TM Lutas

How to fix US empty store shelves in 48 hours

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It’s never a pleasant thing to stand up, alone, in the face of a national mania and provide an unpleasant solution. I’ve been putting it off for some time.

Finally, I’ve had it. Nobody who does this for a living seems to be willing to step up to the plate so I guess I’m stuck doing the job. The free-market solution to excess demand over supply is to raise prices. We are not raising prices to end the empty shelves because the government in various jurisdictions has made it illegal to raise prices in the face of an emergency.

Nobody has had the courage to say this. Everyone who has taken a basic economics course in the US knows this. This lack of even discussion on how to fix the empty shelf problem is deeply weird and nobody is talking about the odd silence either.

Update: Kudos to John Stossel who did address this issue (from a different perspective) a few hours prior to my publishing this. His article is here.

Blocked by Quora… again.

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I was finally unblocked by Quora earlier today. I was reblocked by Quora two hours later. Below is my appeal note for the benefit of anyone else who may find themselves in this situation.

I have literally solely asked nine questions since getting unblocked. Which of the nine questions violated any policy? Which policy was violated? If they did not violate any policy, could you please unblock my account?

The nine questions are:
1. If Speaker Pelosi does not pass on the impeachment articles to the Senate, when do they expire?
2. If President Trump wanted to apply for a writ of mandamus to unstall his impeachment if Speaker Pelosi doesn’t pass the process on to the Senate, how would that be done?
3. Did Joe Biden intervene with the Navy to lessen Hunter Biden’s punishment?
4. Can you count cards and ‘sell the count’ to the players at the table for a guaranteed profit without actually gambling?
5. Is not naming House prosecutors (called managers) to prosecute the President’s impeachment a defense of Trump or an attack on him?
6. Since FISA was passed in 1978, why has it only been in 2019 that an inspector general done a thorough review of a FISA case?
7. Is the Bloomberg Group’s five million euro fine by a French financial markets watchdog for a lack of journalistic ethics a fair penalty?
8. What will happen to Puerto Rico’s crime rates now that their gun laws have been radically revamped (effective date 1/1/2020)?
9. Would you invest in a robot to be rented out for short-staffed factories?

Quora Profile

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Quora is a great Q&A platform that has teething problems. One of them is the character of its moderation. I wouldn’t mind so much except that I get a bit of mad money from them through their Quora partner program. I used to ask questions (paid activity), answer them (unpaid activity), and comment (unpaid activity). After being suspended for two weeks without any actual content being marked as being a problem, I’ve decided to let people know that I am solely changing my behavior because I can’t figure out how to paint within their lines or even figure out where their lines are to determine whether I want to write there anymore. Here’s the profile update in case that goes away.

I got the message Quora.

I can be suspended without any answers or comments being moderated and appeals won’t necessarily reverse it. I’m currently limiting my Quora fun to questions until I get clarity on how to participate within the rules and not be subject to sanctions. As in so many other parts of my life, I’m apparently a minority in ways that matter.
I actually am interested in your answers and only ask questions I have a personal or professional curiosity about. If you would like to discuss my questions, I am generally reachable on social media as TMLutas. My personal email is dbrutus -at- mac -dot- com
I do ask questions that come in large data sets. Examples of what attracts my attention might include:
* Who are all these people/groups that the US has sanctions on and why are they there? Do they deserve it?
* Is this true?
* What things that people think are constants are actually variables?
* What are the fixed points of human nature and how do they express themselves?
I have a personal goal to ask twenty questions a day as it exercises my brain and keeps my thinking from getting too much in a rut. If I can do that inside an hour, I’m upping the number.

SPLC Hate – I

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The Southern Poverty Law Center is the current king of describing hate in the United States of America. But does it do a good job? If the SPLC isn’t fit for purpose, the rot won’t start in listing inappropriate groups. It will inappropriately deal with certain brands of hate or hate ideologies.

One of the pages on the SPLC website describes hate ideologies. According to the SPLC, there are 20 different ways that Americans hate including the catchall group “General Hate”.

I didn’t realize hatred was expressed in so few ways. But is hate really expressed in so few ways? In the SPLC telling, whites hate blacks and blacks hate whites. That’s a pretty common result of lived experience. If you receive enough hate, people respond with a hate of their own. The idea that hate only flows in one direction is unnatural and unexpected. You would think that most every long-standing expression of hate would have return fire headed the other direction but that’s not always how the SPLC sees it.

Misogyny and Misandry naturally pair but only Misogyny (Male Supremacy) gets an entry. Misandry is invisible.

Phineas Priesthood naturally pairs with Black Bloc as both are not organizations per se but labels describing violent political actions. Black Bloc is invisible to the SPLC.

Anti-Muslim ideology naturally pairs with Muslim extremism. Muslim extremism is invisible.

Neo-Confederate longing for the antebellum South naturally pairs for anti-southern bigotry that discriminates against the accent or the address. But the latter is invisible.

Stuffing hate ideologies down the memory hole is something that the SPLC seems to have significant experience at. How do they pick the ones that are not mentioned?

I wonder.

Tearing off the Fig Leaf

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In 2019, New York finally did it. They gave up pretending that they can ever run the state under the state constitution and the normal rules of American governance. After pretending since WW II that the state’s housing situation was in a temporary state of emergency started by that war and periodically renewing the state of emergency this year, the rent control and stabilization kept the emergency but got rid of the time limit. The state of emergency is now permanent.

On pages three and four of the bill, six separate edits make it clear that New York has adopted a permanent state of emergency. There’s no more renewals, no more expirations, no more re-examination, no return to normalcy.

Most importantly, there is no state Constitutional amendment. The guarantee for just compensation for a taking of property remains. The prohibition of using the government to provide private benefit remains. In a time-limited emergency, such guarantees can be temporarily suspended, but not permanently. The state of New York has been claiming Hitler as their justification for suspending the New York Constitution for decades. No longer.

Now New York claims the right to suspend their Constitution permanently and to widen the suspension from a few limited districts to the entire state. This is a horrifically bad idea. It’s also probably unconstitutional. But will anyone notice?