So I was at the so-to-be ex-apartment on Friday packing stuff when the doorbell rings and there’s a UPS package for me. I open it up, not having been expecting anything, and it turns out my family bought me a GPS computer for my move to Atlanta without telling me.
So, yeah. My family sent my a new robot buddy in the mail. My family’s awesome.
Matthew Yglesias writes:
One objection you often hear to pro-transit, pro-walking, anti-driving measures is a social justice argument that these measures will hit the poor hardest. In fact, as this Kevin Drum post makes clear poor people do relatively little driving. They differ from middle class and wealthy people in that utility bills take up a very large proportion of their income.
It’s true that poor people, on average, drive less than rich people. But what matters isn’t the absolute level of fuel usage, but how big a chunk of one’s income is taken up by fuel usage. According to the data in Kevin Drum’s post, folks in the bottom fifth of income in the US spend 10% of their income on gasolene, and about 12% on utility bills. In contrast, the richest fifth of people spend about 4% of their income on gasolene, and about 3% on utility bills.
So contrary to Yglesias’ claim, any policy that increases the cost of driving will definitely hit the poor harder than the rich. This should be no surprise, since virtually any economic hardship one can imagine hits the poor harder than the rich. This is why it’s helpful to be rich.
This doesn’t mean that we should oppose “pro-transit, pro-walking, anti-driving measures” as a matter of social justice. Avoiding those policies won’t prevent high gas prices, which are much more painful to the poor than the rich; and in the long run, doing nothing to transition away from a gas-based economy and infrastructure will be worse for the poorest 20% than the alternatives. What we should be doing is trying to change to more sustainable energy use, while simultaniously pursuing policies to reduce and mitigate poverty.
From Kevin Drum’s post:
…low-income houses spend 22% of their income on energy, while high-income households spend only 4% of their income on energy. If you raise the cost of energy, you hurt the poor far, far more than the better off.
Two things are worth noting. First, utility costs are a bigger problem than gasoline. On a percentage basis, the poor pay 7x as much for utilities as the well off, while they pay only 4x as much for gasoline.
I agree with most of Kevin’s post, but he’s mistaken to use “how much more do the poor pay compared to the rich” as his measurement of which is “a bigger problem.” If our concern is hardship, what matters is how big a percentage of one’s income is being spent — not how that percentage compares to what the rich spend. The bottom fifth of earners in the US are spending 10% of income on gas and 12% on utilities; for those folks the two problems are just about equal in size.
Does anyone else find it very odd that Russell T. Davies apparently likes to write fan fiction for his own goddamn television program?
Join us next week for the finale episode, when the Doctor meets Batman and Luke Skywalker as they unite to fight the Predator and Megatron, and Rose turns into Buffy the Vampire Slayer*.
* – Oh, right. That actually fucking happened.
The Oregon-based Followers of Christ Church has been losing a lot of children lately. Primarily because they refuse to take their kids to hospitals–electing instead to stand around, pray, and anoint them with oil. It doesn’t have near the success rate of modern medicine so Clackamas County officials want to press charges against the parents. But why stop there?
I found this via Scuffletown. I’m no expert at such things, but I think any event that hires a Chris Thrash programmed Rockafire Explosion as its band, is an event that I wouldn’t mind attending.
I considered not posting this video because it could cause furries to masturbate all over my blog. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take to share this with you.
I grew up in solid Chuck E. Cheese territory and have no nostalgia for this Showbiz Pizza Place shithole. In fact, I think back in the eighties, Showbiz and Chuck E were just like West and East Coast rap rivalries.
EDIT: I just wanted to add than I can watch a gorilla play the piano forever. Give me that instead of a fireplace, and you just sold yourself a house!
Checking the thread I linked to in the previous post, you’ll notice there’s now over 40 comments from more than one person falling over themselves to string any plausible means of suggesting that calling Obama a white person “with a tan” isn’t racist. Rest assured that the usual references to Robert Byrd, Louis Farrakhan, “the need to look past race,” “Democrats are the real race-baiters,” and the rest of the solid gold hits all make appearances.
Just keep in mind that this is what we’re going to get until November, and very likely afterwards if Obama wins. I think a lot of people are going to be amazed at the leaps and bounds Republicans are going to make to refuse to admit that people are racist because they think doing so somehow will help Obama as opposed to merely being, you know, what civilized humans should do.
Checking the thread I linked to in the previous post, you’ll notice there’s now over 40 comments from more than one person falling over themselves to string any plausible means of suggesting that calling Obama a white person “with a tan” isn’t racist. Rest assured that the usual references to Robert Byrd, Louis Farrakhan, “the need to look past race,” “Democrats are the real race-baiters,” and the rest of the solid gold hits all make appearances.
Just keep in mind that this is what we’re going to get until November, and very likely afterwards if Obama wins. I think a lot of people are going to be amazed at the leaps and bounds Republicans are going to make to refuse to admit that people are racist because they think doing so somehow will help Obama as opposed to merely being, you know, what civilized humans should do.
Cartoon for June 28
Barack Obama has exactly as much respect for privacy rights as George W. Bush. But it’s different–because he’s smart and attractive.
Haplo9 has yet to inform us how many black people on a daily basis he compliments for their “tans,” because saying that is clearly not racist at all.
