Linkage

In the days since [Charlie Kirk's] killing, the US right wing has fallen over itself to blame trans people or, as Alex Jones put it to his almost 5 million followers, “the tranny death cult”. Similar formulations can be found across social media. Trans people are terrorists, a death cult, like the Taliban, need to be socially ostracised and banned from transitioning. And we all know there is only one type of trans person most of these people are imagining when they call for us to be electroshocked, shunned, and – let’s be real – beaten and killed. And that’s trans women.

It's over. There and here in the UK. Today I doubt I will see another progressive measure (either in legislation or healthcare policy) put in place for trans people in my lifetime. Who knows what may yet be taken away. In the UK, the terf campaign groups make their goals quite clear: they would like transition banned before the age of 25 and for trans women to be compelled to carry male government ID in all contexts. Once the EHRC guidance banning us from all women’s groups and spaces across society is in place, they intend to sue organisations and service providers that don’t exclude us. Right now, I think it’s best to assume all these things are a likely prospect in the next ten years.

In the community itself there’s been a definite shift in the way we speak about the future. The middle-class trans micro-economy that boomed in the 2010s: Pride month corporate sponsorship, jobs at LGBT charities, DEI talks and panels, diversity modelling and ad campaigns, progressive theatre, educational books about being trans etc, which some of us used to make a living, has gone. A friend and I used to riff on the old Susan Stryker joke that as a trans woman you must commodify yourself one way or another: it’s either escorting or the diversity and inclusion panel. The friend (a sex worker) always said she found more dignity (and better money) in the former.

Why is this happening now? The Right itself offers two contradictory answers simultaneously. On the one hand, they are constantly trying to project strength: They want us to believe they represent a vital, virile alternative to anemic liberal democracy – and a cohesive vision far superior to weak, divisive pluralism. Liberal democracy, in this tale, is destined to surrender to the far right. On the other hand, rightwingers are also obsessed with their own weakness. The Trumpist imagination is defined by a sense of besiegement: Powerful enemies everywhere, anti-American forces both from without and from within conspiring to destroy the nation, “real Americans” constantly victimized by a society they believe owes them eternal adulation and deference, made to suffer under the yoke of crazy leftist politics.

Relentless self-victimization – a veritable persecution complex – has been a defining feature of modern conservatism since its inception. The heightened version of this type of siege mentality we are seeing now points to something that is diagnostically important: Until very recently at least, the Right was indeed losing the fundamental struggle over what kind of country “America” should strive to be. The idea of a “crisis of liberal democracy” has dominated the political and broader public discourse over the past decade. But in crucial ways, it is the conception of “real America” as a white Christian patriarchal homeland that has come under enormous pressure. Socially, culturally, and – most importantly, perhaps – demographically, the country has moved away from the rightwing ideal since the middle of the twentieth century. It is not just a figment of the reactionary imagination that America has become less white, less religious, and more pluralistic in basically every dimension. As a result, the conservative hold on power has become tenuous. In a narrow political sense, they may be in charge right now – in the White House, in Congress, at the Supreme Court. But it is not just political power the Right seeks. They desire cultural domination and affirmation. In the cultural sphere, the public square, and across many societal dimensions like the family, the shift in power away from white male conservatives has been more pronounced. The Right has engaged in a comprehensive counter-mobilization in response – a radicalization fueled not by a feeling of strength, but by a sense of weakness.

[…] Clinging to the idea that “The Right won’t go THAT far” is futile because they have convinced themselves that their leftist enemies have already gone *much further*.

Just so, so angry:

Alix and her partner, Tiarn, are among the first tenants of a new public-private housing development the Victorian government is using as a template for its planned demolition and redevelopment of the state's 44 public housing towers.

Under the so-called Ground Lease Model, the state demolishes existing public housing blocks and leases the land to consortiums of private developers and non-profit housing providers for 40 years.

The consortiums then rebuild the sites with a mix of social, affordable and market-rate rentals, and hand them back to the government when the lease period expires.

The Flemington complex includes 240 community housing units and 116 affordable apartments for couples like Alix and Tiarn who earn less than $111,000 a year, and for single people earning less than $71,000.

But less than a year after they moved in, Alix and Tiarn were told by the consortium that operates their development that it had decided to increase their rent by 17 per cent.

"Since then, it's been nothing but stress and anxiety," Alix said.

The proposed increase would see the weekly rent for their one-bedroom apartment rise from $322 to $377 — an extra $55 the couple says they can barely afford.

So many bad ideas:

Reviewing the welfare payment for low-income renters is one of several ideas presented to Housing Minister Clare O'Neil after the election to reset Labor's housing agenda.

A table of contents which was accidentally sent to the ABC has revealed Treasury told Ms O'Neil and Treasurer Jim Chalmers the government's signature target of 1.2 million new homes in five years "will not be met".

[…]

Headings from the contents table show Treasury made nine "recommendations" of housing policies for Ms O'Neil to consider. While the materials do not include those recommendations in full, they give an extended glimpse at the department's focuses.

One of the nine recommendation areas focused on support for renters, listing several "policy reform opportunities" including a review of Commonwealth Rent Assistance, a supplement for welfare recipients who rent.

The supplement was increased by Labor in its first term, but economists and welfare advocates say it is still insufficient. Matthew Bowes, a Grattan Institute housing expert, told the ABC it should increase by 50 per cent for singles and 40 per cent for couples.

… which will just be a pass-through to landlords.

I disagree profoundly with Alan on restricting immigration, and the idea that we should encourage the involvement of superannuation funds in community housing (i.e. let's cure financialisation with more financialisation!), but the point that housing has to become a bad financial asset — and therefore good value as housing — is absolutely key.

Richard Yetsenga points out that there are 11 million dwellings in Australia, for 26.6 million people, which is theoretically enough. That suggests, he says, that the problem is misallocation rather than a genuine shortage.

Yes, but is the government going to force people to sell their holiday homes? And in any case, they are nowhere near employment or public transport so only useful as holiday homes.

The other problem with achieving more supply is capital.

The current plan is that it must be private capital because governments haven't got the money, because priorities have changed since the days of plentiful public housing.

But if affordability is to be improved, housing can't be a good investment.

To keep the current level of (un)affordability — that is, with house prices at nine to 10 times incomes, residential real estate has to be a poor investment, providing a return of no more than 3-4 per cent per annum, including rent, so incomes can keep pace.

To return to the affordability of 25 years ago — a house price to income ratio of four times, it would have to be an absolutely rubbish investment for 20 years with zero return.

That means private capital can't do it — only the government can.

I only heard about this case recently, via my fab lecturer, Erik Dean. I don't know how I missed it at the time.

In a long-awaited decision, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank today, striking down an abstract software patent. Essentially, the Court ruled that adding “on a computer” to an abstract idea does not make it patentable. Many thousands of software patents—particularly the vague and overbroad patents so beloved by patent trolls—should be struck down under this standard. Because the opinion leaves many details to be worked out (such as the scope of an “abstract idea”), it might be a few years until we understand its full impact.

Alice Corp.'s patent claimed a form of escrowing that was well known. Called an “intermediated settlement,” it allowed a third party to act as an intermediary by creating “shadow accounts” for parties, and only allowing transactions to go through if the “shadow account” showed the party had enough money. Oh—and it was done with a computer.

The Alice case has a long history in the courts. The case was originally filed in 2007.  In 2011, the district court held that all the patent's claims were invalid as abstract. In 2012, a divided panel at the Federal Circuit reversed. In 2013, the full Federal Circuit vacated the panel opinion and again found the claims too abstract in a decision that had 10 judges produce 7 different opinions. And now, in 2014, the Supreme Court has finally ended it: Alice’s claims are invalid.

In a concise 17-page opinion, the Supreme Court recognized that Alice claimed the abstract concept of “intermediated settlement,” something the Supreme Court recognized was “a fundamental economic practice long prevalent in our system of commerce.” Having done this, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that merely adding “a generic computer to perform generic computer functions” does not make an otherwise abstract idea patentable. This statement (and the opinion itself) makes clear that an abstract idea along with a computer doing what a computer normally does is not something our patent system was designed to protect. 

Nations have governments. Nations are full of people. The government and the people are two different things. The failure to take this distinction seriously lays the groundwork for much of the world’s suffering. 

[…]

Some governments are better and some are worse. What is the relationship, morally speaking, between the government of a nation and its people? You already know the answer to this question. When the country in question is your own, you understand this distinction perfectly. If you live in America, your government is run by Donald Trump. Ugh. You might despise that guy. You might have worked hard against him during campaign season. When you visit another country, and tell them that you are American, you might add, “But don’t judge me!” You would not want to be branded with the weight of the various stupid and despicable actions of your own government. You understand, first, that you do not agree with those things, and second, that you as a regular person have little power to affect those things. You are just living your life. You want to be respected as a human being.

Unfortunately, this simple and intuitive understanding of the difference between the government and the people of your own country often evaporates—or gets erased—when the discussion turns to foreign countries. When someone says “Russia,” you probably think of Putin, not of the teenage girl dreaming of what she will do after graduation. When someone says “Iran,” you probably think of something that is often referred to as “the regime,” rather than of the laughing family gathering for a holiday meal. This mental mistake, this unwitting juxtaposition of one thing for a different thing, is like a steamroller that paves the way for you to accept unacceptable things. You would never nod sagely and agree that a bomb should be dropped on a child. But air strikes to “cripple” the “command and control” of a “hostile regime?” Well, of course, serious people understand that this may be necessary in the grand chessboard that is geopolitics. 

The CFPB received more than 600 comments from the public this year concerning the proposal, titled Protecting Americans from Harmful Data Broker Practices. The rule was crafted to ensure that data brokers obtain Americans’ consent before selling or sharing sensitive personal information, including financial data such as income. US credit agencies are already required to abide by such regulations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, one of the nation’s oldest privacy laws.

In its notice, the CFPB’s acting director, Russell Vought, wrote that he was withdrawing the proposal “in light of updates to Bureau policies,” and that it did not align with the agency’s “current interpretation of the FCRA,” which he added the CFPB is “in the process of revising.”

[…] 

Vought, who also serves as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, received a letter on Monday from the Financial Technology Association (FTA) calling for the rule to be withdrawn, claiming it exceed the agency’s statutory mandate and would be “harmful to financial institutions’ efforts to detect and prevent fraud.” The FTA is a US-based trade organization that represents the interests of fintech companies and their executives.

Privacy advocates have long pressed regulators to use the Fair Credit Reporting Act to crack down on the data broker industry. Common Defense, a veteran-led nonprofit, urged the CFPB to take action in November, blaming data brokers for recklessly exposing sensitive information about US service members that placed them at “substantial risk” of being blackmailed, scammed, or targeted by hostile foreign actors.

Someone starting from the assumption that America has been a stable, consolidated democracy for two and a half centuries must struggle to adequately understand the current political conflict: The contortions necessary to explain why so many millions of Americans are now embracing a blatantly authoritarian leader when they had supposedly been fully on board with liberal democracy until quite recently will quickly lead you to strange, unhelpful places. And if you depart from such a premise, you have no chance of developing a proper response to the current crisis either: If there had been a broad consensus around democratic ideals until Trump came down the golden escalator, it would be reasonable to assume that the restoration of the pre-2016 status quo ante might be an adequate solution. But if the rise of Trumpism is a manifestation, rather than the cause, of forces and ideas that have always prevented the nation from living up to the egalitarian aspirations it has often proclaimed, then restoration is not enough. If our existential crisis is the latest iteration of a conflict that has defined the nation since its inception, America needs a truly transformative effort to propel the country closer to the kind of multiracial, pluralistic democracy it never has been yet and finally establish a stable democratic consensus that has so far eluded these United States.