After 3 years of operation, Clubhouse has a 5,000-user/room limit. Zoom offers video as well and limits to 1,000 users for their high-end subscriptions (another 49,000 can listen passively). Elon Musk tried to push the everyone-can-talk-to-everyone software frontier out to 500,000+ users and, at least for me, failed.
Who was able to listen to Ron D and Elon chatting? What did they say?
(I’m not going to cover the Ron DeSantis Presidential campaign too heavily here in this blog, despite the Florida angle, because I don’t think he is prepared to tell Americans what they want to hear (e.g., that they will become richer without working harder) and, therefore, cannot win a general election.)
It is on right now and has been working fine since they fixed it after 15 minutes…very good discussion.
Thanks! A guy expressing amazement that Ron D has been able to shut down DEI and similar programs within Florida’s government, but wondering how Ron D is going to be able to tackle the DC swamp.
@philg. The DC Swamp is unable to be tackled, it’s a life form that has no end in sight (other than potentially climate change or the expansion of our sun many billions of years from now).
Check out the replay (guessing there will be one?). I think you will find it interesting. Particularly a discussion with Stanford Prof. Battacharya related to covid government lies and censorship.
I’m listening to this part now. DeSantis says “we need an honest reckoning” regarding what the Covidcrats did. That is totally at odds with the American character. When has the U.S. government ever admitted a mistake? DeSantis says he will clean out the public health bureaucracies, but aren’t nearly all of the bureaucrats immune from being fired? My rating: #Unrealistic
DeSantis gets credit for being able to pronounce “Battacharya”! That’s not a common name in Tallahassee.
Thomas Massie, the MIT grad-turned-Congressman, reveals that he turned a wrecked Tesla S into an off-the-grid Powerwall. And DeSantis outs him for having a vanity plate on his drivable Tesla that reads “KentuckyCoal”.
Still listening to the recording… Ron DeSantis says that he wants Disney to have the same status as Universal and SeaWorld. He points out that the media complained about the special structure of Reedy Creek right up until DeSantis came out against it. He notes that the recently canceled Disney affordable housing development wasn’t in Reedy Creek. Ron DeSantis says “nobody made Disney more money than me because I allowed theme parks to operate while California had them closed.”
@philg. Well, it sure seems he lowered the boom on Disney immediately after the CEO comments. Looks to me like DeSantis is trying to justify his actions on Reedy Creek after the CEO comments. Why not do something before? Looks like Rubio and Scott are not exactly thrilled with his actions.
Paul B: You’re right about the timing, but when I ask Democrats, “For how many more years did you want to let a private company run its own county?” they are never able to come up with an answer. (Alternatively, why not have every county in Florida be run by a private company?)
(Remember that it made perfect sense for Disney to run its own county and issue tax-free municipal bonds originally because they planned to build a city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept) )
It’s a good question, is Disney unique in this? Time to do some research, but I would bet you without the ex-CEO comments, nothing would be in play now. Might be better to have every county run by a private company, especially ones that generate the income like Disney! Seems like both Florida and Disney benefited.
Paul B: the IRS would likely fight a mass expansion of this kind of system. See https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/2013/07/17/as-irs-cracks-down-on-the-villages-disney-world-watches-and-worries/29187747007/
In a scathing decision issued in May [2013], the Internal Revenue Service ruled that The Villages did not have the right to use tax-free debt to finance golf courses, swimming pools and other assets. The reason: The Villages sold the debt through an obscure government district whose leaders were ultimately controlled by the developer, rather than the general public, and therefore could not be considered real governments.
That is a lot like Disney World’s personal government, the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which also gets to use tax-free debt — and whose leaders are all handpicked by Disney.
In new legal documents, Reedy Creek warns potential bond investors that its tax-exempt status could come under new scrutiny from the IRS in light of the “breadth and force” of its ruling against The Villages.
Were Reedy Creek to lose its ability to issue tax-free debt, it would have to pay higher interest rates. That could add millions of dollars to the district’s borrowing costs over the life of the loans.
That would mean higher costs for Disney, which pays about 90 percent of Reedy Creek’s taxes.
@philg I am confused about Reedy Creek. In Florida we have hundreds of these CDD communities. I live in one of them, as Disney we issued bonds to cover costs of development and we pay CDD fees yearly to pay those bonds. Even private businesses. Have to follow our bylaws like architecture within our district. Lot of businesses like car washes want to come to our district but they fail because of our bylaws. We won’t allow them, even though county laws permit them. I don’t see any difference between our district and Disney district. With his approach he has to dissolve all of these hundreds of special districts. I don’t know why he is only targeting Disney.
Sg: I think the difference is in your comment: “I live in one of them”. If your community is residential and the residents control it via some kind of election process to an HOA or POA board then it looks like a municipality. I personally would love to live within Disney World, but only a handful of people do and they have never had control over the Reedy Creek board: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/15/this-family-owns-a-house-in-disney-worlds-gated-community-where-homes-sell-for-12-million-look-inside.html
Here’s another article on the handful of houses within Disney World: https://www.cnet.com/culture/you-can-already-live-in-disney-world-for-an-outrageous-price/
Ron D tells the story of dealing with hostile TV stations about the gender ID and sexual orientation materials pulled from schools. He showed examples of the books that had been in 5th and 6th grade classrooms and the TV stations cut the feed because they considered the content obscene. Ron says “If you can’t show it on the 6 o’clock news why would you want it in a 5th grade classroom?”
He also points out the science, reading, and math can be taught in the time formerly allocated to rainbow flagism.
“Dr” Phil:
What is the threshold for Desantis usurping your orange god-king as your thought leader?
The Twitter Space was boring — old-to-middle-age white billionaires and millionaires airing their grievances. They deserve a pity party (but will make the “others” pay for it). The richest, whiniest complainers rise to the top.
I guess that’s what this blog is too — the idle rich whining and complaining about the three transgendered high school athletes in the country. Or the 20 third term abortions per year — half medically necessary. Or the two drag show library readings that have occurred. Or only having 1.2 guns for every man, woman, and child in America. Or the scary brown people crossing the border (…but …but half of them are Al Qaeda!).
Mike: I’m glad that Jay Battacharya is able to identify as a white billionaire! I do wish that he would move to Florida instead of voting with his feet to support the California covidcrats (by staying at Stanford and paying taxes every day to county and state officials who closed his kids’ schools).
What would it take for me to transfer my allegiance from Nikki Haley to Ron DeSantis? I want to see him soften his message, delegate the anti-woke warrior stuff to an underling, and project a “big tent” image. A successful presidential candidate has to sound as though he/she/ze/they cares about all Americans, not just members of his/her/zir/their own party. I’m not sure that Ron D can do this. For one thing, 30% of Americans are on welfare (see https://www.axios.com/2022/12/20/medicaid-enrollment-100-million ) and I don’t think that Ron DeSantis will be able to convince them that he values them as much as he values taxpayers.
@philg. Agree. Now that your have escaped Maskachusetts, time to get into politics. An ideal time and place for you for sure!
I would love to be a political consultant for Ron DeSantis. I would make him get a golden retriever for the family (like in the Will Ferrell movie The Campaign). I would try to get him to focus on a single theme: making the U.S. a place where the working class can get ahead. Most of his existing agenda can be hung off that. Eliminating low-skill immigration. Improving the quality and efficiency of government services (since working class people can’t afford to buy their way out). Getting rid of critical race theory, DEI, and rainbow flagism in schools (working class people need their kids to be learning academic subjects instead since their kids don’t have rich parents to buy everything for them). Cutting taxes, especially on small business. Rejecting lockdowns that protected the work-from-home laptop class, but left the working class completely exposed.
I’d advise him to ignore everything negative that happens in Democrat-run cities and states. San Francisco’s situation speaks for itself. If New Yorkers kill each other on the subway, it isn’t a Floridian’s job to say who broke which law (if any).
I think it is easy to connect with people if there is just one theme. And DeSantis needs to be more positive and sound less mean.
I’m a bit at a loss to figure out how DeSantis can connect with the tens of millions of voters who have never worked and who may never work. I guess he can offer them reduced crime through improved government efficiency in policing.
@philg. I think you have a future in politics, those are great themes and insights. You might start out as a consultant, but end up as a Senator.
Thanks, Paul. Your vote of confidence inspired me to figure out a way to appeal to the tens of millions of Americans on welfare: promise to fix their kids’ schools. Florida is ranked quite high when you adjust for demographics:
https://apps.urban.org/features/naep/
so he can run on this as a record (of course, the Florida governor has almost nothing to do with the success of county-run school districts, but when has that ever stopped a politician from claiming credit? Also, right now the most recent data available are from 2019, which is the year that Ron D. started his job as governor)
Mike you are a dumb dumb!!
lol what
We’ve had more than 2 drag story hours at the library here in Mobile, AL.
Phil, bless you for using the fact that the word “data” is plural.
Hilarious version of “Highlights from Elon Musk’s Twitter Townhall with Governor Ron DeSantis”:
https://twitter.com/TheNPCShow/status/1661505312623583232
That is funny, but I think they misspelled “Adolf”!
Mainstream media blames Musk for the tech glitches. When was Twitter Spaces introduced? In 2020!
https://twitter.com/TwitterSpaces/status/1339639767089238019
It is strange though that they wouldn’t just invite the people who are allowed to ask questions (30?) and stream the conference call. Is this format supposed to give the impression that anyone can speak? Do people feel more included if they think they are “part of the call”?
The thing I was glad to hear is that DeSantis is against CBDCs.
Phil has good predictive ability in some areas say the spread of Covid but my recollection is Phil was quite certain of a Hillary victory because she was promising free stuff or was a woman or a combination of the two. A softer image for Gov. Ron does not seem to me to be what America is looking for. That is what the legacy media is yakking about, but I don’t recall a lot of photos of the Donald with a cute puppy. Nor Hillary. Nor Barak. I think after four years of Biden slurping down ice cream American may be ready for something different. Gov Ron wading in on the “Mr” Neely “tragedy” seems to me like a smart political move – Gov Ron is an experienced trial lawyer and like probably most Americans can spot a trumped up political case. The median Republican primary voter wants some red meat, the Donald understands that, and the Neely “tragedy” is as good as any. I think Niki Haley would be a fine choice since she is probably the second most intelligent and capable Indian American running on the Republican side, though I don’t think either will make it. We shall see.
jdc: You’re right that I failed to predict America’s descent into tyranny in 2016 (a couple of readers in the comments did, though!). https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2016/01/01/predictions-for-2016/ is my attempt at Nostradamusing. I predicted iOS unreliability and Apple has delivered. My iPhone 14 is prone to freezing when I want to take a photo. I predicted Intel struggling and the company’s stock price in Bidies today is actually less than it was in dollars back in January 2016 ($31 down to 27 Bidies). Measured against SE Florida real estate, Intel has lost 2/3rds of its purchasing power.
My prediction that the OLED TV market would fizzle and I think that it has.
I predicted mediocre per-capita GDP growth in the U.S. due to the large government share of the economy. I think these World Bank data are in real dollars and my prediction is confirmed!
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?end=2021&locations=US&start=2013
I predicted a declining labor force participation rate due to growth in the American welfare state, but it turned out to be flat until coronapanic-related welfare enhancements (see https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm ).
I predicted marketplace failure for VR: “With fewer people working and higher costs for employers making hotel rates grow faster than official inflation there will be a lot of demand for fun stuff that Americans can do from home, e.g., streaming video, video games, etc. I predict that the first virtual reality headsets will arrive in 2016 as planned but that consumers will be slow to adopt these innovations.”
Here’s a good one: “Due to the fact that viruses are smarter than humans, I expect no major breakthroughs in treatments.”
SARS-CoV-2 proved me right!
I predicted “the S&P 500 should continue to grow in after-tax value at the same rate as world GDP (about 3 percent), even if the U.S. economy stagnates.” It has zoomed from $2,000 to 4,000 Bidies over 7 years. What if we adjust for Bidenflation? BLS says that $2,000 from 2016 is equivalent to $2,500 today, but that’s using the fictitious official CPI that you would be unwise to take into the apartment rental market, the grocery store, or the car dealer.