Rebane's Ruminations

Sandbox - 30oct21

[Happy End of Fire Season!  Exit question - what potion should one take to get excited about the World Series this year?  gjr]

Wealth Tax – dodging a bullet

George Rebane

One of the very dumbest things progressive Democrats have recently proposed is a wealth tax on appreciated but unrealized assets.  Everywhere it has been tried by the Left, it has not worked; it has instead reduced government revenues and distorted economies – e.g. Sweden, Germany, and France were posterchildren of such fiscal idiocies. (more here) Today our Democrats, always looking for something to screw up our economy, have attempted to import yet another bad idea as a ‘pay-for’ for their latest lavish vote buying plans.  Hopefully, this tax has been excised from the current version of this double dummy ‘human infrastructure’ bill.

As a student of economics, over the years it has become clear to me that one of the paramount qualifications for becoming a leftwing economist is that you have to be totally ignorant of human nature, especially of their economic behavior.  We won’t even attempt to plumb the depths of intellectual depravity in the Democrats’ assertion that their multi-trillion dollar spending initiatives will be absolutely free – “It will cost zero.”  The real tragedy for the country is that half of Americans accepted this Big Lie, and that the Republicans gave their usual lame response to repudiate it.

My own noodling on the wealth tax involved a niggling thought that the proposed wealth tax rates were not real, that they in effect had to be higher.  So I pushed a few squigglies, and sure enough, the real wealth tax rate is considerably higher than the rates publicized by the Democrats.  It’s a bit amazing that no Republican or even the conservative financial experts have picked up on this additional attribute of the stupid tax.  So here’s the drill as to how this tax will work on, say, an appreciated security you own.

Your nominal wealth tax amount is the wealth tax rate applied to the appreciated amount (since last wealth tax paid).  However, the rub comes when you consider where to get the money to pay the wealth tax.  The correct answer is that investments pay their own taxes, whether capital gains, added assessments, or the wealth tax.  So now you must sell a fraction of your shares, pay the applicable capital gains tax on their appreciation, and then use the remainder to pay your wealth tax.  In short, it’s the value of the fraction of shares you must sell that is your real and effective wealth tax rate.  A little algebra using the appropriate tax and appreciation rates will let us derive that formula and do the calculations.  I share the results of this analysis with you in the spreadsheet figure below (click on it to enlarge).

In the figure the blue numbers are input to create a wealth tax scenario at the indicated values, with the nominal wealth tax rate of 1%.  From the calculations shown in the figure the actual wealth tax rate comes to 1.67%, two thirds higher than the government advertised rate.  And paying this wealth tax annually reduces the investment’s annual appreciation rate from its nominal 7% to 5.33%.  When we examine what the actual wealth tax is over a range of wealth tax rates (from 1% to 3%) and capital gains rates (from 25% to 50%), then we see in the table the increased actual rates that go from 1.33% (a third higher) to 6% (doubled!).  These are plotted in the graph.

It gets worse.  As shown in the upper right of the figure, we have a $1,000 investment currently appreciating at a nominal 7% rate for ten years, then liquidating it with a payment of 40% cap gains rate.  The net spendable amount then comes to $1,580 which yields a total ten-year return of 58.03%.  When we have the same amount with ten years of ‘1%’ wealth tax payments, we wind up with $1,381 or an appreciation of only 38.08% that amounts to a penalty of over 34% on what investors currently enjoy when paying capital gains taxes only on realized gains.  And we haven’t heard any of this from our rightwing media mavens.

The Glasgow Climate Change Kabuki

George Rebane

President Biden heads to Glasgow with an empty quiver this weekend in a futile effort to demonstrate that his administration is still hanging on to some vestiges of global leadership here and there.  Most nations have either written off the United States as a worthy ally, or most certainly as a hegemon to be respected.  And Bumblebrain accomplished all that by himself.

Climate change is no longer on the list of important concerns for Americans, and even less so for people of other lands.  However, our leftwing lamestream media keeps up the drumbeat of global warming hysterics with lies ranging from the sublime to the ludicrous.  A major one that hits close to home is the progress of destructive wildfires, the frequency and size of which are supposed to be growing without bound due to manmade preventable global warming.  In Biden’s new spending framework there is $500B or so allocated for various green bamboozles designed to fool the foolish and enrich Democrats’ favorites.

But as Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus, reiterates what these pages have reported for years – the acreage of America’s annual wildfires continues to decline, and has been declining since record keeping was initiated in 1900 (see nearby graphic).  This fact has been quietly reported by the World Wildlife Fund, and vigorously ignored by our lying politicians, environmental activists, and media.

In ‘Climate Activists Blow Smoke on Wildfire Fears’ (28oct21 WSJ) Lomborg cites data and again points out how the hysterical scenarios on climate change consistently fail to incorporate the most salient and significant factor that mitigates and ameliorates the predicted catastrophes – human adaptation.  In such loudly trumpeted forecasts, humans do nothing and quietly accept whatever nature has in store for them.  Over the millennia this never has been the case, and most certainly won’t be in a technologically and resource rich future that we can and are building for ourselves.

What our average citizen has trouble parsing is the difference between the frequencies and size of wildfires, and the property damage done by wildfires.  In a 2016 study Nature reported, “Contrary to common perception, human exposure to wildfires increases in the future mainly owing to projected population growth in areas with frequent wildfires, rather than by a general increase in burned area.”

Lomborg concludes – “Helping future wildfire victims has little to do with strict and expensive climate policies, and everything to do with simpler, cheaper measures like better forest management and building codes. There’s no good reason to terrify children with stories of apocalyptic firestorms.”  All of this will be ignored during the Glasgow kabuki.

Ruminations – 27oct21

George Rebane

Record storm total at Casa Rebane measured out at 12.1 inches.  According to The Union this is a regional record for western Nevada County.  We were amazed that the power stayed on while the rain fell almost horizontally.  Home fires were kept burning; we’re blessed with acreage that supplies an ‘infinite’ amount of firewood.

Liberal Minds on Display #1.  Union reader Terry Boyles wants cuts in military spending to help pay for the Democrats’ Debacle of the Trillions.  He argues (here) cuts are justified due to our military’s poor performance, and points out “the fact that our armed forces have achieved little in the way of real national security recently, after a string of failed foreign excursions.”  You think that our political leadership might have had just a tad to do with those failures?

Liberal Minds on Display #2.  “Banning two-stroke engines over time is not a bad thing” opines Phil Carville in a 26oct21 Union ‘Other Voices’.  He cites the air pollution caused by two-strokers as the prime reason for going all electric.  What he and other liberals advocating such a future sooner than later is where does all this reliable electricity come from, and at what cost to both wallet, environment, and economy.  None of these proponents cite the energy losses required to convert one form of energy to another, and the multiple costs and pollution involved in such conversions. 

[Here are some electrical energy conversion scribbles for the curious.  The world’s average fossil fuels net conversion efficiency of 33%, and that is further degraded by transmission and distribution losses of about 9.2% (CA) before it gets to the outlet that charges your battery.  And before your e-mower cuts a blade of grass, its motor works at most with only 80% of the energy that was used to (slow) charge the battery, and at least a 10% further loss in battery storage.  When you put it all together, the energy efficiency of your battery-powered appliance comes down to a generous net of about 20% - I’ve left out some other losses like in your house wiring.  More here, here, and here.]

Liberal Minds on Display #3 – Union letter writer Ron Lowe frequently shares his thoughts with us.  In the 27oct21 Union he is (here) “convinced Republican Party leaders have adopted an authoritarian approach that demands ideological conformity to most any political or scientific posture.  There is no room for independent thinking or freedom of speech allowed.”  Really?!  Now this is exactly what our woke progressives have put in place in government, academe, and the country’s workplaces.  Anyone see the GOP having done any of this?  None of us want to live with the Ron Lowes, and would only want to talk to him about a peaceful separation.  But the Ron Lowes, for some reason, want us to stay.

Oath Keepers – a closer look

George Rebane

National Propaganda Radio did a hit piece on Oath Keepers yesterday morning, labeling them as a “radical right, anti-government paramilitary organization”.  The highly biased progressive slant presented was in line with today’s lamestream narrative trying to make the case that the 6jan21 Capitol riot(?) was organized by the OK in their attempt to overthrow our federal government.  I am not an OK member, and have only heard the standard reports on the organization and its doings.  Of course, all of these reports have been more than shaded by the outlet/individual who has done the reporting.  Wanting to find out more of what they actually believe, I went to their website to read about their organization, adopted charter/mission, and bylaws.

Nothing I have read or heard from voices I consider reasonable has come close to painting these former members of the military and first responders as belonging to a radical right, anti-government paramilitary organization.  Save for the current efforts by our own rabid Left to nail OK as the organizers and leaders of the 6jan21 affair, there has been no evidence presented that these people have done anything of which they are currently accused by the Democrats and their lamestream.  However, the congressional investigation continues, and every possible filament, no matter how gossamer or tenuous, is made out as a portent of much more damning evidence to come.

From their website and the public record, we learn that –

1. OK are non-partisan, hewing to neither political party;
2. Their guiding principle is to maintain the oath we all swore upon entering the military or becoming first responders – to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
3. Instead of anti-government, OK is a dedicated pro-government organization; (As opposed to the existentially anti-constitutional Democratic Party and Biden administration.)
4. There is nothing paramilitary about the OK, save that their members have acquired military and civil first responder skills, which they continue to preserve and share with other members and associate members.
5. Under a constitutional government their activism as an organization is constrained to lawful demonstrations against what they perceive as unconstitutional actions and intents by our federal and various state governments and their agencies.

As such, the OK is very much against the kind of neo-Marxist “fundamental transformation” of America into a socialist state as promised and demonstrated by the country’s leftwing factions led by the radical progressives of the Democratic Party.  OK members, like many more of us, believe that if the leftwing autocrats continue making ‘progress’, then there will come a time when our Left will commission the state police and security apparatus, and/or the military (given its current woke reorganization) to finally disarm the American citizenry and complete their planned road to our servility.  They know that the OK and other similar organizations would then seek to mobilize and organize the public against such an unconstitutional and rogue government.  After all, such a response is our heritage, and the most fundamental American tenet is to preserve our liberties.

The proof of this pudding is that a liberty maintaining government of, by, and for the people is not afraid of citizens who retain the means to overthrow and reconstitute its government gone rogue.  A constitutional government would welcome the existence of supportive grassroots organizations such as the Oath Keepers and other assemblies of veterans and patriotic groups.  Since the Left historically has never trusted the people under their control, their ultimate success depends on the concurrent subversion of government institutions while they disarm the populace and discredit organizations assembled to defend America and its Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Evidence to the contrary welcomed.

The Great Divide – America’s Cultural Split

George Rebane

Victor Davis Hanson continues the ongoing study of how America is coming apart.  In ‘Is America Repeating the Cultural Split Between Rome and the Byzantine Empire?’ VDH lays out the parallels and answers the question in the affirmative.

When the Roman Empire split into its western part centered on Rome, and its eastern part centered on Constantinople, the two halves took distinctly different approaches to governing their territories, with catastrophic results for Rome.  Rome’s hedonistic practices and passive acceptance of a “polyglot and often fractious” tribal cultures and religions (including versions of Christianity) soon focused people on the regional me and mine that came to vie with the you and yours.  By 600AD the disintegration that started around 450AD was complete.

This was not the case in the east – “the glue that held the East together against centuries of foreign enemies was the revered idea of an ancient and uncompromising Hellenism—the preservation of a common, holistic Greek language, religion, culture, and history.”  The Byzantine Empire, as it then became known, held together for a thousand years after Rome, finally becoming so over-bureaucratized and corrupt that it was overrun by the Ottoman Turks in 1453AD, and Constantinople became today’s Istanbul.

Today we see the definite analogue of such a split in our red/blue America.  Now “millions of Americans yearly self-select, disengage from their political opposites, and make moves based on diverging ideology, culture, politics, religiosity or lack of it, and differing views of the American past.”  Our conservatives are migrating to the interior, leaving both coastal areas to liberals.

This is producing two distinct Americas.  “While red states welcome change, they believe America never had to be perfect to be good. It will always survive, but only if it sticks to its 234-year-old Constitution, stays united by the English language, and assimilates newcomers into an enduring and exceptional American culture.”  The more conservative traditionalists prefer states “where there is usually smaller government, fewer taxes, more religiosity, and unapologetic traditionalists.”  

America’s Left prefers the blue state “bicoastal salad bowl” as their “model for immigration” where “newcomers can retain and reboot their former cultural identities”, and where “religion is less orthodox; atheism and agnosticism are almost the norm. And most of the recent social movements of American feminism, transgenderism, and critical race theory grew out of coastal urbanity and academia.”  Tribalism par excellence.

VDH concludes with – “Our Byzantine interior and Roman coasts are quite differently interpreting their shared American heritage as they increasingly plot radically divergent courses to survive in scary times.  But as in the past, it is far more likely that one state model will prove unsustainable and collapse than it is that either region would ever start a civil war.”  From his mouth to God’s ear.

So here again is the bottom line.  Today a lot of lip service is paid to ‘finding common ground’ and ‘coming together’ and ‘there’s more that unites us than divides us’, etc.  But for any of these attempts at dialogue to bear fruit, we must first and foremost recognize the gorilla in the room – the “radically divergent courses” that have been plotted and embraced by the tens of millions of polarized Americans which give rise to the Great Divide.  If these radically divergent courses are not resolved first, the rest will only continue the rehash of hot air.

The Union – no room for blasphemies du jour

‘All great truths began as blasphemies.’  GB Shaw

George Rebane

[This commentary was published (here) as an Other Voices column in the 30Oct21 Union.  As usual, the leftwing commenters on the newspaper's website continue to demonstrate their total ignorance of who has been censoring whom across the land.  Add that to their reading comprehension and reasoning abilities, and the nature and content of their comments becomes clear.  gjr]

We have broken bread with our newspaper’s publisher Don Rogers, communicate with him regularly, and consider him a friend.  Don is a likable and honorable man with clear ideas about the kinds of content that should appear in The Union, ideas that he most recently shared in the 22oct21 edition of his weekly column.(here)  Writing about the criteria for acceptable commentary, he informed us, his readers, that –

Facts and evidence must check out with conventional, legitimate sources. We try to keep it within the mainstream guardrails factually for more grounded discussion than, say, on Brunswick street corners or at the start of county supervisors meetings.

Swimming with the times, the newspaper’s editorial policy has noticeably tilted leftward.  I sensed something had changed when a recent Other Voices submittal of mine (here) on some new research by sociologist Charles Murray was rejected for containing subject matter outside established norms, content that would violate the sensibilities of the newspaper’s readership.  It was my first and only rejection in twenty years, and since then I’ve almost learned to behave myself.

These are trying times and new ideas are a messy business, often rejected by minds more careful and staid.  And as a private enterprise, The Union has every right to determine what it chooses to print.  Nevertheless, this is my lament about our hometown newspaper which we eagerly consume daily.  It is also an appeal for more latitude in the ideas it sees fit to print.

With its current editorial policy in place, the writings of thinkers such as Pythagoras, Copernicus, Galileo, DaVinci, Newton, Kepler, Darwin, Pasteur, Mendel, Edison, Bell, Einstein, Fermi, Payne, Revere, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, … would not have passed muster to grace the pages of today’s Union.

As a student of both history and science I am reminded that, fortunately, our beloved land was born on “Brunswick street corners” and in exciting “county supervisors meetings”, all of which then as now were considered outside “the mainstream guardrails factually”, violating the “more grounded discussions” of the day.  So now as then, such out-of-box expressions have again been proscribed, and it appears that The Union has joined the ranks of today’s publications with an editorial policy distinctly of a medieval bent.  But I wonder, does it have to be this way?

Scattershots – 21oct21

George Rebane

DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) has now penetrated the deepest recesses of STEM academia and corporatist organizations of all hues.  As theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss reports in the 21oct21 WSJ, applicants for teaching positions at major universities and corporatist management positions must now submit an essay on DEI with their applications.  And they will be evaluated first and foremost on the contents of what should read like a heartfelt testament for the verity of critical race theory and its anti-racist therapeutics.  Added to that, the applicant must include how he will incorporate the practice of the DEI monomania into his conduct of the sought position.  As an example, an addition to the usual list of qualifications, the applicant must also supply “a statement of diversity, equity and inclusion describing the applicant’s efforts and aspirations to promote equity, inclusion and diversity through teaching, research and service.” Today these organizations have huge DEI departments staffed with zealous STASIs who not only evaluate applications, but also monitor the practice of DEI by the institution’s staff.  It is now common for applications to be rejected for insufficient DEI even before the applicant’s other qualifications are even considered. (more here)  Verily, we have entered America’s age of perdition.

The coordinated calamity of climate change is heralded by all the western media in preparation of next month’s Glasgow conference that will not be attended by the leaders of China, Russia, and India.  In America the lamestream is reeling of stories of impending catastrophes of famine, flood, and fire.  Bjorn Lomborg analyses these for us (here), and points out how the described “catastrophic scenarios presuppose people will do nothing to adjust to differences in the weather.”  No matter what one thinks about the notion of preventable manmade global warming, doing such passive extrapolations decades into the future is nothing short of politicized scaremongering.  It is carried out regularly by the usual leftwing outlets such as CNN, USA Today, and WaPo.  Lomborg’s message to the sheeple is that yes, the climate changes, but so can we.

Biden’s taxes avoid the top 0.1%.  Why?  Because that cohort knows how to play the legal exemptions game – always has, always will.  The taxes are really designed to start with the remaining top 9.9% and then quickly ripple down to the tens of millions of middle-class earners (aka makers).  And it makes perfect sense, since the lying sacks of shit (aka Biden, Pelosi, Psaki, …), claiming that the trillions to be spent are “free”, know where to get all this free money.  This is clear from what little we know of the Democrats’ proposed $5T+ spending spree. (more here)

The Onslaught of the Politically Dormant

"The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living." Anonymous

George Rebane

We have been told many times that democracy works only so long as the takers can’t use the government gun to derive their livelihood from the makers.  Staged governance in a democratic republic was conceived to prevent (delay?) that from happening.  But leftwing autocrats have also known that for over a century, and have always attempted to convince the masses of the non-existent benefits of a pure democracy applied wholesale across the land – it is the fastest way to secure enduring political control by unprincipled authoritarians.

Today we witness what appears to be the beginning of the end with a ‘fundamental transformation’ of our republic.  The Deep State of autocratic elites and their central planners has become firmly ensconced in our government through 50 years of elections by an increasingly under-educated and politically dormant electorate.  California’s failure to recall Newsom is undoubtedly the nation’s posterchild of such misguided elections when we look at the condition of the state and his horrible ongoing policies.  Consider (here) that in just one region –

• SF retailers (e.g. Walgreens) closing stores because their city lets thieves clear shelves of goods and openly haul them away;
• People are moving away in numbers that leads to an enrollment drop in SF schools;
• Polls show that more than half of Bay Area residents plan to leave permanently.

Given Newsom’s overwhelming repulse of the recall, it is clear that the added level of pain to cause a sea change in people’s attitudes is yet to be determined.  And that again brings to question the ability of voters to understand the source and sustenance of their pain.

Sandbox – 16oct21

[Looking at the increasing number of stores with empty shelves and long lines of customers waiting to buy what’s left, we are told by Biden’s lackies that all this signifies another administration success as a sign of a booming economy where the people are exhibiting their ample ‘buying power’ that outpaces the nation’s ability to manufacture enough goods.  The same arguments were made in the USSR when newsreels showed Russians standing in long lines waiting to get into stores with empty shelves.  gjr]

‘Tax the Rich’ – a momentous Democrat lie

“… until you run out of other people’s money.”  M. Thatcher

George Rebane

The momentous lies retold daily by the Democratic Party are now getting too numerous to count.  Among the most impactive on Americans is their assertion that the $5T+ cost of their new government growth and spending programs “will be zero”.  How’s that?  Well, they’ll just tax the crap out of “the rich” and corporations.  ‘You, Mr/Ms Main Street Snuffie won’t have to pay a penny; what’s not to like?’

For our informed and educated neighbors such claims are truly head-spinning as is made clear again by economists Phil Gramm (also former senator) and Mike Solon in the 15oct21 WSJ (here).  There we are reminded again that “the wealthy already bear far more of the burden in the US than they do in other developed countries.”  The chart below compares the ‘fair shares’ paid by the top 10% earners in the US, France Germany, and Sweden.  Note the enormous imbalance in what our socialists are demanding to what we already are paying to keep the vote buying programs funded.  The tax burden in other developed nations (including the vaunted Sweden) is more equally shared by incorporation of a nominally 15-20% VAT on all purchases.  So it turns out, as Gramm and Solon show, that the US already has the most progressive tax system in the world, thereby giving lie to the claims that somehow the ‘rich’ are getting away with murder at the expense of the remaining 90% of Americans.

Their public copy aside, what the Democrats’ new tax proposals do is continue to favor the top 1% who lower their tax rates by charitable giving and investing in tax-favored securities and sectors promoted by our government.  These provisions actually favor the very rich – i.e. the top 1% of earners, not the 10% - and none of such bennies will be affected by the new ‘tax the rich’ rates designed to hit the less wealthy down the income ladder.  No lamestream outlet is allowed to tell us this.

In the meantime we are having a problem finding enough workers to support robust economic growth.  “Since the War on Poverty started in 1965, the labor-force participation rate of bottom-quintile earners, who now receive more than 90% of their $50,000 average income from government transfer payments, has fallen from almost 70% to 36%. With the Build Back Better Act proposing to explode unearned benefits and shower them on middle-income Americans, how long will it take for the current U.S. labor-force participation rate of 61.6% to fall to 55%, as it is in France, or 50%, as it is in Italy? Who then will pull the wagon and pay the taxes to fund the American welfare state?”  This is what we mean when we talk of the takers and makers.  And who do the takers vote for, and which party wants to maximize the people (citizens and illegals) who draw ever more of their succor from the government?

(And these worthies have no idea what’s in store for them regarding their contribution to labor, once the nation, any nation, falls under the tender mercies of a single party state.  History read is a great teacher; not so much history ignored.)

We are reminded again by Gramm and Solon that “corporations don’t ultimately pay taxes” – their customers and their risk-exposed owners pay the whole kit and kaboodle.  “If there is anything economists agree on—and there isn’t much—it’s that all taxes imposed on corporations fall in part on the consumers of their products and in part on their stockholders and workers. Workers pay between 50% and 70% of the corporate tax that isn’t passed on to consumers in higher prices. The record growth in real wages after the 2017 corporate tax cuts, especially among low-income, minority and disadvantaged workers, bears this out.  So when corporate tax rates are raised, it’s workers and their pensions, retirement accounts and insurance investments, which own 72% of America’s stockholder equity, who pay most of those taxes.”

Again, the indominable man-in-the-street who votes Democrat has no clue of this, or at best considers it to be another rightwing piece of fake news put out by rich capitalists and big corporations.  However, when you run the numbers, you see that “not surprisingly, with much of the 2017 tax cuts made up of corporate rate reductions, child tax credits and a doubling of the standard deduction, the Trump tax cuts made the tax code more, not less, progressive.”  When was the last time you heard that on any of the lamestream outlets?

We can put a ribbon around all this by citing the most recent big three feel-good economic accomplishments out of Bumblebrain’s teleprompter – 1) he has created 5M+ new jobs, 2) unemployment dropped below 5%, and 3) wages have gone up.  Well, not exactly.  Employment gain has been anemic due to government handouts, industry is stifled for lack of workers.  Unemployment dropped only because more people dropped out of the workforce -  i.e. they quit looking for jobs.  And the buying power of wages has declined due to not keeping pace with the big jump in inflation.  Americans’ real wages have declined for the first time since the big Obama dip in 2013.  And all of this is due to self-inflicted harm brought to you by Team Biden and his ballyhooed Build Back Better policies which have a snowball’s chance in hell of kicking in.  But to Bumblebrain, all this is "progress".

Climate Change Policies – Costly and Ineffective

George Rebane

Bjorn Lomborg (q.v.) enlightens us again about the realities of the much-ballyhooed policies to fight what is sold as preventable manmade global warming. (here)  The bottom line is that the agreed on policies of the recent Paris accords, and those to be adopted next month in Glasgow, are both enormously expensive and will not make a hill of beans difference in the future anticipated as calculated by the UN and reported in Nature.  We should also note that no one is even on track to meeting their Paris commitments signed under Obama.

If the whole country went carbon-neutral tomorrow, the standard United Nations climate model shows the difference by the end of the century would be a barely noticeable reduction in temperature of 0.3 degree Fahrenheit. This is because the U.S. will make up an ever-smaller share of emissions as the populations of China, India and Africa grow and get richer.

America’s goal, according to the Biden administration, is a 95% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, which will come in at a cost of 11.9% of GDP annually.  The Left claims that polls show Americans are all for reducing carbon emissions, and even willing to pay up to $200 annually to achieve that.  But the actual cost per person breaks down to $11,300 per person per year.  That means that the annual bill to an average American household of 2.53 people is over $28,500, and no one is willing to pay even close to that by almost an order of magnitude.

Polls are mostly worthless pieces of legerdemain because their questionnaires are ideologically wordsmithed, represent dynamic attitudes, and their results are misunderstood by their innumerate audiences.  Few would answer ‘No’ to ‘Do you favor policies to reduce future crop scorching temperatures and rising sea levels?’ or ‘Should CO2 levels be reduced to what we had in 2005 to stop global warming?’  With one-sided questions like these, no one knows either the effect or the cost of achieving the stated goals.  And yet the policy promoters in government and the media state with grave authority that ‘85% of Americans favor policies to significantly reduce future carbon levels’.  This then is supposed to be the public’s support for draconian increases in our taxes, economy stifling regulations, and added restrictions on our freedoms.  Sleazebag politics at its finest – “A nation ignorant and free …”.

Alinsky Abridged (Edited)

George Rebane

Saul Alinsky is one of the Left’s modern intellectuals and still a guiding light who died back in 1972 after having written Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals.  He was admired in print by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  One of the ‘practical’ guideposts he bequeathed his disciples, now grown into the millions, has been coagulated into a set of eight rules for restructuring the country into a compliant socialist state.  The Democratic Party has embraced these in their entirety and are working hard today to bring the country to heel before this decade is out.  It is visible everywhere that they are making progress that even exceeds their expectations.  Here are Alinsky’s rules that we see assiduously implemented today in America by socialists of all hues, no matter where we look.

1)  Healthcare - Control healthcare and you control the people.

2)  Poverty - Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.

3)  Debt - Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.

4)  Gun Control - Remove the ability of the people to defend themselves from their Government. Thus less (or no) resistance to a police state.

5)  Welfare  - Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income).

6)  Education  - Take control of what people read and take control of what children learn in school.

7)  Religion  - Remove the belief in God from the government and schools.

8)  Class Warfare  - Divide the people into “wealthy” and “poor,” causing discontent:   It will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

Scattershots – 11oct21 (updated 12oct21)

George Rebane

The disaster at our southern border is described and discussed by former US Customs and Border Protection commissioner Mark Morgan in the August 2021 Imprimis (here).  Morgan served under Presidents Obama and Trump.  In chapter and verse he puts lie to the unbelievable claims that “our borders are secure” delivered daily by Bumblebrain and one of his incompetent henchmen SecDHS Alejandro Mayorkas, and dutifully echoed by the lamestream until recently.  Then even they could not peddle the national tragedy that Team Biden has created and maintains.  Their objective, as always, is to transform America into a compliant second-rate autocracy ready to accept global governance.

[12oct21 update] ‘Why Are So Many People Still Dying from COVID?’ asks a physician on American Thinker.  More people are dying of the virus this year than at the same time last year, and most in America are now vaccinated.  So what gives?  The short answer is that no one really knows.  With all the hanky-panky with the stats aside, it is clear “regardless of which factors are causing the uptick in COVID deaths, something clearly is not working, whether masks, distancing, vaccines, or other measures. Instead of doubling down on what appears not to be working, where is the thoughtful questioning and analysis by the medical establishment, public health agencies, and the media?”  And here’s the punchline – “Just look at therapeutics. Japan and India introduced ivermectin as an early outpatient treatment option and their COVID cases promptly plummeted. Members of Congress and their staffs have reportedly been taking hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for COVID while trashing the drugs publicly as dangerous or horse paste.”  (H/T to reader)

Who in hell pays for their porta-potties, tents, blankets, food, medicines, encampments, transportation (bus and boat rides)??  There is a well-funded pipeline of these wannabe illegal aliens cued up from Chile through central America and then Mexico.  Some agencies and individuals with a deep hatred of America are making this colossal conduit of economic refugees possible and coordinating with the Biden administration to keep the southern border open while everyone through the lamestream is feeding bullshit to American citizens dumb enough to swallow it hook, line, and sinker.  Watching the news is becoming a nauseating experience.

Jen Psaki explains away all the Biden f#ck-ups as nothing but part and parcel of the administration “incentivizing fundamental change to the American economy.”  Has anyone told them that they’ve already achieved such fundamental change by turning our economy from increasing workforce participation, keeping inflation in check, destroying energy independence, flooding the country with unvetted illegals, and attempting to pass a socially destructive spending program that will cripple the economy for the next generation of Americans (at least)??

Sandbox - 8oct21

{The Hill reports (here) the Dems are getting real worried that Trump will run in 2024.  One of our readers has specialized in telling all who will listen that Trump's candidacy would be a blessing for our Left.  He should provide his fellow ideologues a great deal of comfort if he would share his reasoning with them.  gjr]

WHO: Economic Development Trumps Climate Change

George Rebane

In his regular WSJ column on climate change issues, Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus and Stanford's Hoover Institution shines a light on the little reported aspects of the World Health Organization’s analysis of factors affecting the health of the world’s poor in the coming decades. (here) The bottom line, hidden by the Left and its lamestream media, is that more lives will be saved (by millions) through continuing the current course of global economic development, than will be saved by adopting the stringent climate change policies as prescribed by the Paris climate agreement and at next month’s Glasgow Climate Conference.  All such policies are based on utility functions which overwhelmingly favor policies that are ‘deemed’ to reduce global warming over other factors, primarily the effects of economic development on the QoL and health of the world’s poor.

The lives saved annually in 2050 by implementing existing and anticipated global warming accords is projected at 85,000.  However, over a spread of economic growth scenarios impacted by policies seeking to reduce preventable manmade global warming, the annual deaths range from 300,000 to 2,000,000 from malnutrition among the world’s poor.  If saving lives, especially among the poor, ever becomes important in these politicized and dubiously scientific considerations, then sanity advises avoiding draconian approaches such as contemplated in the Green New Deal and the additional socialist diktats on our lives and livelihoods planned by the Biden administration and amplified by established radicals such as are ensconced in Sacramento and Albany.  Per today’s dominant media and government narratives, these conclusions remain invisible to the general public.

Ruminations – 6oct21 (updated 9oct21)

George Rebane

The autocratic state advances. ‘Government secretly orders Google to track anyone searching certain names, addresses, and phone numbers’.  The Deep State on the march under a very supportive administration.

‘Domestic Terrorists’ is the DoJ’s new designation for parents and citizens attending local school board meetings to protest teaching Critical Race Theory, gender-bending, and revisionist history to young students.  The FBI, acting more like the STASI every day, will be investigating and arresting Americans who still believe that the state does not own their children.

‘The Woke Left’s Primitive Economics’ are described by Paul Rubin in the 6oct21 WSJ.  When examined, it becomes clear that liberal thought in its acute embodiment ‘wokeness’ requires the adherent to first become butt stupid in most things about how the realworld works.  These pages have chronicled this phenomenon for over a decade.

[updates] Ivermectin manufacturer Merck dunned that drug for C19 therapeutics and is now promoting a new therapeutic that it is pre-marketing and will soon introduce (more here).  By its own admission it will be about half as effective as IVM (which costs about $3 a course).  But you can bet the farm that the new pill will be many times more profitable.  (H/T to reader)

Braindead journalists on Fox News and Republican politicians in Congress have yet to ask germane questions of the Democrat elites who are siccing the FBI on American parents on the pretense that they are ‘domestic terrorists’, parents who openly and legitimately protest the local schools’ curricula during public school board meetings.  The critical unasked question is ‘Show ONE example of evidence of “intimidation”, “public threat”, “violent action”, “threat of violent action” toward elected school boards on which you base your case for federal law enforcement intervention against the publicly protesting parents whose children are being subjected to unmitigated socialist propaganda during class periods in which they should be learning the basic skills ultimately required of an educated and informed electorate?’  The Dems’ attempt to answer that question should expose them as the pariahs that they are.

[7oct21 update]  Women in clodhoppers and combat boots.  In these days of topsy-turvy sexes and genders, women’s fashions have adopted a distinctly counter-culture currency.  And nowhere more violently than in their new footwear rage – gone are Melania’s elegant pumps, and in are shoes and boots with multi-inch platforms and styles with trench warfare uppers and soles with treads more commonly found on military Humvees.  My great-aunt Tante Alvi, a recognized fashion expert during the pre-war era in Europe, enunciated the de rigueur of women’s footwear – ‘Ladies do not appear in public sans heels’ (with the usual exceptions of course).  My sainted mother and my beloved sweetie-pie were/are strict adherents.  And fortunately, especially for us men, that dictum held until the current societal disintegration began.

Terry McLaughlin's column on the Hyde Amendment in the 7oct21 Union (here) will be an eye-opener for most readers concerned about the federal funding of abortions.  Attempting to end run its inclusion this year is yet another about-faces which the Dems are doing as they reconfigure their party in its Great Leap Leftward as called for by their growing socialist faction.  McLaughlin's succinct and clear description of the goings on is worth a read.

[9oct21 update]  The leftwing Quinnipiac Poll respected by all leftwingers came out with a typical report of Bumblebrain’s numbers diving for the mud.

• Overall opinion of administration: Approve 38%, Disapprove 53%
• On ‘Immigration’: Approve 25%, Disapprove 67%
• On Foreign Policy: Approve 34%, Disapprove 58%
• On Economy: Approve 39%, Disapprove 55%
• Overall assessment on running the country: Incompetent 55%

Note that our drive-by liberal poll commenters remain totally silent on the nationally recognized and reported disaster of the Biden administration.  I don’t follow polls per se, but I’m told these numbers are historic.

Sandbox - 3oct21

[“Falling Unemployment Adds to Worries About the U.S. Labor Market.  A lower rate could signal that many people are staying out of the workforce, which could add to employers’ hiring difficulties.”  This is among the flood of maladies that Bumblebrain’s socialist policies and promises now causing suffering and hurt in the land.  Has anybody yet found a SINGLE THING that he and the Dems have done right?  gjr]

A Leftwing Journalist Admonishes

George Rebane

Darrell Berkheimer is one of our more thoughtful, though still terminally misguided, local columnists whose current crusade to “curb misinformation” and “halt the spreading of lies” is at its apex with The Union publishing his 24sep21 and 2oct21 back-to-back columns.  His main thrust is to find a solution to the government allowing “mass media to continue the spread of misinformation, lies, untruths and false conspiracy theories that create dangerous divisiveness and threaten individual citizens.”  To his favor, he does want such state enforced prohibitions while still protecting freedom of speech.

In his 24sep21 piece he attacks conservative media and quickly demonstrates that he knows not of which he speaks, especially when it come to C19 therapeutics.  But his naivete reaches new heights with his assertion that there is a government-discernible and “distinct difference between opinion and factual truth.”  Hence, we need to implore “our lawmakers (who) are long overdue to draft such limiting and protective legislation.”  And to help this process along, we grassroots citizens can “ask our attorney friends to recommend some suggestions and proposals”, which we may then communicate to our representatives.

The entire cast of his two columns reeks of the righteousness of the Left, and leaves no doubt that it is the conservative media that must be reined in.  He, of course, stands aside and above such crass practices of ‘fake news’ and yellow journalism.  Before one examines his recent record, it’s instructive to read – ‘Hunter Biden’s Emails Were Suppressed for a Reason’ - a well-summarized and pithy letter from Mr Dan Pisenti of Mill Valley, CA in the 2oct21 WSJ.

“Vindication Over Hunter’s Emails” (Review & Outlook, Sept. 25) rightly criticizes the press and prominent former officials for labeling Hunter Biden’s emails as Russian disinformation. But the victim—President Trump—is again disregarded. The Hunter story was neutralized to prevent Mr. Trump from winning re-election. Fair reporting of the graft and low behavior on full display in Hunter’s laptop could have kept Mr. Trump in office.

The media speaks often of “the Big Lie” about the election result, but Mr. Trump faced a buffet of lies spanning his entire presidency. Dirty tricks kept him embroiled in a Russian hoax for two years and left the stink on him even when Robert Mueller could provide no evidence. Congress tied Mr. Trump up in impeachment trials. The press manufactured phony scandals about him and his family. And then key states relaxed controls on ballots. Acknowledging the onslaught that Mr. Trump faced could help the press understand why he might question an election result.

Through his own condemnations and silences, Mr Berkheimer was one of our local co-conspirators during the ongoing epoch of journalistic lows.  Today he continues to wear his TDS mantle to comfort him as he looks down from the chilly and revealing heights of Mt Olympus.

In his latest offering Berkheimer concludes “The importance of repressing misinformation cannot be overstated — because it is tearing apart the fabric of our American society. It’s at the root of our mounting divisiveness. It is our biggest crisis.”  In consuming such heartfelt proposals to expand the reach of government to evermore precisely and consummately control our speech and thought, it is important to always note from which side such ‘solutions’ originate, and who then accuse their opposites of fomenting tyrannical government.

‘Most wildfires started by people’

George Rebane

In a recent exchange with Union publisher Don Rogers I lamented that since most wildfires are started by people, there was not enough coverage or interest in the attribution of such great disasters in our state.  Wildfires were implicitly treated in the press as if they were some kind of natural phenomena, acts of God if you will.  Don agreed, and we began to see more stories in our newspaper covering details of how our regional wildfires were started by suspected arsonists or identified careless (stupid?) humans ranging from campers to homeless indigents in the woods.

As part of this exchange I wrote a letter to The Union which was finally published today (1oct21) with an interesting editorial insert at its conclusion in the print edition – the online version is here.  My letter reads –

The genesis of our wildfires. Here’s a topic everyone is afraid of discussing. Almost all of our wildfires are man-made — they are started by indigents, crazies, and people with a political agenda. The fires started by accidents and natural causes are well-known, few and far in between. However, our politicians, liberal activists, and media of all hues treat Western wildfires as if they were “acts of God,” and therefore their genesis need not be questioned, let alone examined, any further.

Given the number of annual wildfires, notice how rare is there any subsequent mention of arson investigations or what these may have discovered. It seems that the “vulnerable underprivileged” have a natural right to start fires and then be left alone.

And it is not a stretch to imagine the damage anti-American terrorists can do in a free country by simply setting wildfires with easily fabricated, time-delayed pyrotechnic devices. But from what the public sees, our authorities neither suspect nor pursue such errant behavior — the fires just magically flare up and cause totally acceptable devastation.

… and followed by this editorial coda.

Editor’s note: Studies of wildfire causes show a range of 85% to 95% are a result of human activity, with 20% to 25% of those deliberately set.

I may be accused of some hyperbole to make the point of how easy it is for bad people to set devastating fires in our wildlands that destroy, kill, and deplete scarce resources.  But to me the editor’s note is a bit too dismissive, if not inaccurate, of not only the history of fire starters but also the portent of purposely caused destruction meant to impact both the mode and quality of life in the less populated regions of our country.  My main thesis is that wildfire arson is still both under-reported and therefore under-acknowledged by the public and even law enforcement.

Here are two documents that speak to this assertion.  The first is a study – Wildland Arson: A Research Assessment - by the US Forest Service that concludes – “Wildland arson makes up the majority of fire starts in some parts of the United States and is the second leading cause of fires on Eastern United States Federal forests. … Beginning with initial studies by Donoghue and Main (1985) through studies by the authors reported here, it seems clear that law enforcement deployment and other efforts to apprehend and incarcerate arsonists work to reduce wildland arson in the long run in high-arson locations in the United States.”

Another report from FEMA’s US Fire Administration (here) recounts various aspects of arson wildfires including arsonists’ motives and the significant but relatively few court cases that result from the apprehension of suspected arsonists.