My canary in the Calizuela coal mine

City Hall budget shrinks by 7 %

Santa Monica’s 2019-2021 budget is 7% or about $108 million smaller than its last biennial budget, marking the beginning of a decade where the city will have to pay down a $448 million pension liability while adjusting to tepid revenue growth.
Although the city is tightening its belt, the almost $1.6 billion biennial budget City Council adopted Tuesday boosts funding for homeless services, rental assistance for low-income seniors and a new website officials call a “digital City Hall.” It also maintains funding for a $77 million annex at City Hall, a $115 million reboot of City Yards and new water infrastructure to wean Santa Monica off imported water by 2023, protecting the city from future droughts and higher water rates.
A $9.3 million payment to CalPERS, the state pension fund, kicks off the city’s 13-year plan to pay off the pension liability ahead of time. CalPERS fell into crisis following the 2008 recession and jurisdictions across California now have to make up a massive shortfall between the pensions the state promised to workers and the balance of the fund.
Santa Monica’s accelerated repayment plan will save more than $100 million in interest, said finance director Gigi Decavelles-Hughes. Even so, the pension liability and eroding revenues from sales tax as consumers shop online instead of in Santa Monica’s brick-and-mortar stores could put the city $50 million in the red over the next 10 years if it doesn’t cut costs. A looming recession would only make matters worse.

We are still paying off the pension losses from the crash.  Santa Monica is rich persons country, always generous with the pensions.  Yet, even in this wealth enclave, a 7% reduction of government is recessionary. I take it that local hiring had all but stopped, hence the teacher strikes.  My random reading of Pension Tsunami reveals that conclusion as they report budgets around California.

A clue

Here is why Roberts rejected the citizenship question:

Although each US government agency is constituted within one branch of the government (judicial, legislative, or executive), an agency's authority often extends into the functions of other branches. Without careful regulation, that can lead to unchecked authority in a particular area of government, violating the separation of powers, a concern that Roosevelt himself acknowledged. To provide constitutional safeguards, the APA creates a framework for regulating agencies and their roles. According to the Attorney General's Manual on the Administrative Procedure Act, drafted after the 1946 enactment of the APA, the basic purposes of the APA are the following:^[9]

1. to require agencies to keep the public informed of their organization, procedures and rules;
2. to provide for public participation in the rulemaking process, for instance through public commenting;
3. to establish uniform standards for the conduct of formal rulemaking and adjudication;
4. to define the scope of judicial review.

The APA's provisions apply to many federal governmental institutions. The APA in 5 U.S.C. 551(1) defines an "agency" as "each authority of the Government of the United States, whether or not it is within or subject to review by another agency," with the exception of several enumerated authorities, including Congress, federal courts, and governments of territories or possessions of the United States.^[10] Courts have also held that the U.S. President is not an agency under the APA. Franklin v. Mass., 505 U.S. 788 (1992).

The Final Report organized federal administrative action into two parts: adjudication and rulemaking.^[8] Agency adjudication was broken down further into two distinct phases of formal and informal adjudication. Formal adjudication involve a trial-like hearing with witness testimony, a written record, and a final decision. Under informal adjudication, agency decisions are made without these formal procedures, instead using "inspections, conferences and negotiations." Because formal adjudication produces a record of proceedings and a final decision, it may be subject to judicial review. As for rulemaking resulting in agency rules and regulations, the Final Reportnoted that many agencies provided due process through hearings and investigations, but there was still a need for well-defined uniform standards for agency adjudication and rulemaking procedures.

This rule is kind of a formalization of due process, and no doubt has caused litigations in the past.

 I missed this part. But the conditions are easily met. Trump need only open some public hearing and list the reason why he wants to count citizens. Hence, Trump will delay the census and execute the formal meetings, then add the citizenship question. The opposition says the citizenship question causes changes in federal funding as latinos might not answer. But asking about citizenship is non racial. Further, it is Congress who sets the rules on fund disbursement, not the census department.

So, pay attention Kevin Drum, and we note that Roberts ruled on this act, not the citizenship question itself. So, cut out the talking point knee jerking, it makes you look stupid.

On what side?

Jacob Wohl Says He’ll Enlist If Trump Attacks Iran

Most patriotic Americans are still a bit pissed off that the Saudis bombed us. American patriotism knows no bounds, me and the Bearing Arms nuts intend to attack the Saudis in revenge, and we will shoot any doofus American service person that gets in our way.

After all, isn't that what Bearing Arms is all about, protecting the homeland?  On what basis would we conclude the Kushner kid has picked the right side?  As far as I can tell, he is the enemy, he is plotting with the Saudis to bomb Fresno, Ca. Unless someone can prove otherwise, the Kushner kid is destroying America.

Hilarious web site

Mostly spoofing the military

Green activists generally melt more ice, not less

Green activists say climate got buried in Democratic debateValerie Volcovici 

 (Reuters) - Climate activists said they will extend a protest outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters on Thursday to demand global warming gets more attention in the party’s debates, after the issue received just seven minutes in the first two-hour face-off between Democratic White House hopefuls on Wednesday.

If green were discussed politically, then we have to deal with the Politically Selected Exemptions, the fragile, and all the COLAs and contract adjustments which guarantee exceptions.   None of these politicians want to be known as fake greens, like the idiot environmentalists in Calizuela who melt ice like madmen. 

So, the last thing we need is a bunch of AOC ice melters claiming to be green, better leave the subject out of the debate, the environment is safer that way. AOC, like Diane Feinstein, is too clueless to be trusted with green policies.

Barney Frank gone transgender?

This is why we do not offer a BA in diversity at Redneck U.  We can never keep straight the number  and classification of genders.  At Redneck U, our current course would label Barney Frank a separate gender, the boobs are a dead giveaway, according to course curricula.

As president of Redneck U, I am a little concerned we may have gotten his gender ID backwards.  I will have a little talk with the department head, I am not sure boobs unmake the man.

A plot in the Supremes

Roberts:

There have been 23 decennial censuses from the first census in 1790 to the most recent in 2010. Every census between 1820 and 2000 (with the exception of 1840) asked at least some of the population about their citizenship or place of birth. Between 1820 and 1950, the question was asked of all households. Between 1960 and 2000, it was asked of about one-fourth to one-sixth of the population. That change was part of a larger effort to simplify the census by asking most people a few basic demographic questions (such as sex, age, race, and marital status) on a short-form questionnaire, while asking a sample of the population more detailed demographic questions on a long-form questionnaire.

Analysis:

Still, the court doesn’t go so far as to say that the question can’t or won’t be added. What’s missing is an adequate explanation of why the Secretary wants to add it 

There is a  something afoot in the Supremes. Some group inside wants to break ground on new law, and no one is sure why.  It may simple be boredom, or stupidity in the face of the social media. I dunno. Like Thomas bring up eugentics, what is his point? It was not in the costitution, it is not his job.

Then we have this part about the court wanting to read intent rather than the nominal wording. This seems like a power grab, and all this seems to be some sort of Robert's nonsense.  Whatever they are up to, it will be a mess. Constitutional law is not that hard, Roberts is about to screw something up,  as bad as Citizen's United, watch the nut.

Anyway, it is Swamp stuff and the cost of having to watch Swampers screw things up is high and rising.  No doubt the eventual outcome os secession, some state voters simply do not have the time and money to track Swamp crap. This is the nuance that simply passes overhead of the average voter, like Kevin Drum, no clue about side effects or otherwise completely ignoring alternatives. This time is different fraud in the Swamp, extremely dangerous stuff in a republic.

Shortage of smart people in New York

Chinese buyers are pulling out of New York real estate in droves

Who is going to do statistics?

Auto mass layoffs continue

12,000 jobs could be slashed at Ford’s manufacturing plants across Europe, as the carmaker rolls out a major cost-cutting plan.
The company announced the scale of job losses on Thursday as it confirmed it will close or sell six of its 24 facilities across Europe by the end of 2020.
It said in a statement the wave of redundancies will come “primarily through voluntary separation programmes.”
The jobs at risk include 3,000 across the UK, including 1,700 in Bridgend, according to the FT.
READ MORE: Japan warns UK car industry could suffer in no-deal Brexit
The news comes on the same day new figures show UK car production is down for a 12th consecutive month against the previous year, with output down 15.5% in May.
More than 20,000 fewer vehicles were manufactured in the UK last month than in May 2018, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

The car cycle peaked last year.

Housing projects and economies of scale

By design, New York City public housing, like most public housing in the U.S., lacked the broad variety that characterizes vital city neighborhoods: the blocks of small stores, the first-floor shops with apartments above, the churches, pool halls, and small restaurants. Public housing did not just exclude such uses—it bulldozed them, to make way for its monolithic towers-in-the park designs, which left its residents isolated, typically on “campuses” off the city’s street grid entirely, cut off from city life and the small-scale employment of which a young Kazin took advantage. New York once called Gotham’s version of this system “NYCHA-Land”—as if it were part of a different city.

The idea of replacing the old, decrepit public housing with a model that blends into the city scape is the desire.

The article fails to mention economies of scale.  The housing projects have badly parented kids and the city provides parenting services.  The city cannot provide parenting services unless the dysfunctional families are all organized in one spot, else the lack of scale will bankrupt the city. (This has happened in New York).  Cops, for example, are often called to sort out family and neighborhood problems.  Real parents do this on a voluntary basis, cops charge the city humongous fees. If cops do it, scale is needed, we will always get little prisons.

Our current crop of 'This time is different' economists ignore scale effects, Kevin Drum is famous for being ill taught about the scale effect.