Demographics

Which Side are You On? Four Facts and Two Promising Prescriptions for Dampening Inflation

florence-reece.jpg

As mine owners and their goons terrorized striking miners and their families during the Harlan County Coal wars in 1931, Florence Reece penned the iconic labor song, “Which Side Are You On.” It pleads for unity and collective resistance. As one verse puts it, “they say in Harlan County there are no neutrals there.”  read more »

Anti-Semitism is Creeping Back into America

trump-fuentes-anti-semitism.jpg

Donald Trump’s intimate tête-à-tête with Kayne West and white nationalist and Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes should have caused a storm among Republicans.  read more »

Will Amtrak Benefit from Telecommuting?

UAL64.jpg

Airlines carried 94 percent as many passengers in September 2022 as they did in September 2019, according to passenger counts published by the Transportation Security Administration. That’s up from 91 percent in August and 88 percent in September.  read more »

Australian Work Access: Not Yet the New Normal

CBD_Melbourne.jpg

Around the world, the pandemic produced a strong increase in working at home and a reduction in traveling to work in the last few years. Even as lockdowns have generally been removed or relaxed, the share of the remote work force has greatly increased from previous norms.  read more »

Europe is Increasingly One Connected Knowledge Economy

944px-Europe_countries_map_en_2.png

Currently, Europe going through difficult times, with war raging, inflation, and a recent global pandemic. However, we are also witnessing a significant shift in economic development within Europe, which allows for a greater understanding of how the economic map will evolve during the next global growth phase. The knowledge jobs are growing largely in the South and East  read more »

After Intersectionalism

LA_City_Council-Members.jpg

The divisive racial ideology that dominated American politics for the past decade is dying. Led by minority activists and white progressives, “woke” ideology promoted a Manichean struggle between a coalition of the BIPOC, an acronym for “Black, Indigenous, and people of color” (assumed to be natural allies) against what the BIPOC Project calls a hegemonic system of “white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism.” But this vision of Black and white racial conflict, while still influential in universities and elite institutions, keeps getting rejected by American voters—as happened in political referendums on issues like policing and immigration  read more »

The Vocation of Masculinity

group-of-men.jpg

Two or three years ago someone asked me to write an article on the vocation of masculinity for a themed issue of a magazine devoted to vocation. It didn’t make it into the issue, and I lost track of it. Since it’s still as relevant as ever, I decided to use it for this month’s newsletter. Enjoy.  read more »

Subjects:

Housing Affordability in California: Part 3 — A Way Forward

Bakersfield_CA_arch.jpg

Urban containment has significant costs. In commenting on the association between London’s urban growth boundary,1 and the higher costs of housing, The Economist said: “Suburbs rarely cease growing of their own accord. The only reliable way to stop them, it turns out, is to stop them forcefully.  read more »

A Tale of Two Americas

US-Pop-Change_2020-2021.png

Yesterday’s Midterms were not a victory for conservative or progressive ideology, but an assertion of the growing power of geography in American politics. It was less a national election than a clash of civilizations.  read more »

The Cover Up

iranians-protest-islamic-regime.jpg

On 16 September 2022 the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in a hospital in Tehran following her arrest by Iran’s Guidance Patrol. Although the details surrounding her death has been disputed, given that she suffered from previous brain injuries  read more »