Almost twenty years ago, the country was outraged by allegations of an African-American stripper that she was hired and then gang raped by white Duke Lacrosse players. The story followed an all-too-familiar pattern. The media, professors, and pundits immediately treated the allegations as true and declared the crime as a manifestation of our racist society. Many demanded immediate suspensions of all of the students as the racial and class conflicts were emphasized in the media. As I wrote previously, Duke University joined the mob against its own students and discarded any semblance of due process or fairness. Now, the accuser Crystal Mangum has admitted that she made the whole thing up in an interview on the independent media outlet “Let’s Talk With Kat.” The problem is that little was likely learned in higher education from the experience.
The students found themselves in a nightmare as the media flash mob formed to call for their punishment. They were arrested and subject to the unethical and unprofessional treatment of former Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong.
Nifong pandered to the press and the community in public speeches despite criticism from some of us that he was fueling the rage against the students despite serious questions over this account. He declared publicly:
“The information that I have does lead me to conclude that a rape did occur. The circumstances of the rape indicated a deep racial motivation for some of the things that were done. It makes a crime that is by its nature one of the most offensive and invasive even more so.”
From the outset, there were obvious problems with the account, including a lack of supporting forensic evidence that would ordinarily be found at the scene.
Nifong was later disbarred for his misconduct, including withholding exculpatory evidence. Even after the allegation was shown to be a hoax, former North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper took the easy way out and declined to charge Mangum despite her ruining the lives of these students. She was later arrested and convicted of murdering her boyfriend.
Now, Mangum is admitting, “I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me…[I] made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.”
It is heartening to see Mangum come to grips with what she did and ask for forgiveness. However, there remains a lack of such remorse from many in the press and higher education who helped lead this mob against these students. Years later, many continued to resist efforts to afford due process protections to those accused in higher education.
The media followed its usual pattern of dispensing with countervailing facts to fuel the racial elements or play up the class differences. Nancy Grace declared, “I’m so glad they didn’t miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like gang rape!”
Former prosecutor Wendy Murphy, who praised Nifong’s handling of the case, said publicly that “I never, ever met a false rape claim, by the way. My own statistics speak to the truth.”
Feminist and journalist Amanda Marcotte writes for publications such as Salon and Slate. She captured the blind rage even after ethics charges were raised against Nifong, stating:
“I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good f**king god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and f**ked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.”
Marcotte later deleted the statement and criticized Nifong.
The greatest unfairness to these students came not from such extreme voices but mainstream media, which showed little interest or comfort in exploring contradictions and gaps in the account.
As is often the case, the hoax was later revealed and there was a collective shrug from most in the media as we await the next cathartic case or controversy.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The UK government did the right thing for once.
Hey Turley: Now it’s obvious that Trump lied about being able to “very quickly” bring grocery prices down–that was one of the biggest selling points to voters. He’s already backtracking because he never had any plan to do this, and why people would believe anything that comes out of his mouth is a mystery to me. However, by blocking the merger of Albertson’s and Kroger, Biden took a bold step to keep grocery prices under control. An Albertson’s-Kroger merger would have created a powerful monolith that smaller grocery retailers couldn’t compete against. As it turns out, all along, Trump’s plot was really to “very quickly” deliver tax breaks to the wealthiest and to reward the J6th criminals who battered police officers and trashed the Capitol believing in the Big Lie–rewarding his donors and the faithful who committed crimes on his behalf. Also high on the agenda– consumer protections are going to get rolled back, along with anti-trust enforcement, and Republicans are eyeing massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to pay the cost for the tax cuts. But, they had to get enough people besides MAGAs to vote for him, so he lied about being able to get grocery prices to “drop precipitiously”–something he had no plan to deliver on. BFD according to Turley, who sees fit to use his platform to talk about some stripper lying years ago about a gang rape.
Gigi writes, “Now it’s obvious that Trump lied about being able to ‘very quickly’ bring grocery prices down–that was one of the biggest selling points to voters.”
Gigi, Joe is still in office. Are you even trying at this point?
Diogenes,
Same old lies she always spreads.
WHAT did I lie about? Beginning with the Kristin Welker interview last weekend in which, responding to a question about quickly bringing down grocery prices, he admitted that it’s “hard”. There have been several other such on-camera admissions since then. He has no clue how to do this. He told some yuge whopper the other night about some poor old woman who tried to buy 3 apples, but had to put one of them back in the grocery’s “refrigerator” because the price was too high–and “that should never happen in our country”. Uh, it didn’t happen in our country. Here’s how we know it’s a lie: grocery stores don’t keep apples in the refrigerated section with the meat, dairy or other refrigerated items.
Gigi: Why are you writing about Trump–who, to my knowledge, has not offered his opinion about the “former stripper who now admits lying about gang rape?” GIve it up for New Year’s, OK?
And, BTW, my grocery store (Kroger’s) keep select apples in a refrigerated produce section, as do several “party stores” that keep them in small snack-holding refrigerators, usually located near the checkouts. yours truly, lin.
Lin,
I can answer that one, Gigi has a severe case of TDS. It is a real mental illness that requires serious medical attention of a team of psychologists, drugs of various kinds. People with TDS have been recommended to not reproduce, own real estate, vote or operate heavy machinery as they lack common sense, logic, critical thinking, grounded sense of reality and emotional maturity beyond a angst filled teenager. Gigi’s comments prove this to be true.
Upstate: MAGA media made up a mental disorder to attack people who criticize a a presidential candidate who is a convicted criminal, chronic, habitual liar, sexual assaulter, fraudster, thief, misogynist, xenophobe who started an insurrection by lying to gullible people when he got voted out of office. To most people someone who has these characteristics doesn’t belong anywhere near the levers of power. Trump is a defective person–he is a narcissist, incapable of feeling any empathy for anyone other than himself–someone who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants–including starting an insurrection, stealing classified documents, lying on financial forms and business records, and sexually-attacking a woman who teased him about trying on womens lingerie because he perceived it as a threat to his manliness. He viewed the fact that he lost in 2020 as just an obstacle to find a way around—so he thought he could get Secretaries of State to rig the vote–just “find” him enough votes to “win”. When that didn’t work, he thought he could bully Mike Pence into refusing to accept certified vote totals and to get fake Electors to falsify Electoral College documents. Pence wouldn’t go along, so he sicced his fans on him, lying to them about not having a country any more if Biden got into office, so they tried to stop the Electoral Count. That worked for a little over 3 hours, but it failed, too. That ego prevents him from admitting that he did lose, but he DOES know it.
In the minds of reasonable people, supporting a sociopathic liar who has proven he is a lousy leader IS the definition of mental illness. What did Einstein say–“insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Trump’s 2d phony “presidency” will be an even bigger disaster than the first time, because the first time he had people around him to curb his most-dangerous impulses, like Gen. Milley, Gen. Kelly and even Bill Barr finally drew the line before he quit. This time, he will have syncophants who are incompetent, inexperienced and conflicted, but who will be obedient toadies who will do whatever he tells them to do. His economic plan is criticized by economists of all stripes as a very bad idea. Many of us just hope we don’t lose too much money we’ve worked hard for all of these years. He’s talking today about eliminating ALL banking regulations–do you have the slightest idea why this would be a disaster?
Gigi.
TDS is not made up – you CLEARLY suffer from it.
Regardless, women SELF REPORT with double the levels of anxiety and depression of men.
Those on the left self report with double the levels of anxiety and depression of those on the right.
Those under 30 self report with double the levels of anxiety of those over 50.
Most of these changes in the levels of anxiety and depression started in 2013 – Before Trump came down the escalator.
over 70% of Young female left wing nut self report with anxiety and depression.
The sky is not falling, Trump is not Hitler, the world is not coming to an end.
You live in the least racist country in the world, at the least racist moment in time.
Further you can substitute mysognist, homphobic, transphobic, … in the above and it will be true.
Slavery existed in the entire world prior to the 19th century. It ended in the US in 1865 – before MOST but not all the rest of the world.
The eradication of the global slave trade was accomplished by the navy’s of Great Britian, the US and France, with the US actively engaged in thwarting global slave trade starting within Months of England.
This country is not perfect – not today, not in the past, but there is not a single country in the world that can legitimately claim moral superiority.
Consumer confidence which fell throughout Biden’s term started slowly rising after the election.
You made a bunch of stupid claims regarding the post election views of people and I provided you with LOTS of polling from CNN, MSNBC, … left wing outlets indicating that the mood of the country has improved since the election. People are cautiously optimistic about the future.
It is also weird because in many – not all, ways Trump is the defacto president right now.
Trump, his administration, and republicans KNOW what they need to do in the next 2-4 years.
Making you and most of the rest of those suffering from TDS happy is not possible. Fortunately TDS sufferers do not make up a significant portion of the country.
Trump has a track records of delivering on his promises more so than possibly any politician in US history.
You can look up agenda 47 and know what his goals are – or you can listen to his campaign – in context, not MSM soundbites.
That is what voters expect.
Trump must deliver peace, prosperity and a secure border. Fortunately those are NOT that hard to deliver.
“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”
Adam Smith – 250 years ago.
Further, democrats have laid a marker to measure Trump’s performance.
He must do better than Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
Fortunately that is not difficult.
John Say,
Well said.
No, MAGA media did not make up TDS. You did all by yourself. Just read any of your comments. TDS is real.
Bidenflation is taking money out of your pockets now. Every time you fill up at the gas pump. Every time you check out at the grocery store. Bidenflation is costing Americans thousands of dollars every year just to maintain the same standard of living. And those on the lower end of the economic scale, they are not keeping up with Bidenflation.
lin: you are apparently talking about “select” apples–those that people pick up when they grab a quick deli sandwich and want a cold apple to go with it–which is why they are near the checkouts–the pre-made sandwiches contain meat and cheeses that need refrigeration. As a general rule, apples are not kept in the refrigerated section of grocery stores. Trump made up the “poor old lady story” just like he made up the “grocery prices will drop precipitiously” lie and the “your personal income will soar” fib–just to get gullible people to vote for him.
Do you think Trump knows the difference? Do you think he shops for his own apples? But immediately, you conclude that “Trump made up the ‘poor old lady story’ “just to get gullible people to vote for him.”
That’s your problem, GIgi, and why people laugh at you and dismss you, sick little woman.
Gigi,
People who accuse others of being a liar based on a “general rule” are liars.
I am going to disagree with you and Trump.
Bringing Grocery prics down is not at all hard – though it might not be fast.
Restore free markets and stop subsidizing spending with FED financed debt.
Milei has been in office in Argentina for about 18 months, He has slashed government spending
Argentina has a balanced budget for the first time in 123 years.
Inflation has dropped from 60% to 2.4%
Milei has turned around a recession with Growth expected to be 2% in 2025,
He has slashed government from 18 agencies to 8.
Argentina has strong prospects for the future.
“WHAT did I lie about?”
Everything
“Beginning with the Kristin Welker interview last weekend in which, responding to a question about quickly bringing down grocery prices, he admitted that it’s “hard”. There have been several other such on-camera admissions since then.”
It is also hard to catch a 250t rocket in chipsticks – yet musk has done that.
Saying something is hard is not an admission that it is impossible.
Words have meaning – hard != impossible.
“He has no clue how to do this.”
Maybe, maybe not. Your again engaged in mind reading.
Regardless the FACT is we actually know how to bring prices down. Mild deflation. We have had that for most of US history.
In fact it is NOT hard, it is perfectly natural. What is HARD is that we have never deliberately done it while a central bank existed.
Eliminate the FED entirely ad it will happen automatically.
I would further note that even if you do NOT lower prices – if you only increase wages the results as far as most people care are the same.
And that is so easy that it occurs naturally – except when Government F#$ks it up.
“He told some yuge whopper the other night about some poor old woman who tried to buy 3 apples, but had to put one of them back in the grocery’s “refrigerator” because the price was too high–and “that should never happen in our country”. Uh, it didn’t happen in our country. Here’s how we know it’s a lie: grocery stores don’t keep apples in the refrigerated section with the meat, dairy or other refrigerated items.”
Ever been to Costco ? About 1/4 of all produce in a costco is in a giant refridgerated room.
John Say,
Great comment! What a way to take down Gigi!!
Media bias? Yup, and let’s not forget Nicholas Sandmann, the kid wearing a MAGA hat at a rally pictured with tribal elder and activist Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln memorial. CNN reportedly paid Sandmann $250 million defamation lawsuit !
Tom–your “report” is fantasy–the terms of the settlement have never been disclosed–more MAGA media lies. From “Snopes”:
“News broke on Jan. 7, 2020, that Nick Sandmann, the teen at the center of a 2019 misinformation-fueled internet controversy, had settled with CNN after suing the cable station for defamation to the tune of $275 million.
Although it’s true that CNN settled with Sandmann, who had sought $275 million in damages, the details of the settlement were not made public. We sent questions to Sandmann’s attorney and CNN asking for clarification on any potential damages to be paid out to the teen but received no response from either.”
So, Sandmann asked for $275 million–that doesn’t mean he got it.
Of course no one Snopes sent letters to responded – the settlement is CONFIDENTIAL.
Regardless are you denying that CNN viciously defamed Sandman ? or is It OK with you for the media to tell nationwide lies about High School Students ?
Diogenes: my point is that it was Joe Biden who has done something to bring down grocery prices–by blocking the merger between Albertson’s and Kroger, using anti-trust laws which Trump will not enforce. Trump has no clue how to deliver on the multiple times he promised that grocery and housing prices would “drop precipitiously” and “very quickly”. Maybe you already forgot the Tic Tac demonstration or the tables with groceries set up by Republicans to get gullible people to believe that Trump was going to bring down the cost of groceries “very quickly” and “precipitiously”.
Gigi, Please explain how killing the A-K merger will lower grocery prices ?
How Will Trump deliver ? That is trivial. Reduce the deficit govenrment spending that through Fed Financing is driving inflation and the free market on its own will reduce the prices of nearly everything. That has been the historic norm FOR ALL HUMAN HISTORY – except when governments cause inflation.
Deregulation and lower taxes will help further.
Please provide a historic example anywhere EVER where “anti-trust” laws and their enforcement has LOWERED prices.
The Most famous Antitrust action of all time – the breakup of Standard Oil resulted in price increases accross the country.
Rockefeller actually got significantly Richer from the breakup.
I so enjoy your comments and responses to Gigi. Of course, I have to admit that I skip Gigi’s comments and go straight to the replies. Time on Earth is limited, so is my patience for stupidity and chronically angry people such as Gigi, Dennis, etc. (perhaps all the same person??).
What is really disturbing is that nearly everything I post is just plain facts. Anyone can find these with little effort.
While to counter Gigi’s constant stream of Trump was a disaster Biden was incredible – I typically use data from Trading economics – a site that gathers LOTS of long term economic data on most every country i the world. – You want to know the production of steel i the US for each of the past 50 years – it is there.
And on and on.
I do not know anyone who has accused trading economics of being partisan.
But there are other sources if you do not like them.
The Federal Reserve itself – for all its problems keeps excellent economic data.
As does BLS, NBS, FBI, GAO, CBO.
While we do have to be more careful with administration data – whether it is Trump or Biden, and neither GAO nor CBO are allowed to do economic projections correctly by law. Which means there claims regarding the projected costs/benefits of laws are near worthless.
Another major source of information is history.
Weirdly even many economists are not familiar with lots of economic history.
We have bee studying the effects of antitrust laws, and monopolies and all the other purportedly bad things of so called “end stage capitalism” for more than 100 years.
None of the claims that drove our laws and our ideas about business, monopolies regulation, and capitalism have EVER held up historically.
We cgot a massive lesson in this about a decade ago from “the london whale” a JP Morgan comodities trader in London with tens of Billions to play with tried to corner the market in some comodities to make vast profits. A couple of hundred million dollar hedge fund in central US figured out that something unnatural and wrong was going on and started betting heavily the opposite way. Others joined in and JP Morgon lost somewhere between 4-8B dollars.
All of the things left wing nuts tell us to fear about unregulated capitolism do not occur EVER without government being involved.
We are told horror stories of the past – like the Triangle shirt factory fire as evidence of the horrors of unregulated capitalism.
But that is poppycock these stories are just the natural progression as society moves from lower prosperity to higher prosperity.
There is absolutely no poor society on earth ever that places a high value on human life.
And no afluent one that does not.
When I was a child we put nickels in milk cartons in school for the starving millions in Bangelesech.
A few decades ago we were all horrified because a hundred bangeledeschis died in a factory fire.
What was NOT said was that people were not longer starving – by the millions in bangeledesch – because of those factories.
In the US OSHA enforces federal workplace safety laws. But OSHA has been obsolete for a long long time.
Why ? Because over the past 100 years the standard of living has risen and US factory workers are very valueable.
Go into almost every blue collar or facotry workplace and they have signs up for how long it has been since an injury or time lost accident.
They work hard to keep those numbers down – why ? Because those events are costly. Not just in the specific costs of the person injured – but because production stops or declines. A couple of hours downtime on a production line can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In much of the labor market today people are not trivially replaceable cogs in a machine. It often takes weeks to trian someone to be productive, and one unproductive worker on a US production line slows everyone down.
I told you were you can go to get data.
Now listen to the claims that people make about laws.
Name a single regulation anywhere ever that positively disrupted the actual trend that was in place BEFORE the regulation was passed.
Look at highway deaths as an example, and Safetybelt laws. Miles traveled per highway death has been increasing since the very first car in the US.
We know when safetybelt regulations took effect – there is no change in the trend of slowly diminishing highways deaths to show us that regulation did anything.
That does not mean that safety belts are bad. What it means is that many things effect safety – including thengs that were not done becuase of laws and may not have been done for safety. It also means that automobile manufacturers produce the cars that people want – if they want safer cars – then those will be produced.
Regardless in Psychology tere is something called Maslows hierachy of needs.
All that is, is psychology discovering what I told you above – that the more affluent people become the more foused they are on higher order needs.
Starving bangeledseschis will work in factories that no american would – becuase that is better than dying of starvation.
But the more the standard of living of begeledeschis rises the more they demand with respect to better workplace conditions.
Most everything the left wants – will happen – automatically without government the more affliuent we get.
My parents were “upper middle class” bordering on the lower end of rich. I am merely middle class.
I have NOT done as well, not been as successful as they have. Yet I am far better off than they were.
I have better cars, a nicer house, far more “stuff”. I remember when we bought our first color TV – it cost a fortune.
As I sit here I am surrounded by 3 huge screens – and this is just my office. All of them together cost less than that color TV – in even in nominal dollars.
Look at most everything in this country – even the poor live better today than the middle class 40 years ago.
Growing up I know NOTHING about homosexuality. What little I knew was that it was a crime. People went to jail for being homosexuals.
Today the worst that will happen is Mr. Phillips will not make them a custom wedding cake.
Trump was asked about Trans people in bathrooms in the interview Gigi cites – Trump said the same thing he said in 2016. “I don’t care, We have more important problems to deal with than what bathroom people use”
Contra the left all but a few extreme right wing nuts. Do ot care either EXCEPT where it comes to their kids. They do not want people trying to perv their kids.
NO Trans people are not going to perv their kids. But if all you need to be Trans is to “identify” as Trans – every pedophile in the US will be trans over night – if that will get them access to kids.
The big problem with the left is not the specifics of their values, it is the failure to understand that all humans respond to incentives – includig very bad humans.
Defund the police and criminals come out. Do not prosecute thefts under 1000 – and people will steal just under 1000.
Let Trans people into lockerooms with kids and every pedo will instantly become trans.
Invite people to come to the US – and 11-21M of them will flood in.
Reward people for being a victim – and everyone will claim to be a victim.
Punish success and people will stop succeeding.
John Say,
Another great comment. I cite the BLS jobs reports to refute what Gigi says. But I also drill down into the report, not just the head line. Also, I note the revisions that come out the following report.
I basically agree with John but he asked a question, “Name a single regulation anywhere ever that positively disrupted the actual trend that was in place BEFORE the regulation was passed.”
Clean Air Act in (specifically ~1970)
S. Meyer – please show where the Clean air act actually disrupted a trend – that is what I asked.
With respect to the environment we had TWO huge bad things happen one after the other.
The first was WWII – The US massively focused on war production and the NORMS of manufaturing – reducing waste, went out the window in order to win the war.
I do not have a problem with that – but it is the War that is the disruption of the trend.
The next is that we had a massive boom after the war – and while we were no longer tolerating massive waste, we were behind the curve in returning to the prior trend of cleaning up the air and the water.
Go find 19th and early 20th century photographs or descriptions of air quality in gities in the US or UK or …
The Air quality in big cities in the US was worse in 1900 than it was just before the clean air act passed.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries we heated homes with coal – air polution inside and outside homes was WORSE than in 1960.
I would note that if you go back to the 16th and 17th centuries you will find that the air quality in big cities was EVEN worse.
The early 20th century shift from Horses to cars radically improved air quality. As I recall NYC collected MILLIONS of lbs or horseshit every single day in 1900, and had to handle 250K gallons of horse piss EVERY DAY – and that is in addition to the pollution from coal heating.
I would further note that – while there were too few “noble savages” to wreak havoc on the environment in North America, in the 15th century, there is a reason that indian tribes did not have a concept of property value – that is because they were nearly all nomadic. They ruined the environment arround their village – and picked up and moved elsewhere. They farmed the land to death, hunted the forests to death,. polluted the streams and moved on
This worked – only so long as their numbers were small and they kept moving. There is a reason that we do not see in north america anything resembling what we saw in Egypt, or Sumeria – the creations arround 4500 years BEFORE “native americans” – that is because they were incredibly primative – on par with much of africa.
Absolutely we saw better in parts of Central and south america – that WERE on par with western civilization 4500 years earlier.
Regardless the Aztecs and Mayans and Inca’s and … had to solve the basics of sanitation that were necescary for fixed cities. Something that Native americans had not managed.
Regardless, my point is that NO the clean air act did NOT disrupt any long term trends.
And I am surprised SM – you should know by now – I do not make claims I can not back up.
It is True that the air is cleaner today than it was in 1960. It is NOT true that there is evidence that but for the clean air act that air quality be any different from what it is today.
There is LOTS of evidence that people work hard – without government to improve everything about their lives – including air quality they more afluent they are.
John, your demand was for someone to:
“Name a single regulation anywhere ever that positively disrupted the actual trend that was in place BEFORE the regulation was passed.”
The trend before 1970: Air pollution was rising from rapid industrialization. It was reported that respiratory illness was on the rise and the death rate was rapidly rising from that problem.
There were no monitoring systems, and attempts to improve air quality were uncoordinated. Air quality was getting worse (that was the trend.)
You might say that the trend was to improve air quality, but it didn’t. If that is your proof then it is meaningless. You can also say that there were other ways to improve air quality, but neither of these explanations is meaningful.
“The US massively focused on war production”
The war was over in 1945
“The Air quality in big cities in the US was worse in 1900”
That was not your argument.
Understand that I have a lot of agreement with your basic philosophy. I have a little less agreement with your black-and-white rhetoric.
“And I am surprised SM – you should know by now – I do not make claims I can not back up.”
Talking about ancient history or early America doesn’t back up the rhetoric contained in your claim.
“Regardless, my point is that NO the clean air act did NOT disrupt any long term trends.”
Yes, the long term might have made the Clean Air Act unnecessary, but how many years is that, 1, 50, 100, 1000? You stake your proof on the fact that the market will make things better, eventually, when the problem is killing people today, but the sun might burn out in that length of time.
* The criminal mind can’t be fixed. Hawaiian sweet rolls are now one (ONE) ounce per bun. 12 buns is 12 ounces. It’s TWO bites now. The price went up per ounce. SOMEONE start a new Hawaiian sweet bun company and make 12 buns at least 16 ounces.
Boycott Ruffles. They dropped it another notch. A bag is now 8 ounces at double the cost of 16 ounces. Not buying them anymore nor anything else that Corp makes.
I’ve gone draconian. Beans. No condiments, desserts , nothing but beans rolled in a tortilla. Eat it with a glass of lemon juice. Not paying those prices.
Btw watermelons 6 dollars each imported when they were bought for a nickel at origin.
Tariffs? It’s making them pay an income tax. Homegrown pays income tax so why not foreign origin.
I luv beans
Actually, several purveyors of bread products make Hawaiian-style bread products, including Lewis Bakery and some store brands–they use pineapple juice.
Shinkflation is a byproduct of Bidenflation. It costs more to make those products and they either have to raise the over all cost to the consumer, or they make them smaller for the same price. Unfortunately for us, Bidenflation is cumulative. There is no way to put the Bidenflation genie back in the bottle. We will likely be suffering from Bidenflation for years to come. Best recommendation, learn to make your own at home. We do. I have not bought store made bread in over a decade.
Upstate: Biden is not responsible for inflation–the Trump-caused recession played a big role, but you’ll never believe that.
ROFL
Inflation in jan 2021 was 1.4%,
There was no Trump-caused Recession. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
In 2020 the only negative growth was in the 2nd qtr due to left wing nut lockdowns. Q1, Q3, and A4 all saw positive growth.
Despite the historic decline in growth in Q2 2020 – that was matched by a historic rise in growth in Q3 and Q4 ended with enough growth that GDP for 2020 was the same as for 2019 – NO DECLINE, despite Covid, and despite the largest single QTR decline in US history.
That is not something I “beleive” – that is what the data says.
I would further note that recessions do NOT create inflation – they remove it.
Here is US inflation data from Trading Economics.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi
What does it take to get you to STOP lying about readily available economic data ?
It’s that who ya gonna believe, thing.
Same here on the bread. Fabulously easy, near foolproof recipe on MyLifeAsAStrawberry.com for a crusty boule. No modifications required at high altitude.
As I have stated here on the good professor’s blog more than a few times, Bidenomics has done so much damage, it may take years if not a decade to correct. Trump will be able to address it but it may take longer than Trump’s second admin. Fortunately for us, we will have four years of Trump, followed by eight years of Vance. It has also been noted how much the Biden admin is doing to sabotage the Trump admin already.
You should listen to Upstate, Gigi. The truth will set you free.
“The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” Even as he spoke, many believed in him. To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
– John 8, NIV
“As I have stated here on the good professor’s blog more than a few times”
Upstate repeating himself again, and so often, because he’s needy for attention
Upstate is a classy fellow. You? No.
Wrong. I am pointing out to those who do not understand economics that Biden’s economic damage could be felt for years to come.
People repeat themselves over and over on this blog because left wing nuts are incredibly stupid and oblivious to the facts.
Upstate–were you in a coma between 2016 and 2020? I ask because you don’t seem to know or recall that Trump inherited a robust economy created by Obama from the diaster Dubyah left him, which Trump proceeded to destroy. When the American people turned him out in 2020, the country was mostly shut down due to Trump’s utter incompetence in handling COVID, his lying about the seriousness, pushing fake cures, his stupid tariffs, and tax cuts mostly benefitting the wealthiest that drove the national debt to record levels. He is the only president in modern US history to lose jobs.
Joe Biden turned all of that around–the economy added 15.7 million jobs. The number is now 6.3 million higher than before the pandemic. The unemployment rate dropped back and has stayed lower, longer than at any time during the previous administration. The stock market has set several new records, and is up over 40%. Manufacturing has returned to the US. Biden got an infrastructure bill passed that will create thousands of good-paying jobs for building roads, bridges and airports. He got passed the Chips Act that will domesticate computer chip production so we don’t need to import chips from China. Despite Trump’s stupid chant of “drill baby drill” that he stole from former half governor Sarah Palin*, US petroleum production is the highest in history. We now have authority to negotiate prescription drug prices for Medicare–until Trump takes that away to pay back Big Pharma donors. Insulin is capped at $35/month.
Unfortunately for us, Trump will have the power to once again reward his donors with huge tax breaks that will drive the national debt into the stratosphere. He has utterly incompetent people like Musk recommending cuts that will have to come from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Benefits, the military and school lunch programs. In addition to his proven failures as a leader in his previous tenure, it is a fact that he cannot even manage his own finances without lying on loan applications and borrowing money to keep the doors open on his golf resorts. Do you think that other wealthy people have to keep borrowing to keep their businesses going? We’re in big trouble, and only some of us appreciate it.
*she stole it from the Black Panthers who coined the chant: “burn baby burn” during a race riot.
If Obama’s economy was so robust, why did the median income go down for the first time in modern history during Obama’s second admin? The story was so big, even NPR had to cover it. So Trump took Obama’s anemic economy and gave us three good years. Things were good across the board until COVID lock downs. He did not want to do them as he thought they were worse than the virus. And he was right as it has been proven the lock downs did more damage both economically and for peoples health. His tax cuts worked as they were planned. Obama took money out of our pockets so much so, I had to get a second off farm job. Trump put money back into our pockets. Trump did not lose jobs. The lock downs shut those businesses down. It was only when Red States began to re-open their economies/states, something Biden tried to prevent, is when the economy began to rebound. It was Blue states that lagged as they tried to maintain the lock downs. CA and NY were dead last in their economic recoveries. Biden then tried to take credit for “creating jobs!” Those jobs were not created. They were always there. The lock downs just closed them. Biden’s Rescue America Act was a disaster. The economy was already recovering and Biden then injected more money into a already hot economy. Former Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton Larry Summers said Biden’s policy would give us inflation we have not seen in a generation. He was right. We got Bidenflation that we are still feeling today. $120 used to buy us a full cart of groceries. Now, due to Bidenflation, we barely get three paper bags and they are not full. Biden’s infrastructure act has not built all those EV charging stations. His Inflation Reduction act has not done a thing, so much so, he said he wished he never called it that. It also was a boondoggle for Green companies, of which, like the Obama solar panel company, went bankrupt. Some millions of dollars were to go to building EV chargers. Like half a dozen have been built. One of those chips companies is closing its AZ plant after taking millions of dollars. Here is a scandal that Biden is leaving Trump and of course you are going to blame Trump for Biden’s incompetence, New Biden-Harris Medicare plan could cost taxpayers $20 billion in election-year giveaway, CBO warns https://justthenews.com/government/congress/new-biden-harris-medicare-plan-could-cost-taxpayers-20-billion-over-next-three
.@BillAckman on @CNBC: America is stepping into the most pro-growth, pro-business administration in my adult lifetime pic.twitter.com/8CTxs5Vly6
— CAPITAL (@capitalnewshq) December 12, 2024
BTW, Bush did not give Obama a crashed economy. That would of been Bill Clinton. During his admin, Andrew Cumo was assistant secretary United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. He and they lowered the standards for loans to sub-prime borrowers. Banks then did some cute banking things like SIVs and CDOs. When those blew up, Bush just so happened to be in office. Thing was, Bush and Congress already had a fix, but the Democrats delayed passing it until Obama was in office, early Feb after his inauguration so he could sign and take credit for it. Bush was urging for Obama to get involved after Obama won the election. It was Democrat optics. They did pass TARPA bailing out the banks, both parties and Bush, which I was very much against.
“I am concerned about fiscal sustainability and I am sorry that we haven’t made more progress,” she said adding that “I believe that the deficit needs to be brought down especially now that we’re in an environment of higher interest rates.”
— Janet Yellen
Note, under Yellen’s term as Biden’s Treasury Secretary, the US debt increased by $8.4 trillion.
She also claimed Bidenflation was “transitionary.” HAHAHAHAHA!
Again with the made up economic data.
2016 Q4 GDP growth was 2%. That was actually HIGH for Obama who averaged 1.48%
GDP Growth for Trump for 4″ years averaged 2% – including 2020 where growth was zero.
For 2016- 2019 Growth averaged 2.5%.
Trumps exonomy was not nearly as great as he claims – by 20th century standards 2.5% is not very good.
But it is the best growth of the 21st century.
“Upstate–were you in a coma between 2016 and 2020? I ask because you don’t seem to know or recall that Trump inherited a robust economy created by Obama from the diaster Dubyah left him,”
ROFL
Average GDP growth under W was 2%, under Obama was 1.48% – which is pathetic considering he took office at the bottom of a recession and had no where to go but up. The economy was volatile ad weak through the Obama presidency. It was not as weak during Biden’s 4 years but it was highly volatile.
And unlike every other president since Carter it was also inflationary.
“which Trump proceeded to destroy.”
GDP
2008 14.8T
2016 18.8T
2020 21.3T
“When the American people turned him out in 2020, the country was mostly shut down due to Trump’s utter incompetence in handling COVID, his lying about the seriousness, pushing fake cures, his stupid tariffs, and tax cuts mostly benefitting the wealthiest that drove the national debt to record levels.”
outside of Blue states shutdowns ended in May 2020.
3 times as many people died of Covid under Biden.
Biden kept all of Trump’s “stupid tarrifs”.
US Debt
2016 20T
2020 27T
2024 36T
Unemployment rate
Jan 2017 4.7%
Feb 2020 3.5%
Jan 2021 6.4%
Oct 2024 4.1%
For Most of the Trump administration UI was lower than anytime under Biden.
UI had already declined post Shutdown to 6.4% by the time Biden took office.
“The stock market has set several new records, and is up over 40%.”
DJIA
Jan 20, 2017 19827
Jan 20, 2021 30960 55% increase
Nov 5, 2024 41700 34% increase
Total Inflation 2017-2020 ZERO
Total inflation 2021-2024 21%
Real $ DJIA increase Trump – 55%
Real $ DJIA increas Biden – 13%
“Manufacturing has returned to the US.”
According to FRED US Real $ manaufacturing output is lower than it was in 2017 and barely higher than 2020, and well below Trump’s pre-covid peak.
“Biden got an infrastructure bill passed that will create thousands of good-paying jobs for building roads, bridges and airports. ”
ROFL
Correction Biden passed an infrastructure bill that cause inflation.
“He got passed the Chips Act that will domesticate computer chip production so we don’t need to import chips from China.”
We import very few semiconductors from China – we import them from Taiwan and South Korea.
The total size of the Chips act is barely more than TSMC is paying to build a FAB in Texas – a project that started under Trump.
Chips is rounding error in Semiconductors.
TSMC the largest smeiconductor manufacturer in the world is relocating to the US – and that started under Trump.
They are doing so for the same reason that Japan and Germany build cars in the US and that the EU builds airplanes i the US.
Neither Biden nor Trump had anything to do with that.
“Despite Trump’s stupid chant of “drill baby drill” that he stole from former half governor Sarah Palin*, US petroleum production is the highest in history.”
US crude output Nov 2019 13K bbl/day oct 2024 13.4bbl/day Huge increase.
Jan 2017 8.8K bbl/day.
“We now have authority to negotiate prescription drug prices for Medicare–until Trump takes that away to pay back Big Pharma donors. Insulin is capped at $35/month.”
Still shilling for price controls ? When have they ever worked ?
“The President signed four sweeping executive orders on Friday, which together will significantly lower the cost of prescription drugs while increasing access to life-saving medications such as insulin:
The first order directs federally qualified health centers to pass along massive discounts on insulin and epinephrine from drug companies to low-income Americans.
The second order will allow the safe, legal importation of prescription drugs from Canada and other countries where the price for identical drugs is lower.
The third order will prohibit secret deals between drug manufacturers and pharmacy “benefit manager” middlemen, ensuring patients directly benefit from available discounts at the pharmacy counter.
The fourth order ensures the United States pays the lowest price available among economically advanced countries for Medicare Part B drugs. The United States often pays 80 percent more for these drugs than other developed nations.”
What President ? Trump.
“He has utterly incompetent people like Musk ”
The most clueless statement I have ever heard. The richest man in the world – LITTERALLY A ROCKET SCIENTIST.
The man who lobbed a 250t spaceship into orbit and then catches it on descent with chopsticks.
That is the man you are calling “utterly incompetent” ?
ROFL
BTW Milei in Argentina just Balance the budget for the first time in 123yrs, brought inflation for 60% to 4% and brought growth from negative to 2.5%
all while cutting government from 18 to 8 agencies.
“it is a fact that he cannot even manage his own finances”
Trump net worth Jan 20,2021 – 2.45B, Trump net Worth Nov 2024 5.5B.
Please can Trump manage MY finances ?
“Do you think that other wealthy people have to keep borrowing to keep their businesses going?”
Yes, ALL realestate businesses are HIGHLY leveraged, in FACT that is their GOAL.
The business model for a realestate business is put up the minimum of capital to buy a property – with the rest coming from bank loans.
Pay for the operating expenses and the loan costs with rental income – Refinance every 4-7 years – the money from the refinance is your profit.
Pretty much every real estate business from mom and pop apartment buildings to Keller Williams Realty 0- the largest real estate company in the world work that way.
John Say,
Excellent use of real economic data to dismantle Gigi’s lies! Well done!
In a separate post I have proven that nearly all the claims you made are FALSE.
What does it take for you to CEASE making utterly bogus claims about easily verifiable economic data ?
Please look up your economic assertions before hitting reply.
Trading economics is a good source for lots of economic data – for the US and the world.
But FRED and other government sources work too.
Regardless can you NOT just make things up ?
Every president exagerates – and Trump is no exception, but I do not think even Joe Biden makes as stupid a claims as you do – and he is demented.
John Say,
Thank you for tuning me onto Trading Economics site. I have book marked it.
I use TE alot – because they have a massive amount of raw data about nearly everything for nearly every country in the world.
They are also very useful because they use the same standards for their data going back in time and accross different countries.
As an example you can find 10 different sources for US GDP/yr. with few exceptions they are equally trustworthy.
But they do not agree – they use slightly different measures or they are not updtodate with govenrment corrections or any of a number of reasons that are mostly unimportant as long as you do not try to compare related data from multiple different sources.
As an example if you use CIA for GDP/yr and World Bank for GDP/PPP and Frazer for median income you may have anaomalies trying to compare the data even though it is all permutations of the same thing – standard of living. But you have to be very careful mizing and matching sources.
I Use TE primarly because with a few exceptions I can get LOTS of different data from ONE source and I do not have to worry about methodology differences.
I am NOT selling TE as the word of god. I FREQUENTLY use government sources for data that is only available from government.
Gigi
is it atleast possible for you to agree with Gov. Shapiro that the “Cash For Kids” pardon was a huge mistake and despicable.
https://youtu.be/008OLZAHvvQ
Insulin prices started to dramatically fall during the Trump administration. Biden’s law followed the trend.
The leftists are already spinning the “bring grocery prices down” fallacy. The dems overspending and printing caused ultimately %20+ inflation as a result of their policies. No one, except Dems who want to conflate reality for political fodder, believes that our food and salaries will EVER got back/down -%20. It’s just not going to happen. The brutal result of inflation have and continue to hammer the poor. What Trump can and is attempting is to STOP rampant inflation, and if we are lucky, some prices might revert a few percentage points. A healthy economy and reduced debt (Thanks Dems for bringing our interest payments to be larger than our GDP and our Defense budget) will help the poorer folks in the US be able to having more buying and more savings power, like they did in the previous admin. Repubs need to increase competition in the medical and food supply marketplaces, and let free enterprise solve our problems. We essentially have one beef supplier in the US now, and it’s aBrazilian owned monopoly. Bring back our small business farmers and food suppliers, and stop with the woke food propaganda.
True, and I think the inflationary impact for many was worse than 20%. The Gubment lies with statistics.
If you do a little research you will find that the so called “tax cuts for the rich” actually led to record revenue into the federal coffers 5 out of the last 7 years, with one of those years being Covid 2020 when businesses we shut down by government. Revenue hit $4.9T in 2022. Tax revenue is up 48% but spending is up 40% and we borrow another $1T every 100 days under Biden. Tax cuts have led to record revenue dating all the way back to Calvin Coolidge, and include JFK, Reagan, Clinton, George W and Trump, and the bonus for those on the left that seem to hate successful wealthy people is that they actually paid way more in taxes accounting for 45.8% of all income tax collected in 2022. Up from 37.3% in 2016. There will be NO cuts to SS or Medicare under Trump as he has clearly stated multiple times, but within the next 10 years nature and math will take their course and benefits will have to be cut as both programs are insolvent. Official statistics are available in many places. The easiest way to find those statistics is to go look at a copy of the annual “Economic Report of the President.” It doesn’t have to be the latest Report under President Biden. It can be a Report from any administration. All income groups and all races benefited under the Trump tax cuts, which is why he got re-elected.
Obama’s Cheif Economic advisor Christine Romer did work on this decades ago. She derived the efficiency of various different forms of taxes.
While she did not call it the “laffler curve” she established accross not just the US but the entire OECD that there was a revenue optimizing maximum rate for each different form of taxes.
For income taxes the revenue optimizing maximum is about 33% – that is ALL income taxes of any kind combined.
There are a few other variables. There are marginal issues for taxes – all economics takes place at the margins.
Sales taxes are much harder to avoid. Income taxe o the worling class can not be avoided, but income taxes on the rich are easily avoided – and usually in ways that harm others not themselves. Do you think Musk spends more money on himself each year than Trump does ? Musk is about 100 times wealthier than Trump. But their quality of life is nearly identical. Trump’s Jet is about the same as Musks. They own about the same amount of personal property. What is the difference ? Musks INVESTMENTS are worth 100 times more than Trump’s. Musj could see his net worth drop by a factor of 100 and it would not change anything about his daily life. He would not have to sell his jet. or change anything.
When you tax the wealthy you are taxing capitol and investment – which is the stupidest tax of all.
No. It is not what Trump said. It is the fact we all know life was better under the first three years of the first Trump admin. We all know the Biden admin has been a disaster. Biden was so sharp as a tack as MSM lied and gaslight America, when the curtain was pulled back and the obvious mental decline of Biden could no longer be denied, they, the DNC, dumped Biden. Then they did something really dumb and very un-democratically, replaced him with Harris. At first, they tried to run on the “joy” campaign. With warm and fuzzy softball interviews or appearances on non-realistic shows like The View. When that began to fail, they had to turn to their last and only tactic, fear. And out it came from not only the Harris campaign but MSM. None stop fear. The good news is the majority of Americans saw through their BS and either voted for Trump, or did not vote at all. And those people who did not vote at all, a lot of them were Democrats or minorities.
Gigi showed up for the daily dose of abuse she so craves.
Weird!
Trump won Gigenius; go hide yourself.
Unfortunately, Gigi is using the old excuse, “Jimmy did it too!” It would seem that her parents never asked her, “If Jimmy jumped out of a 50 story building, would you do the same?” Once a person points to the (perceived) bad behavior of another as justification, they lose the argument. BTW: Did Gigi ever address the issue of media bias?
Someone get new batteries in the Gigi-bot, she’s defaulted to repeating the same swill again.
Gigi pulled all the batteries to use in her herd of weird vibrators and dildos.
Gigi, Trump and republicans will be judged in 2026 and 2028 on Reagan’s question in 1980 and 1984
“Are You Better Off Than You Were 4 Years Ago?”
Just as Biden/Harris were a month ago – the answer was NO.
You will still be here in 2 and 4 years telling us that things are radically differnet than reality, and that Trump fell a twinkle short of some promise and therefore hie is the worst liar tht ever lived.
But
“You don’t matter anymore”
People are not listening.
Yes, Blocking the merger of Albertson and Kroger is a huge deal – REALLY ?
Please. Neither approach monopoly. Joined they are still insignificant.
There are 4 major grocery chain stores within 2mi of my door, half a dozen smaller groceries, even more mom and pop’s half a dozen minim-marts that sell groceries as well as dozens of farm stands.
Oh and I forgot Big Box stores like Costoc or Best Buy or Walmart.
In FACT there are far MORE places for me to buy Groceries than ever in my life, and more choices in those stores than ever before.
But even if the only grocer for miles was a Kroger – the actual economic data shows that in free markets monopolies do not exist.
That even when only actor dominates the market – they still must be competive – if they are not competition will emerge automatically.
Why ? Because investors want to make money. If Kroger is profiting hand over first – then there is a huge incentive to open a grocery down the block and take a cut of those profits.
As Adam Smith noted 250 years ago – your daily bread is provided not by the charity of others, but by their desire to profit.
The FTC is one of the agencies that should have its doors closed.
It serves no purpose.
” An Albertson’s-Kroger merger would have created a powerful monolith that smaller grocery retailers couldn’t compete against.”
Do you think before you write ?
You have a choice between Al-Krog, or Mom and Pop down the street – who do you pick ?
Do you shop at Al-K because it is a powerful monolith ? Or do you shop at the smaller groceries ?
The answer is you shop where the prices and quality are best. If you are claiming that A-K will provide cheaper prices driving mom and pop out of the market, then isn’t blocking the merge making prices HIGHER
And if A-K can not provide lower prices – why can’t mom and pop compete ?
You seem to beleive that this A-K merger will result in some bohemoth that will mesmerize people into paying more and that smaller cheaper groceries will go the way of the Dodo – because people do not want cheaper groceries – that they actually want to pay more for poorer quality.
” Also high on the agenda– consumer protections are going to get rolled back, along with anti-trust enforcement,”
From your mouth to Trump’s ears. Please Please Please get rid of this idiotic nonsense that has HARMED consumers.
Are You Better Off Than You Were 4 Years Ago?
In November americans voted NO.
Trump and republicans will be swept out of power if they are unable to get to yes by 2026.
@Gigi: you are a lying slut here to pay off Hunter Biden for performing as one of his crack whores.
These full page spread legged gaping crotch shots in Hunter Biden’s laptop are arguably your best look, Gigi. The drool from the lips is still there, though!
Gigi Goes All The Way In The Hunter Biden Laptop Online
https://bidenreport.com/#p=5
Given the explicit nature of the text and pictures of the Biden Laptop, this online version of the laptop contents is for an adult readership only.
ISBN: 978-1-7371866-3-2
@2022 by ICU, LLC
Here is a clip of TYT – the Young Turks, you can not get further left than this.
With Both Chenk and Ana caustiously optomistic that Trump could be good on many things.
They Listed specific policies that they and Trump agree on.
https://youtu.be/2OTtKvLX1UM
Gigi, this is stupid on your part.
While in truth most people just KNOW you are a liar without bothering to do the analysis.
Frankly – you the left, democrats, the MSM have burned any credibility that you had to the ground, through your myriads of prior lies.
I have REPEATEDLY pointed out – through numerous Different data sources that 3/4 of the economic claims you make about Trump and/or Biden are totoal horse schiff.
And all I have to do is wait – often less than a day – and you will repeat the same thoroughly discredited claims again.
You make false claims – over and over.
You do not correct when you are proven wrong.
That is called LYING.
No the remarks you cite are NOT “proof” trump lied.
Lowering grocery prices is actually NOT hard.
The POLITICS of lowering grocery prices is nearly impossible.
Grocery prices – nearly all prices will decline on their own – if we eliminate the (hopefully) mild inflation that central banks introduce into an economy.
As I have noted – and you can easily check – mild DELATION is the NORM over the long run everywhere there is not a central bank throughout history.
It is NOT until the early 20th century that long term inflation rather than deflation has been the norm.
I would note that deflation is inherently beneficial to the poor and working classes.
While inflation is beneficial to the rich.
Regardless Trump CAN and with near certainty WILL move towards a significantly more FREE MARKET. And you will rant and rage that “he is killing people” even though there will be no change in any safety trends. The greater the extent that Trump moves the market towards more freedom, the more prices will move from rising to falling.
They political questions – the HARD part is how much deregulation can Trump accomplish without Congress, and how much more he can get through a republican congress.
While Trump has the largest political support I have seen in my lifetime for reigning in Government – and Republicans are significantly less of a problem with regulation than democrats.
It is absolutely false to pretend that most republican politicians truly favor deregulation.
Knowing what is needed to reign in inflation – to even lower prices is EASY. Getting through the political obstacles is exponentially harder the bigger the improvement you seek.
But lets skip past that – because while I doubt that Trump is going to succeed in bringing grocery prices down the close to 30% they have risen under Biden.
There is very little that he needs to do – except STOP lots of stupid Biden policies which will likely all be terminated on Day one, to slow the rate of increase of grocery and other prices below the rate of increase in wages. The lower inflation is, and the higher growth is by simple MATH the more people can afford.
Gigi, you do understand that by claiming that Trump is right and that grocery prices are going to be hard to lower – you are ADMITTING that Biden/Harris screwed over the entire country – and particularly the poor and working classes.
Again – how would the A-K deal have raised prices ? How would killing the A-K deal lower prices ?
You keep making claims but you provide no support.
You say that the A-K deal would have created a powerful monolith that small groceries could not compete with.
Do you have evidence that small groceries could not compete ?
Free markets constantly create new business – usually small ones, Most fail, but not all. those that do not fail tend to grow. But ultimately nearly all fail and are replaced by new businesses. Can you name a single company on the Fortune top 10 in the US in 1960 that is STILL in the fortune top 10 ?
What about a company in the fortune top 10 that is still in business ?
Telsa, Apple, Microsoft, Google the largest businesses in existance right now – not one of them existed in 1960.
Businesses grow and they die. You are worried about “monoliths” – yet of those giants of the past – US Steel, AT&T, IBM, GM, Chrysler, DuPont are bit players in the economy today.
In 30 years the giants of today will be gone or overshadowed – by businesses that do not exist today.
So your worried that A-K will do What ?
BTW – while I doubt A-K will pose any real threat to small grocers, and if the merger does anything it will LOWER prices – that has been the historic norm, what is STILL true is that the A-K merger will not make Walmart, Costco, Trader Joes, Aldi, Save Mart, Whole Foods, or Target out of business.
Your claims are absurd nonsense.
I have asked you repeatedly to provide an ACTU*AL explanation why blocking the AQ-K merger will lower grocery prices ? or Why allowing it will raise them.
You provided any argument beyond “I say so” to support your naked assertion.
If you can not explain the ACTUAL economic impact of the A-K merger – beyond “I do not like big things” why shoudl anyone beleive you on ANY economic issue ?
Trump’s plan is “agenda 47” it is readily available to anyone.
Absolutely it includes rolling back LOTS of government regulations.;
I asked you before for evidence of a SIGNGLE goverment regulation or law that disrupted any long term trend.
YOU promised that PPACA would save millions of lives – yet US life expectancy has gone down slightly since it passed.
PPACA did not cause that – other demographic trends did. But there is ZERO evidence that PPACA had ANY positive impact on US health.
This is ONE example, but the FACT is you can not name a single government law or regulation EVER that beneficially altered an existing trend.
“Anti-Fascist Blues”
https://youtu.be/J7jNpxOCZTM
When a former stripper and murderess shows far more contrition than college liberals, that tells you something: leftism has become a mental disorder–the only known mental disorder that is literally contagious.
Where are the trustees on our college campuses? They should be sued for failing their fiduciary duties. How did it come to this??
Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson wrote a terrific book about this – Guilty Until Proven Innocent. The depth and breadth of detail demonstrated a massive breakdown in our system for these students. It was horrible. So many of our honored institutions aligned against them with without regard to simple human fairness and decency and our right to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty – in court. The best writers of legal fiction couldn’t make up a more compelling, frightening plot. You’ll pinch yourself often to remind yourself it really happened. And you’ll pray the scars inflicted on the students and their parents have healed.
As I have advocated, the days of corrupted prosecutors and Judges has long passed. The blanket shelter of Prosecutorial and Judicial Immunity from prosecutions and tort action resulting from malfeasance, and malicious prosecutions and rulings that knowingly (by a reasonable person) violate an Americans Constitutional Rights must end by State and Congressional action. The blatant actions of Judge Emmitt Sullivan in the US v. Flynn case was the watershed moment in American Jurist Prudence. The actions of this Prosecution Team and the Judge in 2006 should have been a shot fired across the Bow to awaken us to this criminal malfeasance.
An attorney in Nashville , Nader Baydoun (who played football for Duke) wrote a fairly good account of the incident, A Rush to Injustice, in 2009.
Perhaps 10 years from now Christine Blasey Ford will reveal that she made up her entire story about Kavanaugh. . .
Soon as Kavanaugh started talking, I started to believe her. He might’ve been too drunk to remember, but his calendar was full of evidence.
His calendar? You mean when he was in high school? Yeah, no one believed her. It was obvious she was lying when we found out that none of his clique of friends even knew who she was. She was two years younger and never hung out or partied with any of them, ever.
Christine Ballsy Ford educated Americans and facilitated their understanding that communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) will prevaricate and lie utterly and without remorse to illicitly obtain all the power, “free stuff,” and “free status” they can, while Americans will sit idly by and allow it, absurdly and falsely believing that the Constitution provides no redress against such atrocity—for simply refusing to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533, Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of the Realm, was beheaded.
Believe the women, not so much.
Another wretched manifestation of a nation and its media still under the sway of thst notorious soul group ‘Al Sharpton and The Haters’: MSNBC, BLM, ACLU, NAACP, and others of their ilk, who are still selling the victimization mantra of ‘so I’m depraved on account of I’m deprived’ to their useless tools, such as Alvin Bragg, who use it as justification to cut the legs out from under the justice system.
Lying and knowing the public doesn’t care sure helped “Rev? Al Sharpton career!!!
The problem then is the same as now. Colleges are led by an entire corps of feckless administrators, hired because they are feckless, and serving at the alter of expediency. Moral, ethics, justice, and intelligence are applied only after the fact, and only when convenient.
The aftermath of all of this is that lives were damaged and it goes back to lawyers and the judicial system not doing their jobs. Justice seems to be of little consequence to people who want media fame. And the media — most are hounds from hell, looking for the next story line to meet deadlines or build careers. To counter this, the transgressions of those who report dishonestly, politicians who lie, should be on a public list of what they say and their records of abuse. We saw this in the last election. Saying something doesn’t make it true but how they say it, sounds true and the public doesn’t ask the most basic of questions — ‘why and how’. It is time to push for truth — or certainly try — and this starts with basic skepticism and by not taking everything at face value. I don’t know, in the world of social media, if this will happen. People are lazy and seem to be getting dumber by the day!
Just proves without a doubt – higher education is peppered with MORONS who are gullible simpletons!
Good article on the race hustle aspects of this, last week by J H Kunstler, re Daniel Penny:
https://www.kunstler.com/p/twilight-of-the-race-hustle
This great quote to start the article:
“There is nothing more fake than when the libs pretend to have an emotional outpouring over some dead loser they didn’t give a f**k about while they were living.” — Aimee Terese
The whole article is here:
https://www.kunstler.com/p/twilight-of-the-race-hustle
Really enjoy Kunstler. Always a priority on my Monday and Friday reading list.
“The problem is that little was likely learned in higher education from the experience.” (JT)
It’s far worse than that.
Some of the worst miscreants among the “Gang of 88” were *promoted*, e.g., to dean, the head of institutes. Then-President Brodhead egged on the pot-banging race/gender/class witch hunt, assumed his own students guilty, and sacrificed the very successful lacrosse coach. After the dust cleared, Brodhead didn’t suffer so much as even a mild reprimand.
Ironically, the best chronicler of that nightmare is a liberal history professor — KC Johnson. His blog focused on the facts and the truth. His unwavering dedication to justice was a major factor in the exoneration of the falsely accused lacrosse players. And he exposed the rot underneath academia’s “social justice” warriors.
KC now posts on X, exposing Title IX abuses and antisemitism on campus
I hate to say it but the same media horde mentality applies to the George Floyd imbroglio. If that incident was not the subject of mass hysteria, it would have done down for what it was: another fentanyl death. You would think the MSM would learn from experience but the temptation to manufacture a narrative that fits their ideological bent is too great.
And, thankfully, a jury of sane adults saw through the same gambit proffered by alvin bragg against that Marine on the NYC subway. I do think enough adults in the room are seeing the pernicious pattern with this soros-backed DAs and the prog/left to dismantle our system of blind, objective justice and use its remnants as a cudgel against white people.
* Chauvin did not perform CPR. Believe it or not police were not required to carry NARCAN until 2023.
Lying, african american stripper; that pretty much says it all in light of so many other exposed african american women in public office that say and do what they want with impunity believing that “the system” will protect them and swallow their lies – just because.
Well, plenty of White women teach them it can be done. Hillary Clinton comes to mind.
* it would be good if no one thought to observe the stripper, murderer is black. On the otherhand if a white student reported rape by a white student 18 years ago they were told—> he’s not in love with you. Just don’t do it again.
White college girls rarely report.
whimsicalmama says:
“that pretty much says it all in light of so many other exposed african american women in public office that say and do what they want with impunity believing that “the system” will protect them and swallow their lies – just because.
African American women like Liz Cheney?
Hillary Clinton?
Nancy Pelosi?
Elizabeth Warren?
“Stormy Daniels”?
Jill Biden?
A fine example of how low MSM was. I did not think it was possible but they have gotten even lower in the past eight years with their advocacy journalism.
Crazy. The story started falling apart almost immediately, and Nifong played fast and loose with the rules in order to railroad these guys. What if they had been wrongfully convicted? Chilling. Nifong should have spent the rest of his life in prison for this.
There need to be large amounts of money sent to the former hockey players both from the state of North Carolina and Duke University.
Also I note AG Roy Cooper suffered no adverse effects to his career since I believe he became governor of the state.
GEB, you are correct. that Cooper is the current governor of NC (my home state) finishing his second term. He will be succeeded by the current AG, Jeff Stein who just won the election. It is remarkable that the Reps are quite successful in winning elections for the State House and Senate, but loose th elections for the top executive positions. Fortunately, the Reps have supermajorities in both, so the governor has limited power and vetos can be overridden.
“There need to be large amounts of money sent to the former hockey [lacrosse] players both from the state of North Carolina and Duke University.”
Duke did settle, for a very large though undisclosed amount. In the meantime, it spent some *$100 million* on legal fees.
To Cooper’s credit, he did declare the wrongly accused students factually “innocent” and the victims of a “rogue prosecutor.”