1) Blue Cities Are the Least Affordable

We broke the story a few weeks ago about the fact that nine of the 10 most expensive states in the USA are blue states.

So readers have asked us about which cities have the highest costs. Here again, similar results: nine of the 10 most expensive are big cities in blue states. The only city in a red state that ranks in the top 10 in cost is Miami.

It's noteworthy that even some of the more expensive big cities in red states - including Charlotte, Dallas, Nashville, and Tampa - are still about 40% less costly than the big blue cities.

It's getting to the point where the only people who can afford to live in big blue cities anymore are homeless people.

2) Liberals Aren't Getting Married and Aren't Having Children

We've noted this "family gap" between liberals and conservatives over the past several years and the latest data show the division is widening.

Conservatives are now getting married and having children at substantially higher rates than liberals, and the gap is growing. Today, a liberal woman is about 27% less likely to be married than a conservative woman.

A liberal woman is now about 33% less likely to have kids than was true 40 years ago, and she is more than 44% less likely to have kids than a conservative woman.

This is one of many reasons that red states are seeing their populations grow so much faster than blue states.  

All of this suggests that conservatives may eventually gain the upper hand politically via reproduction - unless the schools turn their kids against them.

But what is worrisome is that both our popular culture and our public schools are teaching our children not to have kids when they become adults.

Shameful!

3) Norway's Wealth Tax Chases the Rich Out of the Country

Wealth taxes are all the rage from New York City to socialist Europe. So we should pay attention to the Norwegian government's experiment with this soak the rich policy.

Reuters explains:

The tax was a defining issue in Norway's election in September, which returned the Labour Party to power. The party had raised the levy and tightened exit rules during its previous term.

Individuals pay 1% on net wealth between 1.76 million and 20.7 million crowns ($174,000-$2 million) and, since 2022, 1.1% above that. Exactly 671,639 people - about 12% of the population - paid in 2023...

The changes turned a trickle into a stream. Data from conservative think-tank Civita shows 261 residents with assets above 10 million crowns ($973,000) left in 2022 and 254 in 2023 - more than double the typical rate before the hike.

Now, to try to avoid the outmigration of rich people, the nation has imposed an exit tax - a 37.8% tax on unrealized capital gains of those who leave.

What's next, a Berlin Wall to keep people from leaving?

A wealth tax of 1% takes almost 25% of one's lifetime savings over 20 years.

Here's the scariest part. The Reuters story carried this headline:

That's the lesson? Really??? We hope those millionaires and billionaires come to the USA.  But we also worry that the next big push by the Left will be a wealth tax, which will be devastating to prosperity.  

4) This Was Real Poverty

Today, about 99.6% of homes have complete plumbing. There aren't too many outhouses or ice boxes left in America. Young people don't even know what an outhouse or an icebox is.

5) So Much for the Party of Inclusion and Tolerance

We’ve noted dozens of times the thick irony that the party that preaches inclusion and tolerance are the least inclusive and tolerant people on the planet.  

Now, our friend Bill Maher of HBO - who’s no conservative - teed off on liberals who won’t sit at the Thanksgiving table with family members who voted for Trump.

They’ve managed to ruin a holiday "which used to be all about the good F's: food, friends, family, football, fun" and turned it into a political war zone where conservatives aren’t welcome.

Maher pointed to a New York Magazine article entitled "It's OK to Go No Contact With Your MAGA Relatives."

"Go no-contact: this belief that Trump voters, even if your own parents, are too deplorable for human contact and must be cut off," Maher explained. "I'm so tired of liberals ghosting half this country. Conservatives do it too, but not nearly as much."

It’s gotten so bad that Jimmy Kimmel's wife cut off some of her family members because they voted for Trump. "She wrote them an email before the election with 10 reasons why they shouldn't vote for Trump, and some still didn't obey," Maher said. "Ultimatums don't make people rethink their politics, they make them rethink you."

"You know what would have been a better exercise? Write a top-10 list to yourself where you try to imagine 10 reasons why 77 million Americans didn't want to trust you with taking power, and I say that as someone who votes Democratic. As I like to remind my very pure friends: we voted for the same person," Maher continued, referring to Harris. "You're just why she lost."

Maher closed his segment by urging a cease fire.

"We can do this, people, it's Thanksgiving," he implored. "Do yourself a favor: get over yourself and go have it with your family."

Great advice.

6) Hope Your Turkey Is Too

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