When oil prices fall, Nigeria's people suffer.
Today's @bopinion post is about Nigeria. I expect its conclusions will not come as a surprise to most Nigerians, but it's good for Americans to be thinking about Nigeria and its problems.
When oil prices fall, Nigeria's people suffer.
When oil prices rise again, this puts a strain on govt. budgets.
https://t.co/oHrWaCO1Iq
1. Pour resource revenues into a Sovereign Wealth Fund
2. Depreciate the currency
3. Use SWF to stabilize the budget
4. Invest a bunch in education, health and infrastructure
(It could also stand to invest more in health.)
https://t.co/3m1mSbRbE6
More from Noah Smith
When Republicans started to believe in racial bloc voting - when they stopped believing that nonwhite people could ever be persuaded to vote Republican - they started to see immigration as an invasion.
This explains why immigration is now at the center of partisan conflict.
Of course, the belief in ethnic bloc voting becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When a slight Dem tilt among Hispanics and Asians caused the GOP to turn against them, Hispanics and Asians shifted more toward the Dems. Etc. etc. A self-reinforcing cycle.
Bush's 2006 amnesty attempt, and the 2013 intra-GOP fight over immigration reform, were two moments when the GOP could have turned back to the approach of Reagan, and courted Hispanics and Asians.
But they decided against this, and...here we are.
What will disrupt this bad equilibrium, and save American politics from being an eternal race war?
Either:
A) More white voters will grow disgusted with the GOP approach and defect, or
B) The GOP will find some non-immigration-related issues to attract more Hispanics and Asians.
As long as both parties see elections in terms of racial bloc voting - where the only way to win is to increase turnout among your own racial blocs or suppress turnout by the other party's racial blocs - American politics will not improve, and the country will decline.
(end)
This explains why immigration is now at the center of partisan conflict.
Why did California turn Blue?
— Sen. Eric Brakey (@SenatorBrakey) October 28, 2018
Why is Texas turning Blue?
The left has failed at selling socialism to the American people for decades. We have rejected it.
Their new strategy is mass importation of new voters to transform our political culture.
Of course, the belief in ethnic bloc voting becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When a slight Dem tilt among Hispanics and Asians caused the GOP to turn against them, Hispanics and Asians shifted more toward the Dems. Etc. etc. A self-reinforcing cycle.
Bush's 2006 amnesty attempt, and the 2013 intra-GOP fight over immigration reform, were two moments when the GOP could have turned back to the approach of Reagan, and courted Hispanics and Asians.
But they decided against this, and...here we are.
What will disrupt this bad equilibrium, and save American politics from being an eternal race war?
Either:
A) More white voters will grow disgusted with the GOP approach and defect, or
B) The GOP will find some non-immigration-related issues to attract more Hispanics and Asians.
As long as both parties see elections in terms of racial bloc voting - where the only way to win is to increase turnout among your own racial blocs or suppress turnout by the other party's racial blocs - American politics will not improve, and the country will decline.
(end)
1/I'm thinking about the end of Apu in the context of the national debates on immigration and diversity.
2/Apu's presence in Springfield represented a basic reality of America in the late 20th and early 21st century: the presence of nonwhite immigrants.
3/As Tomas Jimenez writes in "The Other Side of Assimilation", for my generation, immigrants from India, China, Mexico, and many other countries aren't strange or foreign. On the contrary, they're a
4/But that America I grew up with is fundamentally ephemeral. The kids of immigrants don't retain their parents' culture. They merge into the local culture (and, as Jimenez documents, the local culture changes to reflect their influence).
5/Simpsons character don't change. But real people, and real communities, do. So a character who once represented the diversity that immigrants brought to American towns now represents a stereotype of Indian-Americans as "permanent foreigners".
\u2018The Simpsons\u2019 producer confirms Apu is being written out of show following controversy https://t.co/lKzFCe1wFa pic.twitter.com/s34IUDUtqs
— NME (@NME) October 26, 2018
2/Apu's presence in Springfield represented a basic reality of America in the late 20th and early 21st century: the presence of nonwhite immigrants.
3/As Tomas Jimenez writes in "The Other Side of Assimilation", for my generation, immigrants from India, China, Mexico, and many other countries aren't strange or foreign. On the contrary, they're a
4/But that America I grew up with is fundamentally ephemeral. The kids of immigrants don't retain their parents' culture. They merge into the local culture (and, as Jimenez documents, the local culture changes to reflect their influence).
5/Simpsons character don't change. But real people, and real communities, do. So a character who once represented the diversity that immigrants brought to American towns now represents a stereotype of Indian-Americans as "permanent foreigners".
1/OK, so. Let's talk about Left-NIMBYism.
We all know about Right-NIMBYs, rabidly protecting their white-flight suburbs from Those People. And there are plenty of liberal NIMBYs too.
But NIMBYs of the Left are also a force to be reckoned
2/Left-NIMBYs have developed a canon of interlocking, mutually reinforcing beliefs about housing and urbanism.
These beliefs are mostly false, but they form a powerful "canon" that quickly ossifies into a hardened worldview.
It looks something like this:
3/Fortunately, Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs has written an article that perfectly encapsulates the Left-NIMBY worldview (and quotes me in it!).
So this is a teachable
4/Robinson selectively quotes a Bloomberg article of mine (https://t.co/iamRrW6oei).
Look at the part he quoted, vs. what I actually wrote!
Pretty different, eh? 😉
5/In fact, as I wrote in the article that Robinson failed to read more than one line of, it's theoretically possible that Left-NIMBYs COULD be right that allowing market-rate housing drives up local rents.
I take that possibility very seriously, as do YIMBYs.
We all know about Right-NIMBYs, rabidly protecting their white-flight suburbs from Those People. And there are plenty of liberal NIMBYs too.
But NIMBYs of the Left are also a force to be reckoned
2/Left-NIMBYs have developed a canon of interlocking, mutually reinforcing beliefs about housing and urbanism.
These beliefs are mostly false, but they form a powerful "canon" that quickly ossifies into a hardened worldview.
It looks something like this:
3/Fortunately, Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs has written an article that perfectly encapsulates the Left-NIMBY worldview (and quotes me in it!).
So this is a teachable
4/Robinson selectively quotes a Bloomberg article of mine (https://t.co/iamRrW6oei).
Look at the part he quoted, vs. what I actually wrote!
Pretty different, eh? 😉
5/In fact, as I wrote in the article that Robinson failed to read more than one line of, it's theoretically possible that Left-NIMBYs COULD be right that allowing market-rate housing drives up local rents.
I take that possibility very seriously, as do YIMBYs.
More from All
Margatha Natarajar murthi - Uthirakosamangai temple near Ramanathapuram,TN
#ArudraDarisanam
Unique Natarajar made of emerlad is abt 6 feet tall.
It is always covered with sandal paste.Only on Thriuvadhirai Star in month Margazhi-Nataraja can be worshipped without sandal paste.
After removing the sandal paste,day long rituals & various abhishekam will be https://t.co/e1Ye8DrNWb day Maragatha Nataraja sannandhi will be closed after anointing the murthi with fresh sandal paste.Maragatha Natarajar is covered with sandal paste throughout the year
as Emerald has scientific property of its molecules getting disturbed when exposed to light/water/sound.This is an ancient Shiva temple considered to be 3000 years old -believed to be where Bhagwan Shiva gave Veda gyaana to Parvati Devi.This temple has some stunning sculptures.
#ArudraDarisanam
Unique Natarajar made of emerlad is abt 6 feet tall.
It is always covered with sandal paste.Only on Thriuvadhirai Star in month Margazhi-Nataraja can be worshipped without sandal paste.
After removing the sandal paste,day long rituals & various abhishekam will be https://t.co/e1Ye8DrNWb day Maragatha Nataraja sannandhi will be closed after anointing the murthi with fresh sandal paste.Maragatha Natarajar is covered with sandal paste throughout the year
as Emerald has scientific property of its molecules getting disturbed when exposed to light/water/sound.This is an ancient Shiva temple considered to be 3000 years old -believed to be where Bhagwan Shiva gave Veda gyaana to Parvati Devi.This temple has some stunning sculptures.
