I know I’ve been beating this redlining and wealth gap drum for 20+ years but here is a GREAT cliffs notes version.

But don’t take @ambermruffin’s word for it. You should get references...

A thread

Breaking News:

In a 5-4 decision, the conservative judges on the Supreme Court reject the final death row appeal of a Nazarene minister convicted of teaching Christian Race Theory.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issues blistering dissent, calling it a “crucifixion.”

“I told you she was soft on crime,” says Josh Hawley.

“We can’t have these people teaching these sermons on public mounts, said Galilee Governor Ron DeSatanis. “Telling children to repent for their sins makes kids feel bad.”

33-year-old community organizer and protest leader
Yeshua bin Yusuf, who went by the street name Jesus, was convicted by an all-white jury after his violent arrest resulted in at least one officer losing an ear, according to the police report.

Authorities said his protest organization was really a front for his gang activity. While Jesus confessed that he had about 12 friends who were disciples, he claimed he was not gang affiliated.

“That’s what they all say,” explained Sen. Marjorie Taylor Greene. “He also claimed he was ‘saving’ prostitutes but if you read the message boards, it’s clear he was a sex trafficker. Why else would Mary Magdalene always be around? What do you expect? He was an anchor baby, too!”

A lot of the anger about non-white people voting for a white nationalist is because some people don't understand one inarguable historical truth:

THAT'S EXACTLY HOW YOU BECOME WHITE!

A thread:

First of all, let's all agree that whiteness is some shit people made up. It has no basis in science or even logic.

For instance, for MOST of American history, the Irish weren't considered white and they might be the whitest people on the planet!

Now the Irish WERE NOT slaves, but the English and Scottish considered them "the closest thing to the negro" and "human chimpanzees"

Do you know how far England is from Ireland?

21 miles!

It's like when Brooklyn niggas talk shit about people from Queens.

It was only after the slaves were freed that the Irish moved up on the social ladder. An 1864 Democrat dociment said “There is the strongest reason for believing that the first movement toward amalgamation in this country will take place between Irish and Negroes.”

They were considered athletic, strong and lazy. They could dance, though. Plus, they excelled in boxing.

Does any of this sound familiar?

So how did they become white?

Well, basically, it was because of Gangs.

White people are storming the Capitol Building to support a white nationalist president and many people are saying: “If Black people did that...”

Not me, though.

I know.

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Here’s what happened to them when these “patriots” attacked the CAPITAL OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT for—and I can’t stress this enough—SOMETHING THAT DID NOT HAPPEN

Here’s what happened when I covered the George Floyd protests where four officers WERE ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH MURDER

Here’s what happened when they stormed the capital in Michigan

Kyle Rittenpeacefully protesting after Eric Garner was choked to death

Until 2050 we'll likely see "a #supercycle in investments in 'clean' energy infrastructure, 'clean' transportation & everything that's required for the '#green' transition."

There's so much bullshit in here, I'll unpack some of it in a

2/x

1st (cf. @MGSchmelzer): there is no reason to assume that a massive productivity- & hence production-boom will lead to reduced emissions, because it will increase production&growth, & it is those two variables that global greenhouse emissions track most closely. #Degrowth.

3/x

Every time capitalism has made massive productivity gains (e.g. w/ the #steamengine; the taylorist #assemblyline; computers), that has led to a *radicalisation* of capitalism as a mass production system (as opposed to earlier versions, where luxury goods were for elites),...

4/x

So there's no reason believe that a new round of capitalist accumulation (#accumulationbydispossession / #primitiveaccumulation) - in this case: some kind of "#greencapitalism - will in any way positively impact emissions rates, but every reason to believe the opposite...

5/x

I would like to look into this, as it speaks to an often-overlooked issue: the relationship between different phases of capitalist development, such as imperialism, fordism, & post-fordism, connected to energy regimes (coal-based, oil-based, renewables-based capitalism)?

One of the arguments for permitting monopolies is that they are "efficient." That's the logic under which Universal was allowed to acquire Comcast and NBC - the "vertical integration" would make all three companies better and we'd all reap the benefit.

1/

It turns out that there are DISeconomies of scale, what Brandeis called "the curse of bigness" and really, the Universal-NBC-Comcast octopus is a poster child for that

Comcast has just informed its subscribers that they are at risk of losing access to "Bravo, CNBC, E!, Golf Channel, MSNBC, Olympic Channel, Oxygen, Syfy, Telemundo, Universal Kids, NBC Universo, USA Network and NBC Sports

That is, Comcast has warned its customers that Comcast might not license its channels to Comcast anymore.

This is a "carriage dispute" - a dispute over how much the cable operator will pay the broadcaster. It's a common dispute to have.

4/

But in this case, Comcast's dispute is over the accounting fiction of how much one division of a vertical monopolist will nominally charge another to access its products.

5/

Alright. I've got that out of my system. Happy Thanksgiving and back to work here with a Early Black Friday pallet cleansing mega thread with a Cornucopia of thoughts on 2021. First, precious metals aren't dead. Yes, Bitcoin is stealing gold's thunder as a... /1

...currency alternative but it's not going away as a dollar hedge though I see Bitcoin likely to outperform gold in 2021. That said, gold could be up over 50% by the end of next year as Yellen and Powell (Jack and Jill) are climbing the stimulus hills. Meanwhile.. /2

...silver really should kill it next year. Solar is heating up, not just with Biden's win, but globally, & with pent up demand unleashed as lockdowns either relax or get tossed aside via polite revolts. Industry is going to boom and with globalists back in business so are... /3

...green energy and rare earth metals. Yeah, looking at you $MP on rare earths and - dare I say it - $AG and miners might have their year come summer of 2021. Specs are going to sniff that out in January so look for December tea leaves on the metals. No shame in buying $SLV... /4

....but I really like playing options for it. Speaking of lockdowns, no I promised to behave, I think the by-product of lockdowns ending is that the torturous path of a decade plus of "deflation" (in name only really) dies in a supernova heat death of feels good man spending. /5

Expect to see a lot more stories like this. But let's also use this to have a more sophisticated conversation about why the rising tide of cheaper, cleaner energy - like all prior energy transitions - doesn't necessarily lift all boats. Brief thread:

1/ First to state the obvious: the domestic fossil fuel industry in the US wouldn't exist without massive subsidies. $650B/year according to the IMF.

2/ That in turn means that the transition to cleaner, cheaper energy is delayed by those market distortions. Taking away the subsidies is smart economic and environmental policy. It is FANTASTIC that @POTUS is doing so.

3/ But it is paternalistic and naive to assume that workers in those displaced industries will have an easy transition. Knowing how to run an oil rig is a highly specialized, highly skilled job. Gaining that skill set takes time and is geographically specific

4/ The fact that there will be economic gains in other sectors doesn't imply that a 55 year old who planned to work for another 10 years can simply take a correspondence course in thin film deposition and move to the solar industry.