It's not
about being liberal or conservative anymore y'all. That is a hype offered by the fascist whores who want to confuse the people with lies while they turn this country into an aristocratic police state. Some people will say anything to attain power and money. There is no such thing as the Liberal Media, but the Corporate media is very real.
What is he doing with Classified documents at a private golf club? Why were there 43 empty folders marked classified? How come those documents went missing? What were classified documents doing in Trump's desk drawer of his office at the private golf club - along with his passports?
Oh but Hillary's emails and Hunter Biden's lap-top computer.
"People think it's smart, nay cutting-edge, to create a sort of virtual currency whose creation requires wasting real resources in a way Adam Smith considered foolish and outmoded in 1776." ("Adam Smith Hates Bitcoin") (April 12, 2013)
"To be successful, money must be both a media of exchange and a reasonably stable store of value. And it remains completely unclear why bitcoin should be a stable store of value." ("Bitcoin is Evil") (December 28, 2013)
The enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies seems very odd, because it goes exactly in the opposite of the long-run trend. Instead of near-frictionless transactions, we have high costs of doing business, because transferring a bitcoin or other cryptocurrency unit requires providing a complete history of past transactions. Instead of money created by the click of a mouse, we have money that must be mined — created through resource-intensive computations." ("Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I'm a Crypto Skeptic") (July 31, 2018)
"Cryptocurrencies have no backstop, no tether to reality. Their value depends entirely on self-fulfilling expectations — which means that total collapse is a real possibility. If speculators were to have a collective moment of doubt, suddenly fearing that bitcoins were worthless, well, bitcoins would become worthless." ("Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I'm a Crypto Skeptic") (July 31, 2018)
"There might be a potential equilibrium in which bitcoin (although probably not other cryptocurrencies) remain in use mainly for black market transactions and tax evasion, but that equilibrium, if it exists, would be hard to get to from here: once the dream of a blockchained future dies, the disappointment will probably collapse the whole thing." ("Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I'm a Crypto Skeptic") (July 31, 2018)
"Crypto has been effectively marketed: It manages both to seem futuristic and to appeal to old-style goldbug fears that the government will inflate away your savings, and huge past gains have drawn in investors worried about missing out. So crypto has become a large asset class even though nobody can clearly explain what legitimate purpose it's for." (How Crypto Became the New Subprime) (January 27, 2022)
"I'm seeing uncomfortable parallels with the subprime crisis of the 2000s. No, crypto doesn't threaten the financial system — the numbers aren't big enough to do that. But there's growing evidence that the risks of crypto are falling disproportionately on people who don't know what they are getting into and are poorly positioned to handle the downside." (How Crypto Became the New Subprime) (January 27, 2022)
"Bitcoin plays into a fantasy of self-sufficient individualism, of protecting your family with your personal AR-15, treating your Covid with an anti-parasite drug or urine and managing your financial affairs with privately created money, untainted by institutions like governments or banks." ("Guns, Germs, Bitcoin and the Antisocial Right") (January 31, 2022)
"Cryptocurrencies play almost no role in economic transactions other than speculation in crypto markets themselves. And if your answer is 'give it time,' you should bear in mind that bitcoin has been around since 2009, which makes it ancient by tech standards; Apple introduced the iPad in 2010." ("Crashing Crypto: Is This Time Different?") (May 17, 2022)
"If you believe, as I do, that crypto is to a large extent a Ponzi scheme, this may just happen to be the moment when the scheme has run out of new suckers." ("Wonking Out: Wasn't Bitcoin Supposed to Be a Hedge Against Inflation?") (June 17, 2022)
"Jim Chanos went on to call crypto a 'predatory junkyard.' Well, I wouldn't go that far. Actually, on second thought, I would." ("Wonking Out: Wasn't Bitcoin Supposed to Be a Hedge Against Inflation?") (June 17, 2022)
"The way I see it, crypto evolved into a sort of postmodern pyramid scheme. The industry lured investors in with a combination of technobabble and libertarian derp; it used some of that cash flow to buy the illusion of respectability, which brought in even more investors. And for a while, even as the risks multiplied, it became, in effect, too big to regulate." ("Crypto Is Crashing. Where Were the Regulators?") (July 11, 2022)
Friday, 26 August 2022 at 4h 19m 20s
The cost of being educated
Becoming well informed takes work. You have to know where to go, who to trust, and what to listen to. The Sam Seder show, today hosted by Emma Vigeland, is one of the reliable sources. Follow the link. Today's topics are about the reality of the Student Loan system and Crypto Scamming. Listen and Learn. Get educated y'all.
LOL near timestamp 18:20 Sean Hannity saying he followed his passion and his dreams, by doing what, getting hired by an Australian authoritarian and used by Russian oligarchs to launder money. And this man talks about Socialism and perverse incentives? Ugh, the chutzpah of this damaged man.
Wednesday, 17 August 2022 at 3h 18m 6s
The SF District Attorney Recall fiasco
It's clear that people's sickness about drug use, break-ins and violent crimes are being misdirected by a recall sponsored by Republicans (remember it took two attempts to the get recall on the ballot) -- misdirected into thinking that this bunch of clowns will be an improvement.
Cases are backlogged already. Jails are nearly full, and staff shortages are real. When cases cannot come to trial, criminals are released by law no matter who the District Attorney is or will be. That's why more than 75% of cases are plea deals. You can't stuff them all in prison and there is something called a United States Constitution about the right to a trial within a reasonable amount of time. You think you wanna charge all of those 4,000+ backlogged cases to get those criminals. Really? That would take years, and you cannot legally hold up people for years to wait for a trial.
This is reality. But it is the recall Chesa Boudin people who are the ones that are playing politics, and the real SF citizens are sick of it. So now we have incompentents running amuk talking tough into the microphone and having national journalists writing hagiographies. Puhlease.
Great recent piece by Gil Duran in the examiner on the history of fail when politicians use the public frustration to bang on the table and pretend they have a plan, when it's all ego and opportunism, and no plan.
Monday, 15 August 2022 at 0h 16m 28s
American Exceptionalism in Healthcare
Sunday, 14 August 2022 at 14h 45m 55s
The politics of San Francisco
Out here the SF Examiner has been resurrected as a decent news source again. However there are writers with which I have a disagreement. One of whom is named Al Saracevic. In his most recent article, he pushes the meme of "left vs. lefter", which is a vast over-simplification in my opinion.
It's not a bad article, although I don't really get the need to do a Freud reference, because politics is more about power than human psychology, but I wrote him an email. Here it is:
Thank your for your soap box Mr. Saracevic, but I have to disagree with your framing here. It’s not left vs. lefter. It’s left vs. contrived. It’s not Chesa vs. Brooke. It’s Chesa vs. a political opportunist who got paid 100,000+ by the billionaire(s) who largely funded the recall for “consulting services”.
And now the SF Chronicle is going with the Walton “nigga” story full blast that Breed’s folks pulled out of a hat to get ahead of that $100,000 fiasco. Mind you we are talking about LondonBreed whose childhood friend Nuri was milking bribes throughout an extensive network of insiders and consultants. Breed who meets secretly with developers and then immediately destroys emails, who makes a big show on Union Square but cannot do anything about the persistence burglaries in Chinatown at Asian business establishments, and then leaves for Europe to escape criticism to promote tourism. Oh but let’s just get all upset about an N-word Walton used because he had to take off his belt and shoes more often then white folk.
I remember when the city press went ga-ga-go-go all over Matt Gonzalez when Tom Ammiano suddenly had a real chance to become city mayor. They slavered all over Matt as if he was the real deal. Then when he performed his stalking horse duty and knocked out Ammiano’s chances by splitting the votes — just like the services David Lee performs out here in District one — Gonzalez faded into the background. Interesting how Gonzalez recently resurfaced to support the recall too.
This town is owned by the rich and the rich want to keep it that way. This was a Republican town all throughout the 20th century after the Ruef corruption trials around 1908 and that only started to change during the latter 1970’s because of the changing demographics. This is the town that initially refused Willie Mays a house in Miramar because white people worried about property values. This is the town where Justin Herman completely destroyed Harlem West because his wealthy developer backers wanted to make more money at the expense of the black people who lived in those regions.
The city has changed in the past 20 or 30 years and most current denizens are ignorant of this past, and that’s what the rich are counting on. They will make sure their hired chroniclers write narratives that make them seem practical and civic minded, when they are just power hungry. The recent recalls are a reflection of that.
The politics of San Francisco has always been about downtown vs. everyone else, it just got more complicated in the post 1970’s. Lincoln Marshall recently did a great couple of pieces in the examiner on this topic. You should read your own newspaper.
Click here for a Brookings Institution research study on the algorithms used to manage enrollment.
Sunday, 31 July 2022 at 20h 28m 2s
My latest letter to the Editor
I'm responding to Mr. Quentin Kopp's latest screed in the August issue of the Richmond Review out here on the west side of the city of San Francisco. I would link to Mr. Kopp's monthly rant, but it has not yet been published on the website. The printed newspaper arrived this weekend on various corners of the Richmond district where I live, so us citizens who actually read it got a head start on the digital version.
I'll link the eventual digital version here: Click here. It will probably be active sometime Sunday on 31 July 2022.
RE: District Elections are the norm for large California cities
In his latest penned annunciation, Mr. Quentin Kopp makes some allegation that district elections for San Francisco city supervisor are equivalent to “dirty” ward politics that is beneath the grandeur of the city of San Francisco. I’m paraphrasing.
Keep in mind however that San Francisco is unique because it is the only city in the United States that is both a County government as well as a City government. Kind of like Washington DC. Electing officials for city government elsewhere is separate from electing county officials for government. So you have to view San Francisco in the same context as you do County elections in other places of the United States.
Generally across the United States, electing city officials occurs on a district basis because city denizens want to feel that the officials they elect represent their interests and live in the districts they represent. Mr. Kopp makes the allegation that this fact is somehow a bad thing. Yet he gives no example anywhere in the United States or even California where not having district elections for city supervisors has been a benefit. Honestly that is an open question, but making a blanket unsupported statement without providing sufficient examples of benefit is just word salad.
Out of curiosity, I did a google in California for county and city supervisors, and I could not find other large cities in California that do not do district elections for county supervisors. In addition to San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, San Jose, and Los Angeles all have district elections.
The last time we had city-wide elections, the citizens of San Francisco had to fight against all kinds of developers fever dreams like building freeways all over the place and bulldozing viable neighborhoods for … reasons.
One obvious fact : it’s easier for large swaths of special interest money to have influence on city-wide elections. Which is why it is very sad that Mr. Kopp apparently has completely forgotten his parochial roots and understanding about the importance of keeping San Francisco’s neighborhoods vibrant.
Friday, 8 July 2022 at 18h 28m 59s
Another letter to the editor
I wrote a letter to the editor that got published in the Richmond district monthly of San Francisco.
The "letter" regards a response to a reaction to gun laws and open borders being the cause of gun violence and gangs, despite the immense amount of evidence and data indicating otherwise. I won't paraphrase my argument here. Click the link and comment on the post if necessary.
Wednesday, 25 May 2022 at 3h 0m 7s
OMG
Misleading opinions are invading the public opinion space recently, so I respond.
Here is Mr. John Trasvina writing a letter to the editor in the Richmond Review and even getting some space on the platform Medium. To be fair I enabled the Medium post (link below) because everyone has the right to be assessed fairly on their own merits. That's how I roll.
Or, as Jamie Raskin (Democratic Representative from Maryland) recently said (paraphrasing): free speech is good because that means everyone gets to hear what you yourself exactly said not what all of your handlers and hired sycophants say or explain what you intended -- whether genuine or not.
Editor:
While so much attention is being devoted to Proposition H, the Boudin recall, another important proposition with long-lasting impact is tucked away as Proposition C. It’s a city charter amendment that would do two harmful things — restrict our right to recall and make it impossible to vote on the person the mayor appoints to replace a recalled official.
Recalls are an extraordinary but essential part of our democracy. They are rare. San Franciscans know the difference between a good recall and a bad one. Until the School Board recall, we hadn’t had a successful one in SF in over a century. Back in the 1980s, the San Francisco Democratic Club and Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council wrote in the voter handbook, “The Recall Process is a vital part of our electoral system. It ensures that public officials are held accountable.” In 2018, the San Jose judge who gave out a six-month sentence in the Stanford swimmer sexual assault case was recalled — with the active leadership of Democratic party, feminist, labor and other progressive groups. And in the 1950s, fed up voters in Little Rock, Arkansas recalled School Board members who were blocking integration.
On the same day that 80% of Richmond and Sunset voters supported the School Board recall, Supervisors Mar and Chan put Proposition C on the ballot. Proposition C would have prohibited the School Board recall despite all that support. If voters approve Proposition C and DA Boudin is recalled, it will force Mayor Breed to appoint a caretaker to the office who will not be allowed to run in November. Just like the School Board, a Boudin recall would be a clear message for real change, not a caretaker.
To which I responded. Note: I am only responding to the opinion in the Richmond Review.
What you say here Mr. John Trasvina is misleading. Let me explain the math.
Namely that 80% of 25% of Richmond and Sunset district registered voters voted in the last recall election. Around 75% did not vote so you shouldn’t include them. 0.80 times 25 is actually only 20% of the registered voters. I got a letter from GrowSF mentioning the same thing.
Off-elections rarely get more than 30% of the registered voters to vote, something that is known by the millionaires who fund recalls for political reasons. That is the whole entire strategy. It's not for removing corrupt officials, which is what motivated the recall process in California back when the state legislature was owned by the railroad magnates.
Instead the recall process is now paid for by special interests in order to circumnavigate democratic elections. Hiram Johnson would have never supported this recall. Boudin is not corrupt. Crime was worse or at least equivalent 10 years ago but there wasn't all this hollering about recalling the district attorney.
You folks are hijacking some moral equivalence and acting like you are the saviors of democracy, when in reality you are being hood-winked by special interests with money producing a constant stream of dishonesty. If the truth was on your side, why put out political ads that are not speaking the truth.
Personally I am offended that you think recalling Arkansas school board members (in 1950) who resisted integration equivalent to the two recent recalls in San Francisco that are politically motivated. You might disagree with the policies or the personalities, but nothing Boudin has done (or not done) and nothing the recent recalled school board members have done is ANY WAY REMOTELY CLOSE TO DENYING BLACK SCHOOL CHILDREN THE RIGHT TO GO TO SCHOOL.
Your swarthy moral crusading is nothing but a disguise or some kind of self-inflated justification for what is a paid for political action. Some folks simply refuse to wait until a regular election because they can buy political ads and get signatures on papers in order to hijack democracy by taking advantage of a 25% voter turn out.