… but it also makes me so fucking sad to see humans working all day in an indigo coal mine in order to make people who don’t move much all day look like they’ve worked hard all their lives.
Tag: economics
Colt is ceasing production of consumer-grade assault rifles o_O
Three things worth noting:
- Colt is the father of the AR-15 and creator of the once highly profitable consumer-grade assault weapon niche. It’s enormous news that they’re out.
- This headline implies that the market is saturated because so many guns have been produced and sold, but if you read the article, that’s not what Colt said. They simply say demand is down. Yes, one explanation is that they overproduced and flooded the market. Another is that fewer people want these guns (often characterized as “the must vilified gun in America.”). Think about cigarettes: Demand for those in the US is also down, not because cigarette manufacturers overproduced and flooded the market, but because we worked hard to make having and using cigarettes less socially neutral and much more publicly controversial.
- Contrary to popular perception, while these guns are enormously popular with those committing the most heinous crimes, they are used in a vanishingly small percentage of total gun crimes.
Are you a grown-up American? Do you vote? Then plz take three minutes to get yr head around “marginal tax brackets”🇺🇸🌟
About half of all Americans fundamentally misunderstand how U.S. “tax brackets” work. (Ironically, those in the traditionally “fiscally conservative” party are significantly more likely to fundamental misunderstand our tax system.) As a result, many, many, many Americans argue and vote against both public interest and their own interest, with the sole beneficiaries being the extremely rich (both human and corporate).
Now’s the time to get your head straight. The Twitter thread embedded below lays it out nicely, as does this article from the Washington Post (which takes just three minutes to read, and even explains why we use this somewhat counter-intuitive and often confusing tax bracket scheme).
This is your Civics homework for today. It’s pretty easy. I’m sure you’ll get a gold star!🌟
Post WWII, the tax rate peaked at 94% on annual income over $200,000 ($3mil in 2018 dollars). In the decades following, it dropped to a marginal tax rate of 70% of all income over 200k/annually (again, 2-3mil in today’s dollars, depending on year).
— Dianna E. Anderson 🏳️🌈 (@diannaeanderson) January 5, 2019
Happy Treat Yourself Wednesday!💸
Not for nothing, but I’m not a huge fan of Black Friday/Small-biz Saturday/Cyber Monday/Giving Tuesday/etc. Yeah, there’s power in focusing our economic force on these specific days (obviously)—but also, there’s power in you just spending money on what you want when you want it.
Anyway, I love the denim from these cats in California, Brave Star. The cuts work for my particular body, the construction is quality, and the materials a delight (more of my thoughts on Brave Star—who, incidentally, are still using some of the final bolts of historic Cone Mills denim I mention in the post at that link).
If you wanna give them a whirl, you can save $10 on dope-ass, sanely priced, all-American-made denim with that link. (DISCLOSURE: If you use that link and coupon code you save $10 and I get a $10 credit. FURTHER DISCLOSURE: These are basically the only pants I wear anymore. I’m wearing a pair of indigo x brown Cone Mills selvedge Slim Straights right now, although my favorite are the various blacks. They are all good jeans.)
Freelancers: You’re Freaking Out too Much about Working too Little
Short version: Most office workers in the United States have a nearly 9-hour workday, but are only productive for about 3 hours. I.e., if you are a freelancer doing work that an office worker might do, then you can almost certainly make a decent living on ~3 hours per day.
Please stop beating yourself up and running yourself ragged. Focus on doing good work for half of each day and you’ll be just fine.
Here’s the Chart Your Bigoted Cousin Needs to See
You know when your cousin–or whoever–archly intimates that Those People don’t really need food assistance or tuition assistance or healthcare subsidies or whatever, because “You always see Them with nice clothes or a new iPhone or a big flatscreen TV!” or whatever?
Remember this chart. And then show him this chart.
Similarly, when he points out that folks used to be able to work a summer in a factory and pay for a full year of college, back before affirmative action and illegal immigrants took all the decent jobs from hard-workers and gave them to the under-qualified and under-productive–please, once more, remember this chart. And then show him this chart.
Poor people have nice TVs because wages have gone up a little and the price of TVs has dropped like a brick. Cousin Bigoty can’t afford to get his kids an education because wages have gone up a little and tuition has shot the moon.
That said, economically speaking this chart is by no means a slam dunk for any particular political worldview. Check this article, with its nearly 180-degree interpretations of this chart: The same data can be read as either an indictment of failed socialism being inevitably co-opted and driving up the cost of necessities, or as an indictment of late capitalism giving the masses their “bread and circus” while denying them the necessities of serviceable healthcare, housing, and education.
For my part, it looks to me like what happens when you have massive (and growing) income disparity: Everything divides into either run-away Veblen goods or near-disposable commodities (from the perspective of those at the nose-bleed heights of the top of the hockey stick). This chart illustrates why, for many Americans, America no longer feels great, and similarly why all the trade protectionism and corporate tax giveaways and draconian immigration restrictions in the world will never make America great again.
How Samsung, Disney, and You Bankrolled North Korea’s Nuclear Program
If you’ve been wondering how North Korea (a nation of 26 million people with 7x the population and ~1/10th the GDP of the Detroit Metro Area) paid for a very fast-moving nuclear and ballistic missile program—SPOILER ALERT!—: You paid for it, asshole.
Episode 800: North Korea’s Capitalists
see also: “We Have Entered the Zone of Maximum Mayhem“
The Last Selvedge Denim Mill in the U.S. is Closing #America
The Cone Mills plant in Greensboro, N.C. has been continuously weaving denim since 1905, and is currently the only U.S. plant producing selvedge denim. They’re calling it quits at the end of this year.
“Selvedge” is a specific style of denim produced in broad strips on relatively narrow shuttle looms using a continuous weft such that the edge is automatically finished—i.e., it produces a “self-edged” bolt of fabric that won’t unravel (if you’re looking at denim and the edge of the seam is white with a single thread of color—often red—then you’re looking at selvedge denim). Because it’s produced in narrower strips on shuttle looms (and usually with un-dyed weft), the fabric has certain characteristics in how it breaks in and ages, both in terms of fit and coloration. Some folks dig these. Other folks just dig putting their money where their mouth is, in terms of “Buying American.” I kinda like to do both, so I’m kinda bummed that Cone Mills is rolling up. Certainly the generations of weavers in Greensboro are bummed.
By the end of this year, you’ll only be able to get this prototypically American fabric from Japan. That’s still great selvedge (hell, it’s made on American machines: Japan bought them up in the 1980s when Levi’s et al. made the shift to larger looms), but it’s a bummer that this once uniquely American product is going extinct.
The only upside: When you see some Stars-and-Bars waving asshole in blue jeans popping off about “foreign manufacturing” next year, you’ll know he’s wearing jeans from Vietnam, and thus can go fuck himself. He didn’t put his money where his mouth was, and subsequently American selvedge denim died. That’s how economies work. Way to “Make America Great Again,” bro.
Anyway, if you’ve been thinking about getting into high-quality American-made denim, it’s sorta now or never. Brave Star is my go-to company on this: Incredibly reasonable prices given the quality, nice cuts, excellent craftsmanship, solid customer service, 100% American made: The denim is from N.C., the hardware from KY, the cutting and sewing in California.
