Category: Social Justice

Closing out Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

by philg

As we complete our celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, celebrating the common culture, language, and religion of Samoans, Koreans, Burmese, and Rajasthanis, here’s an ABC story that will warm the hearts of Asian American and Pacific Islander parents:

A high school senior who lived through homelessness much of his childhood was accepted to 65 colleges, and plans to attend an Ivy League school in the fall.

Note that if we believe The Son Also Rises: economics history with everyday applications we wouldn’t expect Lamont Newell to do as well as a 17-year-old with the same grades and same test scores (assuming that he took any tests; Columbia is permanently test-optional) who came from a successful (not homeless) family. Our society has chosen to invest in Mr. Newell, who won’t be paying or borrowing a dime for his education (“California teen who grew up homeless earns full ride to Ivy League school after 65 college acceptances”), rather than invest in an Asian 17-year-old whose parents worked like slaves to avoid homelessness and/or reliance on “public assistance” (i.e., taxpayers). If University of California economist Gregory Clark is correct, in other words, by lower admissions standards for those whose families are poor, the U.S. is doing the opposite of what investors in higher education would do if the goal were a return on investment.

(Why is it “society” rather than “Columbia” investing in Mr. Newell? At least half of Columbia’s money comes from taxpayers thanks to (1) Columbia’s tax-exempt nonprofit org status (investment returns aren’t taxed; half of every donation comes from taxpayers rather than the donor because the donor’s tax bill is reduced), (2) Columbia’s federal grants that yield massive overhead profits.)

Related:

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Suspend the exit tax to get rid of Elon Musk and other toxic billionaires?

by philg

From the Harvard Book Store, a window into the thinking of our nation’s cognitive elite:

The #2 hardcover bestseller during my April 2025 visit was Muskism:

Elon Musk isn’t a glitch in the system—he is the system. His worldview promises sovereignty through technology: plug in, power up, and become self-reliant. But the more you connect, the more he owns you.

If Fordism defined the capitalism of the twentieth century, Muskism may define the twenty-first. Fordism helped build the welfare state. Musk undoes it. He thrives on dependence while preaching freedom. His cars run on subsidies; his satellites run the battlefield; his social networks train the AI that trains us.

Muskism sells itself as the future but entrenches age-old hierarchies. It offers autonomy for some and exclusion for others. It’s pro-natalist but anti-immigrant, futurist but reactionary. It speaks of humanity but warns against empathy.

The authors:

Quinn Slobodian is professor of international history at Boston University

Ben Tarnoff is a writer and technologist based in Massachusetts … He is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, and has also written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the New Republic,

These giant credentialed academically-inclined brains say that Elon is pernicious. He’s our “dependent”, which means he is costing us money. What’s worse, this spending has resulted in Musk “owning us” rather than vice versa.

Elon Musk is pernicious and we’d certainly be better off without him. But it is also bad to be “anti-immigrant”, according to the authors, and we thus can’t use our ICE thugs to denaturalize Musk and deport him. Maybe we could persuade him to leave voluntarily? Hardly likely, given the U.S.’s massive exit tax on those who renounce U.S. citizenship. Elon would have to pay 20% capital gains tax plus 3.8% Obamacare tax (NIIT), albeit not the 13.3% California state income tax since he moved to Texas rather than pay his fair share to Gavin Newsom. This tax rate would be assessed against substantially all of Musk’s assets since nearly all of his wealth is unrealized capital gains.

What if we offered our most toxic citizens, the ones who contribute the least to our prosperity (since they don’t pay their fair share of taxes) and contribute the most to our problems (all of the above-cited, plus their presence in our society exacerbates inequality), a reasonable cost way out? If they leave in 2026, for example, they wouldn’t have to pay the exit tax.

Let’s say that someone needs a minimum net worth of $200 million to make the rest of us truly sick with envy. Anyone under $200 million, therefore, would still have to pay for expatriation.

(Separately, one of our neighbors has taken to parking his or her fairly new Rolls-Royce on the street (to make room for a truly valuable car in the garage?). I often walk Mindy the Crippler (our golden retriever) with a physician across the street and his dogs. In response to the Rolls-Royce sighting, the doctor and I have agreed that anyone richer than us should have to pay a 100% wealth tax.)

(Department of Trust Official Sources: SpaceX has a 98% launch success rate over its corporate life. The authors and HarperCollins (publisher) have chosen to feature on the cover a photo of one of the 2% unsuccessful launches.)

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One can mock the righteous, but Google won’t index it

by philg

One of my favorite posts from 11 years ago, Guy with a “Whites Only” sign in his conference room tells others not to discriminate, poked fun at Tim Cook for complaining that people he’d never met in Indiana and Arkansas were racist and might put up a “whites only” sign while simultaneously going to work every day in a white-only environment:

I was trying to find this to add to White people who live in all-white neighborhoods say that Scott Adams was racist and it turned out that Google had elected not to index this page:

(It’s in the Bing index, however, so the problem isn’t a technical one.)

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How do nonprofits that promise to discriminate get federal money?

by philg

A Florida senator whom I wish would retire writes about federal tax dollars being funneled to Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in western Maskachusetts (I was there once, part of being a houseguest of some Democrats who have a $2 million lake house nearby and who subscribe):

My response to our elderly senator:

The organization’s December 2024 web page proudly describes the federal funds recipient policies of discrimination that is contrary to the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of Equal Protection. Here are just some of the ways that they promise to discriminate based on race and gender ID:

  • Prioritization of BIPOC Vendors: Conduct focused research and expand the use of BIPOC-owned vendors
  • 83% of the 2024 episodes in our monthly “PillowVoices: Dance Through Time” podcast featured BIPOC artists, and 100% featured women.
  • All of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive playlists featured BIPOC and women artists.
  • off-campus and on-campus programming for low-income, BIPOC Berkshire residents.

How can government money be used to fund activities that should be illegal and unconstitutional if the government itself did it? (I guess we have had government-run race- and sex-discrimination in contracting, with set-asides for women- and minority-owned businesses, but I have never figured out how that is Constitutional.) I have never been able to get a straight answer from any of my lawyer friends as to how the government can operate and fund race discrimination without first repealing the 14th Amendment.

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Happy Kwanzaa

by philg

Happy Kwanzaa to everyone. Our Kwanzaa Bush decorated with an ornament we received as a gift from a neighbor:

The Democrat who runs New Jersey reminds us that this is the time for white men to cosplay as Maulana Karenga (“convicted of felony assault, torture, and false imprisonment of women”).

For Christmas Eve, on which a lot of Legacy Americans celebrate the birth of a baby, the same governor celebrates funding abortion care for babies:

A photo from a year ago at a Palm Beach County library:

The library also reminds us that Kwanzaa coincides with HIV/AIDS Awareness Month:

Let’s remember that how important this was to Kamala Harris’s family growing up.

Also from a year ago, the library’s new nonfiction books:

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Why aren’t we seeing a resurgence of voluntary communism within the U.S.?

by philg

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!

The Roman World into which Jesus was born was a pure market economy. Property was private, taxes were ridiculously low by modern standards (perhaps 1-5% of income), and government-provided welfare was negligible. The New Testament describes a Christian community that voluntarily opted out of the Roman economic and political system:

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.

There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.

Acts 4:32, 34

We’re told that socialism and communism are enjoying renewed popularity in the U.S. Young progressives love Bernie Sanders and the Ayatollah Mamdani.

It’s perfectly possible to set up a voluntary communist or at least communalist society in the U.S. See, for example, Amana, Iowa: 75 years of communal living, in which people lived without private property embedded within a capitalist society.

Why aren’t at least some young progressives living their dream via voluntary contract?

Loosely related… Jupiter Mayor Jim Kuretski’s house, Christmas 2021:

Related:

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Microsoft is abandoning its diversity efforts?

by philg

“Microsoft is quietly walking back its diversity efforts/Microsoft is toeing the line in Trump’s America” (The Verge, December 4, 2025):

Microsoft has been publishing data about the gender, race, and ethnic breakdown of its employees for more than a decade. Since 2019 it’s been publishing a full diversity and inclusion report annually, and at the same time made reporting on diversity a requirement for employee performance reviews. Now it’s scrapping its diversity report and dropping diversity and inclusion as a companywide core priority for performance reviews, just months after President Donald Trump issued an executive order to try and eradicate workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

… employees no longer have to submit exactly what they did to improve security and diversity and what they plan to do in the future. … replaced with a simplified form that asks employees to reflect on the results they delivered and how they achieved them, and any recent setbacks and goals for the future. … In HR documentation, the company doesn’t even use the word “diversity” anymore, opting for just “inclusion” instead.

Also on December 4, 2025, pictures of my Windows 11 login screen:

Microsoft knows that I have chosen to use the Windows operating system and it reminds me about “the extraordinary women who have made a positive impact on the modern world.”

Who are the extraordinary women who built Microsoft Windows? I asked ChatGPT, “Who were the most important programmers of Microsoft Windows operating system that are identifiable by name?” and received the following answer:

  • Tim Paterson, wrote original QDOS/MS-DOS
  • Mark Zbikowski, designed MZ executable format
  • Dave Cutler, lead architect Windows NT
  • Lou Perazzoli, NT memory manager author
  • Mark Lucovsky, NT kernel/I-O subsystem
  • Rob Short, core NT kernel engineer
  • Jim Horne, NT cache manager author
  • Tom Miller, original NT kernel team
  • Darryl Havens, original NT kernel team
  • Steve Wood, original NT kernel team
  • Ralph Lipe, Win32 input/driver stack
  • Ken Reneris, GDI graphics subsystem
  • Philip Fortier, early USER window manager
  • Bob Day, GDI and USER components
  • Raymond Chen, Win32 compatibility steward
  • David Thompson, Windows 95 lead architect
  • Brad Silverberg, Windows 95 project leader
  • Jim Allchin, merged 95/NT codebases
  • Mark Russinovich, modern kernel authority
  • Dave Plummer, wrote Task Manager/Pinball

What do the people behind Microsoft Windows know about “extraordinary women” that the typical user doesn’t know? How did Microsoft become an expert on this subject? Will an extraordinary woman figure out a way for Windows 11 to run smoothly in less than 128 GB of RAM? Will an extraordinary woman figure out a way for Windows 11 to delete a file from the C: drive (M.2 SSD) without waiting for spin-up of the D: drive (HDD)?

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Peasant vs. Elite electricity rates in New Jersey

by philg

A friend in central New Jersey has a new Tesla Model Y:

I just calculated my effective $/kWh rate on my first month of the EV charging plan. Regular rate is ~$0.24/kWh. After 9pm, I get charged $0.04/kWh. Last month of charging has cost me $10.

My response:

The peasant renter pays 24 cents for electricity at night. The elite homeowner with the new Tesla pays 4 cents, It’s a great country.

Loosely related, a plug-in hybrid at our local strip mall:

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An immigrant will take a Black man’s job today?

by philg

Eric Adams, who identifies as African-American, is on track to be replaced by an immigrant, Zohran Mamdani, today, just as predicted by this 2007 Harvard-NBER paper:

I’m sure that it is painful for some to see New York’s Blacks reduced to political irrelevance, but academics might be celebrating a successful prediction.

Separately, while I was on a JetBlue PBI-PVD flight recently a friend texted to ask my whereabouts. The reply: “Above the Mamdani Caliphate.”

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