Category: Journalism

Science says to throw out all of your appliances

by philg

Planet Earth can be saved if we all throw out our 2-10-year-old appliances that are in perfect working condition. That’s the Science according to the New York Times… “The Climate Fight Will Be Won in the Appliance Aisle” (Oct 1, 2023):

Two of these [Inflation Reduction Act] programs are tax credits meant to give Americans a tax discount when they install a new rooftop solar system, a geothermal-powered heater, a heat pump or another technology that reduces demand for carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Unlike other tax credits in the law, these programs have no income cap, so they can be used by wealthy Americans who can presumably afford to pay upfront to install residential equipment like a water heater. But like other new tax credits in the law, they require Americans to have some federal tax liability in the first place. If you owe nothing on your taxes, then you can’t get a discount.

The I.R.A. introduced a pair of rebate programs meant to help working- and middle-class Americans afford to upgrade appliances and other features of their homes. These two programs, known as HOMES and HEEHRA, are important. When it’s finally put in place, HEEHRA will lower the cost of heat pumps and other climate-friendly appliances at the point of sale, making them more affordable to consumers, including those who are not even aware of the policy. More than perhaps any other programs in the law, these rebates are meant to allow low-income Americans to reduce their monthly energy costs. And because they involve direct cash grants, using the rebates will not require oweing any taxes to the federal government. That is huge for retirees and Social Security recipients, many of whom have no earned income and little to no federal tax liability.

The climate fight might be waged in the streets. But it will be won in the appliance aisle.

It is, of course, wonderful that working-class renters must pay for the new high-end air conditioning systems enjoyed by elite homeowners. But I’m confused as to how this can save the planet. If people throw out working appliances and buy new ones, which have to be manufactured, shipped, and installed, won’t that actually increase CO2 emissions? If so, should we consider New York sustainability expert William Lauder to be the greatest environmentalist of the moment? He pushed a 6-year-old house into a landfill:

The new house, presumably, will include higher-efficiency Sub-Zero refrigerators with R600a refrigerant. Our planet, then, began to heal when the excavators started work on this obsolete 6-year-old 36,000-square-foot house.

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New York Times on the crisis in Israel

by philg

The New York Times has been predicting doom for Israel for months.

July 2023, “In Israel, High Stakes for High Court: Democracy’s Fate”:

From Hungary to India to Brazil, how judges responded to attacks on their independence helped decide whether would-be autocrats prevailed in constraining the courts.

Over the last few decades, attempts to weaken the courts around the world have become recurring signals that a democracy is in trouble. Attacks on judicial independence were early steps toward one-party dominance in Russia, Turkey and Venezuela, for example.

But a move to limit the authority of the courts — like the new law adopted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition barring judges from using the longstanding legal principle of “reasonableness” to overrule government decisions — does not make democratic collapse inevitable. It’s more like a flashing red light, and how the judiciary responds can begin to decide how much damage is done.

From climate change alarmist Thomas Friedman, July 2023, “The U.S. Reassessment of Netanyahu’s Government Has Begun”:

Why is Israel’s cabinet trying to crush the country’s Supreme Court? Why did President Biden tell CNN that “this is one of the most extreme” Israeli cabinets he’d ever seen? And why did the U.S. ambassador to Israel just say that America is working to prevent Israel from “going off the rails”?

The short answer to all three questions is that the Biden team sees the far-right Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, engaged in unprecedented radical behavior — under the cloak of judicial “reform” — that is undermining our shared interests with Israel, our shared values…

They just find it hard to believe that Bibi would allow himself to be led around by the nose by people like Ben-Gvir, would be ready to risk Israel’s relations with America and with global investors and WOULD BE READY TO RISK A CIVIL WAR IN ISRAEL just to stay in power with a group of ciphers and ultranationalists.

But it is what it is — and it’s ugly. Tens of thousands of Israeli democracy protectors blocked roads and highways and besieged the Tel Aviv airport on Tuesday to make clear to Netanyahu that if he thinks he can snuff out Israel’s democracy just like that, he’s badly mistaken.

If the hundreds of thousands of Israeli democracy defenders, who have taken to the streets every Saturday for over half a year, can’t stop the Netanyahu juggernaut from slamming this bill through, it will, as former Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote the other day in Haaretz, “degrade Israel into a corrupt and racist dictatorship that will crumble society, isolate the country” and end “the democratic chapter” of Israel’s history.

Friedman says that he’s unhappy about Hamas’s recent military success in the war that the Arabs started 75 years ago (see my Israel background article from 2003; no need for an update because nothing substantive has changed):

Any prolonged Israel-Hamas war could divert more U.S. military equipment needed by Kyiv to Tel Aviv

(i.e., Ukraine is the real ally)

Separately, let’s keep in mind that a country’s resources are finite. The Arabs in Gaza are among those who have vowed to destroy Israel (as U.S. Congressional Rep. Rashida Tlaib tweeted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”). Instead of spending the summer keeping track of what practical steps these Arabs were taking toward Rashida Tlaib’s goal, Israeli progressives were out protesting. They perceived Netanyahu as their biggest enemy and didn’t consider the possibility that the pen wasn’t mightier than the sword. The protests against cutting back the power of Israel’s courts were negligible, however, compared to the time, money, and energy that Israel spent fighting SARS-CoV-2. This fight apparently yielded no benefits because the country ended up with a higher rate of “excess deaths” than do-almost-nothing Sweden. Instead of cowering at home, Israelis under 65 could have been in military refresher training, manufacturing weapons;, etc.

One strange aspect of media coverage of this fight is that it is characterized as being against “terrorists” or “militants” and not soldiers of a legitimate government. Hamas enjoys more support among Palestinians than Joe Biden does among Americans. Why aren’t the people carrying guns on behalf of Hamas, which represents the interests of a majority of Palestinian Arabs, then referred to as “soldiers”?

From 2021, “Poll finds dramatic rise in Palestinian support for Hamas” (AP):

A new poll released Tuesday finds a dramatic surge in Palestinian support for Hamas following last month’s Gaza war, with around three quarters viewing the Islamic militants as victors in a battle against Israel to defend Jerusalem and its holy sites.

The scientific poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research also found plummeting support for President Mahmoud Abbas, who was sidelined by the war but is seen internationally as a partner for reviving the long-defunct peace process.

The poll found that 53% of Palestinians believe Hamas is “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people,” while only 14% prefer Abbas’ secular Fatah party.

Related:

  • “Gaza struggles to accommodate the living and the dead as population grows” (Reuters, 2022): “Its population is set to more than double within the next 30 years to 4.8 million and already land is running out.”
  • from the United Nations, which guarantees health care, education, food, etc. to every baby born in Gaza: “The population growth rate stands high at 2.8% and it is expected to remain stable due to decline in mortality rates while fertility rate remains one of the highest in the Arab region standing at 4.06, with high disparity between Gaza and West Bank, 4.5 and 3.6 respectively. … The increase of youth population in Palestine for the past 20 years reflects the highest increase in the Arab countries”
  • “UNRWA textbooks still include hate, antisemitism despite pledge to remove — watchdog” (The Times of Israel, 2022): Among the content [taught in the United Nations-run schools] that IMPACT-se flagged was a grammar exercise teaching that “the Palestinians sacrifice their blood to liberate Jerusalem,” the statement said. Other exercises include sentences about “Jihad warriors” against “the occupier,” commitment to “liberate” Palestine, and “resisting the enemy courageously,” according to the report. A poem teaches students that to die as a martyr by killing Israelis is a “hobby.” Islamic education material depicts Jews as “inherently treacherous, and hostile to Islam and Muslims,” including another grammar exercise implying that Jews are impure and defiling the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. “Israel is described as having been implanted by an imperialist, European, colonial, anti-Arab conspiracy with the goal of dividing the Arab world,” IMPACT-se said. Israel is erased from the UNRWA material and the entire area of the Jewish state is labeled as modern-day Palestine. Students are given exercises of naming Israeli cities as Palestinian, it added. …. Sheff said the majority of the $338 million that the US funds for UNRWA goes to education. [i.e., American taxpayers fund all of the above]

From Ilhan Omar:

Harvard perspective:

Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine

We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.

Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum. For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to “open the gates of hell,” and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced. Palestinians in Gaza have no shelters for refuge and nowhere to escape. In the coming days, Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel’s violence.

The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years. From systematized land seizures to routine airstrikes, arbitrary detentions to military checkpoints, and enforced family separations to targeted killings, Palestinians have been forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden.

Today, the Palestinian ordeal enters into uncharted territory. The coming days will require a firm stand against colonial retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.

  • African American Resistance Organization
  • Amnesty International at Harvard
  • Bengali Association of Students at Harvard College
  • Harvard Act on a Dream
  • Harvard Arab Medical and Dental Student Association
  • Harvard Chan Muslim Student Association
  • Harvard Chan Students for Health Equity and Justice in Palestine
  • Harvard College Pakistan Student Association
  • Harvard Divinity School Muslim Association
  • Harvard Middle Eastern and North African Law Student Association
  • Harvard Graduate School of Education Islamic Society
  • Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine
  • Harvard Islamic Society
  • Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine
  • Harvard Divinity School Students for Justice in Palestine
  • Harvard Jews for Liberation
  • Harvard Kennedy School Bangladesh Caucus
  • Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Caucus
  • Harvard Kennedy School Muslim Women’s Caucus
  • Harvard Kennedy School Palestine Caucus
  • Harvard Kennedy School South Asia Caucus Leadership
  • Harvard Muslim Law School Association
  • Harvard Pakistan Forum
  • Harvard Prison Divest Coalition
  • Harvard South Asian Law Students Association
  • Harvard South Asians for Forward-Thinking Advocacy and Research
  • Harvard TPS Coalition
  • Harvard Undergraduate Arab Women’s Collective
  • Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo
  • Harvard Undergraduate Muslim Women’s Medical Alliance
  • Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Students Association
  • Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee
  • Middle East and North African Graduate School of Design Student Society
  • Neighbor Program Cambridge
  • Sikhs and Companions of Harvard Undergraduates
  • Society of Arab Students
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WSJ: Proles should be grateful that their chocolate ration has been increased to 20 grams

by philg

“Why Consumers Are Mad About Inflation Even Though It Has Fallen” (Wall Street Journal, today):

Prices are rising more slowly, but consumers fixate on how much lower they were before the pandemic, a problem for Biden.

Inflation has fallen sharply in the past year. The economy remains strong. Yet Americans remain deeply unhappy about the economy, often citing inflation. It continues to weigh on President Biden’s approval and re-election hopes.

Peasants aren’t sufficiently grateful, in other words, for all of the good things that the Party has done for them. They don’t credit Joe Biden for increasing their chocolate ration to 20 grams, for example.

I wonder if there will be spontaneous pro-Biden rallies to show gratitude for the lower airfares and car prices after the latest union contracts work their way through the system. CNBC:

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Dianne Feinstein, the first female U.S. senator (and cloth mask believer)

by philg

I was chatting with an Ivy League graduate who is a loyal Democrat and who follows the mainstream media. He shared that he had learned from news articles that the recently deceased Dianne Feinstein was the first female U.S. senator and, therefore, a true pioneer for her gender ID.

According to Wikipedia:

The first female U.S. senator, Rebecca Latimer Felton, represented Georgia for a single day in 1922, and the first woman elected to the Senate, Hattie Caraway, was elected from Arkansas in 1932. Fifty-nine women have served in the upper house of the United States Congress since its establishment in 1789.

(Senator Caraway held her Senate seat for more than 13 years. Like me, she was a prohibitionist.)

A gun owner with a concealed carry permit who wanted to deny her subjects the right to carry guns, Ms. Feinstein was also an early crusher of 2SLGBTQQIA+ dreams. A 1982 NYT article:

Mayor Dianne Feinstein today vetoed a San Francisco city ordinance that would have extended to live-in lovers, including homosexuals, the health insurance benefits that now go to husbands and wives of city employees.

The ordinance she vetoed was introduced by Harry Britt, the only publicly homosexual member of the Board of Supervisors. Mr. Britt was traveling in the East today, but his office released a statement in which he said that ”by vetoing this law, Mayor Feinstein has shown it is our nation’s institutions that lack civility. She has done serious harm to the efforts of gay men and lesbians to gain acceptance and understanding of our life styles.”

Dana van Gorder, a member of Mr. Britt’s staff, said the Mayor ”does not believe in the spirit of this legislation whatsoever.” The spokesman said that the homosexual community ”has had a sense for some time that she has viewed us with a certain moral judgment.”

At dusk about 200 people, many identifying themselves as homosexuals, gathered at the City Hall steps in response to a call for a protest. They cheered speakers who criticized Mayor Feinstein, and they chanted ”Dump Dianne.”

She sought to collect income tax and other revenues in Deplorable states, but not to send any money back to them until they accepted Faucism (press release):

The Science of cloth masks was powerful in the summer of 2020. A quote from the above:

“Research shows that masks reduce transmission of the coronavirus. CDC Director Redfield said this surge in COVID-19 cases could end within two months if we adopt ‘universal masking.’… countries that are successfully controlling this virus require masks. So why doesn’t the United States have a national mask mandate?”

(Remember to check cumulative excess deaths to see how those “countries that [were] successfully controlling the virus” eventually fared.)

What are some example articles that communicate to readers that Dianne Feinstein was the first female senator? From the New York Post:

US Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the trailblazing California Democrat who broke gender barriers throughout her five decades in politics, died Thursday night at her Washington, DC home following a number of health scares. She was 90.

The Guardian: “Senator Dianne Feinstein, trailblazer for women in US politics, dies aged 90″.

The Hill: “Senate loses giant in Dianne Feinstein: ‘A trailblazer in every sense of that word’”

New York Times: “Dianne Feinstein, a Trailblazing Senator, Dies at 90″

Related:

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CNN found 50X more white gunmen than Black gunmen

by philg

Following this weekend’s unfortunate events in Jacksonville, Florida, a gun-loving friend sent me a CNN article and remarked on the phrase “white gunman” occurring within the first three words.

I used the Google to find the precise phrase “white gunman” on cnn.com:

158 results. Compare to “Black gunman”:

(Black Lives Matter, but Black capitalization does not; Google shows the same 3 results for “black gunman”.)

In other words, the reader of CNN would infer that there are 50 white gunmen in the U.S. for every Black gunman.

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Will the media end up doing more economic damage to Hawaii than the fires?

by philg

The loss of life in the Lahaina fire is sad, of course, but this post is about the economics. Folks I’ve talked to here in the Northeast (I’m traveling around via Cirrus) who’ve followed this by scanning media headlines have the impression that much or most of Maui has been destroyed and/or that all of Hawaii is a no-go zone for tourists. To the extent that they would have considered a vacation in Hawaii, therefore, they would now postpone it for at least a year or two.

Estimates of direct property damage from the Maui fires seem to be in the $3 billion range. But the big airport and the big resorts were untouched, so there wouldn’t be a rational reason for tourists to avoid Maui this winter. Hawaii’s extended lockdown was a serious self-inflicted wound from 2020-2022. About 20 percent of the state’s economy, pre-coronapanic, was tourism. Total revenue for 2019 was nearly $18 billion in pre-Biden money. If media hysteria reduces tourism by even 20 percent, therefore, the economic damage from journalists will exceed the economic damage from the fires.

Here is an example… “The Hawaii fires are a dire omen of the climate crisis’s cost to Pacific peoples” (Guardian). Note that it is not the “Lahaina fires” or the “Maui fires” but fires that have covered all of Hawaii.

From the righteous at CNN… “Survey of devastation left after Hawaii wildfires”.

If Hawaii is “devastated”, does that mean the winter of 2023-4 is a good time for a visit?

Update, September 1: “Tourists Were Told to Avoid Maui. Many Workers Want Them Back.” (NYT) Nearly a month after the fire, Maui, a tourism-dependent island with a hotel room for every seven and a half households, is hosting fewer visitors than at any point since the coronavirus pandemic. Pristine beaches sit empty, even those that are many miles from Lahaina. Hundreds of unused rental cars are parked in fields near the island’s main airport in Kahului, where planes arrive half full. … The implosion of Maui’s economy, of which tourism comprises about 40 percent, has been swift and severe. State economic officials estimate that the island is seeing about 4,250 fewer visitors each day than normal, representing a loss of $9 million a day. In South Maui, seven of every 10 hotel rooms sit empty, compared with about two in 10 during normal times.

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Being boiled alive in the 101-degree ocean (according to NYT)

by philg

At least five of the folks with whom I chatted in the San Francisco Bay Area recently noted that the ocean water near Florida had been heated up to more than 100 degrees. When I asked them what part of the Florida shoreline was plagued with this scalding water, they couldn’t answer precisely. Their conjectures ranged from a few miles out to sea from Miami to maybe right near a popular beach.

For all of these loyal Followers of Science, one of whom has a Ph.D. in physics, the source was “101°F in the Ocean Off Florida: Was It a World Record?” (New York Times, July 26, 2023):

The reading from a buoy off Florida this week was stunning: 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit, or just over 38 Celsius, a possible world record for sea surface temperatures and a stark indication of the brutal marine heat wave that’s threatening the region’s sea life.

So it’s “off Florida” and therefore out into the open sea, right? If we had any doubt about this, the Scientists at the NYT include a photo of the open ocean underneath the headline:

Based on the headline and the photo, then, a Marvel-style villain heated up part of the open ocean to over 101 degrees and, with a little more climate change, it is easy to imagine this hitting 213 degrees F, the boiling point for sea water. (In other words, New Yorkers with money should not follow their former neighbors and move to Florida because the risk of being boiled alive at the beach is real.)

The best-known beach in Florida is Miami Beach. Is it 101.1 degrees in the water there? seatemperature.net says that, around the time that the NYT raised the alarm, it was a degree or two hotter than the average for previous years:

Maybe “off Florida” meant into the Gulf of Mexico? The water temp on the west coast of Florida was also about average.

Let’s dig for clues in the NYT article:

Allyson Gantt of the National Park Service, which monitors and maintains the buoy, said there was no reason to doubt the measurement. The data was consistent with high water temperatures seen in the area, Florida Bay, between the southern end of the Florida mainland and the Florida Keys, in recent weeks, she said.

Just like it’s easier to heat up a shallow bath than a deep one, the depth of the water is going to affect temperatures, said Jeff Masters, a former hurricane scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a co-founder of Weather Underground, a Web-based weather service.

So… it turns out the buoy was not “off Florida”, but rather inside Florida (between the Keys and the mainland). The NYT tells us that shallow water will heat up more than the deep ocean, just as your backyard swimming pool heats up more, but the newspaper of Science doesn’t tell us the water depth.

What’s unusual about the water between the Keys and the mainland? That’s where beginner kiteboarders and windsurfers are taken to learn because (a) the wind is steady, and (b) the water is so shallow that students can stand up after falling off the board. How shallow? The charts show between 0′ and 6′ at low tide:

So the NYT reader was informed that the “ocean off Florida” had reached 101.1 degrees when, in fact, it was a protected area possibly just a few feet deep. (The open ocean off Florida’s Atlantic coast quickly reaches depths of 1,000′ and more.) Is Florida Bay even part of the ocean? Wikipedia says that “It is a large, shallow estuary that while connected to the Gulf of Mexico, has limited exchange of water due to various shallow mudbanks covered with seagrass.” (What’s an estuary? Wikipedia says “An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea.”)

A Bay Area Deplorable (deeply closeted so that he can keep his job!), when I shared these conversations with him, said “when you’re looking at the New York Times, what you don’t see is more important than what you do see.” (i.e., the unseen depth of the water and the unseen previous buoy high temp in the same area are more important than the seen recent high temperature)

When I got home on August 3, 2023, I discovered that the lifeguards on the Atlantic coast hadn’t been reading the New York Times. They marked the Juno Beach water temperature as 85 degrees:

In case the NYT article gets memory-holed, some screen shots:

Note that the article also mentions “Manatee Bay” as a place where the “ocean” is super hot. Here’s the open ocean in Manatee Bay, from Google Maps:

How deep is Manatee Bay? 4-5 feet, except where mud or coral makes it shallower.

Why does it matter? If you’re ordering a 150-meter boat from Meyer Werft, make sure to tell them it can’t draw more than 4′ (or 1′ for Florida Bay?) because you want to sail it in what the New York Times calls “the ocean”.

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Schools that are closed are “open fully” (flashback to 2020)

by philg

My favorite NYT headline of August 5, 2020 characterizes schools that are 100-percent closed as “open fully”:

Supporting those in New York, Maskachusetts, Chicago, and California who now say that lockdowns and school closures never happened, this headline cannot be found either with a Google search or a search on nytimes.com itself.

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New York Times decries heat island effect as cities sprawl, but also advocates population growth via low-skill immigration

by philg

Every day this summer, the New York Times offers a climate panic story. “Tracking Dangerous Heat in the U.S.” is updated daily and Phoenix is always a dangerous place to be (folks in Atlanta can get away with “Extreme Caution”; South Florida is literally toast):

The same newspaper previously alerted us to the connection between urban growth and oppressive heat. Example from 2018… “5 Ways to Keep Cities Cooler During Heat Waves”:

Cities can be miserable during heat waves. All that concrete and asphalt soaks up the sun’s rays, pushing temperatures up even further. Tall buildings can block cooling breezes. Exhaust from cars and air-conditioners just adds to the swelter.

This is known as the urban heat island effect: A large city’s built-up environment can make it 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the surrounding countryside during the day and up to 22 degrees warmer at night. That extra heat is becoming a serious public health problem.

More people means bigger cities and bigger cities inevitably will be hotter cities (humans moving around on pavement will never emit less heat than grass). You might think that the natural position for a climate alarmist, therefore, would be to oppose policies that drive population growth, e.g., low-skill immigration, government handouts conditional on having kids, etc. Yet the NYT consistently promotes population growth, especially via open borders. For example, a recent piece from the paper’s in-house Nobel laureate.. “How Immigrants Are Saving the Economy” (Professor Dr. Paul Krugman, Ph.D.):

There are surely multiple reasons. But you may not have heard about one ingredient in the economy’s special sauce: a sudden, salutary rebound in net immigration, which soared in 2022 to more than a million people, its highest level since 2017. We don’t know whether this rebound will last, but it has been really helpful. It’s an exaggeration, but one with some truth, to say that immigrants are saving the U.S. economy.

I’m not sure how net immigration is measured if the undocumented walk across the border and never talk to a Census Bureau worker, but Prof. Krugman is talking about a substantial new city of humans being created every year in the U.S. (for reference, the population of Phoenix per se is 1.6 million).

What about artisanal production of population growth? A June 2023 editorial says that we should ladle out more cash to “families” (usually “single parents”) who do minimal work and choose to have multiple kids. It looks like Americans respond to financial incentives. The middle class is being bred out of existence because they can’t afford family-size housing. Those who don’t work have plenty of kids because the (too-poor-to-have-kids) taxpayers provide them with family-size housing. The rich have kids, but there aren’t enough of them to make a difference in population statistics.

Channeling the spirit of “If you don’t like seeing me naked, you should shop at a different Publix”.. “If you don’t like summer heat waves, why do you advocate for a larger U.S. population?”

I arrived in Pasadena, California last night. I disclosed my plan to walk to dinner to a gal at the front desk. She expressed surprise that anyone would be willing to walk for 10 minutes due to the heat (85 degrees and dry). Separately, after risking heat stroke and/or death, I found that the June 2023 official Pride markings on sidewalks, transformers, and stores (Rainbow-first retail) were all still up.

More photos to follow, but here’s a preview of how city property is decorated in case there is a merchant who does not do his/her/zir/their share:

(This would be illegal in at least some parts of the U.S. ummah: “‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags”)

Related:

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Wall Street Journal on the economic value of low-skill migrants

by philg

Like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal has worked tirelessly to spread the Good News about the Miracle of Low-Skill Migration. An example from 2015… “Migrants Offer Hope for Aging German Workforce”:

By some estimates, Britain is on course to eclipse Germany as Europe’s biggest economy by 2030, thanks in part to its large numbers of young, energetic immigrants.

Germany “is going to be severely challenged” by demographics, said Peter Sutherland, the United Nations special representative for international migration. Managing the trends “requires a great deal of proactive thinking” and openness to immigration, he said.

About 20% of asylum seekers were from war-torn Syria—more than from any other country—and four out of five arriving Syrians are believed to be from “average or even well-off economic circumstances and have a good education,” the agency said.

In the 1950s, Italians and other Southern Europeans flooded in to help rebuild the country, contributing significantly to its fast postwar economic recovery. In the following decades, millions of Turks arrived and many ended up working in German industrial companies, helping its economy more.

This summer, however, the same newspaper informs us that the countries that have been getting rich via low-skill immigration every year since 1950 are now, in fact, poor. “Europeans Are Becoming Poorer. ‘Yes, We’re All Worse Off.’”:

Europe’s current predicament has been long in the making. An aging population with a preference for free time and job security over earnings ushered in years of lackluster economic and productivity growth.

Adjusted for inflation and purchasing power, wages have declined by about 3% since 2019 in Germany, by 3.5% in Italy and Spain and by 6% in Greece.

Karim Bouazza, a 33-year-old nurse [in Brussels] who was stocking up on half-price meat and fish for his wife and two children, complained that inflation means “you almost need to work a second job to pay for everything.”

The eurozone economy grew about 6% over the past 15 years, measured in dollars, compared with 82% for the U.S., according to International Monetary Fund data. That has left the average EU country poorer per head than every U.S. state except Idaho and Mississippi, according to a report this month by the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels-based independent think tank. If the current trend continues, by 2035 the gap between economic output per capita in the U.S. and EU will be as large as that between Japan and Ecuador today, the report said.

Apparently, expert consensus is that there is no longer a connection between low-skill migration and economic vibrancy. The 2023 WSJ article does not contain any of the following words or phrases: “migrant”; “immigrant”; “refugee”; “asylum-seeker”.

Separately, here’s a luxury car in one of Europe’s richest countries, the Netherlands (photographed in Delft, July 6, 2023):

The Netherlands now contains 27 percent migrants and children of migrants and thus should be insanely rich if we believe the Wall Street Journal’s 2015 Science.

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