2024 Election Postmortem

Since the Republicans won all three houses of the government, and have staffed the judiciary with their operatives, Democrats have engaged in a discussion of why they did so poorly.  Its taken a while for things to become clear, but there is enough evidence to move forward with provisional conclusions.

As an aside, the NY Times revealed today, five weeks after the election, that the Biden administration oversaw the greatest immigration surge in American history.  A little late in the day for a major tool of corporate America to come clean on this issue, dont you think?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/briefing/the-largest-immigration-surge-in-us-history.html

Why did they wait until now to say so?  Why did the Democrats not have a policy on both legal and illegal immigration beyond saying "Hey, we dont want to talk about it?"  Or "the Republicans are freaking out about something that is not a real issue".  But the reality turns out to be that immigration is objectively a very real, historical issue and yet I dont even know what Harris' position on immigration is.  The Republican strategy of blocking the bipartisan bill on this topic was clearly a winning move and the Democrats are, as always, too weak to do anything and the American electorate is not interested in the "We tried" excuse.

The Republicans also ran on the economy.  Here, again, the Democrats seem to have been in some weird reality of their own.  They kept saying "The economy is fine, dont worry" but everyone I know who isnt in the top 20% think that prices have exploded in the last few years.  Which makes the incumbent responsible for the economy no matter whose fault it is.

A third issue is the area of competence, or which party seems to listen and then get things done. It is extremely clear that the Republicans have acted with diligence and obstinacy to achieve their goals, from corrupting the judiciary, defunding the government to supporting any authoritarian dictatorship.  The Democrats, not so much.

There are several other explanations that have been proposed for this election result.  It is said that Biden abdicated too late in the cycle for voters to get to know Harris.  It is said that by the very structure of the situation that Harris was essentially the incumbent and that the electorate was in an anti-incumbent mood.  Both of these seem plausible to me although it is hard for me to gauge how important they were.  Beyond that, however, the democrats were clearly the party of identity politics even when that meant active discrimination against white candidates. So why was there any surprise when white people voted against democrats?    The democrats were the party of hard core transexual rights, even for minors without parental approval.  That seems like a really weird policy to me if you want to get people who are parents to vote for you.

The democrats were the party of abortion rights.  Now I keep reading that this is an important issue, and I think it is but clearly it did not win elections.  In fact between two women's issues: abortion and a woman candidate for president, it does not seem as though women turned out overwhelmingly for democrats.  Maybe I wont have to hear too much about the "women's vote" in the future?  No  I think I will be hearing about this for the rest of my life no matter what the data says.

The American people did not seem to object to a leader who is a pig, a rapist, a convicted felon and so forth. A traitor and a pig.  All that stuff from Republicans about "character" has been BS all along.  This is not a surprise to me, and I hope it is not a surprise to you either.   Nixon seems like a fine, outstanding scholar compared to Trump.

So maybe the Republican positions are egregious and offensive.  Maybe they are pandering to the worst segments of the American people.  Maybe so, but they seem to win elections and while there are lots of flaws in the American Republic, and voter suppression, and weirdnesses in the way red states organize and vote in order to keep the people from being able to affect their government, nevertheless they seem to have won, in the aggregate, this last election.

Like all good proto-fascist societies, America seems to be in that phase where only power matters.  That is what the Republicans have proven time and time again since November 2000 and the Democrats never seem to learn.  The democrats will not listen to Bernie Sanders, or to AOC, nor will they fight Trump and all his works.  The Democrats had a chance to make judicial term limits a reality but they could not be bothered.  They do not have the courage of their convictions.

So why bother to elect a democrat?  Whats the point?  They want to rule in some sort of fantasy past where America was semi-bi-partisan, a world very different from today.  So electing a democrat seems to me to have no raison d'etre.

Image courtesy of Midjourney

All the Ways the Democrats Failed

One benefit of the Trump victory is that it may finally put an end to the Democratic party.  I have been tired of these people for a long time now.  Here are just a few data points.

- It was Bill Clinton who started off the whole globalization thing with NAFTA

- The Democrats did nothing to prevent the right-to-work bullshit.

- When McConnell stole the supreme court slot of Merrick Garland, the Democrats did nothing.

- It was Obama who bailed out the financial system in a way that rewarded the rich and left the poor hanging.

- When Hilary ran, it was clear that she was only interested in helping her rich friends on Wall Street.  

- The only reason I voted for her was because Bernie Sanders, the independent I supported, asked all his supporters to vote for her.

- When subsidies and tax breaks destroyed the domestic visual effects industry, the Democrats did nothing. 

- In the first two years of the Biden Administration, we could have ended the filibuster and added term limits to the supreme court but the democrats could not be bothered.

- When the supreme court installed Bush Jr as president, Al Gore and the Democrats did not complain or in any way fight.  They just rolled over.

- When the Republicans were stuffing the supreme court with obviously unqualified candidates, the Democrats did nothing.

- Most of all, Merrick Garland refused to act to prosecute Donald Trump for his crimes.  

- There are many other issues, including climate change and health care.

The Democrats have proven time and time again they dont have the desire to fight for us.  They should have shut the government down rather than just kicked the can down the road.

Images courtesy of Midjourney

Vegan Corn Chowder

- saute 1/4 onion, 1 small red pepper and 1 stalk celery in olive oil for 10 minutes, slowly

- add 1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp fresh thyme, 1 tsp dry thyme, 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, 3 garlic cloves and saute for 1 minute  (also 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes if you have them)

- add 5 cups soup stock

- add 5 cups frozen or other corn

- add 10 or so small potatoes chopped

- add 3./4 can coconut milk

- cook for 15 minutes or so

- add salt and pepper

- blend about 1/2 the soup and return to main pot.

Notes on the Situation

 

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, America has chosen a convicted rapist and known nutty boy as president and they did it fully aware of what was involved.  They voted for him (and some of his colleagues) because they want to destroy the country.  It is a beautiful nihilist moment and they could not care less about democracy or women's rights and they really dont care about trans rights, get a fucking clue democrats. 

The supreme court is dead.
The democratic party is dead.
The maniac has a plan and a lot of dedicated morons who want to help.
They think crimes against humanity is just ducky.

I could go on but whats the point.

If I ever wanted to run for political office, the opposition could use my blog and email to destroy me.
I dont have the resources or street cred to run for office.
I know people who could but won't.

My blog has been out there for 12 years and I doubt anyone cares, but neither could I really remove it from archives, or at least it would take effort beyond my skill set.

The good news is that no one could give a rats ass about me or anything I write.
Encryption is too much work at this point beyond perhaps a few flames.

I relied on our elites to prevent this from happening.
They let me down.
They let all of us down.
The democratic party is dead.
The republican party has had its brain eaten by Trump-idiots
The revolution is over.
Now the victorious take control of the internal security forces.

For those who see no difference between the candidates

God only knows we want to help those who live among us but say they see no difference between the candidates such that they could not vote for either one.  This message is here to help.  For those who think this message is a little overly strong my response is no, it isnt, not even a little bit overly strong.

One candidate is a rapist, the other isnt.

One candidate is a convicted felon, the other isn't.

One candidate is recognized as being a sociopath and a malignant narcissist.

One candidate will avoid being tried for his criminal offenses if he is elected.

One candidate probably murdered 250,000 american citizens when in office.

One candidate was impeached twice.

One candidate attempted to overthrow the government of the united states.  

Excuse me, this is not enough for you?

You are nuts, you need help but you will never get it.  You destroyed america.  Congratulations, idiot, you are a dupe who helped murder many people in this world.

Grave Pictures for Nancy St John

Nancy has passed away and nobody I know is willing to talk to me about it.  

We go to the grave alone, I guess.  

In honor of Nancy, here are some pictures I did about the grave.

I recall the eulogy from The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

They told me, Francis Hinsley, they told me you were hung

With red protruding eye-balls and black protruding tongue;

I wept as I remembered how often you and I

Had laughed about Los Angeles and now ’tis here you’ll lie;

Here pickled in formaldehyde and painted like a whore,

Shrimp-pink incorruptible, not lost nor gone before.

Nancy St. John 1954 - 2024

I am still reeling from the news that Nancy St. John is dead.

How can someone be just a few years older than me be (a) so much more accomplished and (b) dead? 

Not her best picture:

https://variety.com/2024/film/people-news/nancy-st-john-vfx-producer-gladiator-dies-dead-1236189089/

Rewriting History about Hamas and Israel

Its fun to see Jew haters and murderers work to rewrite Wikipedia in an attempt to attack Israel.  It will be interesting to see how that battle plays out.  Since the Jew Murderers are well financed by Russia and Iran, will the so called rich jews stand up for their rights and the truth or will they fail?

My favorite is when they delete all references to the Hamas charter or call Israel "Settler Colonization" and deny their history like all good Jew haters.

Columbia One

If Harris wins, it is at best a draw unless the democrites also win the house and the senate.  Assuming they do, there are a list of things they have to do or it was all in vain.

0. End the filibuster.

1. Add term limits to all federal judges and the supreme court.

2. Correct the imbalance of the supreme court.  Contrary to what you have been told, it doesnt matter how.

3. Pass reproductive right legislation.  Let the right wing nuts appeal it to the supreme court.

4. Pass legislation that makes it impossible for Murdock, Musk, Bezos etc to own important media all by themselves.  Make it so that the people own the media.

5. Prosecute Donald Trump for *all* his crimes.

6. Enforce the 14th amendment.  See to it that election deniers are not in a position of power.  

Nothing less than all of these is acceptable. 

Since these wont happen, it is time to accept that we need a second american revolution.  

_________________________

Its fun to see people's negative reaction to these images.... either because they are AI generated or because they hate America or because they hate people like me who are emotional.  It isnt clear.

The Test of Character

In southern literature there is something called "the test of character".  In this trope, the main character, or one of them, has to choose between doing the easy thing and doing the right thing and doing the right thing is much harder.  

Several friends of mine are unfortunately in a situation where they have to choose between doing the selfish thing or doing the right thing and I am sorry to say that they are probably going to do the selfish thing. 

This is my expectation and it makes me sad but then at least I will know.  The cost is that I will be more cynical, but then what did I expect.   

I am already bitter, but maybe not bitter enough. 

If you dont know what I am talking about then nevermind, you will never understand unless you have had the experience.

"The Test of Character"

Blog Comments and Brain Death

This is the kind of stupid shit we get when I open up blog comments to just anyone.  Read this, it was posted two years ago.  

The point is, they may use words like "statistical" but I doubt they know what it means.  My guess is that this could be a Russian troll or an American Republican.  In the latter case, they are just being stupid.  In the former case it is sad that American counter intelligence has failed to protect us.

The Meaning of Lost (2004-2010)

[update in progress]

I dont always watch a show or movie when it first comes out.  But the ability to download episodes or seasons of important media product (Thunderbirds Are GO!) has transformed my ability to self-medicate chronic insomnia with productive show review.

For the purpose of self-medicating insomnia, I can heartily recommend Lost (2004-2010).  Six seasons of a group of people thrown together seemingly at random on a plane flight from Sydney to LA which goes off course and crashes on a mysterious island.  Indigenous peoples, the struggle for survival, evidence of mysterious scientific projects and ancient cultic influence from thousands of years ago.  It turns out that many of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 may have connections to each other in ways that are slowly revealed.  A struggle for good and evil.  An island with the ability to hide itself and move its position.   A paralyzed man who is healed.  A monster that appears to be black smoke.

But what does it all mean?

That was the question then and that is the question now.  There are many attempts to answer the questions posed by this show and below are my two cents worth.

First, I think we are entitled to ignore what the writers / producers say about the meaning of the show.  The meaning of a great work of art (like Thunderbirds) will necessary evolve as our culture evolves.

Second, there are many little mysteries planted all throughout Lost some of which are answered and many of which are just ignored.  That may be too bad but I don't think it distracts from the bigger picture.  To pick just one example, what do the numbers mean?  It doesn't matter.  Maybe it was just supposed to be entertaining.  Maybe it would be better if they did mean something significant.  But I think its meaning is straightforward: they are a device to signal to Hurley that there is meaning in the universe, that there is some structure, even if he does not know what it is.

Third, I think that there are important story elements that can not be ignored but are there to facilitate the next two points.  The Island is clearly important as a place where these various things happen, it has its own fantastic(-al) semi-explanations for its power, pockets of exotic matter for example.  And I dont think that there can be much doubt that Oceanic Flight 815 is iconic and central to the fates of our characters.  Don't get me wrong, these elements are important but they are in a sense details leading up to the primary themes.

And those themes are as follows (a) our interpretation and understanding should be mystical not scientific, (b) our main characters have been brought together to work out issues that need to be resolved before they can go on to the "next place" and finally, therefore, (c) I think that Lost is clearly in that genre of fiction that is loosely described as the journey of the soul on its path from life to the hereafter.   

There is an additional theme that involves our characters involvement in some sort of higher level battle between light and dark, good and evil.  In that, Lost also falls into a genre that we might call Manichean.   The struggle between good and evil.  Maybe even Zoroastrian.

There is also some narrative device ongoing in parallel which suggests that the characters are  experiencing some sort of alternate reality where Oceanic Flight 815 does not crash and where they are not on the island.  Thus there is some parallel universe mechanism ongoing.  I think this is loosely connected to the mechanism by way the interrelationships between the characters is exposed.

The characters work through serious problems as they prepare for transfer for what comes after. Those who are not ready stay on the Island for a while.

Although I am no expert in this, I think that there are numerous mystical belief systems that Lost is a derivative of. Another cinema example of this is Jacob's Ladder (1991) in which our main character is subjected to a number of end-of-life experiences as he is prepared for his death and the soul's journey to another plane of existence. Ghost (1991) is probably another example of this genre. 

Therefore Lost is based on the delusion that there is some sort of system and mechanism for life-after-death, in which important issues can be worked out for those who are chosen, for those who are "candidates".  There have always been fantasies of such a mechanism embedded in many religions that help some people feel better about their inevitable and horrible fate. 

Oh yes, those visual effects.

Lost is an example of a show with huge numbers of episodes where the special photographic effects help sell the story in only a few minor ways.  Even though the story is filled with mystical and mysterious elements and the story advanced with more traditional physical effects, there is basically only one concept that is a special photographic effect.  And that of course is the smoke monster.  The other effects are model effects (plane breaks up in flight), explosion effects, and makeup effects.  There are lighting effects in a few places.  And of course there is set design.  All there to advance the story.  The only "exotic" effect that I noticed was the smoke monster which was one of the only absolutely conclusive pieces of evidence that there was something unworldly happening.

The lesson I want to suggest here is that the show made good use of visual effects.  The effects were not gratuitous.  They were economical and designed to advance the story.  Many modern movies and shows could learn from this example.

Harris is Good but the System Still Doesn't Work

Newton said that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In politics, maybe not so much. Maybe the reaction is less than, or maybe it is much greater than the original. Or maybe it is just lasting trauma and despair. Maybe it is lack of trust. Maybe people will feel that they have learned their lesson, and if those-that-rule want us to shut-up-and-do-as-they-say then maybe people, or some people, will say "No, fix this first or go away". And that is the situation I think we find ourselves in.

I dont think this is totally new. When this country was created, it was done without the consent of the governed as that consent was manufactured. For more information, read about the way our constitution was created and accepted.  And even with that non-consent consent there were unacceptable compromises. Since then, system after system the country put in place have failed. There are many possible reasons for these systems to fail but the one I subscribe to is that certain fundamental requirements for these to work, such as fair elections or a judiciary that that will rule based on law and not to achieve a political goal, are no longer in place.  People in power thought they could get away with it and they were wrong.  Besides, its 2024, its not 1960 anymore.  The old excuses are not acceptable.

Consider.  The supreme court is wildly out of control. There are no plans to fix it. Voting rights? Citizens United? Perjure yourself to the senate to be approved? Wild corruption and failure to obey the law of reporting gifts? A get out of jail free card for Trump?  Abortion no longer "settled law"?  Legislating from the bench? So, no supreme court. 

 The DOJ failed to hold that felon Donald Trump to account. Mobsters take note. Trump killed many more people than Gambino. 

We are being victimized by people with money who are fascists and weirdos. Musk, Murdoch, Koch, Mellon.  Congress cant even pass a budget. The impeachment mechanism has failed.  Sheriffs go around making lists of those who will not support Trump so they can be attacked. Gestapo tactic, sure why not. And nothing is done about this. The FBI and Homeland security does nothing about Russian Influence. They are totally impotent. The Right sucks up to Putin and Orban.

So lets say Harris wins in spite of the Supreme Court.  Does that fix anything?  Does that reassure me that the system is better now so don't worry?  Sure its better than a stick in the eye, but should I be grateful that our system did not put a felon and a mentally disturbed fascist into power?  A person who was impeached twice?  A person who is guilty of what is sometimes called rape?  Really, you are proud that you defeated this weirdo?

No, the system has a long way to go to repair this nonsense and frankly I dont think it is up to it.  That is what I think.

[Because I say these things, my blog is marked as a hate site and blocked by many right wing ISPs apparently.  ]

Does the NY Times Support Trump?

The question people have wondered for months is whether the NY Times is really a stooge for the Republicans.  From their attacks on Biden to their failure to call Trump out for being senile, to their failure to indicate that trump is a felon, it feels as though the NY Times wants Trump to win.

I can tell you that when the Supreme Court put Bush in power in 2000 in spite of the results which clearly showed that Al Gore had won, that I have always felt that when push came to shove, the NY Times will obey their Wall Street masters.

That is what the evidence shows.

One Republican Strategy for Containing Kamala and Defeating Democracy

Since Kamala Harris is doing well against her opponent, the convicted felon and known abuser of women, Republicans have been working on strategies in case Trump loses the election and can not steal it, as they are certainly planning to do.

My summary of at least one of their strategies is as follows:

First win a majority in the Senate.  With the resignation of Senator Manchin they believe they have a good chance of either winning a 50-50 position or even a 51-49 position.  If they do the latter, they can tie up any legislation and control senate investigations.  According to a survey prediction by thehill.com, the Republicans are favored to win the Senate.

Second, win a majority in the House.  Again, they are favored to win the House of Representatives.

Third, they overwhelmingly control the Supreme Court which has demonstrate a willingness to violate any standard of law or precedence to support extreme Republican positions.

With these three things, or even two of them, the Republicans are confident they can "contain" Kamala Harris and defeat any attempt to improve the country or act in the nation's interest.  Then they can use this to go for the presidency in 2028.

Therefore, although defeating Trump is obviously the highest priority, winning the House and the Senate are essential if we are to do more than just prevent Trump from destroying the country.  We need both houses in order to move the country forward.  And even then, the nation must deal with the right wing and lawless former Supreme Court, something the Democrats, at least, have proven unwilling to do so far.

Republican zombie horde attempting to climb the Statue of Liberty

The Angel's Celebrate the Arrival of Jill's Album

The vinyl for Jill's new double album, Earthly Pleasures, arrived at the house today.  The album is about the secular use of sacred music, among other things.  

The angels celebrate in heaven!

The images were created with Midjourney.

Final Warning

I have tried to avoid writing about either Ukraine or the Israel/Hamas war.  But if I read one more stupid editorial about either, I will be forced to take action.  You have been warned.

More Rendered Images 08/09/2024

Not that any of this particularly matters, here are some images rendered with Arnold that are going up on Instagram.

SIGGRAPH 2024 and Denver Report

This was perhaps one of my most enjoyable and useful SIGGRAPH's for years.  Here is a synopsis of some of the high points.  

A special thank you to Paul Debevec who invited me to a half dozen parties and encouraged me to go to them, and to the exhibit floor, and to papers that I knew nothing about.

Also special thanks to Julian Gomez who somehow found me a technical pass.  The Technical Program costs about $1,000 these days and without it you can not go to the heart of SIGGRAPH. It was wonderful to have.  Some of its value comes from not feeling less than the other participants.

If people is the heart of a SIGGRAPH then this was an excellent SIGGRAPH.  From NYU there was Ken Perlin, Denis Zorin and Aaron Hertzmann.  From UNC we had Henry Fuchs, Turner Whitted, Mary Whitton, Nick England and Mark LeVoy.  From WETA and the ASWF, Kimball Thurston.  From Autodesk we had Marcel de Jong and Frederic Servant (manages Arnold).  From SCAD we had Gray Marshall and Christos Sfetsios (who had a good theory of alien UFOs).  Briefly sat near Debbie Deas.

I made a point of reading every poster and taking pictures of some of them.  Every third poster had the author standing there and you could ask questions.

The good news and the bad news is that there were at least two papers whose ideas I have had and that furthermore I had done work on, but was told they could never be papers.

From the Pioneer's event we learn that Thad Beier passed away several months ago.  

Finally, I stayed at the Motel 6 downtown for about $80/night.  It was not too bad either.  The Uber cost between the hotel and the convention center was about $15 each way.  There is a great train between Denver International Airport and Union Station.  It takes a long time but that is because DIA is way the heck out there.  It turns out there was a decent little cafe in the back of the Hyatt and one can also get healthy food at Target of all places.  The downtown area was all ripped up because of construction.

Denver has a lot of interesting old construction left over from the mining days, I presume.  Too bad it has been discovered, it would be a good place to buy an old house and fix it up.   The Meow Wolf venue was entertaining.  Denver seems to be a "meat town".  It was hard to find decent healthy food for vegetarians.

I came home, of course, and had COVID.

A proud author

Doug Kay and George Joblove

A happy Poster

Robo Doggy

Meow Wolf

A modern data glove

COVID Again

Came back from SIGGRAPH, felt lousy, took a COVID test and guess what?

Pictures for Siggraph

 How can you go to Siggraph without bringing pictures?  Well you can't.  Here are a few rendered pictures and maybe I will do a few Midjourney pictures as well.  Csn you get which one is which?

Suggestions for Kamala's Platform

In light of the threat to American Democracy posed by Trump and his fellow conspirators, we humbly present to you some ideas for your still-evolving position platform.  

Many people have noticed that many Democrats dont seem to want freedom as much as the Republicans want tyranny.  I hope that you, my fellow Democrats, will be serious and resolute in opposing Trump and all his works.

This is in no particular order.

- Encourage Justices Thomas, Alito and Roberts to resign in light of their outrageous behavior designed to delay any trial of former president Trump. This partisan political behavior is unworthy of the Supreme Court.

- Work with the Department of Justice to see that former president Trump receives a fair and timely trial for the criminal charges related to Jan 6 and for his apparent abuse of highly classified material.

- Encourage Justice Cannon to resign in light of her partisan behavior in the classified document case or face impeachment.

- Work with Congress to encourage other fascists put in place in our justice system by McConnell and other right wing nuts to resign or be impeached

- Work with Congress to see that important government activities such as the federal budget and the promotion of military officers not be held hostage ever again to the Republican right or any one member of Congress.

- Increase aid and support to Ukraine

- Trump-proof our foreign policy alliances so no one president can destroy our country’s alliances

- Sponsor and pass legislation to guarantee reproductive rights to women

- Sponsor and pass legislation to eliminate the so-called “right to work” states

- Sponsor and pass legislation to restore the Voting Rights Act

- Sponsor and pass legislation to eliminate “Citizens United”

- Sponsor and pass legislation to require some version of objective truth to the news media. End the Fox News and One America abominations. Free speech is not the same as actively lying, slandering and working to destroy democracy.  You know what I mean.  Its pretty crazy.

Picture of convention by Midjourney:

100th Anniversary of the Planetarium

 This week is the 100th Anniversary of the Planetarium.  The International Planetarium Society is meeting in Berlin.

Picture courtesy of Midjourney

As a friend points out, in two years in Japan.

https://www.ips-planetarium.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1874313&group=

Anarchy, Oligarchy and Tyranny c/o The Financial Times

The Financial Times has a good article on the failure of the American Republic using analogies to the Greek political science terms of anarchy vs oligarchy vs tyranny.  You can read the entire article here (although it may be behind a paywall).

https://www.ft.com/content/a7eea0af-bf9f-4635-812b-271c30620e72

Here are two paragraphs that I thought were entertaining:

The anarchy can seem fun, at least for a while. With some luck, chaos can bring political fruit. At a convention, where one spectacle soon displaces the next, these different guises of democratic collapse can give one another cover. The strongman act of Trump and Vance distracts from their blatant dependence on the wealthy. Their threat to deport migrants shrouds the reality that none of the relevant oligarchs was born in the US, that Trump married two migrants and that Vance married the daughter of migrants.

In practice, though, the Republicans’ anti-republic is contradictory. The different variants of repression can be equally celebrated so long as they are all directed against an imagined enemy. But the plan to fire tens of thousands of civil servants (anarchy) would get in the way of deporting millions of people (tyranny). As the billionaires claim power ever more openly (oligarchy), they put pressure on the aspiring authoritarians who are supposed to be the strongmen (tyranny). The people who want a strongman don’t want him to be a puppet. Signs of strain were certainly evident at the convention. 

Image courtesy of MidJourney

Cost of Housing Notes 7/21/2024

As I was moving from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, the issue of housing costs and options came up.  There are a number of reasons for this but it all comes down to money and how you want to live your life.  And I think there was a lot of wishful thinking going on about what kind of housing assistance exists, who is eligible for it, and so forth.  So, since I need to know this stuff here are my notes so far on this topic.  All useful information is in the next paragraph.

The executive summary is as follows.  Santa Barbara is expensive perhaps, but the quality of life is very high.  California overall is very expensive and SB rents are not worse than other parts of California on the coast.  One way to get housing costs down in these areas is to do something like rent a three bedroom house and have two roommates with all the inconvenience that implies.  The Housing Authority in SB is a resource to the community but demand far exceeds supply, the process is opaque, and it is not at all clear when or if housing will be provided.  It is not a viable solution to anyone who is on a deadline.  Finally, my research says that there is acceptable single room occupancy housing in other cities in places like Providence, RI or Pittsburgh, PA or parts of Western MA in the range of $1,500 / month or about 1/2 to 1/3 of what you have to pay in California.

The rest of this post is just details.

I was looking for a single bedroom, arguably a studio with kitchen and bath. It is completely possible for this to be a shared space where each person has their own bedroom but the kitchen and bath is shared.  For me, it is better to be in a place where I can work all hours of the day and not bother other people.  It is better to be in a place where I am not constantly subjected to environmental insults (smog, car fumes, etc) and where crime is under control.  I hate to move, so some sort of stability is good.  It does not have to be a particularly big city, but it is useful to be within mass transit distance or driving distance of a fairly big city due to the need to work with specialist doctors.  

There is some belief that there are housing programs for "the poor".  My experience from Santa Barbara says that theoretically such housing exists, but in practice it does not. The SB housing authority does a terrible job of presenting a rational and responsive front to people in need, but the hard facts are that there is more demand for housing than there is supply. The housing that is available is preferentially given to certain demographics that I do not qualify for, such as being a single mother or a veteran.  The process is opaque.    There should be zero surprise that the SB Housing Authority efforts did not work out.   In fact, they would not even return my calls.  It is possible that if we had filed when I first arrived in SB that there would have been a different outcome but I am not sure.

Images courtesy of Midjourney

There is a belief that SB housing is unusually expensive.  My research says that this is not exactly true.  SB is expensive, but so is all of coastal California.  LA is very expensive and much less desirable than SB.   San Luis Obispo and San Clemente and Santa Cruz are also very expensive.  Santa Cruz may be more expensive than SB.  There are places in CA that are less expensive than SB but they are still not cheap and of course the quality of life goes down, often dramatically.  

I am surprised at how much I miss SB.  I would much rather live in SB and drive to LA to make use of its cultural resources, international airport and medical facilities.

There are cities where the rent is less than half of what it is in California.  So, one can probably rent a place for $1,300 to $1,500 in places like Providence, RI.  Multiply that out, your recommended net salary comes to $60K/year.

So what is the conclusion?  I would not expect to spend less than about $1,500 per month if you are a single person but only if you are not in California.  California is roughly 2 - 3x more expensive.  In SB, a small 1 bedroom starts at about $3,000 a month and goes up from there.  And it is not entirely clear who they will rent to if you do not have, and prove you have, a good job and excellent credit rating.  There are exceptions to this and I have benefitted from special deals more than just about anyone.  But when those special deals come to an end, and they always do, then you have to pay market rates.

Thats just the way it is.

Another image from Midjourney