The water’s not here yet, but the sharks are already at the door

My Sunday evening was spent watching the Oscars ceremony. I enjoyed it and was pleased to see so many Asians win awards and that the best song went to one from India. Last Friday Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and was taken over by the Feds. Biden said depositors will get all of their money, even though only $250K of it is insured by the government. Others have said that sets a dangerous precedent of putting money into an unstable bank knowing the Feds will protect them. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos wrote about the Republican response to the takeover. It’s the response they’re using for everything these days: The bank was too “woke.” The failure wasn’t because of their requests to weaken bank regulations, they say. Nor was it improper (or at least inattentive) actions by the board. It’s because the bank had a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policy. Which means “woke” has become an all-purpose attack. Republicans certainly don’t want us looking at this little detail from unusual_whales, that tweets market news, as retweeted by Leah McElrath:

Meet Joseph Gentile. He was the Chief Administrative Officer at Silicon Valley Bank. Prior to joining the firm in 2007, he served as the CFO for Lehman Brothers’ Global Investment Bank.

Lehman Brothers was one of those banks that collapsed at the start of the Great Recession. It seems he jumped just before that ship sunk and led another bank that just sank. Marlon Wayans hosted the Daily Show last week (before SVB collapsed) and he wondered where is the woke vaccine:

Nikki Haley said wokeness is more dangerous than any pandemic. I never had to miss two weeks of work for wokeness. And I’m dam sure Herman Cain didn’t die because he walked into a gender-neutral bathroom.

David From of The Atlantic tweeted:

If you're worried about what happens when one midsized regional bank doesn't repay its depositors, wait till you find out what happens if House Republicans force the government of the United States to default on its massive worldwide multi-trillion dollar obligations.

I had observed (elsewhere) that the national deficit has gone up under Republicans and down under Democrats. In reply to a response to Frum Ursula tweeted a chart that shows exactly that. Bill Clinton had managed the federal budget well enough that in his last three years the deficit had become a surplus, reducing the debt. SemDem of the Kos community wrote about the Little Haiti district of Miami (different from Little Havana) and the term “climate gentrification.” The people who settled in Little Haiti did so for racist reasons – due to redlining they weren’t allowed in white districts and this land was undesirable because it was between two railroad tracks. But there are a few things working against Little Haiti right now. (1) Miami is booming with a massive influx of people and a skyscraper boom, even though (2) Miami is being hit hard by climate change. Those high price areas on the coast are flooding more frequently. And (3) Little Haiti is ten feet above sea level – the high ground in the area. Add to that (4) 80% of Little Haiti residents couldn’t afford to buy, even here, and are renters. That means Little Haiti is highly desirable land (in spite of those two railroads) and residents are easily pushed out – just raise their rent. Home rental prices have already doubled, new condos and apartments are triple in rent. Local businesses are also being pushed out. Developers are already buying up the area. That prompted Valencia Gudner, Community Organizer in Little Haiti, to say:

The water’s not here yet, but the sharks are already at the door.

SemDem wrote there is another way this could have been done:

Too often, developers look at these communities they are invading as a problem that needs to be solved, as opposed to working with the community to make it mutually beneficial. Little Haiti residents are not under any illusion that they will be able to keep developers out, but it’s not binary. There are mega-projects and shopping districts all over the nation, but the reason people want to visit Miami is to experience the unique cultures and communities that you can’t find anywhere else. By embracing the community instead of pushing it out, by building affordable housing so local residents can actually live and work there instead of forcing them into another area pre-Jim Crow can be mutually beneficial and profitable. If the real estate moguls would work with the community to make it a place everyone would want to (and be able to) live, work, and visit, they will have a profitable development venture while being a good community steward at the same time.

Another area being hit by climate gentrification is Flagstaff, Arizona. Temperatures in Phoenix can now average 110F in the summer, so many in Phoenix are buying second homes in Flagstaff, which is at a much higher elevation and is much cooler. And long-term Flagstaff residents can no longer afford housing. Meteor Blades of Kos reported that Biden has approved the Willow oil and gas project on the North Slope of Alaska. Climate activists have been fighting this project for a long time and say approving it is both dangerous and stupid. Blades explains how stupid:

Since the 1960s, Alaska has warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the United States. Scientists predict that the region will warm by an average of 2.2 degrees C (4 degrees F) over the next 30 years, thawing the Arctic ice and permafrost faster than is now occurring and undermining infrastructure on the tundra, including around heavy drilling rigs. To deal with this, ConocoPhillips plans eventually to install chillers—thermosiphons—to keep the ground frozen hard enough to support the rigs that extract the oil whose burning releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which adds to global warming, which is melting the permafrost. That is not exactly what you would call a virtuous circle. Dyani Chapman, state director of the Alaska Environment Research and Policy Center, told The New York Times last month that "it's absurd that as our tundra is melting because of climate change, ConocoPhillips plans to use 'chillers' to re-freeze tundra so it can drill for oil that will, in turn, make climate change even worse."

Joan McCarter of Kos reported the Supreme Court decided not to rule on another case that could have killed democracy. The case is about gerrymandering in North Carolina. Republicans in the state redrew the maps and the state Supreme Court said nope. So Republicans took the case to the federal Supremes with the kooky idea that when it comes to elections there is an “independent state legislature” theory that says the stat legislature – unencumbered by state laws, constitution, or state courts – can do whatever they want with election laws and results (including saying the voters got it wrong). So the Supremes heard the case with Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh indicating that kooky theory was a fine idea. Then there was an election and the NC Supremes shifted from Democratic to Republican majority. And the court agreed to hear the case again, though that shouldn’t happen unless the court “overlooked or misapprehended” points of law or fact. That rule is rarely used, maybe 1% of the time. And, gosh! – here’s some overlooked facts. Since the NC Supremes said they will rehear the case the federal Supremes gladly said great, we don’t have to. That’s great for the country. Not for North Carolina. How bad for NC? When the case is reheard, justices have refused to let Democrats in the room.