Troy

Yeah some of their row houses front door lead almost into the street. Nah it is like a neighborhood 7-11 but better. You can get prepared food, lottery tickets, beer, potato chips, whatever it will cost more and you better check the expiration date, but in NYC you usually don't have to walk more than a block to hit one so they are convenient. Yeah, nowadays if you are not a student you are not getting into any academic building on a NYC college campus -- Columbia recently blocked off their entire campus... This is not good as these institutions of higher education are increasingly inaccessible to the public: increasingly elitist.

Wisdom.

We @aka Contrarian his is in a line of people who have targeted you. I can think of two who were far worse. Both I honestly believe had mental issues and I hope they are doing better now. Recall I banned one from the forum -- perhaps the only regular poster I ever did that to -- in more than a quarter of a century! You wrote that was unnecessary of me, but that person really had gone off the rails with the obscenities. Our friend @Pioneer1 does not rise to that level -- he does even use curse words. As our good @ProfD pointed out the forum comes alive when the fam is a all here

LOL can't get any more cynical that...

I had a row house in Harlem and the people walking by was never a problem as you mentioned. Most of the bodegas are owned by people of Middle Eastern descent. when I was a kid, Black people did own grocery stores but those days are over. my neighborhood grocery store was owned by a black man back in the day he sold pickles out of a barrel in the floor was wooden was saw dust on top of it. He tabulated what you owed by adding everything up on the paper bag with the pencil. Eventually, a Puerto Rican own the place… I don’t know who owns it now doesn’t matter cause I have no reason to step foot into it today. Years ago, I remember Hector macho Camacho dancing in front of the store in front of a red sports car. He was from his Harlem people loved him. Yeah, the Schomburg is worth checking out, but don’t have high expectations is mainly a research library so unless you’re going there to see something specific… They have a book fair every year and have some good programming so I will wait for that if you’re planning a visit.

That is just factually inaccurate. But it’s hard to convince people who have this belief to believe otherwise. Again, they are not counting unemployment in the way that you defined it so let’s leave that alone. These types of biases are well understood. No reputable poller is going to sample only New York City residence and think that’s representative of the entire country. Again, this is factually not true. Indeed, there is no poll that even attempts to include all Americans. Hey @Pioneer1 imagine a poll in which they ask every other American (basically if the person was not polled themselves, the person right next to them was) ANY question do you think that would be an accurate representative of all Americans?

What Little I knew of the charges against Eric Adams seemed a bit much. I think what you’re missing is the fact that the charges leveled against him were unwarranted in other words he was set up and the only way he could get out of. It was to do Trump’s bidding. The whole thing was a sham. In any event, Adams wasn’t the best candidate and he’ll likely lose, he had a good run. He should be proud of all he’s accomplished.

I ain’t try to encourage this behavior, and since I know y’all ain’t taking it seriously I have to admit it’s funny.

because money is so embedded in the process, I can’t see that ever happening until money is taken out the equation. It literally cost billions to run a presidential campaign. they will, if it serves their needs, which is the most likely outcome.

Using your reasoning, there is no truth. Do you believe the census figures to be 100% accurate. We all know we can’t possibly be 100% accurate does that make the figures a lie, not the truth? That’s right and the type of samples one collects is important. It would be like trying to call a presidential election by only pulling people in New York City. You need a sufficiently diverse sample set, whether it’s your fictional meal or the voting population. I answered that question I’m contacted all the time for polls. If you’re not being asked your opinion about something, there might be a reason for it I’m sure he has heard of it, but as he has said, unless the poll includes everyone, the data is a lie, and he is more inclined to trust his own intuition and observations. Did I describe your position accurately @Pioneer1?

Well, there is a Costco in East Harlem. In the Italian section right around the corner and down the block from Raos. What did you like or dislike about Harlem?

The Afro newspaper publishes the weekly murder rates for both DC and Baltimore on the front page. I always wondered about that because I know people are betting on this.

if you get a chance, pick up some old posts

Well know that your great-grands will enjoy great lives full of abundance and leisure. They will look upon our lives the way we look upon people lives of people who lived short, brutal, lives during the dark ages. well, he’s one of a kind so I don’t think we have to worry about that. perhaps an advanced version will emerge. Or maybe AI will come up with a form of government we can’t possibly envision today or maybe AI will just run our government completely.

a snap curfew as described an article seems difficult to implement. It was not clear to me what you rules would be used so it also seems somewhat arbitrary. And as you all have indicated whenever arbitrary rules are in place, they are leveled disproportionately against Black people. Apparently, they are trying to deal with crime and murders, I’m not in Chicago and if I were there and effected, I’d probably be open to I’m trying it. If you ever lived in a crime with neighborhood, you’re not really too worried about civil liberties you just wanna be safe.

Please define unemployed, that would be a start. How old do you have to be to be considered unemployed if you are a 17-year-old who recently graduated from high school and not working are you unemployed? How about a 15-year-old dropout? How about a 16-year-old with a child? how about the handicapped? How about the elderly at what age do you stop counting people? Do you count the incarcerate, the ones working for slave wages. The larger question is how do you define a workforce? Again, we know that the department of labor statistics definition does not mesh with your definition. The question becomes what information would you gather from your stat that will be substantially different from the governments? Then factoring the time cost an energyof collecting the information. I’m contacted all the time to fill out some stupid survey or answer some questions after dealing with someone in customer service. During a presidential elections it was even more frequent. I generally ignore them all occasionally I will fill out a paid survey or do a paid focus group, but if it’s a freebie and takes more than a few seconds, I’m not doing it. Of course, an exhaustive method of counting is gonna be more accurate. The unemployment rates are reported monthly. The census is taken every 10 years. There are always trade offs between the effort and collecting the information the need for precision, the timelines of the information., etc @Pioneer1 there is a field of math that addresses the issue off sample sizes, margin of error, conference level, sampling method when it comes to collecting data. if there’s 340 million people in the United States and you wanna figure out if they’re going to vote or not and which candidate they will choose, you do not need to ask all 340 million people you only need a very small percentage of them to an answer very close to if you asked everyone. If you try to poll everyone, the election would be over before you even collected the data. Similarly, if it took even a year to collect and compile unemployment data, it would have no value because the number would have changed by the time it was reported the monthly number is good enough.

I can very easily see why you would write this. However, I disagree. This country has survived far worse. I do think things will get worse, certainly in the short term, before they get better. Perhaps it’s my optimistic nature. I also know that if most of us feel as if the country is doomed, there’s a much better chance that it will be, People will behave as if it’s true, act their own self interest, and stop working to improve things. Yes, I realize that sounds like the current administration, but I don’t believe the masses of people feel that way — at least not enough of them to call it a wrap for the nation.

I wanted to know if there were any in Harlem. I don’t think you could’ve told me that my man. Have you ever been to Harlem @Pioneer1?

There used to be Woolworth stores in Harlem. The one in Spanish Harlem had a lunch counter too. They all closed by the late 60s, early 70s begin almost half a century of economic blight followed by gentrification. Never heard of it. I looked it up and see that it was founded in 1899 in Detroit they all eventually became Kmarts. There was one in Harlem on 125th St. it was operated under the name S.H. Kress and that I do remember.

Speaking of dead, Popes have any of y’all seen the film Conclave. I thought it was excellent, far better than that stupid movie that won the Academy award this year. Clearly that meme favors science. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CB!

This is why often your arguments become flawed, no one is talking about arbitrary figures stop setting up straw men. Again, you’re arguing semantics. Your definition of unemployment is not the same as the numbers released by the government because of all the things that you described. There are a variety of reasons why they count the number of unemployed people the way that they do. it doesn’t mean that the data are useless. It’s just not reporting what you understand as the number of people who are unemployed. still, we are left with the fact that you have no idea what the percentage of unemployed people are the best you can do is used to date that you have available account for any discrepancies that you feel are in the data than come up with the rough estimate, but again without the data all you can do is pull numbers out of your ass Well here too it depends. For example, you have no clue based upon your personal observations how many people are in the United States right now. In fact, no one knows exactly how many people are here. There’s a census taken every 10 years and that gives us a pretty good estimate. far better than any of us could Divine from walking around and making our own observations. no one not even the US government asserts that that census data are 100% accurate. Using your logic then it’s false and let’s just throw it out because it’s not a fact. But the reality is the number is good enough to do what we need to do with it in most cases.

I’m old enough to remember the 5 and dime stores. As a child my recollection was that the stores were a bit more classy than the dollar tree brand

Maybe I will check out the dollar tree store here in Tampa. They are everywhere. I have driven all over the country and what I find surprising is that you can find a Dollar Tree in rural areas on country roads seemingly popping up out of nowhere. Dollar Trees are to the boondocks as bodegas are to ghettos.

I did catch Maher's show immediately after his Trump visit. He seemed defensive in trying to justify the visit. I wanted to tell Bill: "Who cares? You rich white guys got to sit in a room and circle jerk each other for a few hours on the taxpayer's dime -- good for you." Look if I was invited to the White House I would not hesitate to go. But I would not dupe myself into thinking that I was just trying to "talk to the other side" or be naive enough to think I would have any impact on policy. @aka Contrarian is this the GenZ bit you were referring to?

We discuss this from time to time. Of course, your observations can be manipulated. The oft cited problem with "eyewitness" testimony is reflective of this. Of course, data can be presented in a misleading way or simply misinterpreted, but data beats anecdotes. Perhaps but that is a different argument. Lying whether it is in an anecdote or data is useless for increasing understanding. If you understand what is being counted, then you can derive reasonable and logical conclusions from the data. In terms of unemployment how would your personal observations be superior to understanding any aspect of unemployment?