Historians who study authoritarian regimes point out that if you have one coup attempt, you will keep getting more coup attempts until you crack down hard on them; the same pattern as you pointed out in Japan. So yes, people should get locked up, the 14th Amendment should be used to wreck a whole bunch of political careers, and 45’s impeachment should result in conviction (or at least a 14th Amendment ban on running again). If we do less, it is likely that the peaceful transfer of power in this country will be a thing of the past and every elected official will have to live in a walled compound that they never depart without a security detail.
I think you were far too dismissive of concerns about the effects of a higher minimum wage in low-COL areas. The median hourly wage for the entire state of Mississippi was $15.00 in May 2019, and there are areas where $15 is more than 100% of the median wage.
It's true that monopsony power is strongest in areas with few employers, but is finite. You can't just wave your hands, chant "monopsony," and then raise the minimum wage to 110% of the median wage with no adverse effects on employment. Note also that monopsony power is weakest for unspecialized workers due to the wide variety of firms that need unspecialized labor. A professor of economics or aerospace engineer might have only one suitable local option for employment, or a handful at most, but someone who has no special skills has a much wider array of suitable job options.
Now, it's possible that the phase-out will be long enough to inflate it down to more reasonable level, but if you're going to make that argument, it's essentially a concession that $15 is too high for current market conditions.
"We dumped the vaccines on CVS and Walgreens and simply expected them to find all the right people to fit the insanely byzantine priority queues that our wise ethics people designed for us without a thought for whether they were practically implementable."
As a recovering philosophy major, I always take the opportunity to dunk on ethicists.
Regarding the rise in homicide - extremely worrisome, but I think that the 1970s - 1990s conditions that led to persistently high crime (capital flight and mass lead poisoning of Boomers and older Gen Xers) aren't present, and that the effect will disappear in time after the pandemic. It's true that violent crime generally drops during recessions and depressions, but the Coronavirus downturn is very unlike any other.
The especially awful increase in homicides here in Seattle seems to mainly be hitting idle young men in poorer areas adjacent to gangs and the homeless population, with a side helping of domestic violence. There's not a lot of people perceiving neighborhood main streets (like the one in Queen Anne you probably saw) to be less safe than they were in 2019. I've only been downtown a few times since March, and while it is definitely quiet it's far from abandoned.
"I assume and hope that vaccination will vastly improve once Biden comes in next week with money and a solid national plan. But in the meantime, the agonizingly slow pace of vaccination..."
Regarding this, the Biden administration has said their goal is getting 100 million doses administered in their first 100 days in office. This has been contrasted with the current rollout as an ambitious and lofty target. However, we're currently vaccinating 800,000 people a day and growing, possibly hitting 1 million a day by or shortly after the inauguration. In other words, at the current pace we'll quite comfortably hit 100 million doses administered in the first 100 days of the Biden administration. So what exactly is so ambitious about that goal and, by comparison, what makes the current rate of vaccination so lethargic? (My numbers are from ourworldindata)
Historians who study authoritarian regimes point out that if you have one coup attempt, you will keep getting more coup attempts until you crack down hard on them; the same pattern as you pointed out in Japan. So yes, people should get locked up, the 14th Amendment should be used to wreck a whole bunch of political careers, and 45’s impeachment should result in conviction (or at least a 14th Amendment ban on running again). If we do less, it is likely that the peaceful transfer of power in this country will be a thing of the past and every elected official will have to live in a walled compound that they never depart without a security detail.
I think you were far too dismissive of concerns about the effects of a higher minimum wage in low-COL areas. The median hourly wage for the entire state of Mississippi was $15.00 in May 2019, and there are areas where $15 is more than 100% of the median wage.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_ms.htm#00-0000
It's true that monopsony power is strongest in areas with few employers, but is finite. You can't just wave your hands, chant "monopsony," and then raise the minimum wage to 110% of the median wage with no adverse effects on employment. Note also that monopsony power is weakest for unspecialized workers due to the wide variety of firms that need unspecialized labor. A professor of economics or aerospace engineer might have only one suitable local option for employment, or a handful at most, but someone who has no special skills has a much wider array of suitable job options.
Now, it's possible that the phase-out will be long enough to inflate it down to more reasonable level, but if you're going to make that argument, it's essentially a concession that $15 is too high for current market conditions.
"We dumped the vaccines on CVS and Walgreens and simply expected them to find all the right people to fit the insanely byzantine priority queues that our wise ethics people designed for us without a thought for whether they were practically implementable."
As a recovering philosophy major, I always take the opportunity to dunk on ethicists.
Regarding the rise in homicide - extremely worrisome, but I think that the 1970s - 1990s conditions that led to persistently high crime (capital flight and mass lead poisoning of Boomers and older Gen Xers) aren't present, and that the effect will disappear in time after the pandemic. It's true that violent crime generally drops during recessions and depressions, but the Coronavirus downturn is very unlike any other.
The especially awful increase in homicides here in Seattle seems to mainly be hitting idle young men in poorer areas adjacent to gangs and the homeless population, with a side helping of domestic violence. There's not a lot of people perceiving neighborhood main streets (like the one in Queen Anne you probably saw) to be less safe than they were in 2019. I've only been downtown a few times since March, and while it is definitely quiet it's far from abandoned.
https://www.vox.com/22225472/fascism-definition-trump-fascist-examples
https://twitter.com/CoreyRobin/status/1349468979505618946
couple of good reads on fascism. not every expert agrees
"I assume and hope that vaccination will vastly improve once Biden comes in next week with money and a solid national plan. But in the meantime, the agonizingly slow pace of vaccination..."
Regarding this, the Biden administration has said their goal is getting 100 million doses administered in their first 100 days in office. This has been contrasted with the current rollout as an ambitious and lofty target. However, we're currently vaccinating 800,000 people a day and growing, possibly hitting 1 million a day by or shortly after the inauguration. In other words, at the current pace we'll quite comfortably hit 100 million doses administered in the first 100 days of the Biden administration. So what exactly is so ambitious about that goal and, by comparison, what makes the current rate of vaccination so lethargic? (My numbers are from ourworldindata)