If At First You Don't Succeed, Tee Up To Fail Again

Apparently, there is a little-known progressive group, run by a convicted sex offender, who had announced a prior economic boycott on February 28 that fizzled and had no measurable effect.

So now they've announced a second attempt at it with Boycott 2.0 to be held on Good Friday.

The Detroit Free Press: Economic Blackout 2.0 boycott dates set for this weekend

Clearly, they are getting closer to days when people are not typically shopping. 

I suggest for Boycott 3.0 to be set for April 31st. The assured lack of any shopping activity will certainly show 'em, and thus be a great success.

When Proggy Law Students Overvalue Themselves

Leftist law students at elite law schools tend to have oversized sense of self importance and the egos to match, not to mention a highly developed yet undeserved sense of entitlement.

They also, in a fit of TDS,  seem to have forgotten the dynamic of the employer-applicant relationship.

Forbes:  Law Students Push Back On Firms That Have Capitulated To Trump

This week, first year students at Georgetown Law were required to submit their final rankings of which law firms they most wanted to interview with—for summer associate jobs in 2026, after their second year. The hiring of summer associates hit an 11-year low last year, but these summer gigs are still highly coveted. That’s because they pay more than $4,000 a week and boost the chances students will snag a Big Law job paying $200,000-plus when they graduate after year three, assuming, that is, they excel in law school and don’t have a prestigious judicial clerkship or a public interest law job lined up.

But this year, the 1Ls (as first year law students are known) are confronting an unusual question: Whether or not to rank Skadden Arps; Paul Weiss; Milbank; and Wilkie, Farr and Gallagher among their choices. These four firms have one thing in common: They’ve bent the knee to Trump following the threat of, or the actual signing of, executive orders that aim to restrict their ability to represent clients with government contracts. All four have agreed, for example, to provide a combined total of at least $340 million in pro bono legal work for causes Trump favors and to swear off any “illegal” programs aimed at promoting diversity.

Read the article to see the entitlement inherent in the (rather privileged if one might borrow the term) leftism!

“The legal recruitment process is the only leverage that we really have to influence the behavior of law firms,” says Caleb Frye, a 33-year-old second-year law student and copresident of the Georgetown Law Energy Group

That's not how this works, verily that's not how any of this works. 

By not applying, you don't get considered for employment.  

Publicly announcing that you're a TDS-infected entitled brat who criticizes decisions of your potential employer and demonstrating you will noisily put your own interest ahead of your potential employers likely renders them as a less-than-desirable hire.

It Would Take A Heart Of Stone Not To Laugh

So I'm LMFAO over this entirely predictable outcome.

You see, an anti-capitalist coffee shop opened in Toronto, run on good, solid, communist anti-capitalist principles.

It went pretty much exactly as you would expect it to:

The Calgary Sun: Anti-capitalist café shuts down due to lack of capital

Barely a year after opening, an “anti-capitalist” Toronto coffee shop is closing its doors due to a lack of capital.

The Anarchist — a provider of “sweet and savoury” pastries and “trendy” coffees — was founded last April as a “subversive” alternative to what it called the usual model of workers “producing wealth for their parasitic employers.

Instead, it will close permanently on May 30, according to a statement appended with the slogans “abolish work,” “people over profit,” and “land back.” The café was never able to employ more than one person, so the proprietor, Gabriel Sims-Fewer, will be its only layoff.

The Anarchist had featured a “pay what you can” option, but the café’s very lengthy FAQ page explained that the system lost them money, for which the rich were to blame.

Indeed, to no one's surprise, the good socialist nomenklatura patronizing the shop failed to pay according to their ability, and instead exercised their limousine liberal privilege:

“One of the issues with a lot of my ‘pay what you can’ oriented ideas is that the more money people have the less they’re willing to pay. I get people in designer suits paying $1 for a coffee"

Sad that, totes unpredictable, really. 

A definite pity that he didn't get some good socialist government subsidies to keep the whole thing going, or have the necessary and proper communist ability of having force to lock people in the coffee shop until he could make them pay according to his view of their ability.

As is par for the socialist course, everything but economic reality is to blame:

The café announced its demise with a lengthy screed denouncing its various enemies, including “professional class-traitors,” “Libertarians,” “the rich,” and Canada itself, which it called a “colonial death camp.”

Of course. It's always the wreckers and kulaks that are at fault when socialism collapses from its own inherent contradictions, isn't it?  

Everything but economic reality and the owner's inability to manage a business with a proper and realistic business plan is to blame. I mean if you can't get it right to generate sufficient support among the socialists in Toronto, of which their are many, to keep your anti-capitalist fever dream bean shop going,  what chance do you have?

We will note that so far Mr. Gabriel Sims-Fewer, who is clearly now possessing fewer dollars than he started with, is still living in his self-proclaimed "colonial death camp". 

One surely expects him to move to a more socialistic utopia, any day now, one that is more in accordance with his anti-capitalist principles. 

Rent Control: A Misguided Progressive Economic Policy Strikes Yet Again

Kinda hard to have sympathy for people looking to repeat the same problems of the past and having learned nothing from the past lessons.

Ignorance of economics is not supposed to be an excuse.

The Detroit News: As housing prices surge, rent control is back on the ballot

Because limiting the income landlords receive on their rentals to -- under many of the proposals and laws already passed and described in the article -- below even the rate of inflation, is really going to encourage landlords to provide new, more, and better housing stock.

Yes there are  ore tenant voters than landlord voters which is how this stuff gets through, but having landlords lose money on every tenant  is hardly going to encourage them to keep renting properties out - they will not makee up the loss in volume.

It's the same stupid progressive magical thinking, using other people's money (in this case landlords) to pay for their fever-dreams.

While one might sympathize with tenants facing higher rents in very desirable areas to live as depicted in the article, with many of those areas limiting housing development and supply by local ordinance,  what exactly did they expect?

Combine:

a) high inflation with and the cost of everything from utilities to repair materials and labor costs going up; 

b) very high demand for rental space by people with Biden bucks in their pockets bidding up the rent and investment companies (often Biden and Dem contributors and promoters of ESG theories) looking for high return;  and

c) then throw in the reality of landlords getting hosed for two years with the CDC allowing tenants to live in rental units without having to pay rent for two years with landlords being unable to evict them and getting stuck eating the costs.

 Put all that together and you get the current big increase in rental costs, courtesy of misguided progressive economic policy.  

Adding yet another progressive misguided economic policy of rent control to try to fix the prior progressive misguided economic policy brought to you by the same people is not going to make it any better.

Since We're Already in One, I'd Say The Odds Are Pretty Good

The Detroit Free Press, ever covering for the Democrats had the following article: What are the odds of a U.S. recession in 2023?

Since we're already in one I'd say the odds are pretty much 100%.

Indeed, now Federal Reserve Chairman Powell is backing away from his statement of just 11 days ago that higher rates likely won't cause a deep recession, it doesn't look good.

Fox Business: Fed's Powell abandons promise of 'soft landing' amid inflation fight

Given Powell's previous wrong statements that inflation frrm his and Biden's monetary policies would be merely tranistory, and that he;s now abandoning his promise that he can controlinflation while creating a "soft landing", I'd say that economic reality that their actions are goign to cvause a deep recession is pretty much spot on.

Inflation and flooding the economy with dollars may make you feel pretty good initially, and Biden is trying to keep the bender going by continuing spending under the "Inflation Reduction Act" that will actually increase inflation, and spending over half a trillion in forgiving his supporters' student loans.  

But, the hangover is going to suck - and its going to hurt those of us who weren't even drinking the Democrat's Modern Monetary Theory Kool-Aid.

While People Paid Less Tax This Year, They're Upset They're Not Getting Larger Refunds

In other words, less of their money was withheld form their paychecks this year so they actually had MORE money during the year to spend and are now getting less of a refund than expected.

Of course this is because a lot of people can't do math and also somehow think a tax refund come tax time is money they're getting from the government. It's not, it's their own money coming back to them after giving the government an interest free loan for the year.

The Detroit Free Press: Frustration grows as Trump tax cut affects refunds

The IRS should have kept the same withholding tables and people would be happy that they gave more of their money during the year and got back more come tax time. Doesn't make any actual sense, but people aren't always rational actors.

Only about 6 percent of tax filers are actually expected to pay more under the new tax rules, according to the the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C. The average tax increase would be $2,760.
Another 29 percent are expected to see no change in their taxes. But that doesn't mean they're going to see the same sized refund, either.
"There is a difference between having a tax cut and getting a bigger refund this year," said Frank J. Sammartino, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.
"Most taxpayers received a tax cut," he said.
"But because the IRS changed withholding tables to withhold less tax during the year, many will see a smaller refund than in past years."

In short, yes you are getting a smaller refund, but you are paying less in taxes as you had less taken out during the year.

This again goes to my personal plan to eliminate tax withholding and make everyone write a check on April 15 for the full amount of their taxes owed so they absolutely know how much in taxes they are paying. Oh, and have national elections on April 16.