Analytics

Saturday, February 29, 2020

Post #4491 M: Woods on Logical Fallacies; Freedom of Speech

Quote of the Day

Discovery consists in seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi

Note to Readers: Consider My Other Blogs, Too

I have other blogs like some I've mentioned in the past, including nutrition, software, and other blogs.

Now to some extent I've blurred distinctions in this signature political blog, especially my journal format posts. But I have also have a miscellaneous essay blog, where I've published on occasion. Today I published one of my most personal posts which reflects in large part on certain past relationships. Regular readers may recognize certain bits and pieces of this essay, but this is the first place where I've worked all of them in a cohesive personal story of unrequited love. That may be a poor choice of words because I loved Anne unconditionally, there was some reciprocity of feelings on her part and she knew I loved her. But she didn't choose me to share her life with, and she had opportunities.

This is all wrapped in the story of a 22-year-old who had joined the Navy to teach math and how I came to meet Anne and a weekend I returned to Orlando to see her again a final time. Am I straight? Yes. Have I ever been married or had long-term relationships? No. Do I think women should have work done for the sake of attracting men? Probably not. What attracts me? Big boobs? Not really. (I have been attracted to some voluptuous women, but it really started with an interpersonal connection.) I will say a sense of humor, a positive attitude, kindness and being a good conversationalist/well-informed are qualities that appeal to me.

Now all this is my personal opinion and your mileage may vary. Did I have any insecurities growing up? Yeah, one particular one I shared with Anne. Have I had any decent relationships since Anne? No, I had a particularly bad one at the University of Houston which really soured me on others. Hopefully others may find my story interesting; you may find it odd at points or disagreeing with others

Woods on Logical Fallacies



Justice Thomas and the Catholic Faith



Freedom of Speech


Choose Life


Political Cartoon

Courtesy of AF Branco via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Steve Perry, "She's Mine"

Friday, February 28, 2020

Post #4490 M: Tom Woods on the Failure of the Great Society; Urbanization vs Affordability; Coronavirus and the Global Economy

Quote of the Day

When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt  

Tom Woods on the Failure of the Great Society



Urbanization vs Affordability



Coronavirus and the Global Economy



Choose Life



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Steve Breen via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Steve Perry, "Oh, Sherrie". One of the greatest songs ever recorded; a personal favorite.

Post #4489 J: My Biggest Tweet Ever; My Journal Article Nightmare

My Biggest Tweet Ever


I don't think that Twitter retains or enables you to access history-long tweet statistics. I've tried to play with the default rolling 28-day default, but it seems I can only look at a maximum contiguous 3-month or so range of  cumulative statistics (it's possible there are issues with how I'm handling date ranges, but that seems to be my experience with the interface). I have arbitrary heuristics in terms of assessing success of a tweet's impressions/views: does it exceed my list of followers (as I write, about 68)? So I round that up to 100. To be frank, most tweets never reach that threshold, but it's not unusual to have a handful or more tweets daily exceed that target. What's rarer is to reach a threshold of 1000 or more impressions, which I informally classify as going viral. These are far rarer; many, if not most months I've been on Twitter I haven't had a single 'viral' tweet. This past month I've had at least 4, which is probably close to my best clip. (Another informal statistic I look at is whether my aggregate impressions total over 1000 daily over a given 28-day period. I've lately been in that range for a few weeks, but there have been periods when I've been on Twitter less often, like when I visited my mom for a week over the holidays, although it's possible there're also seasonal factors in tweet viewership. There are a few times I'll go off politics, and some of these I won't republish in my "social media digest" posts, which I currently post once weekly: I'm quite good at most hashtag games, and lately I've been tweeting about one of my favorite baseball teams, the Houston Astros, currently at the center of a catcher sign-stealing "scandal".

Now I've had a few viral tweets "go platinum", meaning going multiple thousand impressions. Some of these have gone into the 4000, maybe up to 8000 or so range, but definitely more near the bottom of that range. It's not like I routinely check my "top tweets" statistics, and I don't know if they accumulate tweet statistics beyond a certain time range.

So all of this is to set up the fact that above tweet has thus far accumulated more than 35,600 impressions, and also personal records (of which I am aware) for likes (82) and retweets (40). That not only at least quadruples my most popular tweet of the past, but represents a good month or so of tweet impressions. Now, as I've written before, I take pride in my tweets as a whole, and I've written a number of quite good tweets, say with clever sarcasm, which never found an audience. If I had a magic formula, I would probably write more mega tweets. Why did this one accumulate this much of a reaction? I can only speculate that I tapped into some Dem angst that Trumpkins and others are trying to manipulate the Dem POTUS nomination to Trump's advantage. I've seen multiple news stories of at least some Trumpkins crossing over to vote for Comrade Bernie; I can't tell you if this is just anecdotal or has had some impact on results to date.

I do think this could be a case of being really careful of what you wish for, because Sanders has his own version of populism and a highly motivated core following. There seems to be this naive belief that simply calling Sanders a socialist will be all Trump needs to do to crush Sanders in a landslide. Now we do have precedents like the 1964 and 1972  elections where ideologues lost in landslides, and who knows what opposition research Trump has on Sanders, or if Sanders would suffer a "Mike Dukakis in a tank" matter or stumble over a question concerning his wife. In fact, Sanders doesn't seem to have a clue that praising the late Fidel Castro isn't smart politics. And there's no doubt Trump's incumbency is a huge advantage. But most of his approval ratings are still below average; he did seem to get a minor post-acquittal bump, but even Rasmussen shows him receding to 47% (maybe coronavirus and/or stock market correction?) For much of his Presidency he's been stuck at the 43.5% level or so. I see no evidence to date that Trump is close to peeling away any of Hillary's states; I've seen a lot of evidence that Michigan and Pennsylvania are trending Dem, and Dems seem to be competitive in a number of Trump states, including Texas, Florida and North Carolina. And we aren't talking about the economic risks of the coronavirus outbreak or other effects of sluggish global growth.

The bottom line is as an incumbent, if your approvals are in the 40's, you're vulnerable. This doesn't mean you'll lose; for example, Blago as Illinois governor won reelection in 2006 despite a year earlier having an approval rate in the 30's; he ran a negative campaign against his GOP opponent and still won.

Weird Dreams

I often remember odd dreams, probably more than most people I know. The latest one is related to an old concern I had stemming from my years in academia. I take great pride in my academic work, including articles, book chapters, and papers I've presented at national conferences. Now if you read any number of scholarly publications, you'll often notice multiple authors cited (I've seen some with almost a dozen). I have no way of knowing who contributed what to a paper. One of the things I wanted to establish is a track record of sole-authored papers. This does not mean I didn't want to do joint research, but for the most part my colleagues expressed no interest and even seemed threatened by my success in gaining journal hits. There were probably other factors in play; for example, at UWM the senior faculty were also vested in the efforts of their own doctoral students.

I had offered to put my own dissertation chair Richard Scamell's name on some of my early papers, mostly in gratitude for his efforts in support of my dissertation research, but to his credit, he declined, pointing out that my own research was independent of his own research efforts and he hadn't contributed enough to justify the recognition. I did try to start some joint projects with local colleagues or former UH colleagues. One example was I suggested a critical success factors study on maquiladoras while I was a UTEP junior professor. University politics and other things got in the way of these things happening (I was basically on the job market my last 3 years of academia, which was a giant sinkhole of time). Really, I wanted my colleagues to discuss their own research interests and see if anything triggered an idea for a joint endeavor; a lot of my own ideas had been hatched while reading thousands of articles in reference disciplines like applied psychology and education.

I also have confidence in my own writing ability, much like a sculptor of words. I had often negotiated being the author of group projects in graduate school, including the capstone MBA business strategy courses. Now I don't think you see as much of that in a political blog in the sense of a more timely publication schedule (in part because political coverage often grows stale: for example, I had deferred covering the 2016 debates between Clinton and Trump, and then after the election: what's the point?) but I think you'll find many of my commentaries extensively cross-referenced with hyperlinked supporting material/sources. I have sometimes written essays over several days. I work hard on organization and things like bullet lists to make the material more accessible. And the effort works. You might think, for example, the technical communication community would be particularly sensitive to my contributions, but for the most part, they accepted my material with minor cosmetic changes, if any. Some of my peer reviews were awesome, e.g., (paraphrased) "after reading Dr. Guillemette's background section, I get the feeling everything I need to know about the topic is summarized there." I prided myself on readable, comprehensive, yet meticulously accurate presentation.

And so I often as a reader find myself being similarly critical of other people's work. Let me give a couple of minor recent examples to make my point. I'm a follower of Congressman Justin Amash and WashPo columnist George Will on Twitter. So Amash was discussing why he voted against the antilynching bill, pointing out that lynching was already a federal hate crime. Now Amash is a highly competent lawyer and very able communicator, but I found myself asking, "Just what federal laws specifically?" I retweeted, suggesting civil rights legislation in the 60's. In George Will's column, he was suggesting that SCOTUS should pick up a case launched from North Dakota, suggesting it was a natural extension of the Janus decision against compelled (union-dues) speech. I don't think he actually specified the appellate court case itself in his column and it required little Google searching to reveal it.  Now I think George Will is the best columnist in America, and I may be one of the few of the few readers to fixate on that point.

Don't get me started on Obama and Trump's speeches. I mean, these dudes have had professional speech writers, but I found myself being driven crazy by meandering discussions that were utterly unfocused.

I have had one co-author, Minnie Yen, one of my former UH PhD office mates. One motivation is Minnie's dissertation focused on database query languages. I was following John Carroll's minimal manual research (IBM) and had written an SQL minimal manual (SQL is the lingua franca of relational database software like DB2, Oracle, and SQL Server). So I had enlisted Minnie's help in a qualitative analysis having one of her students try to learn SQL using my manual. Now I retained control of the writeup and the study materials and data collection protocol while Minnie administered the study. Without Minnie, there wouldn't have been a study because at the time I didn't have relevant students available. I didn't have an issue sharing credit. My only regret is I didn't have an opportunity to do the same with other close UH friends, like Bruce Breeding and Rick Will. I would have done just about anything for those guys. To give an example, Rick had been instrumental in getting Citgo to cooperate in my dissertation data collection. I still regret I haven't been able to return the favor. Familiar readers know Bruce died of stroke complications last November.

My last year of academia was as a visiting professor at ISU. Jane Carey, then with ASU-Phoenix, was in contact with another faculty member with interest in human factors in IT there who was taking a year to bootstrap a research center which created a temporary slot. I had lost my UTEP contract for the next academic year, basically after recruiting season had ended for tenure-track positions elsewhere. I had befriended this nice guy of color in the Applied Computer Science department (by that I mean like an African immigrant). Long story short, I got in the cross-hairs of hostile senior faculty fire because I allowed students to program in the computing language of their choice for a data structures course. The ACS chair knew I did that and didn't have any objections. The senior faculty, however, wanted me to mandate use of PL/1 (which was a general major prerequisite). I personally had not taught PL/1 and pointed out that students would elect to use the language most familiar to them, probably PL/1. The chair gave me use of a grader for handling computer assignments. I have posted on aspects of this in the past; the chairman did some unethical things (one of which was to threaten to relieve me from my classes if I filed a grievance against him), and I eventually filed an academic freedom complaint, later decided in my favor from a faculty investigation committee.

I found myself unable to attract an offer in the middle of a recession, and it certainly didn't help having my current chair with an ax to grind because of the complaint. In fact, I had no intent to file a complaint before he came into my office to threaten me. My attitude was that I'm going to be gone in 5 months and the last thing I needed was word getting out on the market that I was some kind of insubordinate troublemaker. (In fact, I came close to returning to academia several years back (I think it was Marymount); it looked like an offer was a formality, and the chair last mentioned in passing she had met a married faculty couple at ISU at a prior conference. So I'm expecting an imminent offer, and the next thing I know, I'm getting a form letter from HR saying they had decided against hiring from their current pool of applicants and I was welcome to reapply when they reopened the position over the coming year. So then I knew ISU blackballed me, and I was horrified as a Catholic that a Catholic university would screw me over like that. I confronted the chair over why the hell would I apply in the fall if they turned me down over the summer. Would they change their minds? She stammered some bullshit about "trying to be nice". Not that she had the integrity to admit they were participating in a particularly gross blackball incident. I would have felt better if at least she had attempted to follow through with me on what really happened at ISU and make a decision knowing both sides of the issue. I didn't discuss what had happened, first because she didn't ask, second, I really didn't want to draw any attention to it. I had tried to put it behind me.

Anyway, the basic point was I was trying to explain my relationship with the African immigrant junior professor. It was clear I didn't have the time to follow through on prospective joint research projects. That's when he offered something which was very sweet in intent, but was a nightmare come to life: he told me he would put my name on any eventual project publications, even if I didn't have time to contribute. First of all, it would be unethical for me to claim credit for work I didn't do. Second, I had worked hard to establish my "academic brand". I didn't want to publish a paper which I hadn't seen, probably not up to my strict standards.

One of the reasons I often Google myself is to ensure someone isn't trying to do something like spoof my name in academic research, without my knowledge and consent. I realize that's not likely, but I had been shocked by my colleague's offer to put my name on projects. I don't want people doing well-meaning but dishonest favors.

So all this context explains my nightmare, where I'm looking at some bibliography, and I suddenly see my name pop up as a co-author to some paper I didn't know anything about. It seemed so real; I woke up.

Do Things For Mom

The other day I got a text from my age-closest younger sibling, a retired RN (14 months). "I'm drinking your Diet Dr. Pepper." I texted back, "I gather you're at Mom's." (She lives in Ohio.) I had spent a week in Texas at the end of last year. We all have our favorites when we visit Mom. My youngest brother who lives a mile or so down the road prefers Tab. Of course, I can buy Dr. Pepper locally. I personally like variety although for the most part I haven't bought much soda, at least for home. My personal favorites are (diet versions) of cream soda, ginger ale and Antartica Guarana (which I developed a taste for in 2 trips to Brazil in 1995). I also like flavored colas, Fresca and Dr. Pepper. So I think we grabbed a 12-pack on a stopover at HEB on the way home from the airport.

I only discovered recently that my sister had started (I'm not sure how many years back) visiting Mom for a week including her birthday (today). This may explain why my Mom has been pushing for me over the last few years to include my birthday in my annual holiday trips home. Usually I'm trying to leverage work leave and expensive airfare during the holiday season.

It's very sweet of my sister to do that. I don't know if my other siblings do that. Two live in the San Antonio suburbs, my middle brother (soon to return to Texas) lives in KS, and two sisters live in east suburbs of Dallas.

I have my moments. For example, one year I surprised my Mom with a gift on my birthday. She was confused, but I said, "Without you, Mom, I wouldn't be here."

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Post #4488 M: Leaving Hotel California; Why Sonic Won at the Box Office

Quote of the Day

The future is purchased by the present.
Samuel Johnson 

Leaving Hotel California



Why Sonic the Hedgehog Won at the Box Office



Choose Life



Political Cartoon



Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Steve Perry (with Kenny Loggins), "Don't Fight It"

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Post #4487 M: Tom Woods and Rockwell on Comrade Bernie and Bloomberg; Ron Paul on Trump v Assange

Quote of the Day

Far and away the best prize that life offers is 
the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Theodore Roosevelt  

Tom Woods and Rockwell on Comrade Bernie and Bloomberg



Ron Paul on Trump v Assange




Kibbe and Hornberger



Choose Life




Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Mike Lester via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Britney Spears (with G-Eazy), "Make Me". Her most recent Top 40 hit. This marks the end of my Spears retrospective. Next up: Steve Perry.

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Post #4486 M: Stossel on Meddling With Parents; Are Autonomous Cars Hype?

Quote of the Day

A teacher affects eternity; 
he can never tell where his influence stops.

Stossel on Meddling With Parents



Are Autonomous Cars Hype?



Woods on President Comrade Bernie



Choose Life



Political Cartoon

Courtesy of AF Branco via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Britney Spears (with Iggy Azalea), "Pretty Girls"

Monday, February 24, 2020

Post #4485 Commentary The State of the Union Part III

For earlier posts in this series, see part I and part II. This is the third and final installment.

I also promised our citizens that I would impose tariffs to confront China’s massive theft of America’s jobs. Our strategy has worked. Days ago we signed the groundbreaking new agreement with China that will defend our workers, protect our intellectual property, brings billions and billions of dollars into our Treasury, and open vast new markets for products made and grown right here in the USA.For decades, China has taken advantage of the United States. Now we have changed that. But at the same time, we have perhaps the best relationship we’ve ever had with China, including with President Xi. They respect what we’ve done because, quite frankly, they could never really believe that they were able to get away with what they were doing year after year, decade after decade, without someone in our country stepping up and saying, “that’s enough.”
There are so many things wrong with what Trump says here, it's difficult to know where to start. 

First of all, Trump's tariffs are NOT paid by China. They are paid by importers and passed on to American businesses and consumers. "Billions and billions" are de facto taxes on Americans and they have a negative effect on business cost controls and American living standards (higher prices, less selection). Trump's redistribution of these taxes to farmers and other politically connected interest groups, e.g., affected by retaliatory Chinese responses to Trump's unprovoked trade wars,  is a type of socialism.

Second, "for decades, China has taken advantage of the United States" is protectionist bullshit. Free trade is win-win. No one forces Americans to buy value-priced goods from China. Moreover, many components sourced in Chinese goods are made in America, yes, supporting American businesses and jobs. There have been some adjustments as certain American factories were no longer globally cost-competitive, but there are other benefits to consumer benefits of lower prices, including savings and/or additional goods and services. Moreover, Chinese purchases of Treasury debt help bolster the dollar and make servicing the humongous national debt more affordable.

Third, the pretentious "IP protection" issue is a red herring. I will refer the interested reader to the brilliant free market economist Donald Boudreaux from George Mason University and Cafe Hayek. In a recent column, Boudreaux exposed Trump's disingenuous rhetoric, pointing out the Trump has not lodged relevant complaints with the WTO (while his own trade wars have themselves violated WTO rules). He points out that the IP technology transfers demanded by China in doing business there are a type of tax which companies can refuse to agree to, at a cost to the Chinese economy. This is not about subordinating American consumer interests to vaguely defined IP concerns; it's about the fact that Trump is unhappy American consumers want to buy Chinese products. And Trump's tariffs are about punishing American consumers for choosing Chinese products.

As an aside, I completely agree with Boudreaux's arguments for unilateral free trade. In particular, protectionists, including American leftists/Democrats, try to similarly rationalize protectionism, no better than Trump's, on labor, environment, or other arbitrary policy grounds. (Notice that Trump's earlier referenced arguments on USMCA cited relevant points to win Democrat support.)

Note that Trump's mercantilist phase one deal with China still leaves a roughly 20% tariff/tax on American consumer purchasers of many, if not most Chinese goods. We want governments to get out of the business of micromanaging the choices of US and Chinese consumers. I don't want political whores like Trump decide what and how many American goods and services are to be purchased by Chinese. One billion Chinese can decide that.


As we restore American leadership throughout the world, we are once again standing up for freedom in our hemisphere. That’s why my administration reversed the failing policies of the previous administration on Cuba. We are supporting the hopes of Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. To restore Democracy, the United States is leading a 59-nation diplomatic coalition against the socialist dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.
Economic sanctions are an immoral counterproductive form of warfare against other nations. Obama started minor steps to ending a regrettable, unjustifiable target of Cuba, and Trump here boasts of reversing course, probably a paying off a political chit to Cuban-American support in south Florida. Trump's meddling in the internal affairs of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela is counterproductive and plays into the hands of socialist dictatorial regimes looking to rally support against the scapegoats of ugly Americans. Make no mistake--as a libertarian, I oppose authoritarian regimes as a point of principle. But I see economic trade as a stabilizing policy; usually countries don't try to kill their customers.


Socialism destroys nations, but always remember, freedom unifies the soul. To safeguard American liberty, we have invested a record-breaking $2.2 trillion in the United States military. 
We spend trillions we don't have to support an over-extended, meddling military still tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq more than a dozen years after Bush 43 left the White House. Trump has actually supersized unconstitutional drone war and is outspending the next 6 biggest spending nations on national defense combined.


The next step forward in building an inclusive society is making sure that every young American gets a great education and the opportunity to achieve the American dream. Yet for too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools. To rescue these students, 18 states have created school choice in the form of opportunity scholarships....Now I call on Congress to give 1 million American children the same opportunity Janiyah has just received. Pass the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunities Act because no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing government school...Tonight, I ask Congress to support our students and back my plan to offer vocational and technical education in every single high school in America. 
I don't have an issue with education choice (and in fact I would prefer to privatize education altogether). There are two principal  objections I have here: (1) I see education as a state/local, not federal responsibility; (2) Trump almost never funds new spending from cuts elsewhere. Given a projected $1T deficit this year, I want Trump to show me the money.


A good life for American families also requires the most affordable, innovative and high-quality health care system on earth. Before I took office, health insurance premiums had more than doubled in just five years. I moved quickly to provide affordable alternatives. Our new plans are up to 60 percent less expensive, and better. I’ve also made an ironclad pledge to American families, we will always protect patients with preexisting conditions...132 lawmakers in this room have endorsed legislation to impose a socialist takeover of our healthcare system, wiping out the private health insurance plans of 180 million very happy Americans. To those watching at home tonight, I want you to know, we will never let socialism destroy American healthcare.
Trump actually has taken some positive steps here, although I would prefer to see healthcare restored to traditional state regulation (if not privatized, period; I do think the federal government has a free market role to ensure against state insurance/regulatory cartels and to enable interstate risk pools) and I think Trump is not explaining it well. It seems like the Trump administration is streamlining the list of expensive mandatory benefit coverage beyond comprehensive health and helping establish publicly funded reinsurance pools.

As for the socialism soundbite, note that the federal government is deeply intertwined already in the healthcare sector with VA hospitals, Medicaid, and Medicare, and I haven't seen Trump introduce any market-based reforms (other than some veteran flexibility outside the VA hospital system) in major programs.


Over 130 legislators in this chamber have endorsed legislation that would bankrupt our nation by providing free taxpayer-funded health care to millions of illegal aliens, forcing taxpayers to subsidize free care for anyone in the world who unlawfully crosses our borders. These proposals would raid the Medicare benefits of our seniors and that our seniors depend on, while acting as a powerful lure for illegal immigration. That is what is happening in California and other states. Their systems are totally out of control, costing taxpayers vast and unaffordable amounts of money. If forcing American taxpayers to provide free unlimited health care to illegal aliens sounds fair to you, then stand with the radical left, but if you believe we should defend American patients and American seniors, then stand with me and pass legislation to prohibit free government health care for illegal aliens. 
As I've tweeted, unauthorized aliens amount to less than 4% of the American population and tend to be younger, healthier people. Trump's scapegoating of unauthorized immigrants is absolutely unethical and reprehensible. RAND Corporation has examined this issue and concluded: "The Public Spends Little to Provide Health Care for Undocumented Immigrants". I think it's helpful to republish a significant excerpt:
Of the $430 billion in national medical spending in 2000, native-born residents accounted for 87 percent of the population but for 91.5 percent of the spending. Foreign-born residents, who include undocumented immigrants, accounted for 13 percent of the population but for only 8.5 percent of the spending. Undocumented immigrants — 3.2 percent of the population — accounted for only about 1.5 percent of medical costs. 
Foreign-born residents use less funding from public insurers (such as Medicare and Medicaid) and pay more out-of-pocket costs for health care than do native-born residents — a pattern that is even more pronounced for undocumented immigrants. 
The lower medical spending is driven by lower utilization of services. Utilization data from Los Angeles County show that many foreign-born residents had almost no contact with the formal health care system. For example, whereas only about a tenth of native-born residents had never had a checkup, that fraction jumped to a quarter for foreign-born residents and to a third for undocumented immigrants. Moreover, because Los Angeles County is known as an immigrant-friendly location for services, the estimates for the nation may be lower for undocumented immigrant service use and, thus, may be lower for medical costs. 
A number of reasons account for the lower utilization, but one key reason is that immigrants — especially the undocumented — appear to be healthier than native-born residents.

This will be a tremendous boon to our already very strongly guarded southern border, where as we speak a lNot ong, tall and very powerful wall is being built. We have now completed over 100 miles and have over 500 miles fully completed in a very short period of time. 
First of all, Trump's demagoguery on unauthorized immigrants has been reprehensible and indefensible, including false allegations of Mexico dumping violent prisoners across the border. Second, there are far easier and less costly mechanisms; for example, the bracero program in the 1950's, legalizing foreign workers, brought down arrests around 90%. Third, much of the southern border is owned by private citizens, tribes, etc. , which means court battles over eminent domain. Not to mention much of wall building has been replacement vs. new fence building. Fourth, David Bier wrote an extensive article in Reason explaining why the wall won't work. It would take too long to summarize here, but let's just saw natural causes (flooding, storms, etc.) can erode barriers, the Border Patrol has had to patch thousands of holes, much fencing is vulnerable to conventional workarounds like fence climbing, ladders and ropes, wire cutters, etc., opaque walls also limit Border Patrol attempts to anticipate what is happening over the wall, tunneling technology exists, aliens can simply migrate to easier barrier points (e.g., from San Diego to Yuma), etc. Just as important, barriers also tend to deter workers from leaving, e.g., because of the difficulty in returning.


My administration is also taking on the big pharmaceutical companies. We have approved a record number of affordable generic drugs, and medicines are being approved by the FDA at a faster clip than ever before. And I was pleased to announce last year that, for the first time in 51 years, the cost of prescription drugs actually went down.  And working together, Congress can reduce drug prices substantially from current levels...I’m calling for bipartisan legislation that achieves the goal of dramatically lowering prescription drug prices. 

Whereas the Trump Administration has made much-needed reforms in addressing generic drug backlogs, there has been a lag in marketing approved generics for complex reasons. What seems troubling is Trump's attempts to link prices to indexes of prescription prices in often country-controlled price lists. As Bailey points out, pricing in these areas is often linked to an offset to marginal costs of production, not linked to the costs of development to market. These countries often lag in innovative drugs to market; similar pricing would likely reduce the incentive for US industry to bring new drugs to market, which would not be in our interests in the long term. Other libertarian ideas include opening the market to foreign-approved generics, prioritizing approvals linked to market competition (high prices), and patent reform/licensing rights/public drug development incentives.

As we support America’s moms and dads, I was recently proud to sign the law providing new parents in the federal workforce paid family leave, serving as a model for the rest of the country...Now I call on Congress to pass the bipartisan Advancing Support for Working Families Act, extending family leave to mothers and fathers all across our nation.
I have issues with costly new benefits to the already expensive federal workforce, much of which should be eliminated or at least decentralized to states. And I think the private sector should decide what benefits to attract and retain workers vs. expensive federal mandates. There's no such thing as a free lunch; businesses pay market-based compensation for employees and higher benefits often are funded as an offset to other compensation, i.e., salary. 

We must also rebuild America’s infrastructure. 
Infrastructure has been a dubious part of federal policy since at least back in the day of Henry Clay's American system. In many cases (e.g., roads/highways) the government has displaced private investment. The history of public ownership is a variation on the tragedy of the commons, i.e., if everybody owns it, nobody owns it. Take government involvement in the development of transcontinental railways; it's a case history of corruption. Poorly maintained, overcrowded highways, bridges, dams, etc., are the inevitable consequence when the private sector is not vested. I prefer total privatization, but at least the Republican policy preference for leveraging public money through private partnerships is an improvement over Democratic Keynesian delusions of multiplier effects in public expenditures.

A better tomorrow for all Americans also requires us to keep America safe. That means supporting the men and women of law enforcement at every level, including our nation’s heroic ICE officers...      Tragically, there are many cities in America where radical politicians have chosen to provide sanctuary for these criminal aliens. In sanctuary cities, local officials order police to release dangerous criminal aliens to prey upon the public, instead of handing them over to ICE to be safely removed...The state of California passed an outrageous law declaring their whole state to be a sanctuary for criminal illegal immigrants, a very terrible sanctuary with catastrophic results...I ask Congress to pass the Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities Act immediately. The United States of America should be a sanctuary for law-abiding Americans, not criminal aliens... With every action my administration is restoring the rule of law and reasserting the culture of American freedom. 
There are few things that piss me off more than Trump's abominably and demonstrably false, racially-biased, despicable demagoguery on unauthorized immigration. It's necessary here to excerpt Cato Institute's Alex Nowrasteh on the topic of criminal immigrants:
It is difficult to know whether illegal immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans are.  All immigrants have a lower criminal incarceration rate and there are lower crime rates in the neighborhoods where they live, according to the near-unanimous findings of the peer-reviewed evidence.  Since 1911, large nationwide federal immigration commissions have asked whether immigrants are more crime-prone than native-born Americans and each one of them answered no, even when the rest of their reports unjustifiably blamed immigrants for virtually every problem in the United States.  From the 1911 Immigration Commission, also known as the Dillingham Commission, to the 1931 Wickersham Commission, and 1994’s Barbara Jordan Commission, each has reported that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans... 
Michelangelo Landgrave, a doctoral student in political science at the University of California, Riverside, and I released a paper today that estimates that illegal immigrant incarceration rates are about half those of native-born Americans in 2017.  In the same year, legal immigrant incarceration rates are then again half those of illegal immigrants.  Those results are similar to what Landgrave and I published for the years 2014 and 2016.  
The second strand of research from Cato looks at criminal conviction rates by immigration status in the state of Texas...But even here, illegal immigrant conviction rates are about half those of native-born Americans – without any controls for age, education, ethnicity, or any other characteristic.  The illegal immigrant conviction rates for homicide, larceny, and sex crimes are also below those of native-born Americans... crime along the Mexican border is much lower than in the rest of the country, homicide rates in Mexican states bordering the United States are not correlated with homicide rates here, El Paso’s border fence did not lower crime, Texas criminal conviction rates remain low (but not as low) when recidivism is factored in, and that police clearance rates are not lower in states with many illegal immigrants – which means that they don’t escape conviction by leaving the country after committing crimes.  
 Sociologists Michael Light and Ty Miller found that a higher illegal immigrant population does not increase violent crime rates.  
As for Trump's obsession with sanctuary cities, the idea that the states are subordinate to the federal government is a clear violation of the conservative principle of federalism. Local authorities have a vested interest in public safety and to gain the confidence of local communities.

Last week I announced a groundbreaking plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians...Three years ago, the barbarians of ISIS held over 20,000 square miles of territory in Iraq and Syria. Today the ISIS territorial caliphate has been 100 percent destroyed and the founder and leader of ISIS, the bloodthirsty killer known as al-Baghdadi, is dead...The terrorist responsible for killing Sergeant Hake was Qassem Soleimani, who provided the deadly roadside bomb that took Chris’s life. Soleimani was the Iranian regime’s most ruthless butcher, a monster who murdered or wounded thousands of American service members in Iraq. As the world’s top terrorist, Soleimani orchestrated the death of countless men, women and children. He directed the December assault and went on to assault U.S. forces in Iraq, was actively planning new attacks, when we hit him very hard, and that’s why last month at my direction the U.S. military executed a flawless precision strike that killed Soleimani and terminated his evil reign of terror forever.
Basically, Trump's "peace plan" makes a mockery of the idea of a Palestinian state on the West Bank with the Israeli military omnipresent. Trump didn't advance the cause of peace by unilaterally and preemptively recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Whereas ISIS currently does not control formerly held territory, it has not gone away but has simply moved underground. As for Soleimani, he was an Iranian general, and we are not at war with Iran. Trump's assassination of Soleimani was a war crime, a premeditated act that had been planned for the right opportunity, which occurred when he was in Iraq to respond to a Saudi peace initiative. This sham post hoc rationalization of an impending attack is a complete fabrication. Trump's assassination of Soleimani could have triggered an unnecessary war without constitutional Congressional authorization.

My stand as a libertarian on Trump's foreign policy is that it is a complete failure. We have no business meddling in the Middle East, and our involvement there has a risk of blowback.




Post #4484 M: Voter Fraud is a Thing; Ron Paul on Coronavirus and More; Comrade Bernie and Rent Control

Quote of the Day

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, 
but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks 
as if they were great and noble.
Helen Keller 

Voter Fraud is a Thing



Ron Paul on Coronavirus and More



Comrade Bernie and Rent Control



Choose Life


Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Tom Stiglich via Townhall


Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Britney Spears, "Work Bitch"

Sunday, February 23, 2020

Post #4483 M: Against Political Activism; Ron Paul On the Nevada Democratic Circus

Quote of the Day

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten
at second hand, and without examination.
Mark Twain  

Against Political Activism



Ron Paul On the Nevada Democratic Circus



Woods on Income Inequality




Choose Life


Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Steve Kelley via Townhall

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Britney Spears (with will.i.am), "Scream and Shout". Her most recent Top 10 hit.

Post #4482 Commentary The State of the Union Part II

For the first post in this series, see here.

The vision I will lay out this evening demonstrates how we are building the world’s most prosperous and inclusive society, one where every citizen can join in America’s unparalleled success, and where every community can take part in America’s extraordinary rise. From the instant I took office, I moved rapidly to revive the U.S. economy, slashing a record number of job killing regulations, enacting historic and record-setting tax cuts and fighting for fair and reciprocal trade agreements.  [source]

Actually, there's very little a POTUS can do under enumerated responsibilities in the US Constitution. For example, Congress holds the power of the purse, passes laws, ratifies treaties. To some extent, Trump has been able to offset some of the Obama-initiated regulatory burden. Whereas business tax reform was passed into law, business investment has slumped in response to a sluggish global economy and uncertainty under Trump's unprovoked trade wars. Other tax cuts were not permanent in nature, an artifact of the GOP not having a filibuster-proof majority and having to work under 10-year budget resolutions. More importantly, Trump and the GOP Congress did not offset tax cuts with politically unpopular spending cuts, and we are within sight of the first $1T deficit since Obama's first term. This adds to an ever expanding cost of serving the growing $23T national debt.

Moreover, Trump has done nothing to reform the cost drivers for spending/deficit beyond ever increasing entitlement spending  Social security and Medicare have large unfunded liabilities and within years of exhausting reserves.

"Fair and reciprocal" trade is basically a euphemism for mercantilistic trade policies. The preferred policy is unilateral free trade. Trump's policies, like for steel and aluminum tariffs, are ones of "concentrated benefits and diffuse costs"; they favor one industry at the expense of others, e.g., users of steel or aluminum inputs. Trump's tariffs are de facto tax increases on American consumers with mitigate whatever tax cuts and earnings increase he lays claim to elsewhere. Generally speaking, the consumers are worse off with less selection and lower competition for the consumer, translating to higher prices and a lower standard of living.

The unemployment rate is the lowest in over half a century. And very incredibly, the average unemployment rate under my administration is lower than any administration in the history of our country. The unemployment rate for African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans has reached the lowest levels in history. African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded. The unemployment rate for women reached the lowest level in almost 70 years, and last year women filled 72 percent of all new jobs added. In eight years under the last administration, over 300,000 working age people dropped out of the workforce. In just three years of my administration, 3.5 million people, working age people, have joined the workforce. 
First of all, poverty globally reached under 10% for the first time in world history. That reflects more of a market trend than anything from Trump's policies. Employment data have not been maintained in similar form across our history. The employment rate Trump is using is somewhat an artifact of how you define the labor force. The LFPR is about 2.5 points below when Obama took office in 2009, about 0.3 points higher than when Trump took office. Now part of that is accelerating retirements of Baby Boomers; some estimates are up to half to two-thirds of the observed gap. There are a couple of contrasting trends: early retirement through social security disability and an increasing percentage of working senior citizens. Some statistics show more workers were added during the last 3 years of the Obama Administration vs. the first 3 of the Trump Administration.

The natural rate of unemployment/full employment is generally considered to be in the range of 3.5 to 4.5%. And in fact unemployment (by the official U-3 number) had been halved from around a high of 10+% to about 4.7% by the time Obama left office. So there was a trend in place before Trump took office. Now the lowest on official records, contrary to Trump's assertion was 2.5% during the Korean War. To an extent when you see a dip below the full employment rate, it can actually reflect a worrisome (overheated) economy.

After decades of flat and falling incomes, wages are rising fast, and wonderfully, they are rising fastest for low income workers, who have seen a 16 percent pay increase since my election. 
Part of the story here is low inflation, not to mention that increases have eased off more recently. And in some cases this may be an artifact of higher state minimum wages, which is not a Trump policy. (And I would also point out higher minimums make it harder for younger/inexperienced workers to join the labor force.)

Real median household income is now at the highest level ever recorded.Since my election, U.S. stock markets have soared 70 percent, adding more than $12 trillion to our nation’s wealth, transcending anything anyone believed was possible. This is a record. It is something that every country in the world is looking up to, they admire... All of those millions of people with 401(K)s and pensions are doing far better than they have ever done before with increases of 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 percent and even more. 
There's been a change in the data collection a few years back; adjusted figures show household income was higher in 1999. The bottom 80% own only about 7% of stock market; the overwhelming percentage (>80%) is owned by the upper 10%. Not to mention part of the story here is attraction of the strong currency to foreign investors, global growth has been sluggish and the Federal Reserve has been accommodating, including recent rate cuts. For many investors, starved by anemic returns in CD's, bonds, etc., stocks have been the only game in town. Now, of course, the stock market hasn't been monotonically increasing (consider the market selloff in late 2018 and volatility after Trump's tariff increases) under Trump. One assessment showed the Dow up 43% after 2 years under Trump, but 72% under Truman, 124% under Eisenhower, 147% under Reagan, 148% under Obama, 199%  under FDR, 229% under Clinton, and 230% under Coolidge. Now to a certain extent, that's an unfair comparison, because the other Presidents served longer periods. On a more apples to apples approach using the S&P index and first 3 years in office, Trump's 42.2% barely edges Clinton's 42.1%, and trails Obama's 56.2% and Bush 41's 45.5%. More importantly, at fairly rich valuations, continued sluggish global markets (and certain stresses like the emerging coronavirus pandemic) impacting business sales abroad, and less likely Fed rate cuts, it's unlikely last year's strong gains can be sustained.

The 401K claim is pure hyperbolic bullshit. For example, I have a 401K under a major defense contractor during Trump's tenure, and it has done well, but nowhere near 60%. One source puts it at more like 27%, and both Clinton and Obama showed far stronger returns during their second terms.

Under the last administration, more than 10 million people were added to the food stamp rolls. Under my administration, 7 million Americans have come off food stamps and 10 million people have been lifted off of welfare.
This is misleading in multiple respects. First, the number of people coming off SNAP was coming down by the late years of the Obama Administration as the unemployment rate dropped, so there was an existing trend. And also on the state level, not under Trump's control, we saw a tightening of eligibility criteria in states, including work requirements.

Thanks to our bold regulatory reduction campaign, the United States has become the No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world, by far.
While Trump has liberalized some constraints of natural resource exploration on federally-controlled areas and some overdue regulatory reforms, much of what Trump claims here has more to do with fracking and other technological innovations, a trend in place long before Trump became President. I'm not saying Obama helped the trend with his green energy agenda, environmental regulations, opposition to pipelines, and resistance to further development on federal property, but he did sign a long-overdue reform enabling oil exports, which provided a financial incentive to fracking and other activities.

 Jobs and investments are pouring into 9,000 previously neglected neighborhoods, thanks to opportunity zones, a plan spearheaded by Senator Tim Scott as part of our great Republican tax cuts
Actually, Trump doesn't have any way of proving his hype. The 2017 tax reform package did not include reporting requirements, an artifact of the budget reconciliation process used to pass tax reform to avoid a likely Dem filibuster. I will point out that Trump's expectation that domestic business investment in general would jump following tax reform did not pan out with lackluster results, and Fed chief Powell pointed to weakness in investment as a reason for sluggish growth in the third quarter last year.

Likewise we are restoring our nation’s manufacturing might, even though predictions were, as you all know, that this could never, ever be done. After losing 60,000 factories under the previous two administrations, America has now gained 12,000 new factories under my administration, with thousands upon thousands of plants and factories being planned or being built.
First of all, less than 9% of American jobs are in manufacturing. And this trend of decreasing employment has had more to do with improving productivity (including robotics) than to trade related constraints. This does not mean that American manufacturing has died; in fact, America produces about 18.2% of global output, marginally ahead of China (with a much larger population). And, despite Trump's hype, we have seen several months of declines in manufacturing output over the past year or so.

One of the biggest promises I made to the American people was to replace the disastrous NAFTA trade deal. In fact, unfair trade is perhaps the single biggest reason that I decided to run for president. Following NAFTA’s adoption, our nation lost one in four manufacturing jobs. Many politicians came and went, pledging to change or replace NAFTA, only to do so and then absolutely nothing happened. But unlike so many who came before me, I keep my promises. We did our job. Six days ago I replaced NAFTA and signed a brand new U.S. Mexico Canada agreement into law. The USMCA will create nearly 100,000 new high-paying American auto jobs and massively boost exports for our farmers, ranchers and factory workers.
Trump's economic illiteracy on the trade deficit is beyond the scope of this essay. I'll start this discussion by pointing out about half of imports are resources or components relevant to business operations and about half our exports are goods. Globally competitive imported resources enable business to contain cost pressures, enabling more competitively priced goods and services. Free trade pacts, including low tariffs, facilitate these processes. And, of course, consumers  reap the benefits of lower prices and greater variety of goods and services.

NAFTA, contrary to Trump's incompetent, invalid assessment, has been an economic blessing to all 3 member countries, enabling more integrated supply chains across artificial country boundaries, increasing economic growth, profits, jobs, lower prices and improved living standards in the world's largest free trade zone, of over 450M people

According to The Balance, 6 primary benefits of NAFTA are:

  • quadrupled trade. In fact, Mexico and Canada are among the highest US export markets.
  • lowered prices, e.g., by eliminating tariffs. Energy imports from Mexico and Canada lowered US dependence on oil exports from the Middle East, Venezuela and other volatile, unreliable suppliers. Food imports from our partners has saved billions versus other external suppliers.
  • increased economic growth, up to 0.5%, especially in food, autos, and services. We have seen a quadrupling of US service exports to our partners. Most North American cars have parts made by partner nations, and Mexican auto imports have increased market share from other trading partners. American food exports to partners have quadrupled.
  • created net jobs, by some estimates up to 5 million. It's likely that lower-skill jobs not outsourced to Mexico may have gone to other, e.g., Chinese suppliers.
  • increased direct foreign investment,  from the US triple, from our partners, doubling over the past decade. We also have higher intellectual property protections.
  • reduced government spending, by enabling broader competition for government contracts.
Have there by some temporary dislocations caused by higher competition among all 3 economies? Yes, for example, many small Mexican farmers found it difficult to compete against American corn exports. There are several economic constructs that come into play, including the law of comparative advantage and "concentrated benefits and diffuse costs". For instance, while small farmers found it difficult to compete against cheap US corn, Mexican consumers benefited from lower food prices.

Basically, every analysis I have seen on USMCA is that it is merely a cosmetic update on NAFTA, where Trump somewhat exacted some Mexican concessions on the auto industry and the US got more movement towards US dairy exports to Canada, but it really didn't move the needle on opening new markets or otherwise improving benefits to consumers.

On the whole, Trump has been negative on global trade, foolishly abandoning TPP and TIP for equally economic illiterate, largely political reasons (since Obama had pursued them); for example, many suggest the TPP exit has strengthened China's hand regionally. Some suggest that Trump's bullying of Canada and Mexico may have counterproductive effects in the long run as the nations pivot to other trading partners.

This concludes my second post in the series, with another segment upcoming in the days ahead.

Post #4481 Social Media Digest

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