Benjamin Clark
benclarkphd.bsky.social
Benjamin Clark
@benclarkphd.bsky.social

Professor & Director. School of Planning, Public Policy & Management @ University of Oregon Civic tech, budget/finance, environmental resilience, coproduction, and crowdsourcing. Season 13 Eugene Beer League Champion.

Economics 27%
Political science 26%
Here’s a story that’s becoming all too common: federal immigration agents using racial and ethnic profiling as a rationale for stopping, questioning and detaining U.S. citizens who they suspect are undocumented.
A U.S. Citizen Detained by ICE for Three Days Tells His Story
A conversation with George Retes, an Army veteran swept up in a California raid
www.theatlantic.com

Note to self: Maybe it's time to get some varicose vein tattoos ahead of the arrival of the real ones so people won't notice when they are really there.

And by and large, companies don't come because of them, but will still lobby for them because who doesn't love free money

Reposted by Benjamin Y. Clark

NEW: Congressional Budget Office analysis of who wins and loses in the GOP megabill.

Top 10% gets $13,600 a year (2.7% increase in income)

Bottom 10% *loses* $1,200 a year (3.1% drop in income)

This isn't shared sacrifice--it's class warfare.

That album brings me back to my college dorm, a la 1995. So great

John Stossel now has a bunch of dumb ass videos for classes too. He's getting government contracts to make them. But you need fact checker to follow up each video to correct the bias.

Sadly no

I remember leaving an interview for a job and an hour later realizing that I had glitter all over my hair and face. It was a light coating that only showed up in bright lights.

For the worse?
Among all the big bad things happening on our planet, there's one Big Good Thing, the sudden, startling rise of solar energy.
It changes the power dynamic, in every sense of the word 'power.'
www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...
4.6 Billion Years On, the Sun Is Having a Moment
In the past two years, without much notice, solar power has begun to truly transform the world’s energy system.
www.newyorker.com
You’ve seen this movie before: Maybe Reagan guessed, Bush hoped, and Trump tried—but tax cuts never paid for themselves. Given the mountain of evidence, claiming once again that "tax cuts will pay for themselves" is no longer ideologically motivated optimism.

It's a lie.

The new Baptist-bootleggers coalition?

Reposted by Benjamin Y. Clark

Charge for scare resources or pay the piper.

Gwinnett County, too.

Flatlining policy
Trade policy update.

Reposted by Benjamin Y. Clark

Trade policy update.

Reposted by Benjamin Y. Clark

Re-upping this piece because the deadline for comments on the new version of Schedule F has been extended to June 7.

DOGE actions occurred with no public input, so no excuse not to weigh in on Trump's further efforts to politicize the civil service.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/here-is-a-...
Here is a specific thing you can do to fight Trump's politicization of public services
Plus: what I wrote in Science about the revised Schedule F
donmoynihan.substack.com

Never have more than three or four tabs open at a time. I kill the cache every day and start fresh.

Reposted by Benjamin Y. Clark

I was thinking about this Joe and Tracy anecdote from the supply chain crisis on gummy bears. Things are probably going to get really weird in a few weeks in unexpected ways:

Young people aren't running things, and they aren't in charge. Literacy is an issue, but it's not the core problem here.

I guess the so-called doge isn't very good at its so-called job.

I already live in a fluoride absent community. The teeth of the rich and poor are worse off. This is driven by long-standing left-wing crazy with a touch of right.

It's a good thing you didn't buy it as an investment. Compared to the S&P, a 6% decline doesn't look too bad.

The price of used cars is going up as demand increased because of tariffs. Yet one brand is seeing a decline—tesla. Hmmm

he'd spend too much time with the workers.

I saw a woman on a street corner this morning holding two javelins. If we were anywhere but Tracktown USA, I would think I was crazy.

Reposted by Benjamin Y. Clark

It appears this is the fourth worst back to back day for the DJIA in American history with a two day combined -8.65% loss, only trailing the 1929 crash, 1987 Black Monday, and the 2008 crisis.

I've sat with generals on down and talked policy and management in the armed forces. These are spot of the brightest and most educated leaders in the country. Thinking that they might not want or need to be aware of our successes and failures as a country is just plain absurd.

Cognitive dissonance.