"I don't care how you did things in California"

When I lived in Renton, WA back in the 00's I often saw a bumper sticker that read: "I don't care how you did things in California". Suburban Seattle was then awash in economic refugees from the Golden State then. Sadly, many had moved to Washington and then immediately started agitating to make over  the Evergreen State into another California. Now it appears that another wave of ex-Cali's are headed outward. Of course they sure aren't gonna come here, but they are gonna end up somewhere. Word to the wise.

The real motivation behind the Occupy Wall Street movement: The rage of the elite wannabes

The Occupy Wall Street movement's ire is mostly the result of the lower elite revolting against the upper elite claims economics writer Megan McArdle at The Atlantic. Why all the outrage?

".. [W]hether or not you think their [OWS] reaction is empirically correct, it certainly isn't surprising.  To them it looks like a bunch of greedy, stupid bankers stole the jobs that they were entitled to.  And why the hell do a bunch of thieves get to drive around in BMWs while I take the bus?"

Read the rest here.

Declining school enrollments in Michigan is news?

For some media outlets here in Michigan it seems to be. I wonder where they've been since 2000 or so? With few or no jobs available and unemployment over ten percent (and that's just the bullshit official Washington number) why would a family with kids to raise stay here? And so they leave and take their education dollars with them when they go. Again this is news?

Libertarians hate us. Really, really hate us.

One Daniel J. Mitchell posting at the Cato Institute blog enjoys the fact of Detroit's economic decline and the suffering of her people. It deeply engages Mitchell's sadism: "Detroit is a miserable case study of big government run amok, so I enjoyed a moment or two of guilty pleasure as I read this CNBC story about the ongoing decay of the Motor City." [link in original]

Doctor Mitchell then goes to explain how Ayn Rand's screed about industrial decline Atlas Shrugged predicted this outcome way back in the 1950's. Yeah, sure she did. She just knew, even then, at the peak of America's post-war industrial zenith that market forces were going use their invisible hands to dismantle Detroit's manufacturing economy and hand it all over to the Chinese. Mitchell cites no evidence in his post for this astonishing gob of spit he hurls at Detroit but instead uses the rest of the post  to defend Ayn Rand's literary reputation. Again astonishing.

I hope nothing bad ever happens to the tony D.C. suburbs where Mitchell likely lives. Cuz then Danny boy will truly experience some schadenfreude. Count on it.