Rebane's Ruminations

California Exodus Refuted?

George Rebane

A reader and correspondent sent me the following article – ‘A Shocking Number of Californians Are Moving to Texas Unless You Do Basic Math’.  Therein the author cites data and analysis from a market data firm Placer.ai which sidesteps the long-running and well-established California exodus phenomenon, focuses on the California-to-Texas migration, and erroneously concludes that there is nothing unexpected about the numbers that Placer has collected.  To wit –

The logic here is very simple. Some people move between states every year for normal life reasons. That’s good and normal and not cause for alarm. And California has the most people of any state. Therefore, all things equal, we’d expect lots of people from California to be moving to Texas. In fact, we would expect that more people from California would be moving to Texas than from any other state, again, because California has the most people. This would not in itself imply anything is wrong with California or great about Texas. It would simply mean people are doing what we would expect them to do. The only way this particular data point would suggest something is indeed amiss is if a disproportionate number of new Texans came from California relative to California’s population.

That may sound confusing, but doing some quick math makes it all very clear. The population of the United States minus Texas—because people already in Texas cannot move to Texas—is 300.86 million people. California’s population is 39.35 million, or 13 percent of the U.S.’ non-Texas population. Therefore, more than 13 percent of Texas’ new residents would have to be Californians in order for there to be something of note going on here.

But that’s not the case. According to Placer.ai, which uses “foot traffic data” gleaned by tracking people's phones, 11.1 percent of new Texans from July 2019 and July 2022 are from California. That’s actually slightly less than one would expect based on an even distribution. If anything, the pertinent question from Placer.ai’s data is: Why are so few Californians moving to Texas?

The main flaw in the argument here is that people move randomly between states with ingress and egress rates proportional to source and target populations.  This is a gross error in the current situation where most of migrating Americans are motivated by economic (taxes, regulations) and socio-political (crime, education) reasons.  For example, Texas receives many new residents from so-called shithole cities in states like New York, Illinois, New Jersey, in addition to California.  Such movements can invalidate any arguments based on randomness.  For example, California’s lower percentage of “new Texans” can be completely explained away by the greater number of the state’s immigrants arriving from the other escape-worthy states that need have no relationship to population proportions, and greater numbers of Californians moving to other states such as Idaho, Wyoming, and Florida.

Bloomberg reports, “The long-term migration out of California accelerated during the Covid-19 crisis, with Texas, Washington and Florida as top destinations for people moving out of the state, according to a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.” (here)  The LA Times continues its ongoing reports of the exodus with ‘California Exodus Continues: LA, San Francisco lead the way’.

Liberals across the land are desperate to refute the mass migrations out of the major shithole regions that Democratic administrations have created since the launch of Great Society programs.  This gives rise to a number of loudly argued but logically weak pieces that appear in various lamestream outlets.  The fundamental reality is that California continues to create conditions that drive out large numbers of its wealth-generating workers and businesses.  This is apparent from all types of correctly analyzed data starting with what we learn from the Dept of Commerce (Census Bureau) and going all the way down to California’s historic first-time reduction in the number of representatives we send to Congress.

‘There Is No Climate Emergency’

George Rebane

Similar to the subsequently corroborated Great Barrington Declaration on Covid (here), a new declaration on climate change was released in June 2022 entitled ‘World Climate Declaration: There Is No Climate Emergency’.  This declaration is signed by hundreds of scientists and thousands of technical professionals from almost every country in the world (here).

In asserting that there is no climate emergency, the undersigned state –

Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.

Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

Warming is far slower than predicted The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. They do not only exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases, they also ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.

CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. More CO2 is favorable for nature, greening our planet. Additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also profitable for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2

They conclude with –

To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. Should not we free ourselves from the naive belief in immature climate models?

Need I be fearful of most black people?

George Rebane

My clear answer is yes – let me explain.  Yes, I am physically afraid of blacks in the urban neighborhoods.  They have demonstrated to all that there is inherent danger to life and limb in neighborhoods where blacks rule the streets.  This same sentiment has been publicly acknowledged by black leaders such as the Rev Jesse Jackson.  The criminality of young black males is now well established, and it is not a minor fraction of the population.  Their historical arrest and incarceration rates attest to this.

But perhaps my greater fear of blacks is when they join the ranks of the America’s voters and make their presence felt at the ballot box.  They have now demonstrated across many generations that they do not vote to promote their own best interests.  They elect dismally stupid, corrupt, cynical, racist, rapacious, and/or simply crooked people to represent them in the halls of political power.  It would not be so bad if their voting habits only impacted their own communities.  But that is not the case.  Black-elected politicians (no matter their color) extend their unfortunate ethics, socialist ideologies, and corrupt practices far beyond the precincts that voted them into office.

To be sure, black communities suffer most from the ministrations of their political leaders.  No one has done more harm to our African-Americans than the politicians who regularly garner their votes through promises of ineffective policies or those never kept.  And again, as history has shown, no learning takes place from one election cycle to the next.  Generation after generation, they send the same people to occupy the same seats of power and expect different results, while decrying their carefully taught lamentations about white supremacy and systemic racism.  It is these politicians with black constituencies who join with those voted in by ignorant whites et al that have launched national programs to usurp American culture over the last half century by engaging in the ongoing fundamental transformation of our country.

I write this in response to the column by Mr Daryl Grigsby – ‘Need I be fearful of most white people?’ – which appears in the 27aug22 Union.  As an African-American, Grigsby goes on to answer the question with a YES, and then continues to back-up his sentiment with yet one more diatribe against Trump, filled with the familiar ignorant tedium comprised of all the usual unsubstantiated allegations.  He opens with –

I am troubled by this possibility (of fearing most whites). As an African American who has lived all over this nation, I have seen and experienced much that raises this question. At the same time, my life has been enriched by generous, affirming, justice-seeking white Americans. … Yet, the opening question often plagues me. By “most,” I don’t mean the overwhelming majority. I do mean some number more than half. Anything more than half is “most.”

… and closes with -

Republican candidates who stand against Trump lose their seats, voting in Black communities is a hurdle instead of a right, Anti-CRT movements flourish. The real question is, do we want a just and multi-racial society, or one of white privilege and dominance?

And what of Black Lives Matter? Professor Treva B. Lindsey says, “to even have to proclaim ‘Black Lives Matter’ and know that people will dispute it, or counter with ‘all lives matter,’ is a result of entrenched and learned anti-blackness. In what world would saying ‘Black lives matter’ prompt a rejoinder? A fundamentally anti-Black one.” I am hopeful we can create a society different than described by Professor Lindsey.

No amount of skulduggery(sic), lies, treason or corruption deters millions of white Americans from supporting Trump. What explains that devotion? Anger? About what? Fear? Of who(sic)? As white militias grow and the internet rumbles with threats, I fear the majority is silent. I believe but a small fraction of white America is prone to racist violence. That small group, however, is dangerous if the majority does not stand up. … Believe me when I say, I don’t enjoy thinking this, and frankly, I would be happy to be proven wrong.

His reasonable tone withstanding, it is clear that I and mine have a lot to fear from the Grigsbys of America who cast their ballots within the collectivist glow of goodness and light, as they send the next tranche of corrupt fools to the nation’s capitols.  The exoduses from California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey are exhibits of their political accomplishments.

The Democrats' evil is professionally inbred

[This piece came across my email transom forwarded by a lawyer who apologized for his profession and how it confuses litigation with governance.  gjr]
 
Every Democrat presidential nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate – Biden (no surprise) was at the bottom of his class).  Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school.  Barack Obama was a lawyer. Michelle Obama was a lawyer.  Hillary Clinton was a lawyer. Bill Clinton was a lawyer.  John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards was a lawyer.  Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is a lawyer.  Former Senator Harry Reid was a lawyer.
 
The Republican Party is different.  President Trump is a businessman.  President Bush 1 and 2 were businessmen.  Vice President Cheney was a businessman.  President Eisenhower was a 5 star General.  The leaders of the Republican Revolution: Newt Gingrich was a history professor.  Dick Armey was an economist.  Ex-House Minority Leader John Boehner was a plastics manufacturer.  The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.  Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer?  Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against actor Ronald Reagan in 1976.  The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers.  This is very interesting. I had never thought about it this way before.
 
The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers.  Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Trump, Bush, and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.  The Lawyers Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America .  And, so, in the eyes of the Lawyers Party, we have seen the procession of official enemies grow.  Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail?  Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation. 
 
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers.  Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, which, in this case should be the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.  Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation.
 
When politicians, as lawyers, begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming.  Some Americans become adverse parties of our very government.  We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit.  We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
 
Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives.  America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked.  When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big.  When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
 
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
 
The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers!  Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits.  This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party.  When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association go to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high.

Double Dummies on Daily Display (updated 24aug22)

George Rebane

This is really a critique of the American electorate, and how low it has sunk in its capacity to discern and vote for political leaders sufficiently competent and principled to maintain our republic as the world's shining city on the hill – “A republic, if you can keep it.” B. Franklin.

I am simply astounded by the parade of incompetent, duplicitous, and just plain ignorant politicians that parade across our TV screens daily.  My latest pique occurred yesterday when FN’s Trace Gallagher was interviewing Sec Energy Jennifer Granholm, specifically about the administration’s new Inflation Reduction Act bamboozle. (here)  I have no idea why anyone would allow that woman to come before a live mic.  She demonstrated no idea about what the Dems’ new law would do, and what Americans really care about as November approaches.

What she did corroborate is the Biden administration’s ongoing incompetence in everything it has touched since January 2021, and their ability to generate the most stupendous list of lies about what has happened and what is going on now.  The term for this is ‘gaslighting’, and Team Bumblebrain is front and center daily taking advantage of an already poorly educated electorate by filling them with stuff that simply ain’t so.  And the tragedy of it all is that it appears to be working.

Victor Davis Hanson covers the matter in the more germane details as only he can in his ‘The Worst and the Stupidest?’.  Unfortunately, the only game in town opposing the evil anti-American Democrats are a bunch of mostly spineless Republicans who have little or no idea on how to appeal to the masses of main street Americans.  Our border remains open to millions of illegals, crime is fostered by the justice system, foreign policy is in shambles on three critical fronts, black lives don’t matter, meritocracy is white supremacist, and our educational systems at all levels are being co-opted by neo-Marxists.  The only remaining hope is that the existential pain in America’s wallets remains sufficiently intense so that people will seek something different at the ballot box this Fall.

[24aug22 update] Elizabeth Warren discovers that free money is popular.   Pursuant to Bumblebrain’s cancelling of at least $10K of everyone’s student debt, she said, "Look, I’m not at all surprised that Mitch McConnell is attacking this. The reason he’s attacking it is because it is very, very popular. Popular among Democrats, independents, Republicans – popular.  You know why?  Because I don’t think there’s anybody left in America who doesn’t know somebody who is not struggling with student loan debt. This has become a part of our country now. People for whom their only sin was to want to try to get an education and not be in a family that could afford to write a check for it."  After also claiming that it will be “good for our economy”, I have no idea why anyone would let her near an open mic.  Well, maybe those Dem leaders who believe their constituents overwhelmingly are really, really stupid.

The ‘Party of Science’ aka Idiot’s Delight (Addended)

George Rebane

Well, the cat is finally clawing its way out of the bag, bit by piece.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is beginning to admit that it has completely mismanaged the major pandemic of the 21^st century.  As numerous observers, analysts, and scientists have repeatedly pointed out over the last four years, the agency has “failed in its core responsibility, which is to track diseases, collect data to inform decision-making, and deploy resources to support local public-health responses.”  Instead, it became the lackey of the evil Democratic Party which has long proclaimed itself as ‘the party of science’ and used the CDC as its willing political pawn.

CDC’s main mama, Dr Rochelle Walensky, can’t quite bring herself to admit the utter catastrophe that she launched with the aid of Dr Anthony Fauci, spiritual advisor who only spoke ex cathedra with words directly from God.  America put up with their gobbledygook for almost four years, and continues in some measure to follow it today.

As data kept pouring in from all over the world that contradicted their various and varying policies dictating masking, social distancing, lockdowns, vaccination, boosters, etc, they remained steadfast in their own ‘science’ which supported the command and control stance of the Democratic Party hard on the heels of hunting Donald Trump.

Scattershots – 18aug22 (update 21aug22)

George Rebane

Dear People, we are back from our travels and almost recovered.  Driving endless miles across the country's western deserts and highlands is not recommended for maintaining mental health.  Besides, being on travel is greatly over-promoted.  But everything worked out well; Jo Ann’s new van performed beautifully, and we had a great time with our friends, grandkids, and great-grandkids – they’re still growing like weeds.

So now we have two big reasons the GOP will be split and lose in 2024.  First, Liz Cheney will splinter the party by running for president on a third party ticket if Donald Trump is nominated by the Republicans.  And then again, if the Repubs don’t nominate Donald Trump for president in 2024, he may choose to become the third party candidate.  Either way the Repubs loose the presidency in 2024, and the evil party will be free to continue in the evil ways it has made known to all under the Bumblebrain Administration. 

[21aug22 update]  Raid vs warranted search.  The lamestream is beginning to influence FN et al in eliminating the ‘raid’ label on what happened at Mar-a-Lago.  LE agencies execute search warrants by the hundreds every day across the country.  These are overwhelmingly done during normal waking hours by a small team wearing civilian clothing and packing, at most, an inconspicuous 9mm semi-auto.  When a platoon of FBI descends unannounced in a convoy of flashing lights vehicles during pre-dawn hours on a private residence, armed with sub-machine guns (fully auto assault weapons) to surprise the residence’s skeleton Secret Service detail due each former president, then that is a raid.  Why the heavy artillery?  Did they expect a firefight with fellow feds?  Characterizing the warranted search as a raid was a deliberate political act to fuel and continue the anti-Trump hysteria.  The Left clearly over-played their hand, and therefore immediately quit using ‘raid’ to characterize the historically unprecedented raid.  That some conservative outlets are falling in line confirms that their claims to ‘Fair, balanced, and unafraid’ reporting is bullshit.

Sandbox - 14aug22

[Been on travel the past week with connectivity a sometime thing.  Will be home soon, so everyone try to keep a lid on it until then.  Anyone know who is the foul-mouthed jerk ‘Donny Jr’?  gjr]

FBI raids Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Residence

George Rebane

Tonight the FBI raided former President Trump’s Florida residence unannounced.  This is an historical  and unprecedented action which has horrible portents for our republic.  I’ll have more to say about this, and so will RR readers who need a place to record their sentiments as this story develops over the next days.  If there is no smoking gun produced by the DoJ in this case, then we have definitely transitioned into a political thugocracy.

Lowest Rung Problem with No Good Solutions

George Rebane

To solve a problem, first you need to correctly define it.

The 1aug22 WSJ had an entire section that examined ‘Why Black and Hispanic Workers Get Stuck on the Lowest Rung’.  In these pages we have covered related aspects of this issue over the years.  Last year noted scholar and political scientist Charles Murray (reviled by progressives) published Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America (2021), which I reported on extensively in ‘Equity Denies Reality’.

The WSJ looked at the lowest rung problem from several angles, with lots of stats showing that the country’s 12.4% Black population is not matched in the 8% of entry level jobs held by Black workers.  Apparently, in the literature these are called “front line workers”, a politically correct euphemism for those on the lowest rung of the employment ladder.  And very few of our larger companies employ even 10% of Black workers.  From there the record gets murkier with smaller shares of front line minorities being promoted to higher positions in mid-management and top slots in corporate leadership.  The unstated thesis of this reportage is that we are falling short on the equity scale in America’s workplaces if we don’t achieve pro-rata population shares of Black and Hispanic workers at each level on the corporate ladders.

Unfortunately, these analyses all ignore some seminal factors needed to understand this employment issue – these being intellectual capacity and intellectual ability.  All the articles in the section make the tacit but questionable assumption that all people have an equal intellectual capacity from which, through education and training, various intellectual abilities can be acquired.  Everyone having equal intellectual abilities flies in the face of government data as reported by Charles Murray and others.

It should be clear that an individual’s capability to acquire intellectual abilities is determined by his intellectual capacity.  Intellectual capacity, also known as ‘cognitive ability’, has various metrics, the most popular being IQ now suffering from bouts of political correctness.  Over populations consisting of all racial and cultural cohorts, average IQ has been normed at the average value or mean of 100, with a standard deviation of 15.  (In a bell curve 68% of the distribution lies between +/- one standard deviation of the mean.  That means that 68% of humans have an IQ ranging from 85 to 115.)

The figure below is from Murray’s Facing Reality.  As can be seen, there is a relative paucity of ‘Latin’ and ‘African’ people, i.e. workers overall, and of those even fewer in the higher cognitive ability (intellectual capacity) region.

This data says that if pro-rata equity is going to be enforced, then companies will need to hire and promote minorities who do not measure up to the existing intellectual standards required to fill upper-level jobs.  The obvious result of that is an expected decline in corporate performance wherever such mandates are implemented.

The woke extremists will continue to claim that there is no difference between cognitive abilities based on race, that the government and academic data is somehow biased and deficient.  But the reality is overwhelming when we take in the K-12 academic performance of the various races cum cultures.  Blacks and Hispanics continue to perform significantly lower than the Asians and European, that happens to be an easily discernible fact also in the workplace.  One can argue that all this is due to the minorities getting the short-end in our public schools, but that is not a factor in the present discussion.

However you come down on our public education and its delivery to, say, whites vs minorities, that is not the point.  We are here discussing ONLY the existential results of the schools’ output as it enters and survives in the workforce.  It would be beyond silly to presume that minority workers as a whole do not bring with them the deficits they demonstrated while in school.  And so far, corporate and government post-school remediation programs have been an utter failure in both their acceptance by the minorities and their effectiveness.

Now that doesn’t mean we should give up and accept race-based promotions or keep the minorities on the low rungs of the workplace.  But it does mean that continuing to do what we have been doing and expecting different results guarantees that we as a society are behaving insanely.  And you can bet the farm that not acknowledging the real dimensions of the intellectual capacities vs abilities reality will continue to prevent us from correctly defining the problem which we as a country have to solve.

Sandbox – 3aug22

[As RR has argued for some years now, we Americans are competing with our enemies to see who will be the first to destroy the historical United States of America.  So far, we are winning.  Thomas Sowell echoes this with his 3aug22 ‘The Point of No Return’ that opens with, “This is an election year. But the issues this year are not about Democrats and Republicans. The big issue is whether this nation has degenerated to a point of no return -- a point where we risk destroying ourselves, before our enemies can destroy us.”  gjr]