Written

A water drop and ripples

Plotting degree prices versus earnings 10-years later yields unexpected results in Rhode Island.

By Justin Katz | March 4, 2024 |

This is certainly not where I’d have placed the dots if somebody asked me to guess: That Rhode Island College is the least expensive, and doesn’t seem to produce a great effect isn’t a surprise.  Johnson & Whales, however, is surprising, and New England Institute of Technology is even more so, both in how expensive…

A water drop and ripples

What explains Rhode Island’s emissions increase?

By Justin Katz | March 4, 2024 |

The focus of the related article is explaining why the American Northwest was unique in the country in its increase in emissions from 2022 to 2023, but Rhode Island is a conspicuous red dot on Michael Thomas’s map: If accurate, this result shows “net zero” proclamations to be so much hot air, but what happened?…

A water drop and ripples

Bjorn Lomborg’s illustration of number cooking can’t be ignored.

By Justin Katz | March 1, 2024 |

Honestly, it looks like Lomborg has identified a typical example of the method of operations for alarmists with this tweet: As with economic numbers, environmental alarmism creates too much incentive of money and power for the numbers to be trusted.

A water drop and ripples

The scale of NYC’s banana-republicism is difficult for most people to fathom.

By Justin Katz | February 29, 2024 |

But Mark Steyn clarifies it with his usual panache: … one hears so much breezy chit-chat in America about appealing this and appealing that one takes one’s appellate rights for granted. Not so. In order to appeal, a losing party has to post a bond for the amount at issue. … This is no small…

People stare at their cell phones while disasters happen around them

What is it about social media lately? (A hope for controlling the crisis.)

By Justin Katz | February 29, 2024 |

Almost in passing during a recent podcast featuring Greg McKeown, Tim Ferriss stepped into an idea I’ve been contemplating lately: [A]s my job, I interview some of the top performers in the world, hundreds of them, and the change that I have seen for those people in that subset who are already, I think most…

A water drop and ripples

A few words on the viral video of girls dancing at a concert (or something).

By Justin Katz | February 29, 2024 |

I haven’t seen anybody outraged by this video. I have seen a lot of people displaying their moral superiority to the people who are supposedly outraged by it, though. For that reason, it seems like a good example of the way in which social media can social engineer movements by creating opportunities for communal opposition…

A water drop and ripples

One undeniable fact about the huge influx of illegal immigrants…

By Justin Katz | February 28, 2024 |

… is that we, the People, are being manipulated. Of course, we should be clear.  The contribution of illegal immigration is not the entire 3.8M, which also includes whatever increase there would have been, if any.  (Presumably, immigration could prove to had made up for what otherwise would have been a decrease.)  We also should…

Suburban house with a slot machine on the side

We react to increases in housing prices in exactly the wrong way.

By Justin Katz | February 28, 2024 |

Lance Lambert, who appears to be a reporter on the housing beat, shared a table of increases in housing prices in the 50 largest metro areas.  As the following snip from the table shows, Providence experienced the third-largest increase over the past year: Various contextual points are important to remember.  Metros can vary in size,…

A water drop and ripples

Progressives’ Valentines give a hint of life when everything’s political.

By Justin Katz | February 28, 2024 |

It seemed to be a mini-fad, this year, for progressives to post fake Valentines on social media that weren’t about love, but about their political positions.  This one, from RI Kids Count captures the distasteful feel with particular gusto: The tone is hard to miss, with its insinuation of superiority and assumption of bad-intent and/or…

A water drop and ripples

There’s a subtler lesson about the lie of Biden’s loan forgiveness.

By Justin Katz | February 27, 2024 |

Brian’s got this right, but it’s not the entire story: $3.4 million to 450 people is $7,556 each.  That’s not life-changing money; it’s purely a political handout at others’ expense.  Wait until the kids discover how limited this handout is, by the way.  Most of them are actually struggling with their private loans, which tend to…