Recent Comments

1. 2 days ago on Doonesbury

   I guess that makes a sort of sense, linguistically.

2. 3 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   > I wonder how many Americans only take two weeks

   Every time they do a survey, they find that most people in the U.S. (contrary to the rest of the Americas) do not even use all of their paid time off. The latest scam is “unlimited time off”, because they find that with that, most people in the U.S. take even less time off, since they don’t have a specific number to “burn”. How is that a scam? Because, first, it empowers managers to say “no” anytime they feel like, and second, after spelunking deep into the bowels of our HR software, I discovered that taking more than 4 weeks off during any “rolling” 12-month period requires approval from 2 levels of management. You can easily imagine that keeps most people from even attempting a European-style schedule.

3. 3 days ago on Doonesbury

   Well, Jimmy Carter was a good guy, and probably the smartest President of the modern era (in terms of IQ), but hobbled as he was by a thorough unfamiliarity with DC, he wasn’t exactly set up for success in getting things done there. So I suggest he missed out on the “and effective” part of “good and effective”.

   I remember his fireside chats, in which, wearing a sweater, the exhorted us to set our thermostats to 68 and 78 (heat/cool), which, IIRC, about a few hundred people (out of a couple hundred million) actually did. And he lowered speed limits to 55 everywhere, which didn’t seem to save enough energy to care about and has been undone since. Except for the foreign affairs — brokering the Israel-Egypt treaty and the occasional debacle — I can’t think of what else he accomplished, in the usual meaning of the word.

4. 4 days ago on Doonesbury

   P.S. The scriptures with which I’m familiar seem to say that the Earth will be a thorough mess, and desperately in need of the messianic era, when it arrives. That’s really the starting place for my earlier comment(s).

5. 4 days ago on Doonesbury

   I was saying (reread, if you don’t believe me) that his election was one more step along the way, and was certainly not intending to give the impression that it would be the last step. If I were, I would not have said that whoever followed him was likely to be (even) worse.

   The road to the first, second, or third coming (depending on your beliefs and exactness about counting), or the highway to hell (if you don’t have any of the usual sorts of beliefs) has so far been paved with . . . well, you know.

   P.S. I wonder if you can please explain something I’m curious about: why are Christians looking forward to a “second” coming? Wouldn’t the 2nd time have been when is said to have emerged from the cave? But no-one ever says “the 3rd coming” to refer to the messianic era. I’m genuinely curious.

6. 4 days ago on Doonesbury

   > And what will Trudeau do if Trump wins?

   There’s a possibility he could come out of his semi-retirement. It might just be a temptation he can’t resist. But considering it’s been more than a half century since we had a President who was good and effective, a 2nd Trump Presidency is likely to be just one more step on the highway to hell. Or to getting things so bad the messiah has to come. Whichever you prefer. Don’t worry; whoever comes after him will be worse.

   And before you say “that’s impossible,” remember all the times in the past when you said it couldn’t get any worse, and were quickly proven wrong.

7. 4 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   What you’re saying could indeed be the case, were all the top-end condos actually sold. But they’re being built faster than they’re being sold. No-one who wants to spend more than $10M, or even $100M, on a condo in NYC or Miami has to wait for one, unless they have very specific tastes, want it built to their specifications. And even then they don’t have to wait as long as you might think.

8. 9 days ago on Doonesbury

   Yup. Fictional characters discussing fictional events.

9. 9 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   You might like my comment above.

10. 9 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

    I don’t think that foreign buyers sinking bazillions into ultra-luxury condos inflates lower-down prices directly, but rather, by giving developers to build unneeded ultra-luxury condos, it distracts them from building homes people could actually use, and there are only so many builders and construction workers. So it indirectly constricts the supply.

    But local government regulations restrict supply to a much greater extent. Most zoning regulations mean you can only build relatively expensive homes in most places, creating a double whammy of reducing supply, and making new supply contain only more luxurious homes. Attempts to change those regulations usually run into a wall of NIMBY. It’s gotten so bad that California and Colorado have tried to use state regulations to limit how much local governments can restrict building. Jerusalem Demsas has a terrific series of articles in The Atlantic about this, and a podcast Good on Paper, if you’re still interested.