by Owen | 0954, 6 Apr 2424 | Culture | 1 Comment
Wow…
I’ve always been fond of the Bible verse “The truth will set you free.” John 8:31 32 (ESV). But quite frankly, I’ve never quite understood what it meant. So, I did some research, and the best explanation I could find was… Honesty brings peace and self-respect.
That is absolutely NOT what that verse means. Like… not even close. Even a cursory bit of research by someone completely unfamiliar with the Bible would tell you that.
by Owen | 1850, 5 Apr 2424 | Culture, Education, Politics - Texas | 0 Comments
The University of Texas at Austin has sent layoff notices to an estimated 60 staff members who previously worked in diversity, equity and inclusion roles, according to the Texas NAACP and the Texas Conference of American Association of University Professors.
The staffing cuts come as the university works to comply with the state’s anti-DEI law, or SB17, that bans public colleges and universities from maintaining DEI offices, holding mandatory DEI training, and having departments focused on “promoting differential treatment” based on race, sex or ethnicity.
In a statement released Wednesday, the Texas NAACP and AAUP said impacted staff members were given a 90-day layoff notice. Forty of those employees were from the Division of Campus and Community Engagement, which will be closing, the statement said. The office was formerly called the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement before SB17 went into effect in January.
Brian Davis, a university spokesman, said he was unable to confirm the number of jobs that are being eliminated. Davis told CNN in an email that the university would not comment beyond a letter President Jay Hartzell’s released to the campus community earlier this week.
Hartzell said in the letter that the university is redirecting funds from DEI initiatives to “teaching and research.”
Imaging spending money on teaching and research. How progressive.
by Owen | 1835, 5 Apr 2424 | Culture, Law, Politics - Wisconsin | 1 Comment
Victory? I guess? But if the results of the program are the same, it doesn’t seem like much of a victory. Liberals have no problem saying one thing to appease the law and then doing whatever they want.
The State Bar of Wisconsin said that under terms of the settlement, its “diversity clerkship program” would continue unchanged under the new definition.
But the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which brought the lawsuit in December, declared victory, saying in a statement that “mandatory and annual State Bar dues will not fund internships and policies primarily based on race, but rather on merit and diversity of viewpoint.”
The original definition of “diversity” for the Wisconsin program said the concept includes race, ethnicity, gender identity and other factors. The new definition simply says it involves “including people with differing characteristics, beliefs, experiences, interests, and viewpoints.”
Under the deal, the bar association must also clearly say in all materials related to the program that race is not a factor in considering participation in the program, according to the conservative law firm.
The bar association also may not say that only law students from diverse backgrounds, with backgrounds that have been historically excluded from the legal field, or who have been socially disadvantaged are eligible, the law firm said.
The program in question offers summer internships for first-year law school students at top law firms, private companies and government offices. Past participants have included Alliant Energy, Froedtert Health, the Kohler Co., the city of Madison, the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the state Department of Corrections.
by Owen | 2120, 4 Apr 2424 | Politics | 0 Comments
They couldn’t recruit a candidate who wouldn’t pull from Biden, so they gave up.
NEW YORK (AP) — The No Labels group said Thursday it will not field a presidential candidate in November after strategists for the bipartisan organization failed to attract a high-profile centrist willing to seize on the widespread dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
“No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House,” Nancy Jacobson, the group’s CEO, said in a statement sent out to allies. “No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”
The unexpected announcement further cements the general election matchup between the two unpopular major party candidates, Biden and Trump, leaving anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the only prominent outsider still seeking the presidency. Kennedy says he has collected enough signatures to qualify for the fall ballot in five states.
by Owen | 2101, 4 Apr 2424 | Politics - Wisconsin | 1 Comment
Of course it’s all rainbows and sunshine in the announcement, but this looks very positive for the residents and the taxpayers.
WEST BEND — The Washington County Board on Wednesday night voted to sell Samaritan to EOM Healthcare Group, contingent upon negotiations between EOM Healthcare Group and the county.
“We have determined that we are dealing with a qualified offer and a qualified buyer,” said Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann. “They have an offer for us to consider that we think is worthy of your consideration.”
EOM Healthcare Group owns Middleton Village Nursing and Rehab in Middleton, Lincoln Park Nursing and Rehab in Racine, and Bradley Estates Nursing and Rehab in Milwaukee, as well as others across the country.
[…]
There were three key conditions that the county was looking for a buyer to accept, including taking care of the residents, taking care of the staff and keeping the skilled nursing licenses within West Bend, if not Washington County.
According to EOM Healthcare Group’s Jacob Jeidel, the main owner, those conditions fit perfectly into their mission. Additionally, EOM healthcare Group said they would keep the facility name, Samaritan, the same.
“EOM is actually an acronym, it stands for everyone matters,” said Jeidel. “I think where that really comes into light is …everybody knows that the residents come first, and that’s obvious. No one will disagree with that.”
“…Unfortunately though, what gets neglected along the way is the staff, and the staff get thrown by the wayside …It’s a lifestyle, it’s not a job, and so the focus here of the company that we try to accomplish, and I think we successfully accomplish in many ways, is very, very much employee focused.”
According to Jeidel, in addition to a number of employee benefits, which are discussed at eomhealthcaregroup. com under “Employee Initiatives,” EOM Healthcare has also increased all floor staff wages on day one after purchasing their current three Wisconsin-based nursing homes, and has increased wages several times since.
“We like to be competitive, not just because we want to hire nurses, but we want to make sure our staff is happy working at the facility,” said Jeidel. “…That is something that is very important to us, and something that we take very seriously.”
by Owen | 0643, 2 Apr 2424 | Politics - Wisconsin | 9 Comments
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here it is:
On Good Friday, Wisconsin’s Christians paused to reflect on the crucifixion of Jesus and plan for weekend family celebrations of his rising. Gov. Tony Evers used the time to veto 41 bills. This column lacks the space to catalog every bad decision Evers made on Friday, so let us try to narrow it down to the top five.
Evers has been very vocal about the need for Wisconsin to support child care providers. Child care is expensive and there are not enough providers to meet the demand. This problem has been exacerbated by inflation, regulations, the inability of providers to pay higher wages without raising prices, and the end of government subsidies from the various federal COVID bailouts.
The Republican Legislature passed a bill to help child care providers with a state loan program. Evers vetoed it. He did so claiming that it was not enough. Evers would rather that the state provide no help at all if it is not his plan. He does not really care about helping ease the child care crisis. He cares about it being a political issue for himself.
Evers vetoed another bill that would have prohibited John Doe investigations in cases where a district attorney had already declined to press charges because of self-defense or defense of others. Wisconsin’s John Doe laws are an old process intended to allow an independent investigator to investigate if a crime has been committed. Under John Doe, the investigation is done in secret to protect innocent people from being publicly maligned with an unfounded accusation while they are investigated. We saw during the Scott Walker era how the John Doe process was turned into a political weapon by activist leftist district attorneys and judges.
By vetoing this bill, those same prosecutorial and judicial activists can use the John Doe process to go after police officers and civilians who were already cleared of a crime for reasons of self-defense or defense of others. In particular, this will empower the anti-police activists to continually ruin the lives of good cops who had to use force to defend themselves or the public. Evers is helping to fuel anti-police activism.
Another bill would have prohibited credit card companies from tracking firearm purchases in the state. This has been advocated by anti-civil rights activists as a way to facilitate discrimination against people who legally exercise their rights to keep and bear arms. Evers is on the side of the oppressors and wants to make it easier to suppress our civil rights.
It may shock some to learn that government school districts do not have to put contracts out to bid. Some do so as a matter of good policy, but it is not required by law. This means that when school districts pass those massive building referendums, they can award those contracts to whomever they want without seeking competitive bids. This is an obvious avenue for massive corruption at the expense of taxpayers.
The Republican Legislature passed a bill that would have required government school districts to conduct a legitimate bidding process for any contracts over $150,000. Evers vetoed it. He wants to make it as easy as possible for government schools to dole out tax dollars to their favorites even if it is not a good deal for taxpayers. For Evers, it is not about the taxpayers. It is about political favoritism at all levels.
The last example is the most egregious. We have a mental health crisis in this country. The aftershocks of the government mismanagement of the pandemic coupled with a social media contagion leaves our kids lonely and depressed. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 5 adults experience a mental illness each year and, “50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24.”
The Republican Legislature passed a bill that would have allowed out-of-state mental health care providers to provide care for Wisconsinites via telehealth without requiring a Wisconsin license. The licensure requirements for mental health professionals varies little between states and the imperative of getting Wisconsinites timely care during a mental health crisis outweighs the need for a duplicative and meaningless state stamp of approval.
Evers vetoed this bill too. Instead of opening up an entire nation of qualified mental health professionals to treat Wisconsinites, he sided with ensuring that the state collect its $77 license fee over the mental health of Wisconsinites.
Governor Evers is on the side of antipolice and anti-2nd Amendment activists, the bureaucracy, and his personal political agenda. He is not on the side of Wisconsinites.
by Owen | 2032, 31 Mar 2424 | Politics | 1 Comment
Heh. Perhaps Biden will close the border to prevent the smuggling of greenhouse gasses if he won’t do it for fentanyl, criminals, diseases, child sex slaves, etc.
On March 4, 2024, California man Michael Hart became the first person to be arrested and charged with smuggling greenhouse gases across the border from Mexico into the United States.
This was the first U.S. prosecution to include charges associated with the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act), according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The act prohibits importing hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) outside the restrictions imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Hart allegedly hid HFC canisters under a tarp to smuggle them across the border. He intended to sell them on sites such as Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp, per the New York Times.
The EPA has restricted HFC manufacture, distribution, and use across various sectors. The goal is to gradually phase out these products. However, Mexico is not as far along as the United States in its usage reduction.
[…]
“It appears that a black market has arisen due to the regulatory scheme in the treaty which provides for differing phase-out schedules for the United States and Mexico.” They continued by saying this landscape “creates a significant price differential due to the restrictions on supply in the United States that do not exist in Mexico.”
by Owen | 1012, 30 Mar 2424 | Politics - Wisconsin | 0 Comments
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.
In the latter half of last year, two unsavory and revelatory stories about Gov. Tony Evers were reported and made headlines throughout Wisconsin. Here we are at the end of March and the headlines have faded and Evers continues to act with impunity, having suffered no consequences for his shady behavior.
The first story was broken by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in August of last year. They revealed that Evers’ longtime Chief of Staff, Maggie Gau, was living with one of her subordinates. Later reporting revealed that that subordinate was Evers’ communications director, Britt Cudaback.
While the initial story is outrageous enough, further reporting revealed it to be even worse than first thought. Cudaback was appointed as a deputy in 2019 for $62,000 per year. She was promoted to report directly to Gau in 2020 and her annual salary was increased to $100,006. In 2023, her pay was increased again to $112,008. Her 80% increase in pay came in just four years during the same period she was living with her boss.
Furthermore, during that period, Evers admitted that no formal performance reviews were administered and there is no documentation that shows that there was a competitive and inclusive hiring process for the position and compensation that Cudaback holds. Evers vigorously defended the practice.
Such relationships between a supervisor and a subordinate are strictly prohibited throughout the private sector and the rest of government because they are inherently discriminatory and coercive, but Evers accepts and applauds them. It has been seven months since that story broke and, as far as we know, nothing has changed.
The second story that further revealed Evers’ deceptive and unethical behavior was broken by Wisconsin Right Now in November of last year. Through a series of open records requests, Evers’ office accidentally let it slip that the governor had been using a secret email alias for years. Tony Evers had stolen the name of Hall of Fame Milwaukee Braves pitcher Warren Spahn to conduct public business with other government officials and people outside of government.
Wisconsin’s Open Records Act is very strong and very explicit. The key to it is that the public has an explicit right to know what their government is doing. If a government official is conducting the people’s business, the public has a right to see it with a few very narrow exceptions. If the public official if using a private email account, chat platform, social media, paper documents, or any other medium on or off government property or technology, the people have a right to see it. Yes, that also includes if the government official is using a fake name in an attempt to hide what he is doing from the public.
Cudaback (still in the job three months after the previous story was revealed), defended the practice of a government official using a fake name as “common.” It would be troubling enough if that statement were true, but it still does not mean that the governor’s use of a fake name excludes those communications from public scrutiny. Furthermore, Evers’ fake email was on a Wisconsin. gov domain, which makes it subject to mandatory retention rules.
The governor’s office admitted to more than 17,000 emails written to and from Evers’ fake email address between 2018 and 2023. That equals about eight emails per day for six years. That is a tremendous amount of communication that the governor is hiding.
In early December, both Wisconsin Right Now and the Republican Party of Wisconsin filed open records requests for the 17,000 emails as is their right under Wisconsin law. Despite a legal and moral responsibility to hand over the emails, to date, Tony Evers has refused to do so. Our governor is flagrantly breaking the law by his refusal to allow the people to scrutinize the business he is purportedly doing on their behalf.
The fact that both stories flared and disappeared tells us something about the state of politics in Wisconsin. First, the combination of both stories tell us that Tony Evers is unscrupulous, immoral, and has a Trump-sized ego in which he believes he does not have to conform to strictures of law and morality to which we other mere mortal must adhere.
Second, the fact that the stories evaporated and Evers has not suffered any consequences reveals that Wisconsin no longer has a Fourth Estate that will hold the powerful accountable. In that sense, Evers is right to just ignore the controversies and continue to do whatever the hell he wants. Unfortunately, Wisconsin is worse for it.
by Owen | 1006, 30 Mar 2424 | Foreign Affairs, Politics | 0 Comments
China has one of the most ubiquitous and aggressive surveillance machines in the world. There is no way this is happening without the support of the CCP.
There have been more than 22,000 encounters of Chinese nationals at the southern border since Oct. 1, a massive increase from the 2,176 encountered in federal fiscal year 2022 and the 450 encountered in fiscal year 2021.
[…]
The man’s account on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, shows his family in China on the way to the airport. He said he collected information from online sources to learn how to make it to the U.S., including information about routes, border navigation and ways to dispose of information to avoid having your origin traced. Additionally, many people “vlog” about their journey on Chinese social media apps to get in contact with other Chinese nationals already in the U.S. who can help find them jobs and a place to live.
He said his family left China in January and traveled first to Thailand (with a transfer in Bahrain) before going through Morocco (with a transfer in Spain), Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.
by Owen | 1002, 30 Mar 2424 | Foreign Affairs, Military, Politics | 0 Comments
Good.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. in recent days authorized the transfer of billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel, two sources familiar with the effort said on Friday, even as Washington publicly expresses concerns about an anticipated Israeli military offensive in Rafah.
The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, said the sources, who confirmed a report in the Washington Post.
Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally.
The package comes as Israel faces strong international criticism over its continued bombing campaign and ground offensive in Gaza and as some members of President Joe Biden’s party call for him to cut U.S. military aid.
by Owen | 0547, 26 Mar 2424 | Politics - Wisconsin | 2 Comments
My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part.
In the latter half of last year, two unsavory and revelatory stories about Gov. Tony Evers were reported and made headlines throughout Wisconsin. Here we are at the end of March and the headlines have faded and Evers continues to act with impunity, having suffered no consequences for his shady behavior.
The first story was broken by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in August of last year. They revealed that Evers’ longtime Chief of Staff, Maggie Gau, was living with one of her subordinates. Later reporting revealed that that subordinate was Evers’ communications director, Britt Cudaback.
While the initial story is outrageous enough, further reporting revealed it to be even worse than first thought. Cudaback was appointed as a deputy in 2019 for $62,000 per year. She was promoted to report directly to Gau in 2020 and her annual salary was increased to $100,006. In 2023, her pay was increased again to $112,008. Her 80% increase in pay came in just four years during the same period she was living with her boss.
Furthermore, during that period, Evers admitted that no formal performance reviews were administered and there is no documentation that shows that there was a competitive and inclusive hiring process for the position and compensation that Cudaback holds. Evers vigorously defended the practice.
Such relationships between a supervisor and a subordinate are strictly prohibited throughout the private sector and the rest of government because they are inherently discriminatory and coercive, but Evers accepts and applauds them. It has been seven months since that story broke and, as far as we know, nothing has changed.
The second story that further revealed Evers’ deceptive and unethical behavior was broken by Wisconsin Right Now in November of last year. Through a series of open records requests, Evers’ office accidentally let it slip that the governor had been using a secret email alias for years. Tony Evers had stolen the name of Hall of Fame Milwaukee Braves pitcher Warren Spahn to conduct public business with other government officials and people outside of government.
by Owen | 1359, 25 Mar 2424 | Culture | 0 Comments
One feels for their anguish. The Trans movement is destroying women’s spaces.
“The moment you’re embarrassed to be a part of the Dutch Team, because a biological man is playing in the women’s team, it’s time to go,” Zijlstra wrote in the past, according to Andrew Holleran of The Spun “I have tried to accept this, but I can not condone or justify this.
“I think that with sports there has to be an equal and level playing field which is to be used and accepted in good faith. After all, we have worked so hard to be relevant and competitive in this sport.”
De Graaf also explained her decision in the post.
“At some point you have to make decisions if something goes against your feelings,” De Graff wrote. “You have to do what feels right for you. Hence my decision to also leave the Dutch team.”
by Owen | 0749, 23 Mar 2424 | Politics | 2 Comments
Wow. This is the headline the Biden Administration wanted from an accomplice media.
What investors should know about the U.S. easing vehicle emissions rules
So the government passes draconian regulations on the auto industry that are based in fantasy, but will still wreak havoc on American manufacturers and consumers. BUT, those rules were slightly – VERY slightly – less draconian than the regulations they were considering, so the media spins it as the government “easing vehicle emissions rules.”
This is the same way government swamp people spin budgeting. When they spend less than they originally wanted to, they call it a “cut.”
by Owen | 1829, 22 Mar 2424 | Politics - Wisconsin | 2 Comments
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News earlier this week.
Although the presidential primary races were already settled long before Wisconsinites had the opportunity to weigh in, there are still important local races to decide on the April 2 ballot. In addition, every Wisconsin voter will be asked to decide on two amendments to Wisconsin’s state Constitution.
The reason these amendments are on the ballot is troubling. Even though our system of government is replete with checks and balances at every level, we remain largely dependent on people willingly following the law without the need for coercion.
Increasingly we are seeing government officials at all levels willfully violate the law because they have realized that there are few consequences for them doing so. We saw this phenomenon in full display during the pandemic as laws were ignored, civil rights were suppressed, and official restraint was abandoned for the sake of “safety.”
This was particularly true for election laws. In Wisconsin, election officials illegally collected ballots in parks, plopped unsecured ballot collection ballots all over the place, ignored voter ID requirements, accepted invalid mailed in ballots, turned over the administration of elections to private activists, and generally ignored, violated, or invented laws and regulations at their whim. With rare exception, all of the election officials who ran roughshod over our lawful election processes remain at their posts and have escaped any negative consequences for their actions. In our late-stage republic, leftists have discovered that they can implement their will through the power of the bureaucracy without the annoyance of needing to win elections or pass legislation. With a bit of gumption and an accomplice executive branch, even a banal local bureaucrat can wield enormous, unchecked power and citizens are left with few legal recourses.
For these and other reasons, the Republicans in the Legislature have begun to ask the voters to amend the Constitution to reflect the will of the people in the hope that the Constitution will be more difficult to ignore or violate than statutes. With our current activist leftist Supreme Court, this plan is not foolproof, but at least it provides an avenue for citizens to insist that their government obey their governing document.
On the ballot next month are two proposed constitutional amendments that are a direct response to leftist election officials manipulating recent elections and the failure of law enforcement to hold them accountable.
The first proposed amendment would prohibit the use of private funds to conduct elections. The second proposed constitutional amendment is related to the first. It would prohibit any person except people lawfully elected or selected to administer elections.
Both amendments are a response to Mark Zuckerberg’s activist group that poured millions of dollars and provided activist staffers for five Democratic strongholds in Wisconsin. Their stated objective was to help with ballot access and election staffing issues. Their real objective was to turn out the vote for Democrats. Local election officials gave these Democratic activists the keys to the electoral process. Low and behold, we saw massive Democratic turnout in those five districts.
The reason we do not want private groups to fund and manage our elections is that there is no accountability for malfeasance. They are unelected and unaccountable to the citizens. Whether leftist, rightist, libertarian, anarchist, communist, liberal, or conservative, we must not allow private activists to control the process by which our government obtains the consent of the governed.
I truly wish that we did not need resort to constitutional amendments to provide safeguards for our elections. Laws and regulations should do. Unfortunately, experience has taught us that laws and regulations are not enough. We need to install every possible safeguard to protect our elections from the incompetent and the nefarious.
Please vote “yes” on both proposed amendments. Wisconsin will be better for it.
by Owen | 0739, 22 Mar 2424 | Politics | 0 Comments
I continue to think that polls are fundamentally flawed and nobody has figured out how to do it in our modern world, but the trends are worth noting. As long as the methodology remains consistent, polls should reveal trends even if the actual percentages are off. That being said, this is interesting. Trump appears to be expanding his support while Biden is in a rearguard action. One challenge for Trump is that he is gaining support in historically less reliable voting blocks – young people and independents.
Voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania – two states that flipped from red to blue in the 2020 presidential election – begin this year’s general election campaign more dissatisfied than pleased with the candidates they have to choose from, with a fairly small but crucial share saying they are open to changing their minds on the race, according to new CNN polling conducted by SSRS.
The surveys of registered voters find a dead-even race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in Pennsylvania (46% each), with Trump ahead in Michigan (50% Trump to 42% Biden). Both polls were fielded after Trump and Biden each clinched enough delegates to win their party’s nomination for president, according to CNN’s estimates.
The polls suggest that in this rematch with Trump, Biden’s winning 2020 coalition may now be more intact in Pennsylvania than in Michigan. The Pennsylvania poll finds Biden leading among women, voters of color, college graduates and independents, and running about even with Trump among voters younger than 35. In Michigan, though, women split about evenly, Biden’s margin among voters of color is narrower and he trails Trump by significant margins among independents and young voters. In both states, Biden holds on to about 9 in 10 of his self-described 2020 supporters, while Trump keeps slightly more of his own 2020 voters.
by Owen | 2103, 21 Mar 2424 | Foreign Affairs, Politics | 0 Comments
This is a disgrace. That’s not a ceasefire. It’s a surrender.
On Thursday, the United States ended decades of stalwart support for Israel in the United Nations Security Council, submitting a draft resolution that calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The U.S., which negotiated the language of the proposed resolution with the governments of Egypt and Qatar, seeks to have the Security Council vote on it on Friday.
An earlier version of the resolution that was circulated earlier in the day Thursday linked the cessation of fighting with the release of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, the Associated Press reported. The latest revision, however, makes no such precondition for “the imperative of an immediate and sustained cease-fire.”
In February, the U.S. was the only nation on the Security Council to veto a similar resolution, saying that calling for an immediate end to military hostilities would imperil hostage negotiations.
by Owen | 2019, 21 Mar 2424 | Culture, Economy, Politics | 1 Comment
The powers that be want a nation of renters.
Buying a house in the United States is considerably more expensive than renting right now, and the real estate market is expected to stay that way for at least the next five years, according to a new analysis.
The analysis out Thursday from CBRE, a firm that tracks real estate prices, shows the average monthly payment on a new apartment lease in the U.S. is $2,165. The average monthly payment on a mortgage for a new home is $2,997, meaning it costs households, on average, 38% more to buy than to rent, according to the analysis.
Notably, the gap between buying and renting will continue to be a big hurdle for aspiring homeowners for at least five years, the analysis found — mortgage payments are still expected to cost 11% more than rent in the year 2030.
Higher mortgage rates and a nationwide housing shortage are key factors behind persistently high home prices, according to the CBRE report. The report estimates there is a shortage of 3.8 million housing units in the U.S., mainly in single-family homes and smaller multi-unit dwellings.
Of course, even though renting is cheaper in terms of monthly expense, you will pay it forever and never own anything. Buying a home is still the #1 way that most families build wealth. That’s what they want you to rent and build their wealth.
by Owen | 0742, 21 Mar 2424 | Foreign Affairs, Military | 0 Comments
Ya know… there is a way to prevent this. Hamas could surrender.
The doctors warned about a potential “bloodbath” with “apocalyptic” consequences if Israel carries out its planned invasion of Rafah, a southern city by the border with Egypt where over 1.5 million displaced civilians are currently taking refuge.
“This is probably the worst crisis that can happen within this war,” Sahloul said.
[…]
Although international leaders, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have publicly shared their concerns, a senior Israeli official told ABC News on Wednesday that “there is no world” in which Israel does not go ahead with its Rafah offensive, a military operation they claim will destroy the last battalions of Hamas left in the south.
The doctors affirmed that the situation is already dire and called for a cease-fire.
Frankly, Israel’s care to provide paths to safety, warnings, and humanitarian care for civilians as they prosecute the war is admirable. They do it at great risk to themselves and knowing that their enemy would not – has not – do the same for them. Hamas has a long history of using civilians as shields. There is one reason that civilian Gazans continue to be in the middle of a war. That reason is Hamas.
by Owen | 1948, 20 Mar 2424 | Politics | 0 Comments
Florida’s homeless will be banned from sleeping on sidewalks and in parks and other public spaces under a law signed Wednesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. It also promises the homeless greater access to services for issues such as substance abuse and mental health problems.
The state Department of Children and Families would oversee local governments that set up designated areas for the homeless to camp for up to a year under the new law, which takes effect Oct. 1. Anyone using those encampments would be prohibited from using alcohol or illegal drugs, with sanitation and security to be provided.
The encampments would be created if local homeless shelters reach maximum capacity, according a news release from the governor’s office. The law requires regional entities to provide necessary behavioral treatment access as a condition of a county or city creating an encampment.
by Owen | 0808, 20 Mar 2424 | Culture | 0 Comments
Why wouldn’t young people be less happy? We are constantly telling them that we are destroying the environment, they are the wrong gender, everyone is racist, and they will never be able to get ahead against systemic forces.
Meanwhile, in Biden’s economy, they can’t afford to buy a house, their rent is skyrocketing, and they can’t afford groceries.
Add to that that young people are more likely to be buried in their phones and social media without having real, human relationships.
Yup. I buy it.
The United States has fallen eight spots and is no longer in the top 20 happiest countries in the world, falling behind countries like Canada, Israel, Kuwait, Lithuania and the United Arab Emirates, according to the 2024 World Happiness Report released by Gallup and its partners.
[….]
One of the main reasons for the United States dropping out of the top 20 is the overall unhappiness of younger people, according to the report.
“For the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, happiness has decreased in all age groups, but especially for the young, so much so that the young are now, in 2021-2023, the least happy age group,” according to the new report. “This is a big change from 2006-2010, when the young were happier than those in the midlife groups, and about as happy as those aged 60 and over. For the young, the happiness drop was about three-quarters of a point, and greater for females than males.”
The 2024 World Happiness Report goes on to explain another reason for such a heavy drop is the widespread concern about an “emerging epidemic of loneliness, and about the consequences of loneliness for mental and physical health.”
“Although overall levels of loneliness are not unduly high in global terms, there is a significantly different pattern across the generations,” the report says. “Loneliness is almost twice as high among the Millennials than among those born before 1965. Millennials also feel less socially supported than Boomers in those countries, another place in which these countries look different from the rest of the world. This is despite the fact that actual social connections are much more frequent for Millennials than Boomers, and about as frequent as for Generation X.”
