Newmark's Door

Yet another brilliant and beautiful piece by Kevin D. Williamson. Three of my favorites (but read the whole thing):

Uber, AirBNB, et al. are very popular with consumers and producers alike. In fact, that is the reason that politicians and the entrenched economic interests in whose service they operate are dedicated to destroying them: Nobody would worry about Uber if so many consumers did not judge it preferable to traditional cartel-run taxi services. The very fact that Uber is in the judgment of many consumers a better product is what provides the motive for destroying it. That is economic, intellectual, and moral perversion, but that is how politics operates. Its mandate is to stand between consumers and producers until it gets its cut. . . . 

Our political bureaucracies are grasping and vicious, and some of the larger of them are dominated by people who are, if we’re being frank, not especially bright. No society can long thrive by making its creators and innovators subservient to its pimps and thieves. . . .

It is baffling that my progressive friends lament the influence of so-called big money on government while at the same time proposing to expand the very scope and scale of that government that makes influencing it such a good investment. Where government means constables, soldiers, judges, and precious little else, it is not much worth capturing. Where government means somebody whose permission must be sought before you can even begin to earn a living, when it determines the prices of products, the terms of competition, and the interest rates on your competitors’ financing, then it is worth capturing. 

You're thinking a title like that has got to be an exaggeration, right?

Heck, no.

Seems to sink the falling-participation-rate-is-due-to-retiring-Baby-Boomers story.

What isn't so well-known is that a major reason for the decline is that fewer and fewer young people are holding jobs. This exit from the workforce by the young is counter to the conventional wisdom or the Obama administration's official line.

The White House claims the workforce is contracting because more baby boomers are retiring. There's some truth to that. About 10,000 boomers retire every day of the workweek, so that's clearly depressing the labor market. Since 2009, 7 million Americans have reached official retirement age. The problem will get worse in the years to come as nearly 80 million boomers hit age 65.

But that trend tells only part of the story. The chart above shows the real problem: The largest decline in workforce participation has been those under 25.

Sad, unfortunately, keeps getting sadder.

Strange how when governments fail utterly at their claimed core function of preventing violence, they so often can be found muscling into entirely new areas of coercion at the same time.

Lord know what the fabled "swing voters" respond to. 

But if this isn't it, we should give up. 

Interesting.

Unlike some of the shills and charlatans in this area, this guy is a professor with a long list of journal publications. 

Cool.

In the past, we've posted some incredible views of Earth's most breathtaking natural features from the European Space Agency (ESA), which has been observing the Earth with satellites for decades. 

It turns out that natural features aren't the only thing that the ESA has seen from space — they've turned their lenses on some of Earth's most iconic cities as well.

Some very sad stories summarized here. 

From USA Today. I think they're underestimating the Jaguars, but the rest seems reasonable. 

I don't know about "astonishing". But they're interesting.