"Inflation"

                                                                   Sydney M. Williams 

Thought of the Day

“Inflation”

July 31, 2021

 

“The most important thing to remember is that inflation is not an act of God, that inflation is not

a catastrophe of the elements or a disease that comes like the plague. Inflation is a policy.”

                                                                                                        Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)

                                                                                                        From a lecture, 1958

                                                                                                        Selected Writings of Ludwig von Mises, Chapter 9

 

Are we or are we not, in the early stages of an inflation surge? The question is important because the answer has consequences that affect us all – from the daily cost of bread and energy to investment and retirement accounts.

 

The President and the Federal Reserve claim inflation is not a problem. On July 19, Mr. Biden spoke at the White House: “Our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price increases we’ve seen are – were – expected and expected to be temporary.” In February, in testimony to Congress, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that the growth in money supply, specifically M2, “doesn’t really have important implications.” Upticks in inflation are “anomalous and transitory.” Nevertheless, one wonders. In a July 21 Wall Street Journal op-ed, John Greenwood, chief economist of Invesco and Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins, wrote: “Since March 2020, M2 has been growing at an average annualized rate of 23.9% - the fastest rate since World War II.” The Fed’s target rate for inflation is two percent; however, for April, the CPI was 4.2%; for May, 5% and for June, 5.4%. The PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) price index – the index the Fed uses as their primary source for inflation – rose 6.4% in the second quarter versus 3.8% in the first quarter. If inflation is nothing to worry about, try telling that to families living on a median wage or to retirees on fixed incomes. Energy prices were up over 40% between December 31 and June 30, while food commodity prices were up close to 20 percent.

 

Since the start of the recession in February 2020 (which lasted only two months according to the National Bureau of Economic Research!), the Federal Reserve has retained a policy of near-zero interest rates and $120 billion in monthly bond purchases. When the Fed purchases Treasury’s they add to the money supply. Federal debt now amounts to 119% of GDP. The last time federal debt exceeded GDP was in 1946, in the aftermath of World War II, when it stood at 106% of GDP. The federal deficit for fiscal 2021 is expected to be $3 trillion, much of which will be financed by the Federal Reserve. As the Wall Street Journal noted in their lead editorial on July 29: “You don’t have to be a cynic to wonder if the Fed privately now wants more inflation to ease that rising debt burden.” Paying back borrowed dollars with cheaper ones is a policy decision. Five percent inflation means that $100.00 invested in a Thirty-Year Treasury would be worth $23.00 at maturity, while the interest payments (currently 1.93%) would amount to less than $60.00 (before reinvestment) of a depreciating currency – attractive to the borrower but not for the investor. In 1919 John Maynard Keynes, in an essay entitled “The Economic Consequences of the Peace,” wrote: “By a continuing process of inflation, Governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” Inflation is a tax that falls most heavily on retirees and the low income.

 

Fifty years ago (August 15, 1971), President Nixon ended the Bretton Woods Agreement, which called for the U.S. to redeem dollars presented by foreign governments at 1/35^th of an ounce of gold. Ending the agreement made it easier for the U.S. Government to finance social programs, without raising the necessary taxes, but making inflation more likely. The Dollar, thus, became a fiat currency, meaning it was backed by the credit worthiness of the issuing government, not a physical commodity, like gold or silver. Fiat currencies lose value during times of economic and political uncertainty. Their numbers can be increased, ad hoc, at the will of the government 

 

In a 1963 talk in India, Milton Friedman observed: “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in that it can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.” His hypothesis is expressed in the equation MV = Py, where M is the supply of money, V is its velocity (the rate at which money is exchanged), P is the price level (using either PCE or CPI) and y is real gross domestic product (GDP). Thus, when V and y are constant, an increase in M means an increase in P. On the other hand, increased GDP growth may warrant an increase in the money supply, as well as its velocity. If price stability is the desired outcome, the Fed must carefully monitor the relationship between the supply of money, its velocity and GDP.

 

But are they, and will they? Over the past several years, the Fed has become politicized and less independent. Today, a former Fed Chairperson, Janet Yellen, serves as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Since the end of the last recession in 2009, the Fed, pressured by the Obama and Trump White Houses, kept interest rates at historically low levels. In the past two years, since the onset of the pandemic, the growth in money supply has been high, driven by increased government spending, much of which has been funded by the Federal Reserve’s bond purchases. However, velocity of M2 fell by 21% during 2020, reflecting declines in consumer and business spending caused by COVID. So, inflation was not a concern in 2020. However, with the economy picking up speed, the velocity of money has accelerated, and the money supply continues to expand, creating inflationary pressures. Will that trend continue?

 

The Federal Government’s proposed spending plans, especially the $3.5 trillion budget plan, will require the issuance of new bonds, along with new taxes that act as a retardant on GDP growth. While GDP is now above pre-pandemic levels, economic growth in second quarter was below expectations, perhaps a warning sign. Higher debt loads have a natural tendency to increase interest rates, something Washington does not want, so there will be pressure for the Fed to continue bond purchases. Using Friedman’s formula, can GDP growth equal the increase in money supply and velocity, without an increase in price (inflation)? The truth is we don’t know, or, at least, I don’t. But I worry.

 

Debt to GDP is at record levels for a peace time economy. Budget deficits are the highest since World War II. The fiscal 2021 federal budget outlays will represent about 29% of GDP, five percentage points higher than a year ago. Will higher government spending boost GDP growth, or will it impede the private economy? Near the conclusion of his lecture quoted in the rubric, Ludwig von Mises said, “One of the privileges of a rich man is that he can afford to be foolish much longer than a poor one.” The Federal Reserve has a challenge. It must navigate between the Charybdis of inflation and the Scylla of excessive federal spending and debt. Can they do that without debauching the currency? Let us hope so. In his 1919 speech quoted above, Keynes began: “Lenin is said to have declared the best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.” Is that what we are doing?

 

I am not predicting a return to the 1970s inflation or something worse. But I worry. As a country, we are that rich man to whom von Mises referred. Let us pray we will not be more foolish than we have been.

Burrowing into Books - "He Knew He Was Right," Anthony Trollope

                                                                    Sydney M. Williams

Burrowing into Books

“He Knew He Was Right,” Anthony Trollope

July 24, 2021

 

“Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everyone

that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced he was right…”

                                                                                                                                Anthony Trollope (1815-1882)

                                                                                                                                He Knew He Was Right, 1869

 

Many of the longest books were written when people had fewer distractions. Today, readers approach a 900+ page novel tentatively, if at all. The last page seems so far from page one that we ask ourselves: Do I dare start? But a good story captures a reader, mesmerizing them into turning the pages. By story’s end, an affinity for the characters makes one reluctant to turn the last page.

 

Trollope is a writer of long stories. He is at his best when he writes of human interactions, especially about the love lives of upper-class men and women in Victorian England. Perhaps due to the influence of his mother, the novelist and social critic Frances Milton (Fanny) Trollope, Anthony Trollope’s women are more finely drawn than his men, and they are hewn into stronger characters than their male counterparts. In this, Emily Trevelyan, the heroine of the story, likes her own way: She is “so strong in her words, so eager, so passionate…She hardly ever yields to anything.” Of Emily’s sister Nora, Trollope writes: “…she had learned other things also, - to revere truth and love, and to be ambitious as regarded herself…” When she is to be married to Hugh Stanbury, she tells Lady Milborough: “I don’t mean to submit to him at all…I am going to marry for liberty.” A third young woman, Dorothy Stanbury, is described when young: She had “that extreme look of feminine dependence.” Two years later, as she is about to be married to Brooke Burgess, she has matured: “The flower that blows the quickest is never the sweetest. The fruit that ripens tardily has ever the finest flavor.”

 

Lady Milborough reflects on Victorian society: “Young ladies, according to her views on life, were fragile plants that wanted much nursing before they could be allowed to be planted out in the gardens of the world as married women.” In marriage, women were expected to be subservient to their husbands, to an extant uncomfortable to us in the 21^st Century. But human emotions do not change. What distinguishes exceptional literature from the ordinary is the author’s ability to write of universal truths, embedded in the emotions we all experience. In this story, Trollope tells of how stubbornness, born of jealousy, bores deeply into the human psyche. Louis Trevelyan and Emily Rowley are recently married, with a young son. Colonel Osborne, a bachelor friend of Emily’s father, calls on the young bride. He is narcissistic and insensitive, a man who “was clearly determined to make the most he could of what remained to him of the advantages of youth.” While Osborne’s visits were innocent, they upset her jealous husband and led to a marital rift that balloons out of control. While his wife never dishonored her wedding vows, Trevelyan expects repentance, something his wife is loath to give, as it would admit to a sin she had never committed. “Oh God, to what misery had a little folly brought two human beings, who had every blessing that the world could give within their reach!” While their love for one another is never in doubt, a vicious circle was created.

 

Reading Trollope is akin to studying a Chinese puzzle ball – those exquisite ivory carvings of balls within balls. In Trollope there are stories within stories, reflecting myriad connections in human relations. He Knew He Was Right is one of his best. Don’t let the book’s length deter you.

"The Wacky World of Politics"

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Wacky World of Politics”

July 20, 2021

 

“All the problems we face today can be traced to an 

unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indians.”

                                                                                                                                Pat Paulsen (1927-1997)

                                                                                                                                American comedian and satirist

 

Napoleon, allegedly, once said: “In politics, absurdity is not a handicap.” What he said about politicians applies equally to reporters, teachers, Hollywood and sports figures, social media influencers and commentators, me included. A good friend, though admittedly a misguided Democrat, recently e-mailed me: “I believe we are at the end of a long pendulum swing to the right [that] started with Goldwater’s loss.” Goldwater lost to Johnson in 1964. At that time, the federal budget deficit was about 5% of the federal budget, and total federal debt was less than 50% of GDP. Today, the federal deficit is approximately 60% of the federal budget and total federal debt is roughly 122% of GDP. With debt piling up, political correctness ubiquitous, open borders, censorship on the rise and people fearful of using the wrong pronoun, God help us, if the pendulum is just now swinging to the left.

 

In 2009, Sega introduced the video game, “Wacky World of Sports,” featuring unconventional sports like tuna tossing, cheese wheel rolling, furniture racing and mud sliding. A creative video game aficionado today might make millions introducing similar games for close followers of the political/cultural scene. She (or he) might offer Woke Warriors, Campus Censors, Climate Cozeners, Facetious Facts, Illiberal Liberals, Reprehensible Representatives, Senile Senators and Plagiarizing Presidents. Rather than a Quest for the Holy Grail, we might have “Pursuit of the Principled Politician.”

 

Politics have become unstrung. We have a Constitution that protects freedom of speech, yet White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki recently said: “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.” We have legislators who send their children to private schools, then, deny school choice to low-income parents. We have politicians that want to “defund” the police in inner-city neighborhoods, but who hire private security guards for their own homes in gated communities. We have legislators who preach “tax the rich,” but who want a multi-page tax code filled with loopholes, including reinstatement of SALT deductions. We have a Secretary of State who invited members of the UN Human Rights Council, which includes such bastions of freedom as Cuba, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Russia and Venezuela, to review our civil rights record.

 

And it is not just politicians who have gone mad. We have a culture that seeks diversity in gender, skin color and religion, yet demands conformity in ideas. We have Progressives who call mothers “birthing people,” while allowing transwomen to compete in high school sports against biological women. We have educators who condemn “cultural appropriation” by “privileged” white males, which means removing Shakespeare and Dickens from high school’s curricula. We have coastal elites who believe that if everyone owns a Tesla and heats their homes with solar panels, climate change can be kept at bay, yet who purchase beach-front mansions and then complain of rising seas. We have Black conservatives who are dubbed “white supremacists,” while wealthy, progressive White suburbanites become honorary members of Black Lives Matter. We have sententious media types who claim that stricter gun legislation will reduce gun-related crime, ignoring the fact that New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore – scenes of some of the worst gun violence in the nation – already have the strictest gun laws in the country. We have $60,000-a-year private primary schools that recognize non-binary genders like androgyne, genderfluid and pangender. We have $75,000-a-year universities that do not allow conservatives to speak on campus. And we have a Navy more interested in bathrooms for transgenders than in adding ships of the line.

 

In his 1914 collection of essays, Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It, former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote: “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant; electric light the most efficient policeman.” Yet we have a President today who has decided that secrecy is proper when it comes to his son Hunter’s sale of artworks at prices most artists can only dream about. And this despite public knowledge that the son has previously used his father’s connections to make money from foreign individuals and companies.

 

Politics have been wacky for years. Will Rogers (1879-1935), humorist and vaudeville performer once said: “If you ever injected truth into politics, you’d have no politics.” But I look at the past few years, and suspect things have become nuttier: What has any of the craziness we witness today have to do with making our lives freer and richer, making our nation more secure, competitive and prosperous, or improving tolerance and civility? Unlike my friend, I don’t know in which direction politics will trend; though I suspect the average American believes in his God-given rights and the rule of law, and that individual success is predicated on aspiration, talent, hard work and the acceptance of personal responsibility. But this I know and know full well, our politics and culture have become wackier and not in a healthy way.

"Family Formations and Declining Fertility Rates"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Family Formations and Declining Fertility Rates”

July 16, 2021

 

“…but the most important way to measure a healthy society is

by whether a nation is having enough children to replace itself.”

                                                                                                                J.D. Vance (1984-)

Author & U.S. Senate candidate, Ohio

                                                                                                           Interview with Sebastian Gorka, March 10, 2021 

 

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

                                                                                                                Theodore Hesburgh (1917-2015)

                                                                                                                President Notre Dame, 1952-1987

 

Sixty years ago, the threat of population growth outstripping the ability of the Earth to feed, clothe and house people was real. That is no longer the case. We now face the opposite challenge. The West, including the U.S. and the rest of the developed world, are no longer having enough children to replace themselves. Simultaneously, in the U.S. there has been a sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births and father-less children. In a world consumed with identity politics, legalizing marijuana and climate change the problem of one-parent families has been ignored.

 

Aging and (ultimately for Europe and the U.S.) declining populations face us. Japan’s population declined by about 400,000 over the past twenty years. Europe’s population increased by sixteen million (727 million to 743 million) between 2000 and 2020, but only because of an estimated 40 million immigrants. The United States population grew by 50 million during the past twenty years, with about half the growth coming from immigrants. 

 

Demographers use TFR (Total Fertility Rate) to determine whether a nation’s native population is increasing or shrinking. It is a measure of the fertility of an imaginary woman through her reproductive life. Replacement is 2.1. In 2019, the TFR for Japan was 1.37, for Europe 1.52 and for the U.S. 1.71. The last time a TFR of 2.1 was reached in the U.S. was in 2007. In contrast, in 1960 the TFR was 3.65. Economic growth, over time, relies on population expansion. If it doesn’t come through births, it must come by way of immigration. As the United States grew rapidly in the post-World War II period, TFRs averaged over 3.0. Where population growth exceeds replacement are in undeveloped countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, and in India and Indonesia. Even in those regions, TFRs are declining.

 

Problems associated from aging and shrinking populations, i.e., a smaller workforce supporting a larger retired population and greater use of healthcare, have been exacerbated by changing cultural mores and an abandonment of traditional Judeo-Christian values, particularly in the U.S.  Out-of-wedlock births have increased, while births to married women have declined. And, it has been clearly demonstrated that out-of-wedlock births (70% of all births in a city like Baltimore) lead to drug and alcohol abuse, with criminality, poverty and illiteracy as their progeny. Not assuming responsibility for one’s actions leads to increased dependency on the state, and increased dependency leads to a loss of the dignity associated with work.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percent of children living in two-parent households declined from 88% in 1960 to 69% in 2016, while the percent of children living with a single mother rose from 8% in 1960 to 23% in 2016. A survey by the Pew Research Center reports that the U.S. “has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households.” 

 

With so many in Washington, in schools and universities and in “woke” corporations focused on political correctness, equity, climate, censorship, cancellation of history, and oppressors oppressing the oppressed, the importance of family has vacated our conscience. Public schools have become incubators of social engineering. Teachers and, especially administrators are more interested in ensuring that transgenders have access to the bathroom of their choice and that Critical Race Theory becomes part of the curriculum, than in teaching the rudiments of math and English. It explains why the United States, despite being one of the freest and wealthiest countries in the world, ranks 25th in the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) ratings for reading, math and science, behind countries such as Estonia, South Korea, Canada and Finland. Sadly, it has been poor and minority families who have been the major victims of misguided public policies.

 

While “the future is not ours to see,” as the song goes, it is hard to believe that declining birthrates in the developed world bode well. The Enlightenment, which was birthed in Christian Europe, gave rise to democracy and capitalism, which in turn enriched lives in Europe, the United States and other parts of the free and developed world. It is not coincidental that the countries with the highest living standards and the freest citizens are ones that embrace democracy and free-market capitalism. In 1960, those countries comprised roughly 22% of the world’s population; today they make up about 12%. Given current trends, the percentage will continue to shrink, with unknown consequences.     

 

Children are a blessing. They are our future. Without them our species dies out. But children come with parental responsibility, the first of which is to provide unconditional love – to give them the security that love provides. It is the responsibility of parents to teach their children that success is merit-based and stems from their own efforts, not from the beneficence of government. They should be taught that “talent, character and competence,” as Joel Peterson, Robert L. Joss Professor of Management at Stamford University, recently wrote, “are evenly distributed across every demographic.” To argue otherwise is to practice racial, religious or gender discrimination. They should learn tolerance and respect for others, and to be colorblind as regards their judgements about race, religion and gender. Children should be encouraged to achieve, to the best of their abilities, excellence in all endeavors, including schooling, athletics and work. They should learn about the country in which they are fortunate to live and how it compares to others – and that the principal function of our government is to preserve the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, gifted to us by our Creator. They should understand that government offers a safety net, but at a cost of personal independence. And if they achieve success, our children should be encouraged to give back to their communities. These are attitudes and lessons best provided by parents, with the assistance of churches and schools. These are not lessons that should be left to the state.  

 

This is not a call for parents to recreate the Gilbreth dozen or even to emulate my parents, with their nine children, but it is a call for moral clarity, to encourage and support a culture that fosters decency, mutual respect and personal responsibility, a culture that views the future with optimism, and one that believes in the sanctity of family, marriage and two-parent households.

"Thoughts on Voting, Including Ranked Choice Voting"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Thoughts on Voting, Including Ranked Choice Voting”

July 7, 2021

 

“Our life is frittered away by detail.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.”

                                                                                                                               Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

                                                                                                                               Walden, 1854

 

Because of technology we are able to live in a complex world. Yet, we make better decisions, when, as Confucius said, we make the complicated simple. Through early voting and no-excuse absentee voting, officials have made voting more accessible but associated complexities have increased the likelihood of fraud. Debate persists as to whether those changes have proven efficacious.  Now, there is a renewed effort to improve the election process through the (re)introduction of ranked choice voting (RCV). 

 

From a personal perspective, I am not a fan of early voting for two reasons: One, it deprives the voter of weighing issues until Election Day and, two, early voters are more likely to go to the polls following a pep rally, so their decisions are likely to be emotional rather than deliberative. As for absentee voting, I believe that, to the extent possible, voters who are able should vote in person. Not only does is it simpler, it is easier to assure that the voter is legitimate. As for ranked choice voting, I lean in its favor.

 

RCV is used in elections when three or more candidates are on the ballot, as it eliminates the need for a runoff election. As the name implies, it allows voters to rank choices by preference, i.e., 1 - 5. When the votes are tallied, if one candidate has won an outright majority, then he or she wins the election. If not, the candidate with the fewest number of first choice votes is eliminated. Those who voted for that candidate have their votes transferred to their second choice. This continues until a single candidate gains a majority. If the process is prolonged, some ballots will be eliminated – “exhausted” is the term used.

 

Feedback regarding RCV suggests that problems lie not in the counting of votes, but with voters’ abilities to process the complexities of the ballot. In a New York Times article in February 2020, Jacey Fortin wrote, “…members of the N.A.A.C.P. and the City’s Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus spoke out against ranked choice voting. They were partly worried that it could hurt candidates of color, and that a more complicated ballot would reduce turnout.” In an op-ed in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Michael Saltsman and Rebekah Paxton quoted Jason McDaniel, a political scientist at San Francisco State University: “…turnout declines among African-American and white voters [were] significantly correlated with adoption of RCV.” To me, both comments reek of condescension. 

 

Proponents of RCV say it would strengthen majority victories with broadly acceptable winners, though the ultimate winner may be the second or third choice of some voters. (Perhaps it is right that a politician know whether or not he or she is a plurality victor?) Some say it would increase voter turnout, thought the jury is out on that claim. Those in favor of RCV tell us campaigns would be less divisive, though New York City’s recent Democratic Mayoral primary questions that assumption. And, by eliminating the need for runoffs, RCVs should reduce the amounts of money needed in campaigns. Andrew Yang has argued that RCV will lead to fewer ideological extremists.

 

Opponents claim its complexity would dampen voter turnout. New York City Council Member Adrienne Adams said it would allow candidates to “game the system.” Simon Waxman of Harvard University Press noted that voters who have their ballots eliminated through “exhaustion” have no say in the final outcome. Other critics have said it gives advantage to incumbents and those whose names are well known, but that is true in any election. Problems in New York City’s last month’s Democratic Mayoral primary, reflected, as John Fund pointed out in the June issue of The Spectator, corruption and incompetence at the New York City Board of Elections, not anything inherently wrong with RCV. 

 

Ranked choice voting dates to the 19^th Century. In the Times article quoted above, Ms. Fortin wrote that the idea was “promoted by the philosopher John Stuart Mill in 1861,” and that a version was “developed about a decade later by William Ware, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” RCV is not foreign to many voters. According to Wikipedia, it is used in at least twenty U.S. cities and in many states, in lieu of runoff elections. It is also used in non-government elections, including those in hundreds of schools and more than eighty-five colleges and universities. 

 

In the debate over ranked choice voting, we should not let a quest for the perfect detract from what is important – keeping elections simple and secure. Two rules should govern all elections: One, every eligible citizen should be permitted to vote. Two, voter IDs should be required, as no one who is not eligible should be allowed to vote. All other rules are secondary. As long as the process is simple and seen to be honest, most people, as William Buckley inferred many years ago, have confidence in the collective intelligence of the American voter and, therefore, in outcomes.

"My Token Moment"

                                                                 Sydney M. Williams

Essay from Essex

“My Token Moment”

July 3, 2021

 

“The making of friends who are real friends

is the best token we have of a man’s success in life.”

                                                                                                                           Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909)

                                                                                                                           Author, The Man Without a Country

 

Perhaps it was my sheltered childhood, or maybe it was the time in which I grew up, but the concept of tokenism never entered my mind, even when my older sister dressed me in her clothes. I never felt singled out, though, as her younger brother nearest in age, I was. I just didn’t realize it. Even when standing on her bed, wearing her Mary Janes, I never saw myself as a symbol of something profound. Women, in my early life played an important role, and not just because I was my sister’s plaything. With a whimsical father, my mother was the more practical. My maternal grandfather died when I was six, so my grandmother played the grandparent role for both. Of my paternal grandparents, my grandmother, an independent woman, was my grandfather’s equal in all respects. Her counsel was wise. She once advised me not to marry a Mary. There were too many in the family, she said, and marry a woman older than you, as they live longer than men. Sage suggestions, which I took and never looked back.

 

And I never felt privileged. Maybe that was because of privilege. To the oblivious, they say, ignorance is bliss. I grew up as a white, Anglo-Saxon male in a Protestant-monopolized small New Hampshire town. While we had horses to ride and hundreds of books, the house was four miles from the village and there was no television. We slept three or four to a bedroom. My mother cooked (when she did) on a wood stove and kept milk in a real ice box. There was no central heat and, of course, no air conditioning. The telephone was a “party line,” meaning we shared it with others. The “privileged,” if I thought of them that way, lived in town with a TV, electric stove, refrigerator and a private telephone line. 

 

While women were a strong influence in my early years, men were ever-present. As a sculptor, my father’s studio was in our backyard, if we dared interrupt him. Among my siblings, I was the second oldest of five boys and four girls. While supposed to set a good example, I never did. I went to an all-boys high school and, in college, while I enjoyed the company of women, I mostly hung out with male friends. There were women soldiers when I was in the army, but Fort Dix was dominated by men, albeit of mixed races and religions. During my forty-eight years on Wall Street, I worked with all genders, races and religions, but women and racial minorities, while present, never dominated.  

 

Now, at Essex Meadows, I find myself in a matriarchal society, and I have a better sense of what it is to be part of a minority – at least in gender. Women residents out-number men, roughly three to two. The CEO of this retirement community is a woman, as are six of the seven department heads. I could not be happier.

 

Recently, Caroline and I were invited to dinner with two charming ladies. They wanted a man, or so one of them said, so would we join them? For a moment my feelings were hurt. It was not my imagined scintillating wit or presumed verbal sparring prowess they wanted; it was because I was a man. It was my token moment. But if that be tokenism, I look forward to many more such moments.

"Personal Responsibility in an Age of CRT"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Personal Responsibility in an Age of CRT[1]”

July 1, 2021

 

“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never

ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”

                                                                                                                 Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

                                                                                                                 You Learn by Living, 1960

                                                                                                                                Preface

 

As we near our nation’s 245^th birthday, celebrants could do worse than consider the consequences of an increase in government dependency and a decline in personal responsibility.

 

Among truths that underly my beliefs are two relevant to this essay: One, life is not fair. We are born into different circumstances, with different attributes and abilities. A brother was born with Prader-Willi Syndrome, a condition that adversely affected his physical, emotional and mental development. While he and I were born of the same parents, his life, in the challenges he faced, was far more difficult than mine. And two, we are not equal (and never can be) in looks, physical prowess, emotional and social skills, or mental acuity. It is unlikely Michael Jordan could have developed the theory of relativity, and it is equally unimaginable that Albert Einstein could have played shooting guard for the Chicago Bulls.  The attempt to mandate equity, a dream of Progressives, is a Utopian nightmare. In his novel He Knew He was Right, Anthony Trollope put it like this: “Each created animal must live and get its food by the gifts which the Creator has given it…” No amount of government coercion will make life completely fair and make us equal. We must each work with who and what we are. In his 1901 autobiography, Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington wrote: “Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know you trust him.”

 

Politicians love to compartmentalize the electorate. It is easier to serve up government offerings to a group than to argue the benefits of a particular political philosophy. Thus, we drift toward the comfort of government dependency and away from the more difficult adherence of personal responsibility. A Washington Post article from September 18, 2012, reported: “In 2011, about 49% of the population lived in a household where at least one member received a direct benefit from the federal government.” According to an op-ed in last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal by John Cogan and Daniel Bell of the Hoover Institute, the American Families Plan, if it were adopted, would add another 21 million Americans to the roles of government assistance programs. Forget what it does to our debt; think of the effect on our national character.

 

Ironically, Critical Race Theory (CRT) is racist, in that it teaches that one race is inherently superior to another, and in its assumption that blacks are incapable of succeeding without government assistance. It promotes victimization rather than encouraging self-reliance. It ignores individual successes of modern black conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Senator Tim Scott, Clarence Thomas, Candace Owens, Jason Riley, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and thousands more. As Martin Luther King taught us, people should be judged by who they are, not the color of their skin. Freedom depends on a responsible individual. Consider the autocracies that demand dependence and obedience and compare that to the Republic whose founding we celebrate Sunday. The Civil Rights activist and founder of the Woodson Institute, Robert Woodson in response to the 1619 Project, created an organization called 1776 Unites, which is designed to highlight “what is best in our national character and what our freedom makes possible even in the most difficult circumstances.” Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) and Frederick Douglass (1817-1895), both believed in personal responsibility. They were born into slavery, yet both became advisors to U.S. Presidents. In what other country would that have been possible? 

 

There is no question that a study of American history should include chapters on slavery and the women’s suffrage movement. But that can be accomplished by reading what has already been written. In 1853, Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin. When President Lincoln met her at the White House nine years later, he is reputed to have said: “So this is the little woman that started this great war.” Keep in mind, Ms. Stowe, as a woman, was never able to vote. Yet she wrote a novel that spoke to the curse of slavery and helped bring about its abolition. Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn (1884) has been removed from many library shelves because some of its words are seen as threatening. Yet it provides modern readers a realistic look at the horrors of slavery, the dignity of the run-away slave Jim, and of the empathy of the uneducated Huck Finn. Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847) and Henry James’ The Bostonians (1886) did much the same for the cause of women.

 

It is a desire for power that causes politicians to place us within the confines of race, religion and gender. They ignore how far we have come in the past 250 years. Man has been around for 160,000 years, but civilization as we know it dates back only about 2,500 years. Progress has been steady, but uneven with two steps forward and one back. The founding of the United States, with all its obvious and known faults, was a giant leap forward in the liberation of men and women from the yoke of authoritarian governments. Slavery has been around as long as man, and it has existed on every continent and involved every race and creed. While it was largely abolished in the West in the 19^th Century, it still exists in parts of the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Consider the plight today of China’s Uyghurs. They are real victims, under the Chinese Communist Party’s real oppressors. 

 

Sixty years ago, interracial marriage was illegal in much of the United States. Today, one in seven marriages are couples of mixed races. In 1960, only 3.1% of adult black Americans had graduated from four-year colleges. Today the number is 20 percent. (The comparable numbers for whites were about 18% in 1960 and 35% today.) While much good came from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, they were accompanied by a decline in personal responsibility, which led to a diminution of the family, an increase in out-of-wedlock births and a glut in absent fathers. We see its effects in other aspects of our lives. Universities select students, not on merit but on race or gender identification. We are told it is the weapon, not the behavior of the individual, that is responsible for a plethora of black-on-black shootings in inner cities. 

 

As we prepare to celebrate the 4^th, we should consider the costs to a free people of a nation that abjures personal responsibility for the Eloi-like comfort of dependency. As long as it survives, the mission of the United States will never be complete. It will always be a work-in-progress – “An Experiment in Self-Government,” as Senator J. William Fulbright titled a 1955 article. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, “The only title in our democracy superior to that of President is the title citizen.” It is a title that demands the rigors of personal responsibility.