recipients and unions, but there is more to it than that. The Curley effect has turned once-vibrant cities into economic basket cases, but what, then, can explain the perennial dominance of Democrats in such thriving, prosperous cities as Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco? Why do affluent, white-collar, highly educated citizens in these cities tend to be liberal and vote Democratic?

Sociologists could have a field day with this question, but the explanation could be something as simple as the fact that people who live in cities are relatively insulated from how difficult and challenging it can be to produce the food, energy, equipment, devices, etc., that comprise the affluence that urbanites enjoy. In their urban cocoons, city-dwellers take for granted the abundance and availability of the economic goods that they consume. For instance, many well-to-do, educated urbanites see no downside to supporting stricter regulations and higher taxes on energy producers, because to them, energy is something that is always there at the flip of a switch (except during the occasional hurricane, as some New Yorkers recently discovered). Life in the city for affluent Americans creates the illusion that all they have to do is demand something and--presto!--it will be there when they want it.

Via What Explains The Partisan Divide Between Urban And Non-Urban Areas - Forbes.

Communists: worse than Nazis.

THIRTY-SIX million people in China, including my uncle, who raised me like a father, starved to death between 1958 and 1962, during the man-made calamity known as the Great Famine. In thousands of cases, desperately hungry people resorted to cannibalism.

The toll was more than twice the number of fallen in World War I, and about six times the number of Ukrainians starved by Stalin in 1932-33 or the number of Jews murdered by Hitler during World War II.

After 50 years, the famine still cannot be freely discussed in the place where it happened. My book “Tombstone” could be published only in Hong Kong, Japan and the West. It remains banned in mainland China, where historical amnesia looms large and government control of information and expression has tightened during the Communist Party’s 18th National Congress, which began last week and will conclude with a once-in-a-decade leadership transition.

Those who deny that the famine happened, as an executive at the state-run newspaper People’s Daily recently did, enjoy freedom of speech, despite their fatuous claims about “three years of natural disasters.” But no plague, flood or earthquake ever wrought such horror during those years. One might wonder why the Chinese government won’t allow the true tale to be told, since Mao’s economic policies were abandoned in the late 1970s in favor of liberalization, and food has been plentiful ever since.

The reason is political: a full exposure of the Great Famine could undermine the legitimacy of a ruling party that clings to the political legacy of Mao, even though that legacy, a totalitarian Communist system, was the root cause of the famine. As the economist Amartya Sen has observed, no major famine has ever occurred in a democracy.

Via China’s Great Shame - NYTimes.com.

[Hostess Brands], which previously survived one multi-year Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, when it operated as Interstate Bakeries, has just made a splash at the NY Southern Bankruptcy court, for the last time, with a liquidation filing. The reason: insurmountable (and unfundable) difference in the firm's collective bargaining agreements and pension obligations, which resulted in a crippling strike that basically shut down the company.

In other words, the labor unions representing 18,000 workers fought the company, and the unions won... A very pyrrhic victory. Sadly, they are all now out of a job as the unionized victory just happened to lead to the terminal winddown of their employer.

Finally, those 18,500 new initial jobless claims next week? Sandy's fault.

Love that final line. And guess who's going to pick up the tab on their pensions? Mr and Mrs Taxpayer, via the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. See Twinkies, Ding Dongs Maker Hostess Liquidates Following Failure To Resolve Labor Union Animosity | ZeroHedge.

[T]ry this thought experiment on for size:

The fat wife of an alpha male is the SAME THING as the unmotivated, dull, needy husband of an alpha female.

If you would be hard pressed to place full blame on the alpha female for her succumbing to infidelity, then so should you think twice before placing full blame on the alpha male for his succumbing to infidelity.

If you cannot grasp this elementary logic, then you are either a raving feminist loon, or a very feminine woman who confuses feelings for reason.

... Feminists often sputter angrily when they see a much older, powerful man with a younger woman, a reaction which arises because they are aware that what they are seeing is an asymmetrical power relationship, but even worse, that the subordinate woman in the relationship ENJOYS IT! The man likes having a pretty girl look up to him, and the woman likes having a powerful man to look up to.

Be sure to read the original article for a pic of Mrs Petraeus and Ms Broadwell. Draw your own conclusions. Via Petraeus And The Infidelity Risk Curve « Chateau Heartiste.

[T]here's a mantra that criticism must be constructive - that is, don't criticize someone if you cannot also tell them what to do about the problem.

I think that is a harmful norm, for two reasons. First, once a feature of your product is identified as weak, people other than the identifying party may come up with a solution. ... [E]ven if no one can think of a solution, having a weakness pointed out leads to a more realistic appreciation of your product, which by itself can be very helpful. When several people in your movie production company report vague feelings that a specific screenplay would not make a good basis for a movie if the aim is to make money, you may not want to produce it. If tests show that the brakes on a new car are not working properly, you may not want to start selling it. These are cases where nobody points out how to solve the problem, yet knowing that the problem exists is very important.

via The Church of Rationality: Criticism Need Not Be Constructive.

[C]onventional wisdom, especially among progressives, is that money can buy elections. The Citizens United case was supposed to be the end of democracy since it meant unlimited corporate spending on elections.  If money really did buy office, 2012 should have been great evidence for the hypothesis.  

Instead 2012 looks like a case study in the powerlessness of money, in the triumph of the autonomous voter.  For instance, the Sunlight Foundation reports that 2/3 of outside cash was spent on losers.

via Money Has Little Influence on U.S. Politics, Garett Jones | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.

It's not just that many voters are socially liberal and prioritize social issues, causing Republicans to lose a portion of the electorate every Election Day based on those issues. Of course, that's true, but Republicans have a broader problem: their positions on social issues are turning off many voters from the very idea of agreeing with them on any issue. Conservatives like to bring up "the law of unintended consequences." Well, how many professional Republicans are willing to face the fact that their party's retrograde positions on social issues have been inadvertently holding economic conservatism hostage?

via Jaltcoh: How can Republicans win after 2012?.

[R]estore the 20 percent excise tax on motion picture theater gross revenues that existed between the end of World War II and its repeal in the mid-1950s. The campaign to end the excise tax had studio executives and movie stars talking like Art Laffer, as they noted that high taxes reduced business income, hurt investment and cost jobs.

The movie excise tax was imposed in response to the high deficits after World War Two. Deficits are high again, and there's already historical precedent. Of course, to keep up with technology, the tax should now apply to DVDs, downloadable movies, pay-per-view and the like. But in these financially perilous times, why should movie stars and studio moguls, with their yachts, swimming pools and private jets, not at least shoulder the burden they carried back in Harry Truman's day -- when, to be honest, movies were better anyway.

For extra fun, they could show pictures of David Geffen's yacht and John Travolta's personal Boeing 707 on the Senate floor. You want to tax fat cats? I gotcher "fat cats" right here! Repeal the Hollywood Tax Cuts!

via Sunday Reflection: Repeal the Hollywood tax cuts! | WashingtonExaminer.com.

Egypt’s streets have long been a perilous place for women, who are frequently heckled, grabbed, threatened and violated while the police look the other way. Now, during the country’s tumultuous transition from authoritarian rule, more and more groups are emerging to make protecting women -- and shaming the do-nothing police -- a cause.

“They’re now doing the undoable?” a police officer joked as he watched the vigilantes chase down the young man. The officer quickly went back to sipping his tea.

The attacks on women did not subside after the uprising. If anything, they became more visible as even the military was implicated in the assaults, stripping female protesters, threatening others with violence and subjecting activists to so-called virginity tests. During holidays, when Cairenes take to the streets to stroll and socialize, the attacks multiply.

But during the recent Id al-Adha holiday, some of the men were surprised to find they could no longer harass with impunity, a change brought about not just out of concern for women’s rights, but out of a frustration that the post-revolutionary government still, like the one before, was doing too little to protect its citizens.

via Egyptian Vigilantes Crack Down on Abuse of Women - NYTimes.com.

Some low-wage employers are moving toward hiring part-time workers instead of full-time ones to mitigate the health-care overhaul's requirement that large companies provide health insurance for full-time workers or pay a fee.

Several restaurants, hotels and retailers have started or are preparing to limit schedules of hourly workers to less than 30 hours a week. That is the threshold at which large employers in 2014 would have to offer workers a minimum level of insurance or pay a penalty starting at $2,000 for each worker.

Via Health Law Spurs Shift in Hours - Yahoo! Finance.