U.S. population has doubled and housing construction has remained constant

by philg

Happy National Construction Appreciation Week to those who celebrate.

We’re supposedly building roughly the same number of new houses and apartments that we did in 1960 when the U.S. population was 180 million, i.e., roughly half of what it is now. St. Louis Fed:

During the intervening years we had an influx of about 80 million immigrants (Pew for 1965-2015 then add for the extra years before and after) and we are also home now to the children of those immigrants. How is it possible that we haven’t been building more houses in the aggregate?

One possible answer is that families are much larger today and, therefore, we have more people in the typical house or apartment. But 1960 was prior to the age of no-fault (unilateral) divorce. ChatGPT:

Another possible answer is that we have people living in tents, California-style. But Brookings says “Our calculations show that the U.S. housing market was short 4.9 million housing units in 2023 relative to mid-2000s”. I.e., if we assume a household size of 2, at most 10 million Americans and migrants are living in tents. (Note that this 10 million number is roughly comparable to the number of undocumented migrants who came across the border during the the Biden-Harris administration.)

A final possible answer is that we are living in shabby old houses. I asked ChatGPT:

Maybe this is good because it shows that we did such a great job building homes circa 1960-1980 that they’re not wearing out? ChatGPT says it is not good:

I can’t figure out how this happened. We are informed that migrants are skilled eager construction workers. Labor is 30-50 percent of the cost of building a single-family house. We are richer in migrants than at any time in U.S. history. Why wouldn’t we have at least the same ratio of housing starts to population size that we had in 1960 before we began to be enriched by migrants?

In fact, the New York Times says it is more or less impossible for us to have built any houses without immigrants: “How Would We Build Homes Without Immigrant Labor and Foreign Materials?” (April 1, 2025)

Related:

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Full spectrum of current American religious faith in the Boise airport terminal

by philg

Happy Bisexual Awareness Week for those who celebrate.

Photos taken just a few minutes apart in the Boise airport, July 5, 2025, show the full spectrum of current American religious faith:

I’m still awed by folks who, rather than drive or Zoom it in, voluntarily enter a 100% jammed commercial airliner while relying on a Fauci-style cloth mask to keep themselves safe from an aerosol virus.

What about converting legacy Christian buildings to one of the new religions? Here’s an example from Cleveland, Ohio in June 2025:

The eagerness of churches to convert supports my theory that Rainbow Flagism is the most attractive religion to Americans because adherents are never asked to donate money or even do anything than posit the existence of anti-2SLGBTQQIA+ haters.

The Boise City Hall flies just one religious flag (July 2, 2025):

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How’s Intel doing now that the BLM and DEI cheerleader white guy is out?

by philg

It’s been about six months since a Chinese guy took over at Intel from the white male who said that his primary passions were mostly peaceful BLM protests, giving big jobs to women and people with dark skin, etc. (And nine months since the white savior BLM warrior was ousted.) Has Lip-Bu Tan managed to turn the company around? At least with a dead cat bounce?

I still would like to know why Intel’s Gaudi chips are such a failure compared to NVIDIA. They sure sound great in HTML (replacement phrase for “on paper”):

Did Pat Gelsinger follow his BLM and DEI passion into a full-time job at a social justice enterprise? Apparently not. Investors who suffered a 75 percent loss on Intel stock (adjusted for Bidenflation) during the white savior’s leadership of Intel now have the opportunity to lose some more money by giving it to Playground Global, a venture capital fund where Gelsinger is a partner.

Is it too soon to do an INTC v AMD stock price chart? Maybe not! Remarkably, now that the Social Justice Warrior is out, INTC has actually outperformed AMD over the past year:

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Starved of migrants, the Metropolitan Opera decides to migrate to Saudi Arabia

by philg

In June we learned that undocumented migrants were big customers for the Metropolitan Opera (AP):

Metropolitan Opera season attendance dropped slightly following the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that coincided with a decrease in tourists to New York.

The solution to a migration-related problem is always… more migration. September: “The Met Opera Turns to Saudi Arabia to Help Solve Its Financial Woes” (New York Times).

The Metropolitan Opera, one of the world’s most renowned performing arts companies, is turning to Saudi Arabia to help it solve some of the most severe financial problems in its 142-year history.

The company has reached a lucrative agreement with the kingdom that calls for it to perform there for three weeks each winter. While neither the Met nor the Saudis disclosed financial terms when they announced a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday, the deal is expected to bring the Met more than $100 million.

The Met hopes the agreement will help it emerge from a period of acute financial woes. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the company has withdrawn more than a third of the money in its endowment fund to help it cover operating costs — about $120 million overall, including $50 million to help pay for the season that ended in June. The withdrawals have raised questions about the viability of staging live opera on a grand scale in the 21st century.

As we prepare for Bisexual Awareness Week (Sept 16-23) and LGBT History Month (October) and Trans Awareness Month (November), it will be interesting to think about how the Met’s LGBTQ+-themed lighting will be used in Saudi Arabia:

Here’s what the new opera house in suburban Riyadh will look like when it opens in 2028, but before the Met’s rainbow lighting scheme is applied:

The Met began spending in a whole new direction in 2021 (NYT):

“The Met Opera Has a Gay Conductor. Yes, That Matters.” (NYT, 2019):

Mr. Nézet-Séguin — who has been openly gay for his entire professional career and nonchalant enough about it to post a smiling partners’ beach selfie on Instagram — is impossible to miss.

“The fact that he’s so comfortable with who he is is part of what makes him a powerful, effective artistic leader,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said in an interview. “Because he is proud of who he is, and that’s very important.”

ChatGPT:

In Saudi Arabia, engaging in same-sex sexual activity—whether between two men or two women—is illegal under the country’s interpretation of Islamic (Sharia) law. The legal consequences are extremely severe and can vary depending on the specifics of the case and judicial discretion. Same-sex acts are considered sodomy or illicit sexual intercourse (zina) and are punishable by death under traditional Wahhabi interpretations of Sharia law. Even when the death penalty is not applied, those convicted may face indefinite prison sentences, flogging, financial penalties, or deportation in the case of foreign nationals. … Saudi Arabia enforces some of the strictest laws against same-sex relations in the world. Punishments include—but are not limited to—execution, flogging, prolonged imprisonment, hefty fines, and deportation.

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Latino Conservation Week

by philg

Today is the first day of Latino Conservation Week (not to be confused with Latinx Conservation Week, the (Deplorable) Latino Conservative Week, or the (turncoat) Latinx Conservative Week). From Audubon, the society named after a notorious advocate for slavery:

LCW events are inclusive of all communities but, in particular, are events that break down barriers Latino communities face when it comes to outdoor recreation and/or conservation efforts.

The National Park Service, under the cruel divisive tyranny of Donald Trump, doesn’t seem to be observing this “inclusive of all communities” week. Their web page on the subject dates to your tax dollars being at work in 2024:

(Despite Joe Biden’s advocacy for 2SLGBTQQIA+ community, note the government’s failure to use the correct gender-inclusive term “Latinx”.)

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Cuban government much smarter than U.S. government?

by philg

“Motel beheading suspect’s criminal history reveals escalating path of violent crime” (NBC Dallas):

Yordanis Cobos-Martinez was previously arrested on charges of indecency with a child, carjacking, false imprisonment and grand theft of a motor vehicle. … Four months later, in June 2017, in South Lake Tahoe, California, a police report details a carjacking in which Cobos-Martinez, while naked, tried to force himself into a woman’s car while pulling her hair and clothes and sitting on her lap. … ICE says he was released on an order of supervision under the Biden administration and because Cuba would not accept him based on his criminal history.

What did this noble migrant do? “ICE calls for removal of man accused of beheading another man with machete at Dallas motel” (CNN):

Police say Cobos-Martinez was cleaning a room with an unnamed witness as the incident unfolded. The witness told police Cobos-Martinez became upset when the victim, Chandra Nagamallaiah, used the unidentified witness to translate his request to not use a broken washing machine instead of speaking to him directly, according to the affidavit.

Surveillance video shows Cobos-Martinez leaving the motel room, pulling out a machete and attacking Nagamallaiah. After the victim ran, the attack continued outside – in front of the victim’s wife and son – both of whom attempted to intervene, according to the affidavit. After beheading Nagamallaiah, Cobos-Martinez allegedly placed the victim’s head in a dumpster.

Should we give the Cuban government credit for being smarter than the U.S. government? Cuban officials protected their own citizens/residents by wisely giving Americans what Americans voted for (i.e., to collect a miscellaneous assortment of humans from all of the world’s most violent and dysfunctional societies with particular emphasis on collecting those directly embroiled in violence).

Separately, this latest beheading seems to be another example of Migrant A killing Migrant B on U.S. soil, similar to Indian enricher Harjinger Singh killing three Haitians in Florida (NY Post).

Related:

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Raging inflation despite high interest rates

by philg

Inflation is currently raging at an annual rate of 4.8 percent (up 0.4 percent in the last month times 12) and is 2.9 percent if we look back to August 2024. From the BLS, yesterday:

High interest rates from the Fed haven’t slain the inflation dragon. My posts on this subject:

How eagerly/aggressively is Congress indulging in deficit spending right now? From the Bipartisan Policy Center (a “center” with two or three people in it?):

FY2025 (purple) is one of the most profligate years in U.S. history, but it doesn’t look that profligate because Congress was borrowing/printing money at an even faster rate during coronapanic.

Flash back to January 2, 1957, in which the New York Times praises President Eisenhower for eliminating an astounding and upsetting $4 billion deficit for 1954 (adjusted for the inflation that the government assures us does not exist, this would correspond to a $48 billion deficit in 2025 (compare to the nearly $2 trillion deficit that Congress seems to have built into our economy and government; Eisenhower took strenuous action to eliminate a deficit that was 1/40th the size of today’s deficit)).

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A visit to the United Flight 93 crash site

by philg

As part of the return trip from EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) this year, we stopped at the Flight 93 National Memorial. It’s a 30-minute drive from the idiot-proof ridgetop airport that serves Johnstown, Pennsylvania (see Climate Change Reading List: Johnstown Flood).

The architecture is moving and designed around a walkway that follows the flight path of the airliner that jihadis had hoped to turn into a weapon against the U.S. Capitol. The path picks up after you go to a lower section of the memorial where the Boeing 757 actually crashed.

The building itself contains a lot of information about 9/11, not just the Flight 93 history. Visitors can listen to three phone messages to family members left by passengers on Flight 93.

Here are some of the outdoor signs:

A Harley is parked just outside the main building and includes Todd Beamer‘s final recorded words: “Let’s Roll”.

The walkway to the Wall of Names:

There’s a 93-foot-tall Tower of Voices of wind-driven chimes that look like aircraft parts (audio recording).

It’s a fitting memorial to a group of people who gave their lives in order to spare the lives of Americans on the ground.

Here’s the Hollywood version with the “Let’s Roll” line about 4 minutes in:

RIP especially to the crew: Lorraine Bay, Jason Dahl, Sandra Bradshaw, Wanda Green, LeRoy Homer Jr., CeeCee Lyles, and Deborah Welsh. Airline crews enable us to live richer lives by assuming a higher level of risk every day than those of us who earn our wages by flying desks.

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Charlie Kirk on assassination culture

by philg

I didn’t follow Charlie Kirk and had never seen one of his videos, but I was sad to hear about his death today. Sad/prescient post of his from five months ago:

Although I don’t have any personal theories about who might have perpetrated this assassination nor the political leanings of the killer, the statistics that Charlie Kirk put forward above seem right. At least half of my Democrat friends in Massachusetts would kill prominent Republicans, such as Donald Trump, if they thought they could get away with it. They would be doing it not to indulge their rage at people who disagree with them, though they have a lot of rage, but to protect our democracy. Note that most of them would likely prefer less extreme measures, e.g., outlawing voting for candidates who aren’t approved by the Democrats, deporting all Republicans to Eswatini, or making it illegal for Republicans to run for office (a simple measure to protect our democracy from January 6 insurrectionists).

The text of Charlie Kirk’s April 7, 2025 tweet, in case it gets memory-holed:

Assassination culture is spreading on the left. Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump.

In California, activists are naming ballot measures after Luigi Mangione.

The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response.

This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb.

A lot of Charlie Kirk’s recent posts on X were about Iryna Zarutska, murdered by a prime example of the heritability of criminality. Decarlos Brown Jr. is the perpetrator (recorded on video, but that’s not enough for his name to appear on the Wikipedia page as a potential suspect). His brother Stacey Dejon Brown is a convicted murderer (2014 article about a 2012 crime). Their father, Decarlos Brown Sr. is also a convicted criminal (NY Post).

Related:

  • Democrat thought-leader Rashida Tlaib, 2023: “Let’s not forget that Republicans are the Party of Insurrection” (i.e., it would be rational to kill Republicans in order to prevent our democracy from being subverted)
  • A response to the shooting by someone with a lot of experience in this area, below.
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Defend a house against woodpeckers using robot drones?

by philg

Homeowners around the world suffer a lot of damage due to woodpeckers. How about a system of microphones around the house that listen for the sound of a woodpecker and, if heard, dispatches a drone that lives somewhere on the edge of the exterior, maybe under an eave? The drone will then use its own microphone and camera to locate the woodpecker and harass it, with a water pistol if necessary, until the woodpecker finds a tree or an unprotected home to destroy.

ChatGPT refused to draw a picture of a drone discouraging a woodpecker with harmless water: “I can’t create an image that depicts harm being done to an animal — including a woodpecker being shot with water. … Instead of water hitting the bird, the drone could be shown with a water spray or mist aimed at the trim (not at the bird), to illustrate the concept of “protecting the house” without showing harm to the animal.” It then proceeded to generate an image that looks to me like the poor bird is being blasted with water:

(The Gaza Health Ministry reports that more than 60,000 woodpeckers have been killed via water pistol.)

Grok didn’t comment on my desire to see a photo of violence being done to a woodpecker, but it decided that the stream of water should emerge from the woodpecker:

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