By Robert A. Vella
Here’s a few news odds and ends for this Monday:
From: A decade after the housing crash, a new story emerges
© Provided by CBS Interactive Inc.
Fewer young adults and minorities own homes
Between 2004 and 2016, overall homeownership rates plummeted 8 percent, according to a study from the Pew Research Center. Demographics also changed.
Younger Americans felt the impact more than older homeowners. For adults between 25 to 44, the homeownership rate dropped 16 percent. And for adults younger than 35, the rate plunged 18 percent.
A decade later, it’s clear the crisis delayed a traditional marker for adulthood — homeownership — for a greater number of young people.
From: Wealthiest Republican supporter in Ohio quits party
The wealthiest supporter of the GOP in Ohio said Thursday that he is no longer a member of the Republican Party.
“I just decided I’m no longer a Republican,” L Brands CEO Leslie Wexner said during a panel discussion at a leadership summit, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Wexner, who said he’s been a Republican since college, added that he is now an independent, before saying that he “won’t support this nonsense in the Republican Party” anymore.
From: Borrowing strategy from NRA, activists quietly overturn knife restrictions across U.S.
LAS VEGAS —He ordered the 20-ounce rib-eye, and so the waitress at the upscale restaurant dropped off a wood-handled serrated steak knife. Doug Ritter ignored it. Instead he pulled out a folding knife, its 3.4-inch blade illegal to carry concealed here in Clark County. He flicked it open with one hand. When the steak arrived, medium-rare, he started cutting.
The steak dinner came as Ritter was savoring his many successful attempts at repealing the nation’s knife laws. Decades-old restrictions on switchblades, daggers and stilettos have fallen away in state after state in recent years. Much of this is because of Ritter and his little-known Arizona-based advocacy group Knife Rights, which has used tactics borrowed from the National Rifle Association to rack up legislative victories across the nation. And many of the changes have escaped widespread notice, obscured, in part, by the nation’s focus on guns.
The Secular Jurist 
Good news from Ohio.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, let’s hope more Republicans come to their senses.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In Spain the crisis undid most of the progress made in the past century. The newly minted (home-owning) middle classes of the late Franco and post-Franco era were greatly diminished.
This created what they called the NiNi generation, meaning Ni educación, ni empleo. They´re alternatives were living with family or immigrating. Home ownership was no longer even a remote possibility.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oops ‘ I meant *their* alternatives, not they´re
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, that story is the main legacy of the 2008 financial crisis. The middle class, and especially young people, took the biggest and most long-lasting hit. The prospect of no education, no job, and no home for so many people is a recipe for social turmoil; and, that is exactly what we’ve been witnessing in western democracies ever since.
LikeLiked by 1 person