I’ve been reading Karl Denninger for years. He used to turn up on a radio program I liked and he was always very good. Denninger is right about a lot of things. He’s also a very weird man. Listening to him on the radio, I got the sense it took a maximum effort to will himself into a zone within striking distance of normal. At any moment, the string could snap and he would spiral into lunacy.

I know, I know. That’s mean spirited of me, but what can I say? I’m an asshole that way.

I looked at his site over my eggs this morning, as is my habit, and I was puzzled by this post.

I’ve posted a handful of locked-comment Tickers lately (yes, I still do add features once in a while to the software, and this is one of the recent additions — the ability to pre-lock a submission so it’s read-only.  Fancy that.) and have had a couple of people ask via an invite-only BBM channel I set up “what’s dat.”

The software he uses is awful. I rarely look at the comments, so I did not notice he was blocking comments. Denninger is terribly thin skinned so the comments are heavily regulated and salted with his rantings about comments he does not like. His obsessing over it is very weird to me. The fact that he has an invite-only Blackberry channel is hilarious. It’s like grown men building a tree house.

The rest of the post has nothing to do with the first graph so maybe his meds kicked in at that point. Anyway, I wonder if his crankiness has something to do with over compensating. If you look at his bio on Wikipedia, there is a summary of his business career. Like Mark Cuban, Denninger got rich from the free money era, without ever creating much of any value. Further, his company could only exist because he got a government contract. Now he is a retired guy ranting about the excesses of government and the excesses of money creation. The word hypocrite comes to mind.

Denninger would not be the first person driven mad by the realities of his own life. Not that it troubles me. Security firms often employ criminals who use their expertise in crime to help build better security systems. I once worked with a former car thief. Our job was to repossess cars. Jose was an expert on finding the cars and, of course, boosting them before the bad guys found out what was happening. Denninger knows how government awards contracts and he knows how fake money works. His insights, therefore, are useful.

So, you think your vote counts. You’ve been one of those guys lecturing me for years about voting for the most rightward leaning viable candidate. Me voting for a third party was just voting for the bad guys, by taking a vote away from the viable alternative. Maybe you write checks to the GOP or volunteering to work for a local candidate. You really think it matters. If you just keep trying, things will turn and the pols will pass the right measures and turn the country to the better.

Well, you’re an idiot.

A startling new political science study concludes that corporate interests and mega wealthy individuals control U.S. policy to such a degree that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

The startling study, titled “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” is slated to appear in an upcoming issue of Perspectives on Politics and was authored by Princeton University Professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Professor Benjamin Page. An early draft can be found here.

Noted American University Historian Allan J. Lichtman, who highlighted the piece in a Tuesday article published in The Hill, calls Gilens and Page’s research “shattering” and says their scholarship “should be a loud wake-up call to the vast majority of Americans who are bypassed by their government.”

The statistical research looked at public attitudes on nearly 1,800 policy issues and determined that government almost always ignores the opinions of average citizens and adopts the policy preferences of monied business interests when shaping the contours of U.S. laws.

The study’s findings align with recent trends, where corporate elites have aggressively pursued pro-amnesty policies despite the fact that, according to the most recent Reuters poll, 70% of Americans believe illegal immigrants “threaten traditional U.S. beliefs and customs,” and 63% believe “immigrants place a burden on the economy.”

The solution, say the scholars, is a reinvigorated and engaged electorate.

“If policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened,” conclude Gilens and Page.

I’m always amused by how the word “democracy” is tossed around these days. It is never used to mean “the people voting.” Instead, it is used to mean the people getting the result some scold thinks is the right result. When Muslims vote for Sharia, no one celebrates democracy in action. When the extremist right wing extremists of the most extreme kind win an election, we hear that democracy is under assault. These days, democracy is about the result and not the process.

But, that’s just another example of the idiocy of our age. Democracy is a process and a shabby one. One reason our government has grown increasingly corrupt over the last century is we have more democracy, not less. In 1914, Senators were still selected by their state’s legislatures. Blacks and women were barred from voting in many states. The poor and the stupid were discouraged from voting. Like or not, you had a better class of voter 100 years ago.

That’s why the average voter counted for much more than it does today. The typical Congressman knew he was being judged by a reasonably intelligent electorate. There were plenty of dopes, but the ratios made it hard to fool the majority most of the time. Today, cobbling together a majority of mental midgets is too easy.

Even if the people were geniuses, democracy is no way to run a country. It works fine in the town and village. It may even work fine in a city or county. Once you get to the state level it starts to fall apart, which is why state’s have legislatures, constitutions and governors. At the national level it becomes a beauty contest. Obama beat Clinton because young and charming beats old and cranky. Obama beat McCain because young and charming beats old and cranky. Plus, it was his team’s turn.

It’s why I’m a localist. Even a nitwit can figure out if his local school is running properly. He can see if the roads are paved and the sidewalks are in good condition. He can figure this stuff out and translate that to picking the right mayor or the right town council member. If the mayor or town council ignores the people, the people can go to their house and beat the hell out of them.

It is not perfect, nothing is, but keeping the important decisions down at the local level means you don’t have to worry about whether the rulers, 3,000 miles away, are doing what you want. When I say important decisions, I mean the bread and butter stuff. The national government has to handle foreign policy and trade, but that’s about it. Everything else can be handled at the local level.

I was never a big fan of Robin Williams. His TV show, Mork & Mindy, was funny for a sitcom, but it was so long ago I no longer remember much about it. I think one of the stars was murdered by a stalker. None of his movies jump out to me as memorable. People tell me Goodwill Hunting is great, but I never watched it. My taste in movies is limited to sci-fi and classic westerns these days so I will not be watching it anytime soon. These things are a matter of taste and for whatever reason Robin Williams never did anything for me.

The public reaction to his decision to kill himself is interesting to me. I read a lot of sites and always read the comments. I can’t recall the last time I saw a reference to Robin Williams. Yet, it seems everyone is now commenting upon the guy, as if he was a national treasure, who died after a heroic fight with cancer. Because he was  weird and deeply troubled comic, everyone is trying to draw lessons from his death, other than the fact he was a deeply disturbed person who killed himself.

This story about his money trouble is not terribly flattering.

Robin Williams‘ tragic death at age 63 came as a shock to the world who knew him only as a lovable comic figure. But a source close to the Mrs. Doubtfire star tells RadarOnline.com that in addition to his addiction struggle, the actor recently confided to a family friend that he had “serious money troubles,” and was worried about his family’s financial security.

According to a family friend who had spoken to Williams recently, “All he could talk about were serious money troubles. There were clearly other issues going on and Robin sounded distant during the telephone conversation. Robin was known for being so generous to his friends and family during the height of his success, and would help anyone out that needed it.”

“There was also frustration that Robin expressed at having to take television and movie roles he didn’t want to take, but had to for the paycheck,” the source said, referencing his recently announced decision to film Mrs. Doubtfire 2. “Doing sequels was never Robin’s thing, and he wasn’t that excited at having to reprise the role of Mrs. Doubtfire, which was scheduled to start filming later this year.”

Robin Williams made an enormous amount of money so it took an enormous amount of effort to squander it. Most people in serious money trouble are worried about making rent and buying food. Williams was worried about making a sequel. A lot of people in my neighborhood would give their left nut to be so burdened. I’m sure suicide sounded like a great way out his troubles, but is hard to see how that is going to help his family. Thanks to his selfish act, they are facing even bigger financial problems.

Then again, maybe they are relieved of a greater burden now. That is the thing seldom discussed about suicides. The people who do it are usually a burden on their families and friends for a long time. Their constant depression and demands for attention put a lot of pressure on everyone around them. It is very frustrating for family. They try to help the person, but there is little they can do but suffer along with them. Inevitably, there’s a fair amount of bitterness and resentment. When the suicide happens, that resentment often turns to guilt.

When I was a kid I stopped a family member from killing themselves. They were on some sort of meds and tried to swallow the whole bottle. I’ll never know if they staged it so I would stop them or it was just dumb luck. Either way, I forever resented that person afterward. Even as a kid it struck me that the person was being horribly selfish. There are some things you can never ask of another person. If you do, you fail at the basic human contract, the unwritten and unspoke agreement.

I suppose that’s why I can’t muster much sympathy for Robin Williams. Even if I was a fan, I’d still be thinking about his poor family and the horrible things he put them through and what he has done as his final act. The man leaves three kids who will forever be haunted by the fact their father killed himself. It’s hard to respect a man who does such a thing.

Then there is the proportionality. Robin Williams was a comic and an actor. Nothing wrong with it, but not one single life on this planet would be significantly altered if he had decided to be a plumber. If Obama drops dead, the world changes in a big way. If a famous scientist dies, then we have a great life worthy of mourning. If my doctor drops dead, a whole lot of people he helped will have lived richer, fuller lives because he chose to be a doctor. That’s worth remembering. The death of a man who got rich pretending to be someone else is just not that big of a deal.

Everyone that watches sports knows ESPN has become this weird fever swamp of liberal lunacy. They are one step from sending hosts over to felate Obama in the White House, for example. They find a reason to do an Obama story every day, despite the fact Obama knows nothing about sports and has little interest in them. They are suspending someone for crime think every week it seems. That and they have notorious bigots like Michael Wilbon and Kevin Blackistone on regularly.

What’s stunning to me is how they work so hard to destroy the very things that allow them to exist. They have been cheering the legal cases against the NCAA, for example. ESPN counts on college sports to survive, yet their on-air talent is forever cheering the demise of college sports. We see the same stuff with the NFL and baseball. The only sports they promote are soccer (anti-American) and basketball, take a guess why that is. Otherwise, they are the network that bites the hand that feeds them.

Now we have one of their retarded people – and let’s be honest here. Kevin Cowherd probably has an 85 IQ – is bashing their customers for NASCAR. Further, he is trying to piss off the part of the country most crazy for sports – The South. But, as we know from watching these lunatics, they will jump on a grenade to spite the bogeymen. There are no more important bogeymen than white southern men.

Moonday on The Herd, ESPN’s Colin Cowherd partially blamed what he described as NASCAR’s southern “eye-for-an-eye culture” for the tragic death of driver Kevin Ward Jr., who was run over by three-time champion Tony Stewart Saturday at the Canandaigua Motorsport Park dirt track. As for Stewart, Cowherd said, “I watched the video seven, eight times: He revved up, other racers put on the brakes.”

Cowherd started off the 11 a.m. EST hour with a rant ripping the “machismo” perpetuated by NASCAR and what he repeatedly called the “eye-for-an-eye” worldview of the South. During his opening monologue and his follow-up discussion with NASCAR analyst Marty Smith, Cowherd criticized the sport for failing to ban running on the track and other dangerous displays of “bravado” long ago, and suggested a number of times that three-time champion Tony Stewart could have avoided hitting Ward.

Cowherd began the segment by citing NASCAR’s embrace of dangerous displays of masculinity and “settling the score,” saying that it, like the NFL, NHL and boxing, deliberately allowed those elements to draw in a larger male audience.

Maybe what they need is some homosexual drivers. Put a couple of trannies out there and magically it will be better!

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Don’t run in traffic: Over the weekend, the sports weenies could not stop talking about race car driver Tony Stewart driving over another driver on a dirt track. The dead driver, wearing a black suit, got out of his wrecked car and ran onto the track. He made every effort to get in the way of Tony Stewart, the guy he thought caused him to wreck. Watching the video, the lighting at the track looks pretty bad. I’ve been to these types of track and they are not very well lit. Maybe Stewart should have seen him. Maybe he should have done something different. Who knows.

As citizens, we have a responsibility to conduct ourselves so as not to cause harm to others. It is a basic responsibility on all people everywhere. Otherwise, you cannot have human settlement. Race car drivers, for instance, have to try and avoid hitting other drivers or wrecking their cars. That responsibility stops where your responsibility to you begins. You are in charge of you. Your life means more to you than anyone else so you get the primary duty of guarding it.

That means when you run into traffic and try to jump in front of speeding cars, you own the consequences. Sure, the other guys have to take reasonable measures to avoid you, but if they don’t it is still on you. It is sad that a young man is dead and it is sad that the other man will now have to carry that with him. That’s all on the dead guy. My advice here is simple. If you don’t want to be run  over by Tony Stewart, don’t run in front of his car.

Don’t fight with the cops: Look, the cops are out of control. We all know that. In the land of the free, there are close to 50,000 SWAT raids every year. Fewer than ten percent involve an armed stand-off or kidnapping. We have foolishly turned the local police force into a paramilitary force. The difference is that the local yokels are rarely qualified to guard a lamppost, much less handle mil-spec hardware in urban residential areas. I get all that and I agree we have a problem.

That does not mean you fight the cops. When you do that, they may shoot you. When confronted by an armed retard with a sour attitude, you are wise to do as your told and let the lawyers figure it out. Most cops are decent enough people and just want to get home to their families. Some are nuts and others are just stupid. You can’t know any of this at the time of contact. My advice here is simple. Don’t fight the cops.

Don’t start riots: I’m not terribly sympathetic to the plight of the black man. By that I mean I think the typical black guy can do just fine without my help or sympathy. Many choose to do otherwise. The result is the cops and the politicians often treat black people like crap. It is a shame and I wish it were otherwise. I wish our Progressive overlords were not herding black people into urban reservations, but they don’t listen to me either.

The thing is, when you riot and burn down your neighborhoods, I start to think maybe the bad guys are right. When oleaginous scumbags like Benjamin Crump is hired to represent the rioters, I’m even less inclined to sympathize. The family of the victim probably has a legitimate claim and they should get representation. There are plenty of local lawyers looking for work. The rest of us will be more inclined to listen if you avoid hiring a human hemorrhoid as your mouthpiece. This is two-part advice. Don’t riot and don’t hire  race hustlers to speak for you.

I hope this helps.

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I used to know a guy who had dealings in Hollywood. He was an attorney and specialized in entertainment contracts. Beyond that I have no idea what he actually did for a living. He knew a lot of famous people and hung out at the trendy places. Movie stars and famous directors are the part of the iceberg we see. There’s a vast supporting structure under the waterline. He was a part of that world. Hollywood is a factory town and there are a lot of people working on the assembly lines.

This guy had a lot of good stories and gossip about famous people. The one thing he told me that I have often puzzled over is this. He said pure chance picks the stars. There are hundreds of people with the looks, talent and desire to be a bankable star. Dumb luck plucks a few out of the pile and makes them into household names. Dumb luck plucks even more out and makes them working actors who have a nice living playing bit parts in films, TV and commercials.

I don’t know enough about Hollywood to know if it is true. I’ve seen bad acting so I know it takes some skill and practice to be good at acting. I suspect that once you get past the awful stage into the plausible stage, that’s enough. Kevin Costner and Keanu Reeves are not very good at acting and they make millions as super star actors. They just have a look that works for the roles popular in their era.

Anyway, I watched Wolf of Wall Street and I can’t help thinking that dumb luck really is what rules the business. The director is a famous guy with all sorts of great films to his credit. How did he make this god-awful piece of crap? How is it that a talented director made such a horrible film? Similarly, how did the actors, all famous, not see this turkey coming a mile away? They have people to read the scripts for them. These people are supposed to know a good script from a bad one.

Now, I may be the one with bad taste. I looked it up on Rotten Tomatoes and it got good reviews. I don’t get it. The acting was fine, but the story was so stupid and childish I wanted to run from the room screaming. It just looked like an excuse for everyone to have a bunch of hookers on the set running around naked. I like naked women as much as the next guy, but I don’t need movies to show me cooz. Thanks to Al Gore, I can indulge that interest from a dozen PC’s I have around me all the time.

Anyway, the movie sucked.

This was linked on Drudge, so I’m going to assume it is getting national attention. That’s not unreasonable. An unarmed black male getting shot by the police is catnip for the liberal loonies in the media.

An unarmed teenager killed Saturday by Ferguson police, spawning continuing community unrest, had struggled for an officer’s gun in a patrol car first, officials announced this morning.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said one shot was fired by the officer’s gun inside the car during the struggle, and that the officer fired multiple times at Michael Brown, 18, as he ran away.

Belmar did not indicate whether police think the shooting was justified.

He said the shots that hit Brown were “more than just a couple but I don’t think it was many more than that.” He said an autopsy was pending and that a toxicology test would take as long as six weeks to determine whether Brown had alcohol or drugs in his system.

It’s funny how these things go. The white Hispanic in Florida had a pretty good excuse for shooting the black kid. Getting your skull crushed is usually enough to justify lethal force. In this case we have a cop shooting a guy in the back. There are very few circumstance where that’s warranted. If the guy was armed or out of his mind on drugs, maybe it makes sense. Otherwise, the cops can’t be shooting people who run away. That’s murder.

To their credit, the cops seem to know they have a problem and they are turning it over to the state and federal investigators.

Belmar promised a full investigation that might also include the FBI. He said the results would be forwarded to St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch, whose office would decide whether criminal charges were justified.

The chief noted that as Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson arrived at the scene Saturday, he called Belmar personally to ask for a county investigation. “I would not think anybody would do that if they had anything to hide,” Belmar said.

Jackson sat beside Belmar but did not speak in a short press conference at 10 a.m. at the community’s firehouse.

Belmar said he had not consulted the FBI but would call today. The FBI can investigate a police use-of-force incident as a possible violation of constitutional rights. Belmar emphasized that these are “standard protocols.”

The officer who fired, whose name has not been disclosed, is now on administrative leave. Belmar said that officer has been on the Ferguson force for six years and appears to have “no other issues” in his past.

Belmar said the officer had an encounter about noon Saturday with two “individuals” and was pushed back into his car and “assaulted” by Brown. The chief did not again mention the second person, nor did he describe the reason for the initial contact.

Belmar and Jackson left the press conference as reporters continued to call out questions.

Of course, that does not mean the more responsible members of the “community” cannot pitch in and help calm things.

State Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, and the St. Louis NAACP also have said they would seek a federal investigation.

Angry residents took to the streets shortly after Brown was killed in the 2900 block of Canfield Drive. Some shots were heard in the crowd that gathered, but nobody was injured. Some people chanted obscenities and “kill the police” as about 60 officers from multiple jurisdictions gathered.

At least 200 people continued the theme today outside the police station, 222 South Florissant Road, carrying signs and occasionally making speeches.

One of them, Shontell Walters, of Berkeley, said they took exception to the presence of police dogs with officers watching the scene. “They are trying to instill more fear in us,” she complained.

A memorial went up at the shooting scene, where Brown’s stepfather, Lewis Head, stood and wept this morning. “Ferguson killed my son,” he said. “They flat-out murdered him.”

A candlelight vigil is planned for that spot at 8 p.m.

In case you’re wondering, Jamilah Nasheed is a woman and, I know this will comes as a surprise, she is black. In fact, Ferguson Missouri is 65% black, according to City-Data. Looking at the map, I’m guessing this is an area taking spillover from St. Louis. The crime data from City-Data suggests the crime rate has been falling so this could be a gentrifying area. Spot Crime shows that the criminal element is east and south of the main part of the town. The overall crime rate is still much higher than the rest of the country. It is not Detroit, but it ain’t Mayberry either. The cops have a challenging job in that town.

Living in a majority minority party of the world, this is something that gets little attention. Policing high crime areas is a grind. The cops get cynical and if you’re lucky they just stop caring. Often, they resent having to police a population that seems to have no interest in civilization. Bad things start to happen and then the war is on. Los Angeles had this problem. In Baltimore and Washington, the cops simply keep the bad guys from leaving their area. The result is an urban reservation. I’ve been profiled a few times cutting through the ghetto. The cops simply assumed I was either lost or selling drugs. Why else would I be there?

Whenever I see the phrase “social justice” I know the user means “revenge.” The reason is it is always used in the context of a self-defined loser demanding money from the folks they see as winners. The losers are bitter at being losers (or crazy) and they want to take it out on someone.

The link between winners and losers never seems to make much sense. It’s like the champions look for causes that are both obscure and pointless. David Horowitz has made this point often. The middle-class Jewish kids, who helped the Black Panthers beat the system in the 70’s, did it just to cause mayhem.

Anyway, there’s now a high school based on the principles of social justice. Conveniently, it is called Social Justice High School and it is located in Chicago. For some reason a lot of New Left radicals came from Chicago.

The Little Village Lawndale High School is a reality because of the principles of social justice. Our belief in self-determination inspired a community to act on its convictions to affirm its right to a quality education. Through a system of support, guidance, and accountability our students will graduate high school, be prepared for college and implement a post secondary plan. Our students will cherish and preserve their ethnic and cultural identity, will serve and determine the future of our community, and will have a passion for peace, justice and the dignity of all people.

The language here looks similar to the corporate jargon I like to make sport of from time to time. There’s a creepiness to it that brings to mind dystopian sci-fi films where the fully human protagonists is faced with a formless, faceless authority that is determined to rubout all traces of humanity.

The purpose of the school of social justice is to assure that all students become critical thinkers through a curriculum that is rigorous, innovative, and implemented through meaningful school relationships.

Project based and problem based learning that addresses real world issues through the lenses of race, gender, culture, economic equity, peace, justice, and the environment will be the catalyst for developing our curriculum.

Service learning will be the center of our curriculum. Our community and the city will be our classroom. All learning will be relevant to the lives of our students.

We will increase student learning and achievement by building on what our students know and utilize their everyday experiences in order to build the excellence of basic skills and literacy.

The professional community composed of administrators, teachers, students, parents and other community members will learn together and from one another.

That’s an impressive collection of abracadabra words. The Left, like all cults, has a thing for magic words and incantations. One that always makes me chuckle is “critical thinking” which is Left-speak for attacking the current order. These guys are all about pulling down the walls. They say it is to remove barriers, but it is really so they can pull the roof down on the rest of us.

The core beliefs section is great:

Truth and Transparency

We will practice honesty and authenticity in our communication and relationships with students, our community, peers, and ourselves.

Struggle and Sacrifice

Our struggle is against systems of power that have been historically used to deny, regulate, and prohibit access to the most basic human rights that should be granted freely to members of society regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or religious belief. We accept the reality that such struggle will require sacrifice from all involved.

Ownership and Agency

We will take responsibility as agents and catalysts of change to expose the truth about the functions of power, work (unite) to interrupt their operations, and operate as producers of power to meet the needs of the Greater Lawndale community.

Collective and Community Power

Through collective community power, we commit to a conscious effort to overcome the intended historical obstacles that have been designed to disempower and divide our communities, and thereby meet the needs of all members of Greater Lawndale for continual betterment and progress.

Authenticity is a magic word for these people. To normal people, this word implies simplicity and originality. To the Left it means unadulterated adherence to ideology. Of course, struggle and sacrifice have a long history with cults. It is integral to their survival. The adherents have to be willing to give themselves completely to the cause in order for them to live forever in the cause.

I’ll just note that this is pretty standard stuff on the Left. My bet is up and down the Obama education department this sort of language is common. They not only think this school is a good thing, they want to make your kid’s school just like it. It is why vouchers are a dumb idea. Those vouchers would come with strings requiring classes in social justice and empowerment.

But, this is probably the future anyway.

The other day I was watching a monkey fuck a football. By that, I mean I was watching a bunch of guys tear up some concrete in the courtyard of my office building. One guy was running a jackhammer, but not the traditional kind. It was attached to a bobcat. Others were cutting rebar, while others moved the rubble around for no apparent reason. They were not screwing around or loafing, just disorganized. So much so I could not help but watch it.

Watching the show, I noticed that there was not a single immigrant on the crew. It was all white guys and one black guy. I’ve noticed that a lot lately. Construction has been down around here since the crash so maybe the Mexican trade guys moved on and what’s left is the old white guys who used to work in sales or something. I don’t know. I’m just guessing. Maybe the government cracked down on the illegals in the trades. Stop laughing.

The other thing was the age. Every one of the crew was over forty. One guy was in his sixties. He was busting his hump, outworking everyone else. The old guy was in great shape. He even smoked, which puts the lie to the whole smoking scare. I’m going to say the bulk of the crew was between 45 and 55. There was one guy that could have been under 40, but that’s it. Pretty old for manual labor.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the average age of construction workers and found this from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There’s a lot of data there and it does not look like construction is an old business. Manufacturing is older. Government is really old with a median age pushing 50 for most sectors. Searching around for more granular data I found this story that claims the average age of welders is 55. For some reason we have had a welder shortage for years now. I have a relative who is a career criminal and welder. He gets out of the can and goes back to welding, often being bailed out by his employer.

I did some further searches and there’s not a lot of great data for the trades. Plumbers in Texas, for example, are 50 years old, on average. The median age of carpenters is supposedly 48 across the country. If you look closely at the BLS data, retail is the youngest sector and government is the oldest. Manufacturing is the next oldest and then you get into the trades. Young people seem to be in services, technology and retail.

When you start looking at the data, it is not hard to see why upper middle class whites favor open borders. They don’t work in the trades. Their kids will not even work summers in the trades. Heck, middle class kids no longer work summers. That’s for the plebes. On the other hand, upper middle class people need their toilets fixed and their houses repaired. At the same time, it is easy to see why the public is turning on immigration. Despite what the people on TV believe, America is not 30-something beautiful people living in swank urban enclaves. Most people are related to one of those guys busting up the sidewalks outside my office.

Still, demographics and immigration does not explain why the trades are getting gray. It is not easy to be a carpenter or a steamfitter. Welding is a lot more involved than working in a government office. To be a competent carpenter you need math skills, problem solving skills, in addition to physical skills. The young people with something on the ball are discouraged from going into the trades, while they are encouraged to head off to college. At some point, that has to change.