Social Issues

One year ago, when we first started discussing the Vancouver housing bubble, which as we first speculated - and was later confirmed - was the result of Chinese oligarch money-launderers parking "hot cash" in this offshore housing market (at least until a 15% property tax on foreign purchases made Seattle the new Vancouver), we said that Vancouver houses had become the de facto new Swiss bank account, and because of that the houses - once purchased - would remain a highly overprized, if vacant tribute to China's soaring capital outflows.

French police have claimed that an officer anally raped a 22-year-old black man with a baton by accident. Protests and riots erupted in a Paris suburb following the sexual assault of the man who suffered at the hands of four police officers during a routine ID check. The protests have been ongoing in the Paris suburbs and are now spreading across the country The Independent reports: In an initial investigation, they found “insufficient evidence” to support the man’s claim that he was deliberately sodomised.

Submitted by Jonathan Newman via The Mises Institute,

One of the great things about economics is that it is devoid of all mysticism. Every person, good, service, and dollar is treated equally — nothing is special or above the rules. There’s nothing about the supply of or demand for apples that is categorically different from that of oranges. Since every good or service demanded by anybody is scarce, economics treats apples, oranges, computers, haircuts, education, and health care in the same way.

Did 'fake news' just jump the shark?

The Dominican Republic's oldest and most important newspaper El Nacional on Friday printed a photo of Alec Baldwin doing his impression of President Trump on "Saturday Night Live" in a lead article about Trump and Israel.

The photo was used side-by-side with a photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While it was not immediately clear whether the image of Baldwin was accidental or an intentional joke, the newspaper later clarified their error...

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via PeakProsperity.com,

In the modern era, the phrase Class War is rooted in the socialist/Marxist concept that the conflict between labor (the working class) and capital (owners of capital) is not just inevitable - it’s the fulcrum of history.  In this view, this Class War is the inevitable result of the asymmetry between the elite who own/control the capital and the much larger class of people whose livelihood is earned solely by their labor.