Icarus Unhinged

 

Icarus Unhinged

The current Donald Trump Attempt to be the 2024 GOP POTUS candidate should be laughable to anyone with an IQ higher than that of a wombat. His miserable 4 year track record ought to be convincing even to the most partisan hack, but he apparently has no idea of what a venal doofus he truly is. The word “hubris” is applicable to a degree seldom seen at such high levels.  Along the way, there will be several short historical examples. (sorry, that’s just the way I roll).  

        Hubris is defined per the OED as “Excessive pride or self-confidence.”  It derives from the Greeks, who actually considered it a crime (if only). Generally, it referred to the attitudes and actions of mortals whose unjustified pride and self-assurance led them to “defy the Gods.”  One of the generally proffered examples of hubris as the Greeks regarded it is the mythical story of Icarus.

        The “moral” of the Icarus legend revolves, not around daring to fly, but around ignoring the warning of his father. His father, Daedalus, was the creator of the Labyrinth, a huge maze located under the court of King Minos of Crete, where the Minotaur, (half-man half-bull, all myth) lived. So that the secrets of design of the Labyrinth be kept, Minos had Daedalus and Icarus imprisoned in a tower above his palace. Daedalus managed to create two sets of wings, made of feathers glued together with wax, for himself and his son. He taught Icarus how to fly and warned him not to fly too high, which would cause the wax to melt.  Icarus, however, overconfident and ego driven, ignored his father's warnings, flying higher and higher, until the wax started melting under the scorching sun. His wings dissolved and he fell into the sea and drowned.  This is also the origin of the old adage. “Pride goeth before a fall.”

        Most of such Greek stories are thinly veiled warnings about the dangers of excessive self-confidence and imagined superiority and their poor outcomes. Seldom has anyone demonstrated the validity if this position as convincingly as DJT.

        Shakespeare’s version of Macbeth touches on a similar theme. Macbeth receives a prophecy that he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders the King (Duncan) and takes the throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. As with much of Shakespeare’s writing, Macbeth transcends the time period. In dramatizing the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake, it is as current as today.

        In more recent times there is no shortage of examples of such Narcissism (named for another Greek who loved his image a bit too much).  One such is Herbert Hoover, a decent enough man, but one who believed that he could convince a nation, which was beginning to know better, that the economy was just fine, and his administration and his then current Republican business favoring policies would “abolish poverty.”   

        Four years later Mr. Hoover had to attempt (an effort at which he failed spectacularly) to explain to a nation, now mired deep in the Great Depression,  why it should reelect him, and continue what he had ballyhooed in 1928 as,  “The policies which have made and will make for the prosperity of our country.” Perhaps if he had been more judicious in his first campaign, if he had made the ordinary speeches of the ordinary candidate, his 1932 explanation of the collapse as “due to inexorable economic forces” might have been more plausible,  But in 1928, locked into defending Republican hands off, free for all, policies in financial sectors  he told voters that. “As never before does the keeping of our economic machine in tune depend on wise policies in the administrative side of government.”

      Mr. Hoover, who in 1928 had denounced his unnamed "opponents"—on ephemeral or non-existent scanty evidence—for plotting to “introduce state socialism”, (sound familiar yet?) was compelled to ask for reelection in 1932 as a reward for his own success in failing at introducing state socialism. He hoped that the Reconstruction Finance Corporation would prove a brighter star in his crown than the Federal Farm Board had. It didn’t. So, the man who promised the abolition of poverty had to ask for another term of office on the ground that “it might have been worse.”

        General of the US Army (yep five stars!)  Douglas MacArthur is a kind of 20th century Icarus. In 1945, at war’s end, he ranked with some of the greatest generals of all time. His masterly amphibious counterstroke at Inchon in 1950, after the North Koreans had overrun virtually the entire south of the peninsula, is a War College lesson in boldness and surprise. But then, apparently believing that success, and now believing that anything he did was not only right but destined to succeed, he decided to take on China — and thereby his own president, the determined and moral Harry S. Truman. MacArthur’s “wax” melted, and he was fired. The detailed saga of MacArthur and his downfall should also be studied at every war college.

        A more recent and somewhat humorous example of hubris is little relatively known but has left us with another name for the condition. In 1995, a man named McArthur Wheeler read an article about how lemon juice could be used as an invisible ink, not becoming visible until heat was applied. He contemplated said concept and (believe it or not) theorized that if he covered his face with lemon juice, it would be invisible to bank security cameras. No, really, yes, he did!  So, he painted up his face with lemon juice and robbed two banks. Needless to say, he was, in both robberies, photographed very clearly and quickly apprehended. For obvious reasons, the court ordered a psychological evaluation before proceeding to trial. The court appointed psychologist diagnosed Mr. Wheeler as “competent to stand trial but shockingly ignorant.”

        Two psychologists, Dunning and Kruger by name, learning of this (probably after they laughed their asses off) wondered why someone with such an obvious basic lack of knowledge would think that they had a brilliant idea that had never been thought of before.

        To develop some hard data (such as can be done in psychology, a “soft” science) they designed a study in 1999, using freshman college students, in which they measured their knowledge of a subject.   They then asked respondents to self-assess their own abilities in that subject. What they found was that the less someone knew about a subject, the higher they self-rated their knowledge in that subject! Read that again because it should, by now, sound familiar. They also found that people with little knowledge in a subject area undervalued the knowledge of people who were genuinely knowledgeable in the same subject. They concluded that when someone has a very shallow understanding of something, they are markedly unable to evaluate what they don’t know about it and, similarly, can’t appreciate how much a true expert does know about the subject.

        I think it very likely that, in a few years, if you look up “Dunning-Kruger effect” on Wikipedia, you will find the article accompanied by a photo of Donald Trump.

        I’ve written at length about Trump’s lack of understanding about economics. His tariff disaster tells that story. His claim that “Mexico would pay for a wall” is similarly reflective of ignorance in several areas.  That has never however stopped him from grandiose statements reflecting both narcissistic hubris and his raging case of Dunning-Kruger syndrome. Examples (with comments where I feel like it) include:

"I know tech better than anyone."  Really? Better than Bill Gates? (who he disdains)

"Nobody knows more about taxes than I do."  Except possibly every CPA in America.

"Nobody understands the horror of nuclear more than me." There are two cities in Japan where everybody does, you arrogant asshole!

"Nobody knows more about trade than me." Tell the US soybean farmers who are reduced to taking government handouts.

"I know more than the generals on ISIS” As General Jim Mattis said, “I won my spurs on the battlefield, he won his in a letter from a doctor.”

“Nobody knows jobs like I do!" I got nuthin’ here.

“You’re going to have a deportation force. And you’re going to do it humanely,"   and: “President Obama has mass deported vast numbers of people — the most ever, and it’s never reported. I think people are going to find that I have not only the best policies, but I will have the biggest heart of anybody.”

Big egos maybe, heart, nah.

 

“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

Three years later:

Climate change is real, but it's "naturally occurring." (current position)

On March 31, 2016, Trump told the Washington Post that the country needed to eliminate the national debt and that he could do it “fairly quickly” without raising taxes.

This may well be the best example of hubris in existence! Later, however the scenario was abandoned and replaced with:

“I think it could be a good time to borrow and pay off debt, borrow debt, make longer-term debt,”

That’s right replace debt with debt. Just get another credit card! Sheer genius!

When warned in 2019 that the radically increasing deficit could crash the economy in mid 2020s his response was: “We won’t be here.”

“We’ll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody. I know it’s very expensive. “I know windmills very much?”  But what about the “noise related cancers?” “I never understood wind.” Is that even a real thought or idea? Everything that exists he either knows better than anyone or has studied it more. And yet he spends hours every day watching Fox News.

        There are examples, too numerous, of ways Trump asserts his superior knowledge while true accomplished professionals stand by grimacing. Medicine as relates to the Covid pandemic  was but the last topic where Trump made grandiose pronouncements, denied having said them when they were proven to be ludicrous or simply stupid and blamed real news media for reporting these gaffes. Then over his strenuous and proven false accusations of election fraud, he left, but still hasn’t shut up.

        Finally: Attorney Frank DiPrima, was a close friend of Wharton Professor William T. Kelley for 47 years.  “He must have told me 100 times over the course of 30 years,” says DiPrima, who has served as in-house counsel for several entities including the Federal Trade Commission. “I remember the inflection of his voice when he said it: ‘Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had!’” He would say that [Trump] came to Wharton thinking he already knew everything, that he was arrogant, and he wasn’t there to learn.” Kelley, who died in 2011 at age 94, taught marketing at Wharton for 31 years, retiring in 1982.

        Unsurprisingly, disgraced former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who served as Trump’s personal attorney and fixer from 2006 to 2018, says the following about his former boss: “When I say con man, I’m talking about a man who declares himself brilliant but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores.”

Icarus, we hardly knew you, but then……… Wrong then, wrong now, just plain wrong for America …ever.

It Doesn't Say That

 

                                        It Doesn’t Say That!

 

        It seems, these days, that essentially every vocal pro-lifer cites some religious basis for their belief. Sometimes they even kill people to prove their point.  If this were just dogma, it would be simple to dismiss as the current ramblings of a religious leader who is making shit up as he goes, and there is plenty of that to go around.  Truth is, however, most of these persons cite  what they claim are Biblical justifications for their muscular pro-life stance. As a person unencumbered by any attachment to the Bible as anything more than a poorly written (zero primary and precious little secondary source material) history of a minor Semitic tribe, I can, at least read what little there is relative to the topic without the handicap of evaluating it through the filter of superstition.   

        Abortion as such is never mentioned in the New Testament portion of the  Bible, despite the fact that it has been practiced since ancient times by a variety of means. Jesus is mute on the subject, as he is on homosexuality. However, the OT books of Genesis, Exodus and Numbers have interesting things to say which toss all the current Evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic teachings, re: abortion, into the trash heap.

        Current avid pro-lifers, apparently with too much money and too little real knowledge of scripture, are fond of paying big bucks for roadside signs which trumpet "life begins at conception. If they choose to believe this, that's fine, just don't claim that it is really supported by scripture. There are many modern Evangelicals willing to interpret some NT verses as relating to abortion, but that is dogma and modern bias applied to relatively simple words in a way which, while suiting their modern desire for justification, are not such. This is especially relevant when we consider the "life begins at conception" issue.

        The Old Testament, In Genesis, clearly describes the beginning of life as related to the first drawing of breath, a position Augustine would echo in the 4th century. Of course, modern apologists for the Church's current position blame this on Augustine's understanding based on "the inferior science of his day."  They would be well advised to recall, at this juncture, the fondness of the Church for killing, punishing, and censuring for a millennium, any who dared contradict that same "inferior" science.     

        Exodus bumps that age of "legal existence" to 1 month, apparently since infant mortality rates caused many newborns to die. Similar provisions appear in Leviticus and Numbers.

        Most significantly, and in direct contradiction to the Abbot, Santorum, Cruz, Huckabee. et al cabal who insist that every pregnancy be allowed to proceed to fruition, no matter the circumstance, is the book of Numbers, the 5th chapter.  In summary, it provides the recipe for a priest to use to induce abortion in cases of adultery. Actually, it simply uses the word "jealousy" on the husband's part to justify the procedure!   Bear in mind, that in context, this would have included rape, as well, in a society where women are held accountable for any sex act performed upon them.  The drinking of the prescribed potion is actually the trial, in which God will kill the product of adultery; there is no requirement here or burden of proof on the husband.

        So: If you oppose abortion on religious grounds. there is no justification in the Bible for your position. Don't cite more modern NT "interpretations"; they are the products of humans with an agenda. It should be noted that the overwhelming number of makers of such interpretative pronouncements have no uteri.

Another Day, Another McCaughey Lie

 

 Another Day, Another  Betsy McCaughey Lie

Betsy McCaughey has had a checkered  and relatively  unsuccessful political career.  She actually managed to become the elected Lieutenant Governor of New York and in four years so soured her relationship with her boss and the Republican Party that they refused to add her to the ticket for a second term. So she changed parties and tried, but failed,  to get the nomination of the Democratic Party for governor, making her “0 for 2”. So, she then decided simply to write Far Right drivel for a living, a la Fox News. She's not so much a bad writer as a bad liar.

          In an op-ed column in today's paper, she started off by stating, not just implying, that the federal government, especially the CDC is responsible for the decline in the average lifespan of the average American. Later in the article she blames part of the decrease in average expectancy on the proliferation of fentanyl which, apparently, is also the fault of the CDC. As I sat there, choking on my coffee and wondering how the CDC was responsible for the proliferation of fentanyl or for the decrease in lifespan, it struck me that Ms. McCaughey is simply taking statistics and then making up her version of why they're meaningful. This parallels the famous Mark Twain quote that there are “Three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.”

          I told myself I was going to ignore this, let it go and do something else this morning,  not write about her. But as I sat and stewed over the absolutely inane nature of her comments I realized that what she really had done had simply ignored every aspect of how fentanyl gets in the United States in the first place and secondly, that the entire world has seen the average lifespan decrease because of the events of 2019 to 2022. You might have heard of it COVID-19? Blaming the CDC for Covid deaths is a fool’s errand, especially when one considers the Trump Administration’s initial denial, foot dragging and adamant refusal to proactively follow CDC recommendations.  

So, I did what Miss McCaughey did; I looked up the statistics. The numbers by themselves show a decrease in the average lifespan of every country that keeps records over the last three years. While that  does not say specifically that is due to COVID,  it is clear that with a global pandemic and a concomitant global downward trend in average life expectancy, yes it's COVID.

As far as fentanyl is concerned she would love to be able to pin that entirely on what she and The GOP are overly fond of characterizing as the Biden administration's “open border” policy which of course is not an open border at all, it's simply a more humane treatment of refugees. Those who are xenophobic and really just don't like refugees of any kind at all are quick to claim, without proof and against factual information, that the fentanyl plague in this nation is all “coming into the country across the border with illegal immigrants.”  Sadly the majority of these people conflate political refugees seeking asylum with  illegal immigrants, while the fact is that most fentanyl, even though it may be made in Mexico, comes across at legal entry points in conveyances like trucks and private cars and is sometimes unloaded in ports like Miami and Philadelphia from the ships that brought it in.

Because this is not well known, here is a quick fentanyl tutorial: Here are facts:

Fact: Fentanyl smuggling is ultimately funded by U.S. consumers who pay for illicit opioids: nearly 99 percent of whom are U.S. citizens.

Fact: In 2021, U.S. citizens were 86.3 percent of convicted fentanyl drug traffickers—ten times greater than convictions of illegal immigrants for the same offense. Unfortunately, this doesn’t fit the GOP narrative, huh?

Fact: Over 90 percent of fentanyl seizures occur at legal crossing points or interior vehicle checkpoints, not on illegal migration routes, so U.S. citizens (who are subject to less scrutiny) when crossing legally are the best smugglers.

Fact: Just 0.02 percent of the people arrested by Border Patrol for crossing illegally possessed any fentanyl whatsoever. That’s fewer than one in 5,000!

Remember that with fentanyl you're dealing with a substance so toxic to humans that I could bring in a one pound can  and kill most of the people in The Villages which is about 130,000 people….THREE TIMES over! As an ultrapowerful synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, as little as two milligrams, about the size of 5 grains of salt, can cause negative health effects including the ultimate one, death. The FDA, not the CDC, approved the drug in 1968 primarily for palliative care - meaning cancer victims in intense pain and Hospice treatment. Despite FDA recommendation doctors sometimes prescribed it for other types of cases. Some of those people became addicted and so the problem began.

 

Regardless of how fentanyl gets here, blaming a US government organization for an analgesic in use world-wide is ludicrous.  In point of fact, the CDC/NIH just keeps the data on things like deaths due to fentanyl overdose etc. It has always fascinated me (this will probably anger some readers) that there seems to be a tendency to overlook the fact that knowingly taking an illegal substance outside of medically supervised conditions is the voluntary act of the person who ingests it. 

In 1986, a University of Maryland basketball player named Len Bias, an NBA #1 draft pick, did cocaine once, had a heart attack and died. While some people blamed cocaine, the fact is that the person to blame was Len Bias. The same is true of most of the people who overdose on methedrine, heroin and most other addictive and toxic substances. I have had no epiphany regarding how we can keep people from killing themselves with dangerous drugs. If there was such a method we would already have it in use. Education and much better parenting might do something to stem the flood. Addicts are made and, except in the case of the addicted newborns of addicted mothers, are not born. Children that are born to addicts suffer immensely while they're being weaned from the toxic substance in their blood. Is the government responsible for the mother being addicted?

 Using potentially addictive substances is legal, if the substance is alcohol. Unfortunately, we have a significant number of alcohol addicts in our society, however alcohol is a substance available at local watering holes around the nation. The same is not true of most controlled substances. There are no fentanyl bars (not legal ones anyway) and there are no heroin bars. Everybody who is an opioid addict becomes one at some point because of two factors, One, they have an addictive personality and lack the ability to tell it “No,” But, the second is that whether they knew that or not the first time, they still knew that using that drug, either outside medical guidelines or simply illegally was a crime. Were they to pay for it with their life, why is it the government's fault? In one case, that of the Sackler family, their  drug company, Perdue Pharma, hyped Oxycodone as non-addictive when the reverse is true and they knew it. In many ways, Fentanyl is the new Oxy.

In Ms. McCaughey’s case, she, like the Hannitys and Carlsons, screams about "too much" government.  That is, right up until she discovers a way to accuse it of not doing enough. Blaming the CDC for what people illegally do to themselves is not only counter intuitive, it's just stupid. It’s the old GOP  “fix the potholes and maintain a Fire Department, but don’t you dare raise my taxes to do it” mantra of the Far Right.

 

 

 

A Curious Double Standard

                          A Curious Double Standard

    I find It increasingly difficult to reconcile our (excluding Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis) aversion to Russia’s incursion in Ukraine with our acceptance of Israeli historical similar activities on Palestine. Wait, I know,” but it’s Israel!” So? When does one inhumane land grab become morally ok and another not? Why was the brutal English annexation of Ireland abhorrent, the Russian incursion in Ukraine horrific, but the Israeli continued incursion into the West Bank “OK”?  

    Having said that, and probably pissed off some readers, I will attempt to explore a bit closer to the less well-defined edges of this 75 plus years’ old dilemma. Up front, a lot of this is exacerbated by Evangelical Christians in America, especially Congress, more on that later.

          Briefly, then, Israel exists, in its current form primarily due to the civilized world's shock and horror of the Holocaust and the fact that Zionists aided by wealthy European Jews and at the urging Zionism's founders, Theodor Herzl, and later Chaim Weizmann, had, by that time, already been settling in the British mandate region of the Levant known as Palestine.

         As European Jews stepped up immigration in the period after WWI, Britain tried in 1922, 1930, and 1939 to limit immigration (and acquisition of land) by Zionist Jews in response to indigenous Arab pressures. This was a bit odd, in that the Balfour Declaration of 1917 had supported the concept of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Unfortunately, the British had also made promises to the Sharif of Mecca which said in part, "Great Britain is prepared to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs in all the regions within the limits demanded by the Sharif of Mecca." (Yes, that was taken to mean Palestine for the Palestinians) These assurances were given as an inducement for Arabs to take arms against the Turks. Remember that whole Peter O'Toole/Lawrence of Arabia thing? This had been understood by the Arabs as including all of what is today Israel and its occupied territories of Palestinian Arab majority, but a year later the British, who apparently had their fingers crossed earlier, pulled all of Syria and a bit of northern Palestine out of the mix. meanwhile, regardless of British pressures, more Zionists came to Palestine.

        Following WWII, there came a realization that there was a multitude of homeless or nationless Jews as a result of the holocaust and equally horrid, but less well published, Russian atrocities at home and elsewhere. There was great sympathy almost everywhere except Arab Palestine for what now became a tidal wave of Jewish immigration to the region. There was significant monetary and moral support from most victor nations including the USA, many of whose Jewish citizens had a sort of "There, but for the grace of God, go I" revelation.

        Without too much detail, the Zionists used many tactics including the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946 by the militant Zionist Irgun, led by Menachem Begin, eventually to become Israel's sixth prime minister. It must be noted that during the time period in question, Britain was, by UN edict, still nominally responsible for governing the region. The Irgun action was simply terrorism, as British government officials based at the hotel were targets, and 91 of them died in the blast. Soon after that, Britain, a la Pontius Pilate washed their hands of this largely home-grown mess, mostly of their creation, turning it over to the United Nations.

          In November, 1947, the UN adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of the Partition Plan, which among other verbiage provided as follows: Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. The resolution acknowledged Britain's planned termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and recommended the partition of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area being under special UN/International protection.  The resolution included a detailed description of the recommended boundaries for each proposed state as well as a plan for economic union between the proposed states, and for the protection of religious and minority rights. The resolution sought to address the conflicting objectives and claims to the Mandate territory of two competing nationalist movements, Zionism (Jewish nationalism) and Arab nationalism, as well as, predictably, to resolve the plight of Jews displaced as a result of the Holocaust.  Along with all the above, it should be noted that there had been no Jewish state in the Levant for the previous 18 centuries!

        The more recent history of Arab/Israeli conflict is well enough known by many that I shall elide past it to focus on why I am concerned about the more recent state of affairs, which, at one time, included Alan Dershowitz and, believe it or not, Don King, (who knew?) siding with then candidate Trump in castigating SecState Kerry and President Obama for supporting a UN resolution calling for Israel to stop expanding settlements in the territories occupied since 1967, which are nominally Palestinian, but occupied by Israel, frequently at bayonet point.

        First, and perhaps most persuasive to me, is the fact that the vast majority of the world's nations hold the Israeli occupation of the west bank and Gaza to be illegal. We, the great advocates of democracy and majority rule, are in the minority here.

        Second, the gist of the proposal was simply that increased settlement by Israel makes the chance of a peaceful settlement of any kind remote. This was complicated by then Israeli P.M. Netanyahu, now back in power, who has ignored all counsel, save his own, refusing any such advice. He has also convinced the Knesset to authorize rebuilding on the West Bank, Palestinians be damned!

        Third, the proposed resolution did not, in any sense, weaken US military or even more significantly, economic commitment, to Israel's defense or independence, and the facts are staggering. The following information is from an article from the Washington report and is revelatory. I have abridged for length, not meaning:

        "Since 1992, the U.S. has provided Israel an additional $2 billion annually in loan guarantees...... between 1974 and 1989, $16.4 billion in U.S. military loans were converted to grants...... Indeed, all past U.S. loans to Israel have been forgiven by Congress, spiking Israel's often-touted claim that they have "never defaulted" on a U.S. government loan. (ed. note: because it's impossible to default on a gift!) U.S. policy since 1984 has been that economic assistance to Israel must equal or exceed Israel's annual debt repayment to the United States. Unlike other countries, which receive aid in quarterly installments, aid to Israel since 1982 has been given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year, leaving the U.S. government to borrow from future revenues. Israel even lends some of this money back through purchase of U.S. treasury bills and collects the additional interest.!!

        In addition, there is the more than $1.5 billion in private U.S. funds that go to Israel annually in the form of $1 billion in private tax-deductible donations and $500 million in Israeli bonds. The ability of Americans to make what amounts to tax-deductible contributions to a foreign government, made possible through a number of Jewish charities, does not exist with any other country. Nor do these figures include short- and long-term commercial loans from U.S. banks. (as high as $1 billion annually in recent years)

        Total U.S. aid to Israel has hovered around one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world's population and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes. Israel's Gross national Product (GNP) is higher than the combined GNP of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. At a per capita income of about $14,000, Israel ranks as the sixteenth wealthiest country in the world; Israelis enjoy a higher per capita income than oil-rich Saudi Arabia and are only slightly less well-off than most Western European countries.

        The resolution in question would have had zero effect on any of these commitments or military assurances, moreover, President Obama signed the largest single Israeli aid package ever granted, which makes one question what Trump's true agenda, was, but one supposes it was an attempt to curry votes in 2016.

        Fourth in line of concerns I have is that if this were any nation except Israel, we'd almost certainly be "siding" with the other guys. The Ukraine is currently relevant here, as were the three Baltic States, all of whose independence from an uninvited invader (Russia) the US has supported and are supporting in the case of Ukraine. Based on the current state of affairs, it almost makes one wonder if the Mohawks wanted to reclaim New York State whose side would the rest of us favor? Yes, that last is a reductio ad absurdum, yet it is relevant, and the circumstances troublingly similar. In fact, any American Indian tribe can relate! Anyone supporting the Republic of Ireland should also be able to relate.

        Fifth, and most absurd, is to examine the real reasons for US slavish support for Netanyahu's earlier (and currently continuing) adventures in Palestine. As sick and sad as it may seem to many, religion is at the root - not Judaism, but fanatical Evangelical Christianity. A fair number of Republican legislators and their supporters have been conned by their shamans into believing that the Bible foretells that the "end times" must be precipitated by the resurgence of the nation of Israel. To them, this means the modern state. Most Jews do not live in Israel. Not every inhabitant of Israel is Jewish; there are also many non-Jews living in Israel, and not all Jewish Israelis are 'settlers' who want to conquer more and more Palestinian land. The vast majority of Jews believe that the State of Israel should continue to exist. But many Jews, both living in Israel and elsewhere, are in favor of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as a possible solution to the conflict. Netanyahu’s policies and far Right Evangelical sympathies would seem to reveal a differing opinion.

  Now, I'm all in favor of these people going to meet whatever cosmic muffin they envision, but I refuse to get on the bus with them. Of course, there have been more than a thousand such prophesies, including the one which makes the rest irrelevant, and that was the alleged statement by Yeshua bar Yusef (Jesus) that he'd be back with the pork chops while some witnesses to his life were still living. Didn't happen. I imagine wealthy Jewish supporters of Israel laughing up their sleeves at these yokels, and saying, oh, well the checks cash anyway!" Of course, there are some wealthy members of the tribe who might also consider a reputed 3600 year old oral contract as worthless; that is, of course unless it's the deed to Palestine.

Enough “Woke,” Already!

 

                                  Enough “Woke” Already

 

One of the worst things that social Liberals have done recently is to give the Far Right a trigger word which they can use to rouse the deplorables. First off, it sounds like slang, which diminishes its effect in use and worse yet, it is used as a pejorative by morons who have no idea whatsoever of the concept involved. Of course, that word is “Woke.”  In English, a person can be awakened or socially aware. We have given the Far Right a word which, although many of them couldn’t actually define it generates a negative response in the vast unwashed. I have even seen a full sized roadside billboard on US 441 proclaiming that a law firm was "Fighting Woke Corporations" (WTF?)

        Persons who should know better simply don’t care. When GOP House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky blamed Silicon Valley Bank’s calamitous collapse on the institution being “one of the most woke banks,” his point, while nonsensical, was entirely clear. He was certain many would ignore factual analysis and simply nod sagely as if Socrates had spoken. For the record, Comer’s statement is diametrically incorrect. Deregulation of the banking system, specifically the Volker amendment widened the scope of how commercial banks can invest their depositor’s money. Following the housing bubble debacle, the Dodd-Frank legislation, of the Obama administration, noting the shenanigans that firms like Bear, Stearns and others had engaged in by falsely valuing bundled mortgages, passed the Volker amendment to limit how Investment/Commercial bankers could risk clients’ funds. Volker was seriously weakened in the last Trump year. To the mind of Congressman Comer, Silicon Valley Bank was operating in a “woke” fashion.

        Now for the truth. While SVB did fund startups and some were environmentally (there’s that word) oriented, the place they invested, other than startup loans, was to buy Government bonds and T-bills. Pretty woke huh? What went wrong was that they actually over-valued the impact of those very ordinary and usually safe, investments even though they were at low interest when purchased. When the Fed raised interest rates to combat inflation, those securities were at such low interest that no one would buy them because the yield was too low. Not “Woke,” just economics and a management error which had zero to do with the concept.

        Always eager to seize any opportunity to use the “W” word, GOP partisans greeted SVB’s downfall with musings on, of all things, the evils of diversity, equity and inclusion. Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler called out the composition of its board (“I’m not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but …”); Note that the Board of SVB currently consists of three women and four men, all Caucasian. The board chair, Kay Matthews, spent 36 years at Ernst and Young which typically apportions political contributions about 50/50, party wise.

Eric’s dumber (if that’s even possible) sibling. Donald Trump Jr. also summoned causal relationships out of thin air (“SVB is what happens when you push a leftist/woke ideology and have that take precedent over common sense business practices”). Recalling a phrase from Gertrude Stein, “There is no there, there.” Check out this helpful definition from former president and hopefully future inmate, Donald Trump: “You know what woke means, it means you’re a loser. …Everything woke turns to shit.”  Social justice turns to shit? Actually, as far as Trump is concerned, I think he believes that.

        Of course, as shown above, none of this has anything to do with the actual cause of the bank collapse — rising interest rates, overinvestment in long-term government bonds or bank deregulation — but, of course, solving the problem isn’t the goal. The goal is to blame the liberals. Case in shameless point: Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin (R-Wis.) insisted wokeness was to blame for the massacre of nineteen young children in Uvalde, Tex. He said in part, “Apparently, we’ve stopped teaching “values” in our schools, and we’re teaching “indoctrination” instead.” Really, indoctrination? In Texas?

As for any male named Trump criticizing another entity’s business practices, note that the Trump organization has had six bankruptcies, all while Trump Sr. was CEO, all the result of over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York: Trump Taj Mahal (1991), Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino (1992), Plaza Hotel (1992), Trump Castle Hotel and Casino (1992), Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts (2004), and Trump Entertainment Resorts (2009). Additionally, he has had six Trump branded businesses/products fail.

 It is noteworthy that his perpetual over-stating the value of the Trump “brand” is one of the charges the first New York financial charges were based on. Eric who manages the Trump winery has gotten reviews such as “tastes of Welch's Grape Jelly with Alcohol.” Genius, huh? I’ll pass.

Through all the unfounded name calling, one is reminded of monkeys in a zoo flinging feces. “Woke” has become the GOP’s simian poop.

Economics, Political Scheming and Sheer Ignorance

 

                      Economics, Political Scheming                      and Sheer Ignorance                                                      

         In a recent installment regarding Ron DeSantis’ ongoing attempt to morph into Huey Long: I recently alluded to the 200-man state security response force, answerable to him which DeSantis wants authorization to create. He also has mentioned recreating the "Florida Guard", a WWII measure now defunct. He said it would be useful, “In case the National Guard were all deployed” (which has not and will not ever happen!) Keep in mind that they would be answerable, unlike the National Guard, only to the governor. We now have another Governor initiative to place his hand on the control of state functions which should function according to law, not the Governor’s dictates. The latest piece of garbage from this miserable idiot is his statement that he wants to create a 50-person state “election security” commission.

        Bear in mind that the state of Florida already has election laws and election security is a significant part of that. However, what De Santis proposes almost conveys the message that there's rampant election fraud in the state of Florida and these guys, on the state’s dime and under his authority, are needed to protect our election security. Bear in mind that, even without such a commission, other states, especially in the South, have created laws or made decisions that do things such as prohibit giving water to people standing in long lines waiting to vote. While the premise for such legislation has not been explained, it seems fairly obvious. Additionally, we have heard the rationales, in places like Georgia, for closing some polling places because they're “too far out in the country” or they're “unnecessary” all of which applies predominantly to persons of color and/or low income, many of whom cannot simply take off work to vote early or take off to vote at all. 

    There have been very few valid claims of any attempted election fraud in the state of Florida. In recent (last several years) charges of election fraud, or I should say illegal voting, county officials have brought such charges, not state officials. Ironically, in The Villages, where I reside, all five people charged with illegal voting were Caucasian Republicans. This looks a lot less like the solution to a problem then an attempted power grab by the governor of the state of Florida who has higher aspirations. As I have said many times before, we deserve so much better than this person.

        Sometimes it is unnecessary to unmask a racist by your own efforts because they do it themselves out of their own ignorance. An example of such a lapse of judgment comes from none other than the Senate Minority Leader himself, Mitch McConnell, the senior Senator from Kentucky. Rarely does the Klan sheet slip as far as this. Before a vote to move the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to the Senate floor failed last session, McConnell was asked by a reporter about concerns among voters of color. Believe it or not, he then said:

        "Well, the concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”  As Americans? Who the hell is he referring to? The last time I looked the United States Constitution, the 15^th Amendment erases any racial differentiation for voting. Apparently, in Mr. McConnell’s opinion, African Americans are not only children of a lesser God, but children of different citizenship status as well.

        In other news which makes one shake their head, Eric Trump, who I would characterize as the stupid one but it's a dead heat with his older brother, actually said, “When will someone fight for my dad? Apparently, Eric was out of the country on January 6th when armed supporters of his father invaded the US Capital on his behalf. In the context of the original question, the answer posed was that maybe his supporters have bone spurs and just can't manage the fight.

Of course, Don Junior, never one to be “out-stupided” by younger bro, in the wake of the current Silicon Valley Bank debacle said: “I don’t remember banks collapsing under Trump… but don’t worry guys it’s only a matter of time till Biden/media blames him for that too. It has nothing to do with high interest rates / fed rate hikes necessitated by record inflation caused by his out-of-control spending.”

    So, what’s wrong with that? Start with this: According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC), there were actually 15 bank failures during Trump's presidency: four in 2020, four in 2019 and seven in 2017. Additionally, Harvest Community Bank, which was located in New Jersey, closed on Jan. 13, 2017, a week before Trump took office. I guess Don Jr. just has his dad’s faulty memory for unpleasant facts, huh? 

    Sadly, his father’s gutting of Dodd-Frank was a harbinger of present events. A key part of attempting to prevent investment bankers from playing fast and loose with other people’s money was the Volker rule, passed in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank package of regulatory attempts to avoid another recession inducing event like the 2008 housing bubble collapse, triggered by some of America’s largest investment banks simply lying to investors about the reliability (as in their investment grade ratings) of bundled mortgages. (Read or watch “The Big Short”). In brief, the Volker rule prohibited banks from putting their own capital in high-risk investments, particularly since the government is guaranteeing all of their deposits. What Trump Jr., aka Doofus Don, is apparently unaware of are the following facts:

1. His father ran higher deficits than Biden’s which Trump Jr bitches about. The data?  In FY 2022 total government spending was $6.27 trillion and total revenue was $4.90 trillion, resulting in a deficit of $1.38 trillion, a decrease of $1.40 trillion from the previous fiscal year.  The 2021 budget was Trump’s and contained a record $2.8 trillion dollar deficit.

2. On June 25, 2020, the Volcker Regulators relaxed part of the rules involving banks investing in venture capital and for derivative trading. Who was then President?

3. SVB - Venture capital provider to many. Bad low interest investments. We know the result.

        Sometimes, even those few people of the Republican persuasion that we think may actually have a conscience and may actually have rational thought processes, disappoint us as well. A case in point is Mitt Romney who, although I disagree with his sense of economics, I have always felt was an honorable man. A recent statement of his with which I take issue is not a case of moral integrity but of skewing the facts to fit his own narrative. In statement to reporters, Mr. Romney stated that, “Americans are 7% poorer now because of Biden inflation.” So, what's wrong with that? Well, in much the same way that blaming any president for the price of gasoline, which is a market product and subject to shortages and other market pressures, is a fool’s mission, blaming the president for the inflation which is the natural result of such shortages leading to price increases in the market economy so praised by conservatives and John Stossel who is simply a moron, indicates a very poor grasp of economic realities.

        When commodities are in short supply, those that have them charge more for them. Why? Because they can. It is a simple fact of life and an economic reality described by Adam Smith, in 1776, in his classic work on economics, the Wealth of Nations. Inflation and, for that matter, the economy as a whole is not, and never has been, (since Andrew Jackson) in the control of the President. If it were that simple, Mitt, there would be no recessions. In fact, this concept is a cornerstone of high school economics classes.

        What makes this statement even more misleading than just simply blaming President Biden is the fact that during the same period of time average wages in the United States have increased by 4.7% which means that income is increased and while not as greatly as inflation rates, inflation will taper off as supply chains level out, but wages will not be decreased accordingly.

        Economics, like Sociology and others, is a “soft” science. One plus one doesn’t always yield the desired and expected “two.”  In reality, starting with an eight-month slump in 1945, the U.S. economy has weathered 13 different recessions since World War II.

     If “fixing” these events was as simple as the GOP wishes us to believe, then we could and we would. It isn’t and we can’t, and a significant part of that is human greed. This is exacerbated by people who actually know little or nothing about economics listening to, and parroting, drivel and outright prevarication from people like the Trump brothers and their father, apparently economic dunces and happy to lie about it.   

Student Loan debt: The Eduscam

 

Student Loans- The Eduscam

Once again, I find myself embarrassingly in agreement, at least in one narrow principle, with John Stossell, that apostle of free market price gouging and exploitation. Unexpectedly, in a recent column he stated that success can be obtained without accumulation crushing student debt. I agree with the statement, although why he felt it a topic for an op-ed I don’t know, since I feel that statement is a priori true without explanation. But…being me, I thought I’d elaborate in several areas, especially as SCOTUS  recently dealt a case which resulted in them  kiboshing  the Biden administration’s intended “forgiveness” of some student loan debt. What is overlooked is that the "forgiveness" would apply debt remaining after the principal on the loan had been repaid.  

        The first is that far too much student debt is incurred by young folks who apparently think that there is special knowledge available in another state which no one in their home state comprehends or can confer.

        Example: The undergraduate 2021-2022 tuition & fees at the University of Central Florida was $6,368 for Florida residents and $22,467 for out-of-state students. The Florida resident got the identical educational opportunity for 350% less.

          This is orders of magnitude more skewed in private vs public universities. Example: The bright eyed young 2021 freshman at Notre Dame (where home of record is no factor) could look forward to a total tuition and fees cost of $246,800 by graduation in 2025. That’s a huge price to pay for content which is available in any university, for perspective, that amounts to a home mortgage sized debt incurred over four years while the mortgagee isn't earning!

        I found it oddly significant that there was also a promo in the news for an HBO production related to the Sackler cartel family, owners of Perdue Pharma (oxycodone’s purveyor and drug pushers to millions). Like the Sacklers, who encouraged doctors to prescribe a drug they knew to be addictive yet claimed that it wasn’t, many tuition aid offices, are more like pre pre-housing bubble mortgage brokers, and low end loan sharks, in that they routinely encourage young (and financially naïve) persons to accumulate a crushing debt load with promises that they’ll be easily able to pay it off with the “High salaries they’ll earn as grads of good old Podunk University.”

        Average 2022 Student Loan Debt in The United States among student loan borrowers in America was $32,731, according to the Federal Reserve. This is an increase of approximately 20% from 2015-2016. Most borrowers have between $25,000 and $50,000 outstanding in student loan debt. More than 44 million Americans had some student loan debt unrepaid as of 2021!

        Notre Dame is high, but not the worst and several Evangelical Christian Schools are ridiculously high. Jerry Falwell’s Liberty U, will set the borrower back $160,000 for a BA in “Bible.” Good old TCU will set you back $250,000 for tuition. But wait…living on campus will cost another $80,000, for a potential debt load of a third of a million. To live in Texas, for Christ’s sake!??

        In summary, the cost of information isn’t the same, although the quality of said education may well be. So why do so many students go to schools outside the state and accumulate such debt? Vanity is a big factor, closely followed by “Mom and Dad went there.” Bard college, a small liberal arts college in upstate New York will set you back right at $300,000 for a BA in English, but not to worry, there is no minimum SAT or ACT score requirement and they are “test optional” in classes. Needless to say, they have a high acceptance rate and graduation rate. Quality of education? Who knows? (In the interest of full disclosure, Bard did produce Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the two guys who became Steely Dan!)

        It is, at least to me, statistically significant that a mere 3% of the UF student body are non-residents, so it is obvious that in-state tuition rates “pay the bills” and the astronomically higher out of state rates are just free money. Also remember that the head football coach at “good ole Florida” makes (I didn’t say “earns”) $7.1 million annually. This is equivalent to the tuition for more than 1000 Florida resident students!  

        Second issue – tuition aid “consumer” ignorance. Sadly, the average American is less than sagacious in manners of money at age 22, therefore, unlike the financial aid office which, in truth, “sells” loans, they are easy prey for suggestions such as “Think of it like credit card payment’” or “your U. of B.S. degree will earn you enough to cover it easily.” It is a fact that many young couples buying a first home are just as innocent and just as easy prey for those who “sell” loans. Read “The Big Short” for more validation of this statement.  

        These youngsters are frequently the first to find out that their student debt load can make them essentially ineligible for a home mortgage or even, in some cases, credit cards. Debt is debt to a banker, period. The average  required student loan payment in 2019 was well in excess of $450 monthly. A 10 year payoff on a $150,000 student loan at 7% will require a monthly payment of $1742 monthly. That’s just under half of the OCPS beginning teacher gross starting salary! Mortgage lenders typically like to see the payment at less than 25% of net salary.

        My point: knowledge is knowledge, whether it comes from a Community College or university lecture hall and, in fact, class size at the CC level is generally far better. Additionally, a diploma from a major state university will not have a notation that you did the first two years at a CC while living at home and paying the $5000 two-year degree cost from your part-time gig as a nude Jello wrestling color announcer.

        Part the second: “But shouldn’t everyone go to 4 years of college.” Nope. Currently in Florida there are numerous local two-year tech degree programs in medical fields, data systems, etc, leading to profitable employment with essentially no student debt. Technical training available even in high school is a path to financial stability. In Orange County, Florida, several High school VoTechs produce students ready to enter fields in which they will earn more than many beginning jobs requiring a four year degree. As of January of 2023, the average apprentice electrician in Florida (a non-union, low wage, state) earned over $50,000 annually, several thousand dollars higher than a beginning teacher with a four-year degree! (And no student debt!) That income also provides opportunity for further education, if desired, without accumulating a crushing debt load. Based on national averages, that new teacher might see that starting pay reduced by over $5500 annually due to student loan repayment!

Everyone should be trained or have access to training to perform a job in their field of interest which someone will pay them a decent wage to do. This may require a degree, but many do not. The plumber who bills $55 per visit doesn’t need one. Air Conditioning techs don’t. X-ray techs with a 2-year Community College diploma make $60,000 annually in Florida, 2-year degreed Dental Hygienists between $63,350 and $77,830.

 We hear a lot of bitching about manufacturing jobs being exported offshore. How many of those jobs require a college education? Approximately none! The person who can repair my air conditioning, fix my plumbing or electrical problems or repair my automobile may well make more over a career than the college graduate who becomes a teacher. That's not necessarily “right”, in my opinion, but it is true.