Boomers, especially if they were white, got to buy houses, and then they zoned everyone else out.

Yep. 90% of the homelessness crisis results from NIMBYism. It’s a lot easier to not be homeless when rent is $400 a month rather than $2,000 a month. I also blame economists who consistently lie about the cost of housing and the drivers behind the inflation there. The truth, though, is this.

In 1981, at 24, I bought my first house. At a price of $70,000, it cost less than three times my annual salary of $25,000, which was roughly the median income in Sacramento County. If adjusted for inflation alone, the home’s value would be $218,000 four decades later, and my salary $78,000.

The median household income in the county today is about $84,000, not far from what inflation would predict. But Zillow estimates that my former home is now worth $578,000, more than double what can be attributed to inflation. My annual wages would need to be more than $190,000 to afford the house as easily as I did then. This is what the children and grandchildren of boomers face.

Notice that this is the same house. So the economists’ usual excuse of “houses just got bigger, the cost per square foot is the same!” cannot be used here. Also, the Case-Shiller method uses the same houses (which economists don’t like you to know) for its calculations. Our so-called experts are just about worthless for anything that matters.

A lot of women are convinced only women have double binds such as the Madonna vs. slut one that women commonly experience.

However, a very common one that men run into is that we are assumed to be constantly ready to have sex with any woman at any instant, always aroused and ready for action. But then are criticized extremely vociferously both when that is true — and when it’s not the case. For instance, woe betide you if some woman is attracted to you and you don’t immediately drop everything to get down with her, or are just not in the mood. Then you are “gay” or “not a real man” and such. All her friends will hear about it too.

Most people are solipsistic, so cannot see beyond their own noses. Men, though, experience very many double standards as to their expected behaviors. Perhaps not as many as women, but pretty damn close.

I think some of that Annie Jacobsen Nuclear War book was written by ChatGPT. It just has that feel to it.

The book Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen is good in parts, but be wary of it. There are many facts that are wrong or dubious. For instance, this.

Three of the six nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi sustained severe core damage and released radioactive materials, but they did not melt down.

That is completely incorrect. In fact, all three experienced partial meltdown. It just was not a completely catastrophic meltdown, à la Chernobyl in 1986.

In the Fukushima incident, however, this design failed. Despite the efforts of the operators at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to maintain control, the reactor cores in units 1–3 overheated, the nuclear fuel melted and the three containment vessels were breached.

That above is the definition of a meltdown.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who already knows more than is in the book. Which, then, maybe you don’t need to read it. I still enjoyed it because it was such an easy read and refreshed my memory on a few things (at least partially by being woefully incorrect).

The line “She is like a cat in the dark/And then she is the darkness” in Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon” is probably the best line in a pop song ever written. Just so evocative and lovely. Wish I could’ve written that, but I’m glad someone did.

The first ten on today’s playlist:

I don’t think my musical taste is better than anyone else’s. But I do think I listen to more different songs in a month than most people listen to in 15-20 years.

I think this outfit that Rebecca Hall wore in 2015’s The Gift is my favorite one that any woman in a movie has ever donned:

Those collarbones! I have no idea what that neckline cut is called but it’s hella flattering on Rebecca. The film is also very good, which helps.

Soccer is just the worst sport. Boring, absurdly repetitive, about as interesting as a tax return. I’d rather watch competitive donkey-licking.

I still firmly believe that back in 2019, someone in the WIV dropped a vile vial of Covid virus and thus gifted us with the pandemic. A lab leak is the only explanation that makes any actual sense.

Since relations with China have declined greatly since that time, I guess we’d not kowtow to China publicly nearly as much now. Not that it would’ve mattered to the outcome greatly. But the truth still matters.

By the way, the “people’s brains aren’t fully developed until they are 25” claptrap is just as much bullshit as the earlier “we only use 10% of our brains” nonsense that preceded it. Both are based on shoddy understandings of incomplete research — for instance, the study that people have used to conclude that the prefrontal cortex keeps changing until age 25 only studied people age 21-25. No one older.

Later studies showed that your PFC keeps changing into your 30s and beyond. Unsurprisingly. The brain is dynamic unto death.

I cannot emphasize how absolutely and fully horseshit the idea that the “brain doesn’t mature fully until age 25” is. It’s dipshit clown crap of the highest order.

If you think inflation is bad now, just wait till China attacks Taiwan in 2030 and we lose access to all Chinese and Taiwanese (TSMC) manufactured goods. That’s not gonna be a good time.

Minus housing, I’d expect ~40% inflation for a few years.