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  • Socialism is intrinsically unsustainable

    George Rebane

    If sustainability of a government program is defined as its ongoing budgets not increasing their share of the country’s GDP for non-diminishing levels of service, then which of our government’s entitlement programs are sustainable? Which of the EU governments’ programs are sustainable?

    I presented the above prompt to SuperGrok AI.  And after its extensive analysis of both American and European government programs representing the implementation of socialism in its various degrees, the answer came back in a comprehensive dissertation concluding that no such sustainable programs can be found on either continent.

    That socialism is an intrinsically unsustainable form of collectivist governance has been a seminal message in these pages for almost twenty years.  The evidence, of course, is overwhelming.  The corollary to the proposition is that socialism is a ratcheting gateway to autocracy cum tyranny, since its maintenance needs ever more comprehensive and invasive government controls to implement.  Students of history also know that tyranny is a very stable form of governance for a country since new tyrannies simply replace old faltering tyrannies.

    It always takes a special form of national ignorance for a sovereign nation-state to give up liberal governance based on individual liberties, personal security, and ownership of property (the Bastiat triangle of rights).  We have witnessed three major occurrences of this during the 20th century that swept several hundred million to their untimely ends.  And today we are living in the death spiral of western culture based on such rights.

    As amply noted here, we in the United States have one political party that has rededicated itself to the destruction of a liberal America.  In its multitude of leftwing public policies it has implemented the re-education of two plus generations of constituents now who have no clue as to what socialism is, yet are more than willing to give it a try for our collective future.  As an example, they are successfully convincing their millions of minions that those who seek to reduce government funding and its regulatory umbrella – i.e. reduce the size of government – are the real fascistic autocrats to be opposed at all costs.  Insane.  Given this state of affairs across the land, where does the boundary between such ignorance and evil blur?

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  • Sandbox – 12feb26

    [Have no idea what President Trump is doing re Iran.  Every day past the ‘red line’ continues to be a day of hundreds more executions of innocent Iranians.  What in hell is there to negotiate with this regime other than give them a choice to vamoose or kill them??  But you start by whumping them.  Tik Tok.  gjr]

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  • What Unification?

    [This commentary was published in the 11feb26 edition of The Union.]

    George Rebane

    That we are a badly divided community gives rise to a steady stream of good-hearted folks hereabouts calling for local residents to come together, to unify.  These attempts at unification go beyond the boilerplate calls with which we are all familiar.  Some groups actually hold events, forums, workshops to which opposing sides are invited to talk about and find solutions to their differences.  A recent example of this is Terry McAteer’s 13jan26 ‘The Community Forum is your local unifying connection’ wherein he reports on “a once-a-month public meeting (that) was birthed to present local issues with a meaningful, one-hour focus on a single topic” held at the Sierra College Nevada County campus.

    Ed Sylvester, a forum founder, notes that “In these days of divisiveness, we intend the Community Forums to be a unifying experience for our community.”  To this Mr McAteer adds, “An informed and involved community has always been a hallmark of Nevada County and Community Forums are one more tool in our community-unifying toolbox.”

    In spite of these sincere efforts to bring us together, the fact of the matter is that with the passing years we have grown more apart, and continue to do so at an ever-increasing pace.  Culturally and politically, we were a fairly cohesive conservative community before the influx of liberals, mostly from our big urban centers soiled by years under progressive administration.  Today this beat goes unabated with conservatives exiting to maintain the county’s population and decrease the state’s.

    So what I would like to see in all this talk of unification is that we should be able to devise and tune our attempts at community unification by finally defining a generally accepted performance metric by which to evaluate our efforts.  This would be a useful task for our county’s amply paid “analysts” at the Rood Center.  (I would even volunteer to help them.)

    From my perch none of these calls for, and organized efforts at unification have worked.  Nor do they have any future chance of working.  Recall the principle that you can control ONLY that which you can measure.  We cannot hope to nudge the two sides toward each other if we don’t know what works and what doesn’t.

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  • The less you know, …

    Mayor Mamdani told New York that his administration would seek to replace “the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism”.

    George Rebane

    Today our country is divided among those who believe in the rugged individualism envisioned by our Founders of citizens who would support and maintain the constitutional republic they fashioned for us; and those who believe that big government will provide them with the warmth of collectivism that has yet to be found in the historical annals of governance.  The latter comprise the ignorant citizenry like those of 1917 Russia, 1933 Germany, and 1949 China to usher in the worst tyrannies the world has known.  The common denominator of all these tragedies was the belief that unbridled growth of government would provide the greatest good for all.  Let us attempt to count the ways this horrendous intellectual deficit plays out.

    The less you know, …

    • The more you believe that an economy is a zero-sum game among its participants.
    • The more you believe that high and rising taxes do not stifle entrepreneurship and wealth creation.
    • The more you believe that increasing tax rates will always increase government revenues.
    • The more you don’t understand that reducing government income and its regulatory umbrella is antithetical to the rise of autocracy.
    • The greater your deficit is about the historical record of socialism/communism.
    • The more you don’t understand the Democratic Party’s longstanding love affair with collectivism and its gateway socialism.
    • The more you believe that we should give socialism a chance in America.
    • The more you don’t understand federalism and its role in the governance of the United States.
    • The more you believe that our constitution is a dated, calcified, and harmful document that does not provide for its systematic and orderly modification to reflect the times; that it must be abrogated in favor of a new ‘just and equitable’ foundational manifesto.
    • The more you believe that America is and has always been, since its founding, an evil nation harmful to its citizens and responsible for most of the world’s ills.
    • The less you believe that a married heterosexual couple with children is the foundational social unit in a stable society.
    • The more you believe that state-enforced equity (equality of outcomes) yields the most just and stable society.
    • The more clueless you are about the Democratic Party as the historical party of pro-slavery, Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow, eugenics, segregation, …
    • The more clueless you are about the Democratic Party’s promotion of antisemitism in America.
    • The more you believe that meritocracy is racist and a white supremacist imposition.
    • The more clueless you are about the Democratic Party being the leading proponents of anti-American radical Islam.

    The above is a partial list of beliefs that separate Americans, perhaps terminally since no one on either side of the Great Divide can find any common ground to serve as a starting point from which to come together.  Victor Davis Hanson has a comprehensive summary of today’s progress toward separation in his ‘Slouching Toward Fort Sumter?’.

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  • Scattershots – 1feb26 (updated 3feb26)

    George Rebane

    Gold finally crashed last Friday, dropping to $4,899 from its $5,615 high on Thursday (29jan26).  That’s a 12.75% plunge after starting its most recent run-up last November.  Looking at the price history, it occurred to me that this was no garden variety exponential growth pattern, but something special – super-exponential growth.  Exponentially growing processes reach infinity in infinite time, but super-exponentials reach infinity in a finite (critical) time that can be computed.  So I did a little noodling based on the work of Didier Sornette (2003) who pioneered research on such super-exponential processes that our universe does not support.  Putting in the gold prices since November, I calculated the critical time to be 30jan26, i.e. last Friday.  This prediction showed that Sornette’s theory nailed it.

    The movie ‘Melania’, documenting the days leading up to President Trump’s second inauguration, opened to packed or empty theaters last Friday.  Overall the film was a roaring success with conservatives (99% approving and setting a cash office record for documentaries), and a complete bust for the TDS afflicted crowd (only 11% approving).  The First Lady is still persona non grata on the pages and broadcast outlets of the lamestream media.

    [3feb26 update] “Nobody is illegal on stolen land.”  A current shibboleth of the lightly read radical Left.  In the enormous educational gaps of these ardent activists lies the fact that all lands on earth have always changed hands from weaker societies to the stronger ones.  In this sense all lands are ‘stolen’.  A dominant group takes land from someone else and establishes a defendable sovereignty over it for some period of time, until a stronger one comes along.  The Aztecs (and all other American tribes) constantly conquered their neighbors’ lands over the centuries.  In their turn the Spanish and Portuguese of the 16th century conquered most of what today is Latin America from the then indigenous tribes.  The Europeans in their turn did the same in North America.  It was ever thus, and will be until the sun becomes a red giant.

    The movie ‘Melania’, documenting the days leading up to President Trump’s second inauguration, opened to packed or empty theaters last Friday.  Overall the film was a roaring success with conservatives (99% approving and setting a cash office record for documentaries), and a complete bust for the TDS afflicted crowd (only 11% approving).  The First Lady is still persona non grata on the pages and broadcast outlets of the lamestream media..

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  • Sandbox – 31jan26

    [As a self-proclaimed journalist fired TV anchor Don Lemon is a lemon.  His claims of doing in-your-face journalism, contributing to the disruption of an in-progress church service, is on video and totally contradicts his claim to any membership in a profession that is already circling the drain.  gjr]

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  • Greenland’s Realities

    {This commentary was published in the 28jan26 edition of The Union. gjr]

    George Rebane

    The 57,000 residents of Greenland live and work in a toy jurisdiction with a miniscule economy, the private sector of which is based overwhelmingly on fishing and seafood exports accounting for approximately 37% of their $3.3B GDP.  The lion’s share (67%) of their GDP is dominated by government which employs 43% of the workforce.  Their economy is heavily subsidized by Denmark (currently about $1.2B annually) through regular block grants, “extra investments”, along with funding its defense, courts, healthcare, police, and infrastructure.

    In spite of their perpetual dependence on outside resources, the Greenlanders maintain a strong sense of independence and sovereignty.  Their hope is to develop a mining industry which will make them financially independent.  Achieving this will require a massive amount of foreign investment which both the US and China are eager to underwrite.  But this is not forthcoming under the current world order.

    Since WW2 the US has always seen Greenland as part of its outer defense perimeter.  And therein lies the rub given our relations with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.  The island’s strategic location under the path of potential incoming ICBMs, control of Arctic commerce, and its ability to supply the west with strategically important minerals makes America’s control of Greenland a matter of international security.  We don’t want our enemies to have anything to do with Greenland and its surrounding waters.

    Toward this objective, it should be an easy matter to have the US assume the defense of the island by expanding its existing military bases and commercial presence.  Along with that we should be welcomed by both the Greenlanders and Danes with the grant of certain mining and processing rights under a profit-sharing agreement.  This would create a stable jurisdictional environment which would attract investment, and significantly expand Greenland’s economy to the point where it could reasonably achieve its desired independence from Denmark.  Under such an agreement the US would retain control of defense and extraction of natural resources in perpetuum without having to annex Greenland.  The nature of Greenland’s sovereignty would be defined by a long-term treaty much as what we have had with Panama in our control of its strategically important Canal Zone.

    The matter of Greenland’s sovereignty is somewhat moot when we consider its practical implications.  We recall that sovereignty means a state has the ultimate, independent authority to govern itself, control its territory, make laws, and manage internal affairs without external interference.  Sovereignty comes in two flavors – intrinsic and derived.  An intrinsically sovereign state has the power to secure its territory against foreign invasion or interference in its international relations with allies.  Intrinsically sovereign states are usually hegemons, at least in their regional affairs.

    States with derived sovereignty are enabled through their relations or alliances with a sufficiently powerful intrinsically sovereign state.  In this sense we see that all post-war European countries have enjoyed derived sovereignty through their membership in the community of western democratic nations under the umbrella of American hegemony.  Were it not for America’s might, the USSR would have brought all of Europe under its rule.  Today this world order has continued to contain Russia after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

    Within such a framework, Greenland and Denmark should consider their options for continued national sovereignty.  It is through the grace of America’s enlightened self-interest that they have remained free and bountiful.  And to serve our mutual interests they should do all they can to continue currying our favor as a benevolent friend and ally that has no desire to impact their respective cultures, but only to bring security and wealth to a region that has lain fallow for too long.

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  • Father forgive them for they know not …

    George Rebane

    Yesterday (20jan26) the socialists of Nevada County assembled a small group of Democrats and high school students for a demonstration against ICE’s efforts across the country to arrest and deport people, especially criminals, in the country illegally.  To our proto-communists these federal agents are “fascists” carrying out unconstitutional law enforcement.

    Now I think it’s a safe bet that not one of these worthies carrying signs and shouting slogans knows the definition or history of fascism.  They are the obedient useful idiots in the ongoing effort by the Left to destroy America.  You can read their local thought leaders’ daily outpouring in The Union to get an idea of what is happening across the country.  These efforts are part and parcel of a widespread organized movement that is well documented in the just published ‘The Invisible Coup – How American elites and foreign powers use immigration as a Weapon’ (2026) by Peter Schweitzer.

    Schweitzer writes – “Every day, ICE is arresting hundreds of illegal immigrants with a criminal record. They didn’t just come here. They were sent here.  Our debates about immigration revolve around what happens with immigrants once they arrive. We need to start talking about who is sending them and why. For decades, establishment elites sold us the story of immigration as a compassionate renewal of the American Dream within a harmonious melting pot.  But beneath that narrative lies a different reality: Mass migration has morphed into the most powerful political weapon ever aimed at the United States—one engineered by elites at home and aided by adversaries abroad.”

    This movement is among the many about which our ‘anti-fascist’ leftwing neighbors have no clue. Among these matters of their profound ignorance is the terrible state of California – at or near the bottom of every social metric.  Instead, we hear their daily testimonies of how great things are in California, that it should be the posterchild for the nation’s transformation. They know nothing of the ongoing California exodus which has seen hundreds of wealth creating businesses and tens of thousands of productive middle class workers head for greener and freer pastures.  Today’s most recent news is that Wells Fargo, an historical California company, is relocating to Florida.  In the meanwhile we learn from a new Gallup poll that 66% or 2 of 3 Democrats “view socialism positively”.

    These people have for some time now been uneducable.  They were taught in leftwing schools by leftist teachers the ideology of Marxism.  And they maintain this worldview through blindered consumption of progressivist media.  This beat goes on right here in ‘River City’ as we are told that about 200 Nevada Union high school students decided to take the day off from classes and join the demonstrators.  (more here)  Now where did they learn about the ‘fascism’ of the Trump administration?

    Meanwhile the Republicans, smug in the knowledge of the country’s yearlong progress, continue preaching to their choir on conservative media in the misplaced hope that such insular communications will sway the electorate.

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  • Democrats Ascendant

    George Rebane

    Republicans are totally missing the dominant sentiments in the country regarding economics, foreign policy, healthcare, and illegal aliens.  Major conservative news and commentary outlets like Fox and Newsmax continue to tout the historic achievements of the Trump administration while paying no mind to what the people believe on Main Street.  These mavens act as if there is no Democrats’ domination of the mainstream (lamestream) media who faithfully broadcast their daily dose of outrageous lies.  The Republican sermons to their choir utterly fail to connect with the demonstrably irrational and ill-informed common voter as witnessed by every new polling result.

    As a glaring example totally missed in the hustings is that Democrats never substantiate or back their policy proposals to demonstrate how they may be or have been successful in the past.  To back their proposals and public policies the Republicans always give examples of how free market capitalism, meritocracy, and individual freedoms have given rise to societies with the highest qualities of life and inviting nation-states.  The Democrats never provide evidence that their collectivist proposals and policies based on higher taxes, more regulations, larger government control of economies, fewer freedoms, … have given rise to and/or sustained societies that have created wealth and high QoL for their citizens.  They just state their proposals and follow-up with baseless claims that these will create some form of workers’ paradise and happy dancing in the streets without citing examples of such successes.

    Here’s a short summary of the what the Republicans are missing about the public’s attitudes on the country’s economics.  Key findings from recent (late 2025 – Jan 2026) polls –

    • Pessimism Reigns: A majority of Americans (around 47-48%) describe current economic conditions as “poor” or “not so good,” with even more (around 68%) feeling the economy is worsening.
    • Inflation & Costs: The economy and inflation are top concerns, with rising prices for essentials and healthcare being major worries, especially for lower-income groups.
    • Recession Belief: A majority (52% in one poll) believed the U.S. was in a recession, though this number had slightly decreased from earlier in 2022.
    • Worsening Outlook for 2026: Predictions for 2026 are considerably more negative than for 2025, with pessimism extending to employment, taxes, and prosperity.
    • Job Market Concerns: While unemployment rates fluctuated, expectations for future job finding deteriorated, and concerns about job security increased.
    • Political Discontent: Economic dissatisfaction is reflected in low approval ratings for leadership, with record-low economic approval for President Trump in late 2025. 

    In summary, the overall sentiment points to widespread economic anxiety, driven by persistent high costs and uncertainty about the future, despite significant official data showing an economy recovering from the Biden years.

    President Trump’s bravura and braggadocio don’t work with Americans and are simply grist for the Democrats’ TDS propaganda mill.  And they don’t have to work too hard to make the president look bad.  Examples are Greenland, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Canada, and Mexico.

    In each of these areas we either already have successes or easily obtainable successes.  We can ‘control Greenland’ without sabre rattling because we already have established and expandable bases there and can set up new ones under existing agreements.  We can start mining the island without much ado about the whole affair as long as we set up some equitable way to share the profits with Greenlanders (and Denmark?).  Nobody is going to kick us out of Greenland, however, we can readily eliminate ongoing Russian and Chinese initiatives.  And all this can be done very quietly without waking up strong feelings about sovereignty.

    Trump’s ‘red lines’ are turning into an embarrassment because he is not honoring them.  By now the rump Maduro regime should have made visible overtures to the US in establishing a fast track to scheduled elections resulting in a new government with agreed on segments (e.g. the military) of the old regime operating under new management.  Iran has massacred thousands of its people in the streets and continues as you read this.  Trump should already have started whumping them by destroying their key defense facilities with stand-off weapons from Diego Garcia bases while additional forces are deploying to the mid-east to continue the campaign.  Instead we have the now lame line repeated that Trump is really really gonna get nasty if they continue to shoot and hang the demonstrators – meanwhile, nothing.

    It’s way past time when Zelensky should have been regularly launching deep-penetration missiles and drones against key Russian military, energy, and transportation infrastructure.  Again, Trump allows Putin to mock America by continuing to bomb the crap out of Ukraine’s cities and killing civilians.  Not good for The Donald and the free world.

    I could go on, but you get the idea.

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  • Scattershots – 4jan26 (updated 8jan26)

    George Rebane

    • Dems always back policies that harm America – an established thesis evidenced again by their reaction to Trump’s law enforcement action in Venezuela.  Notice that Dems are always on the side of criminals, drug dealers, illegal entrants and open borders, anti-entrepreneurial laws and regulations, no limits on size of government, dysfunctional diplomacy projecting weakness, and a mangled educational system.
    • The anti-American Dems, now trumpeting their TDS claims that the president’s Venezuela action was unconstitutional, are counting on their constituents’ ignorance of the long history of presidential actions (here) without congressional approval as enabled under Article 2 of the Constitution.  And in such assessments of their loyal voting block they are no doubt right on the mark.
    • The movement to halt AGI development is organized and led by MIT physics professor Max Tegmark (here).  Their message, supported by some noted technology heavyweights, echoes the longstanding RR Singularity posts – AGI will destroy human jobs on a wholesale scale, and change the foundations of our civilization in ways we have yet to understand.  The problem with such reasoned arguments is that they ignore the AGI development race with China.  China wants to dominate the AI field, and in doing so become the world’s hegemon.
    • [7jan26 update] Never the twain shall meet.  Readers alerted me to Paul Eagle’s piece (here) in the 7jan26 Union decrying my 30dec25 commentary ‘Self-immolation derby’.  Therein, in lockstep with all other socialists and progressives, he cites Biden’s disasters as salutary benefits to the country.  And he pronounces Trump’s historic accomplishments as nothing but failures and detriments.  This again illustrates that there is absolutely no common ground between Democrats and Republicans – we live in different universes.  And every day the evidence grows for no possible rapprochement.  The endgame for this Great Divide does not bode well.
    • [8jan26 update]  Congressman Doug LaMalfa’s passing came as a shock to Jo Ann and me.  We were privileged to be friends with Doug who had lunch at our house and shared my preference for good Kentucky bourbon.  A farmer himself, he was a conservative and a true servant of northern California’s people and their interests in preserving our rural and agricultural way of life.  As the state struggles with its yearslong profoundly incompetent governance, Doug was one of the remaining Republican bulwarks, both in Sacramento and Washington,, to promote sane legislation in the attempt to redirect our once golden state onto a more sane path.  We will miss you Doug, RIP.

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