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George Rebane
Sayonara to Amy, we knew her well. And now if we can get Ms Gabbard off her surfboard to call her office, they can explain the situation to her. Does anyone think Tulsi still has hopes for a VP slot? But you can bet on Amy. Biden will most likely pick her as a running mate, and then we’ll get to see what ‘cherchez la femme’ really means in American politics.
George Rebane
A rush for the exits has begun. And then there were …
[Is everyone ready for Biden in the stretch run, or the coronavirus' continuing impact on the securities markets? All of it the fault of President Trump. gjr]
George Rebane
From the dictionary:
We all a hear a lot about things like ‘fair share’ and ‘social justice’ today. How many people using or listening to these notions really have any, and I do mean any, understanding of what they mean in the greater scheme of our society. From my experience and the daily round, the answer is a firm NO. Since in these pages I and most of our readers have a penchant for more semantical precision in their lexicon, I want to expand on what I believe are the utilitarian ways to think about and use such words.
First of all, each of these notions – fair, just, legal – must have meanings that justify their being composed of distinguishable literal strings. Else why have them if they mean the same thing? Here we’re interested in meanings that maximally distinguish, and thereby support a richer capacity to think, analyze, and express.
Before unpacking some more precise semantics, we again recall nobelist Kenneth Arrow who showed a long time ago that when there are more than two alternatives from which to choose that satisfy certain criteria, then there is no ideal or fair way to select among such alternative solutions (or candidates) that are guaranteed to satisfy, say, three people, let alone a group. Arrow identified the criteria in his Impossibility Theorem (more here). Subsequently, economist Amartya Sen identified the ‘liberal paradox’ which holds that in the distribution of goods and services within a society/economy there is always conflict between any such distribution policy and individual freedom. This paradox was explained by Frederic Bastiat in his Triangle of Rights to security, liberty, and property, the weakening of any one immediately weakens the other two.
George Rebane
With Steyer’s departure we now focus the race on Shortround the Billionaire, Bernie, and Biden. After Tuesday a lot of people will start asking what Gabbard, Warren, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar are still doing in the race. We had some contestants omit Steyer from their dropout sequence.
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice’, what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?” Thomas Sowell.
George Rebane
Our socialist and proto-communist politicians have no policies to grow economies and generate wealth. Instead, they buy their way into office by promising to take money from both Peter and Paul, and give it to their voters. Trouble with that policy is that most of their voters turn out to be the Peters and Pauls.
The cry across the land, amplified by the lamestream, is that the ‘rich’ don’t pay their “fair share” of taxes. Not only that, but included is the not-so-hidden message that the rich got theirs by taking what was rightfully yours. This message works really well with those who can’t or won’t, and who still believe they are entitled to it all. The Big Lie accompanying all this outrage is that America has an unfair tax system that favors the rich. However –
Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show that the U.S. has the most progressive income tax system in the world, with the top 10% of earners paying 45% of all income taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes, compared with only 28% in France and 27% in Sweden.
Economists Phil Gramm and John Early present the supportive data in their ‘Wealthy Americans Already Pay Their Share’. The accompanying graphic shows how much the different earning groups pay as a function of their earned income and received transfer payments.
Add to this data that the top 0.1% of households paid a total of 45.1% in federal, state, and local taxes. So how do we answer the ‘fair share’ question? And why do we even ask it? With our progressive tax system and generous transfer payment programs, our ‘poor’ are the envy of the world. Why? Because our battered capitalist economy still produces enough wealth to provide that envious QoL to those of us who can’t or won’t – enough wealth to waste on legions of government bureaucrats and ‘educators’ whose jobs (of last resort) primarily entail throwing sand into the gears of enterprise and commerce, and enough wealth to remain the white-hat hegemon of the world by keeping the bad guys at bay while giving entire continents a free ride on their security.
The socialists tell us that none of that is true or needed. Government is the solution to all social problems, and more government is better. And we don’t need no stinking military that is only used to create worldwide problems and support our country’s immoral imperialism. Besides, everyone knows that tax rates don’t affect economic behavior – the filthy rich will keep working just as hard whether we tax ‘em low or tax ‘em high. So high taxes will not reduce the wealth produced, but only redirect it through the government to more socially just uses.
With this logic, and the firmly held belief that the Laffer Curve is laughable, there really is no reasonable basis for any given level of taxation. Who really needs to have more than a billion dollars anyway? So in the final argument the notion of ‘fair share’ is moot. In the near-term taxes should be raised to a level just short of armed rebellion. And as the government succeeds in disarming the populace, there will be no need to stop raising taxes and confiscating wealth even when there is blood in the gutters, because that will not be government blood.
But then again you say, that can’t happen in America.
George Rebane
A coronavirus panic is being vigorously promoted today by the lamestream media in response to their Democrat congresscritter masters who are doing everything they can to somehow blame the whole thing on President Trump, and convince our light thinkers that his administration is doing not enough while leaving the whole country vulnerable to a killer pandemic. These people with no other believable agenda to their name for November are simply sick.
[27feb20 update] The fabric of civilization is gossamer thin. That has been the message to us over the ages and also here over the years. And as we have 1) become ever more dependent on the comprehensively interconnected ‘grid’ that lets us communicate, travel, shop, get healthcare, secure our communities, …, and 2) become ever more entitled to receive OPM-funded largess from governments, then the breakdown in any part of these complex supportive systems can create a catastrophic ripple of breakdowns. Both of these factors make our civilization’s support systems brittle. We are again in the process of getting a lesson in this. But what should be most disturbing is that we have a political party that aims to make these already tendentiously fragile systems ever more interconnected, centrally controlled, dubiously funded, and therefore more brittle.
‘The Roots of Our Partisan Divide’ are illuminated by Christopher Caldwell, Harvard-educated senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. He explains how the civil rights laws of 1964 and 1965 started the partisan rip, and how the courts have made these laws into an existential constitution that contends with the one bequeathed by our Founders. Abetted by progressive judges, unelected bureaucrats took over – “The problem is that when the work of the civil rights legislation was done—when de jure segregation was stopped—these new powers were not suspended or scaled back or reassessed. On the contrary, they intensified.”
Union columnist Terry McLaughlin wrote ‘Willing to take a risk on the New Way Forward Act?’, a piece of radical leftwing legislation (HR5383) that would, among other atrocities, allow the release of criminal illegal aliens back into our communities. The Union, in its political correctness and without notifying Ms McLaughlin, changed her original text citing “illegal aliens” into “people living in the country without legal permission”. Such editing is utter bullshit. Illegal alien is the correct legal description of non-citizens illegally in the United States. It is the progressive propaganda machine that seeks to obfuscate that correct label for their less-read share of Americans – in short, promoting a fraud. Even ‘undocumented immigrant’ continues to promote the leftwing charade, which is today also used by chicken journalists on the Right (e.g. FN). Few people still remember that immigration is legal entry into a country under a two-party contract, and that’s why ‘illegal alien’ correctly identifies those non-citizens among us illegally. The Union should stiffen their editorial backbone.
George Rebane
Surprise! – school costs are projected to double their budgeted income. Well, not really. It’s only a surprise to our progressives who either skipped or failed Econ 101. The 22feb20 Union cites a report by WestEd that projects the coming “silent recession” in our schools (here) This was known to most of us years ago (2008) when its first ignored signs became apparent. The schools will “likely be running deficits soon because of factors like the rising rate of pensions, special education costs, and rising staff costs, along with the price of health care.” With state socialism running wild and teachers’ unions sitting in the catbird seat, whoulda thought? In Nevada County we are holding emergency meetings at the school district “in an attempt to get ahead of the possible (?!) problems.” And guess what is the big unfunded gorilla in the room – can you spell ‘CalSTRS’? As usual, no one is discussing cutting the schools’ ridiculous cost structure, but only how best to raise taxes to pay off the new bonds that must be floated to cover the deficits.
The mood of California’s disgruntled Democrats is correctly captured by our beloved liberal cartoonist Bob Crabb. You see, they already control the state with an electorate of gimmes having voted in the Sacramento super-majorities, and a double dummy governor who’s competing with Bernie for the Time’s cover picture of the ‘Socialist of the Year’. But there’s a bit of northern California that still remains mostly Republican and conservative, and that must not be tolerated to complete a true-Blue, one-party state – any vestige of remaining representation of the knuckle draggers in Sacramento must be purged. And Mr Crabb is up to promoting that in his cartoon which I filched from the pages of the 22feb20 Union.
The fair share between pay and profits, that is the consuming question for America’s socialists, who, of course, know the answer. Jon Sindreu in the 22feb20 WSJ gives the issue a workmanlike airing (here). There he points out that “there has been a lot of attention paid to how much of national income goes to profits instead of workers’ pay. Labor’s share of gross domestic product remained close to a postcrisis low in 2019 amid record corporate earnings, according to the latest U.S. data.” And the stability between pay and profits during most of the 20th century started tilting toward profits, which predictably has gotten up the dander of our ‘workers, throw off your chains’ leftwing. A deeper look reveals no untoward imbalance, save that since 1980 competition has forced industries to consolidate, and technology started replacing labor’s share of productivity contributions. This, of course, has caused labor’s share of GDP to decrease since the remaining jobs are tending to a dumbbell shaped distribution of pay, with the big hump consisting of lower wage ‘commodity level’ jobs. If we want to maintain and grow our QoL, then start thinking again of systemic unemployment, universal basic income, and perhaps even non-profit service corporations.
[23feb20 update] One of the Democrat Big Lies is that Russia is backing Trump in 2020. This not only a lie, but blatant idiocy for anyone to believe such tripe. We have pointed out how Trump’s walk is what people should focus on, not his public talk about Russia which is firm yet relatively mild-mannered. For those snuffies unfamiliar with public/private negotiations, this is what you do to maximize your position in deal making – talk softly while wielding a big stick. As John Hinderaker explains in ‘You Don’t Need a Spy to Know Which Way the Russian Wind Blows’ – “Donald Trump is anathema to the rulers of Russia. Not only has he armed the Ukrainians, he has re-invigorated NATO by insisting that members take an interest in their own defense; stood up to and badly wounded Russia’s key ally, Iran; overseen an expansion and strengthening of American armed forces; and, most important, encouraged fracking and other development of U.S. oil and gas resources, which has kept down the global price of oil. … It is blindingly obvious that the Russians would prefer any Democrat to President Trump. All of the Democrats have promised to limit U.S. production of oil and gas, which no doubt sounds like pure insanity to Putin but is music to his ears. Equally important, they all vow to shrink America’s armed forces and never to use them under any foreseeable circumstances. And they all would pursue a soft line toward Iran.” (more here and H/T to correspondent)
[24feb20 update] There is a Sanders Silver Lining. What many of us have been saying for years about the true social and governance objectives of the Democratic Party are now visible to all as the curtain has been pulled aside to reveal their true aims for a fundamentally transformed America. It is clear that communism is the ultimate goal, and proto-communist policies, should Team Bernie et al prevail, are the first steps. But first, our guns have got to go as the government’s guns come out to make us heel.
[25feb20 update] Google full-page ad in the 25feb20 WSJ touting their cloud services has the banner – The Home Depot is solving for empowering doers to get more done. Huh??!
From the immortal Robert Burns “O, wad some Power the giftie gie us/ To see oursels as others see us! …” – Since George W. Bush I have been writing about the fundamentalist hijacked Republican Party. It is 2020 and the GOP Jihad continues on with the new moniker of the Trump Party. … Leaderless and adrift, the far-right hoards of white Republican religious purists are still trying to purge the country of decency, morality and moderation instilling their brand of anti-abortion and anti-immigration and science denial. … I understand the necessity of an opposition, but the Republicans are completely AWOL, in that regard. The Republican Party is becoming a group of fringe right-wingers lacking the moderation of centrists. Get ready for the Trump-Republican 2020 campaign of lies as they play to the wealthy, religious and conservatives. What a god-awful mess. May they self-destruct. Ron Lowe, Nevada City (from Letters in the 25feb20 Union)
And in the same vein from Thomas Elias’ ‘California carrying the national economy’ , we learn that instead of all the growing problems the state has been having under decades of Democrat rule with workers and companies leaving, highest taxes/fees/regulations, welfare capital of the nation, illegals and gimmes arriving, and crap-infested cities full of indigent homeless and addicts living in the streets, and … . All of that is wrong, and California is really “the envy of the nation” as we were told the other day by Governor Goofy Gavin. Since the state has a couple or three counties that are home to major corporations raking gazillions of revenues from manufactories and server centers all over the world, all is well – better than well, it’s just peachy. When county GDPs are tallied like that, then it’s easy to see how places like India and China can also have several small concentrations of outfits that produce enormous wealth which doesn’t accrue to the surrounding countryside where people are in dire straits. Don’t know whether the arch leftwing columnist Elias is a bit teched, but he’s sure betting that his readers are.
[Well, my proposal in the 12feb20 Scattershots for a new Dem candidate reader participation contest heading into the convention went over like a fart in church. It would have been fun to see how the perceived fortunes of Super-Tuesday's survivors changed over the next few months. Oh well, … sigh. gjr]
