UnHerd: Where the American Dream goes to die

His new home costs $650 a month. This is about one-third of average rental prices in Imperial Beach, where rents are rising fast and at a higher rate than the national average. Little wonder that amid a housing crisis that spans the United States, there are 22 million Americans — an astonishing one in 15 of the population — living in what is politely termed ‘manufactured housing’. Most own their trailers but rent the land beneath them. Some sites look like the dishevelled Hollywood stereotypes, filled with noisy families and tatty trailers, but many are neat and homely. [...]

Increasingly, trailer parks reflect something more sinister as well: the rapacious nature of unchecked capitalism that sees the homes of poor people as an asset to be bled, rather than pockets of humanity that deserve protection. Private equity firms, hedge funds and rich speculators are muscling in on the parks, sensing higher returns than on many other property investments. They are buying out traditional ‘mom and pop’ operators — a state of affairs that alarmingly echoes the sub-prime crisis that forced many families from their homes. And it is sparking loud claims of exploitation as low-income tenants complain angrily of rising rents and reduced maintenance. [...]

To appreciate the scale of the US housing crisis, consider this finding from a survey last year, quoted in the Financial Times: median-priced homes are too expensive for average wage earners in three-quarters of the country. In Imperial Beach, the median sale price last year was more than $620,000. Meanwhile mobile home sites are often sitting in prime real estate locations; many started as housing for returning troops after the Second World War, and were built on the outskirts of towns and cities before becoming enveloped by urban sprawl over subsequent years. Thousands are situated near the sea, lakes or other desirable attractions.

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BBC4 Analysis: China's Captured "Princess"

If you want to understand the global reach of a rising China, visit Vancouver. Canada has been sucked in to an intractable dispute between the US and China after the arrest on an American warrant of Meng Wanzhou, an executive with the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. Beijing’s furious response caught Canada off guard. Two Canadians have been detained in China – seemingly in response, precipitating an acute foreign policy crisis. Canadian journalist Neal Razzell examines what could be the first of many tests both for Canada and other nations, forced to choose between old allies like America and the new Asian economic giant.

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Nautilus Magazine: What Really Inflamed the Coronavirus Epidemic

An online tidal wave of reflection and grief that I’ve never seen before resulted. My own personal WeChat feed was flooded with comments and tributes to him, ranging from poems to cartoons of him eating his favorite meal of fried chicken. The rage was directed largely at Wuhan city officials. After Li had written to his friends, he had been called into a police station, where he was forced to sign an unusual document designed to coerce him into silence. Later, he spoke to Chinese private media company Caixin, shedding light on the unfolding epidemic which, having engulfed first Wuhan and its surroundings, is now front page news across the world. Li became, as a result, the face and name of a censorship phenomenon involving a number of other doctors. [...]

But did censoring Li and others make the outbreak of the virus much worse, leading to many more deaths, as many Chinese people believe? Not so much. The censorship, and its subsequent chilling effect, is not what is killing people: What is a far more proximate cause of these deaths is the incompetence of the Wuhan government and the central health authorities in the two weeks that followed the censorship. They failed to prepare any sort of health system response, and the Wuhan authorities were preoccupied by a major political conference. When the virus took hold and became an epidemic, the health system was swamped. People were unable to access health services, and in some cases, people were contracting the virus when already sick or weak, making them more likely to succumb. [...]

The Wuhan authorities knew that the epidemic was of grave concern, yet did not notify the public nor begin preparing. It seems most likely that they were completely occupied by the two political meetings, which took up all government and Party resources, and killed any air time for public health announcements—thus negligently wasting two vital weeks to prepare for any possible outbreak. For example, they lacked the capacity to test for the virus at the necessary scale, making only 200 test kits per day, and sending early tests off to Beijing for results. On January 20, Xi Jinping got involved and the vast Chinese bureaucracy kicked into gear, shutting down a whole province. Local governments were told to take any measures necessary. For the past three weeks, we have seen the overreaction: airports and travel grinding to a standstill, most of China working from home (around half of China’s citizens are unable to move), and various countries closing their borders to Chinese nationals.

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FiveThirtyEight: Why Buttigieg Dropped Out

Pete Buttigieg pulled off a surprisingly successful presidential run. The 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, the fourth-largest city in Indiana, was unable to win the race for chair of the Democratic National Committee three years ago. In the 2020 Democratic primary, however, he not only outlasted prominent Democrats like Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, but Buttigieg also effectively tied for first in Iowa and finished a close second in New Hampshire. He won more support than Sen. Elizabeth Warren, another party heavyweight, in all four early caucuses and primaries. And his sharp attacks on Warren (and her proposal for Medicare for All) in October and November were arguably one of the most important moments of the primary, helping blunt Warren’s rise when it seemed like she could become the race’s front-runner. [...]

Just as important as the losing itself was the way Buttigieg was losing. More than 30 percent of Democratic voters are black or Latino. And the Democratic Party thinks of itself as the party that represents people of color. But Buttigieg never gained much popularity with black or Latino voters, punctuated by him getting an estimated 3 percent of the black vote in South Carolina. [...]

Why would Buttigieg do that? The former mayor might genuinely think that Sanders would be a terrible nominee for the Democratic Party. But there is a potential upside for Buttigieg in making this decision too. At his age, Buttigieg has four decades to try to become president. In leaving the race now, he builds goodwill with Democratic Party officials broadly and Biden in particular. If Biden is elected president, it’s easy to imagine him putting Buttigieg in a top administration post that helps Buttigieg fill out his resume — think U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. And goodwill among party officials will help Buttigieg if, as I expect, he eventually runs for president again.

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TLDR New: Could Bloomberg Become the Nominee: Mike's Rise Explained

Michael Bloomberg has experienced an impressive rise in the polls in recent months, with him closing in on Biden. It's looking more and more like he could be the serious moderate competition for Sanders. So in this video, we explain Bloomberg's history, his late entry into the race, why he's popular and why he isn't.