"It's a Mad, Mad. Mad, Mad World"

 Artificial Intelligence is already here, at least in primitive form. It gathers millions of pieces of data on myriad subjects – all that is available – inputs the data into a CPU and then applies algorithms to answer questions and express opinions. 

I had an interesting experience recently. Last Saturday I sent a write-up on Percival Everett’s latest book, James. Like all my essays, I posted this one on my blog, on LinkedIn and, as I do with book reviews, on Amazon. I have posted at least fifty reviews on Amazon, all of which were accepted. This one was not. An e-mail was sent me, explaining that the review did not meet their guidelines for one of the following reasons: Profanity, Harassment, Hate speech, Sexual content, Illegal activity, Private information. There was no profanity, no sexual content, no illegal activity and no private information. I don’t believe there was any hate speech or harassment; though it is possible that the line where I repeated James request to February to translate a sentence into slave dialect might be read as such. But it only could have been rejected by a machine, something that could read the words but was unable to apply context; or, at least, that is my conjecture. 

 

Artificial Intelligence has a long way to go before it can replicate the human mind and experience. But there is little question that AI will continue to change, whether for better or worse remains to be seen. It will depend on who controls the input.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”

May 15, 2024

 

“Well, we’ve made it this far.”

                                                                                                                From a list of “probable last words.”

 

The title of this essay comes from Stanley Kramer’s 1963 mad-cap comedy. With his dying words Smiler Grogan (Jimmy Durante) mentions a stash of loot buried under the “Big W.” The movie is about a bunch of crazies’ search for the money, reminding one of today’s political scene and the race for the Presidency.

 

We are not living a Hollywood film; but an alien from another planet would be excused for laughing. The ridiculousness of what is being said and done justifies a belly laugh. Writing recently in City Journal, Heather MacDonald noted: “Student protests have always been hilariously self-dramatic, but the current outbreak is particularly maudlin, in keeping with female self-pity. ‘The university would rather see us dead than divest,’ said a member of the all-female press representatives of UCLA’s solidarity encampment on X.” Yascha Mounk, an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins, wrote in a recent issue of The Spectator of some “absurdist moments” at Columbia. Student protesters demanded the university deliver food and drink to them: “When a surprised journalist asked why the university should have such an obligation towards people engaged in blatantly illegal activity, she insisted they had a moral right to ‘basic humanitarian aid.’”

 

Max Boot, writing in The Washington Post, quoted the Columbia University Apartheid Divest manifesto: “We believe in liberation. All systems of oppression are interlinked: The fates of the peoples of Palestine, Kurdistan, Sudan, Congo, Armenia, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Korea, Guam, Haiti, Hawaii, Kashmir, Cuba, Turtle Island, and other colonized bodies are interconnected.” Really? Do the citizens of Ireland, Puerto Rico and Hawaii know they are colonized? Who besides Haitians and Koreans have colonized Haiti and Korea in recent years? And Mr. Boot asks: “What the heck is Turtle Island? A quick internet search revealed that this was the name used by some indigenous groups for Central and North America.” Do wizards at Columbia expect descendants of settlers to abandon the farms, towns and cities they and their ancestors have now lived on and in – in some cases for 400 years – so progeny of those long dead can occupy them? 

 

More than seven million illegal (sorry, undocumented) migrants have crossed the southern border since Biden took office, roughly triple the number under President Trump. But this is not a crisis, according to the Biden White House. It is a “challenge,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. In other areas definitions have become confusing. Wikipedia defines a woman: “Typically, women are of the female sex.” Typically, I guess. But not always, “as their gender identity may not align with their sex assignment at birth,” Wikipedia explains. The Federal Government has threatened to withhold funds from public high schools that do not comply with new Title IX rules regarding transgender female athletes – and this is an Administration that claims to care about women’s rights! I guess they mean trans-women’s rights.

 

While officials at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities are careful to say that Social Security is not bankrupt, they add, parenthetically, that “in the unlikely event that policy makers fail to act” benefits will be cut by 25% after 2035. Congress, as we all know, is hesitant about amending this 90-year-old entitlement. Keep in mind, life expectancy in the U.S. in1935 was 62 versus 79 today. But nothing to worry about, the age for receiving benefits has risen from 65 in 1935 to 67 in 2023. However, Dan Mitchell of International Liberty predicts that Social Security’s long run shortfall is now $61.7 trillion. Even in a nation with 756 billionaires that is a lot of money. Climate Cassandras are intent on shuttering liquified natural gas exports, even as the U.S. has reduced its carbon output as a percent of GDP, largely due to natural gas replacing coal. The decision is forcing other nations to increase coal output and/or looking to enemy nations, like Russia and Iran, for their energy needs. Those like Greta Thunberg take a “let them eat cake” attitude toward third world nations who are forced to pay more for energy.

 

But what makes the times truly crazy are the choices Americans will likely have in November, when we go to the polls to elect an heir to George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan:

 

President Joe Biden – a man in early stages of dementia, a man about whom Robert Gates, Defense Secretary under President Obama, said ten years ago: “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Proving Gate’s observation, during Biden’s first term we witnessed the chaotic and costly evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021, Russia invade Ukraine and China threaten Taiwan, and now we are abandoning Israel in their Hamas-provoked war for survival. Deficits and debt have risen. Inflation is the highest it has been in forty years. Republicans are expected to nominate former President Donald Trump, a man who reminds one of a carousel barker – a man who has perhaps never read a book, one with the morals of a Billy goat and the mouth of a stevedore. He has promised recrimination against his political rivals. Democrats, however, in their battle to “save democracy,” have helped Mr. Trump, as they use undemocratic means to keep him from office. 

 

The two other minority candidates are scarier. Robert Kennedy, Jr., a scion of Camelot, is no King Arthur. He tells us his brain was eaten by a worm, which, given his antics, feels like it is true. Jill Stein, the perennial candidate of the Green Party, was recently arrested at Washington University in St. Louis for assaulting a police officer – not a good look in a country where crime is on the rise.

 

Why has this great nation fallen so low? Why have absurdities risen so high? Despite an inclination to laugh, this is not a happy time. I don’t pretend to have answers, but I believe an emphasis on identity politics – the division of the people by race, sex, religion, gender and heritage – has played a major role. As well, categorizing people as victims or oppressors is a simplified way of making some people feel good about themselves without having to take responsibility for their actions.  

 

It is a mad world, a world without a moral compass. We wander from crisis to crisis. As the centrifugal forces of today’s culture and politics increase we are pulled to the edges – some to the left and others to the right. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” wrote William Butler Yeats in his 1919 poem, “The Second Coming.” The words lend meaning to today’s absence of civility and compromise: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.”

 

Despite the craziness, there is little that is fun about the predicament in which we find ourselves – a predicament of our own construction. I don’t know about you, but I need to catch my breath and laugh. When I finish Erik Larson’s The Demon of Unrest, the story of the five months leading to the start of the Civil War, I will take up P.G. Wodehouse’s The Adventures of Sally, a book I haven’t read for several years. As Evelyn Waugh once pointed out, Wodehouse writes of a world “that cannot become dated, because it never existed.” But it is a world in which one can lose oneself, at least temporarily, a world where one laughs with the author at characters who are creations of his brilliant and pleasant mind.

 

We have made it this far; so perhaps we will survive, as the epigraph suggests. The election will take place, but then I think of the giants who have occupied the White House, and I feel a great sorrow. Maybe I will stay home, something I have never done. Probably not, though. We still have over five months to go.

"James," Percival Everett - A Review

  

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

James, Percival Everett

May 11, 2024

 

“‘And who are you?’ ‘I am James.’ ‘James what?’ ‘Just James.’”

                                                                                                                James, 2024

                                                                                                                Percival Everett (1956-)

 

Slavery is evil. It is an abomination – the degradation of one human by another. But it has been in existence for most of human existence, and it still exists in parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Estimates are that about 50 million people are enslaved today. Prior to the 19^th Century slavery was normal in most parts of the world. 

                                                                

…………………………………………………………..

 

Just as Huck was the voice in Mark Twain’s 1885 Huckleberry Finn, the enslaved (and runaway) Jim is the voice in Percival Everett’s 2024 novel, James. The setting of both books would be early 1861. Lincoln had been elected. Slavery was on the docket, as was secession. Abolitionists were ascendant in the north. Plantation owners, with their thousands of slaves, dominated politics of the south.

 

Like John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Huckleberry Finn has been (and is) banned in many schools and libraries, generally because of its racist language. While many words are offensive, they reflect the dialect of the time. A warning: Everett uses similar language. Through his character Huckleberry Finn, Twain explored conflicting values – Huck’s desire to see Jim free versus the fact that, under laws that then existed, he (Jim) was the property of another person, Miss Watson. In the end, Jim’s freedom was more important to Huck. Everett explores the inner tension of a literate man who must endure and conform to what is expected of him as a slave. 

 

Like Twain’s Jim, James is decent and empathetic. Additionally, Mr. Everett has him as well-read (through access to Judge Thatcher’s library), something, as a slave, he must hide from white people. In giving lessons to his daughter Lizzie and other children, he tells them of how “the more you talk of God and Jesus and heaven and hell, the better they feel.” The children then respond: “And the better they feel, the safer we are.” Jim then asks, “February, translate that:” She responds, “Da mo’ betta dey feels, da mo’ safer we be.” Jim replies, “Nice.” Whites, Everett infers, need to feel superior to slaves, especially when they are not. 

 

Like the original, when Jim hears that Miss Watson plans to sell him down the river, he tells his wife Sadie and daughter Lizzie that he must leave but will return to get them. For a slave to run away took courage. Free states, like Illinois across the Mississippi River, would often capture and return run-aways. Punishment was lashing or hanging. So Jim first escapes to Jackson’s Island where Huck joins him. Jim had brought with him a bag of books: “Though Huck was asleep, I could not chance his waking and discovering me with my face in an open book. But then I thought, How could he know I was actually reading? I could simply claim to be staring dumbly at the letters…” So he opens the book, and “the smell of the pages was glorious.” “In the country of Westphalia…” – he reads the opening sentence of Voltaire’s Candide. Later, while still on Jackson’s Island, Jim gets bitten by a rattle snake, and in his delirium is visited by Voltaire. He talks to him “about slavery, race and, of all things, albinism.” In another scene, Jim argues with John Locke, father of liberalism who helped write the 1669 Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina that justified slavery: “What you’re saying,” Jim retorts, “is that if someone pays you enough, it’s okay to abandon what you have claimed to understand as moral and right.” “When you put it that way,” Locke replies.

 

Percival Everett, an African American professor of English at USC, has given us Jim’s side of Huck’s story.

We meet many of the same characters we know from Huckleberry Finn: Huck, Miss Watson, Aunt Polly, Judge Thatcher, the “Duke,” the “King,” and others. Following Twain’s story, using history, compassion and humor, he offers a worthy companion to Twain’s story, highlighting the indignity and horrors of slavery.

"Wars for Survival"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Wars for Survival”

May 10, 2024

 

“But in terms of the larger picture of war, we haven’t fought for survival in a long time.”

                                                                                                Mark Helprin in an interview with Barton Swaim

                                                                                                The Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2024

 

The people of Israel and Ukraine understand what is meant by a war for survival. But those in the West have not experienced such wars for a long time. They are rare. With the exception of the Franco-Prussian War (July 1870-May 1871) Europe was generally at peace for the ninety-nine years between the Battle of Waterloo, in June 1815 and Germany’s invasion of Luxembourg and Belgium in August 1914 – both the Napoleonic wars and the two 20^thCentury’s World Wars were wars for survival.

 

Germany’s signing of the Armistice at Compiègne in November 1918 provided a reprieve but did not end Germany’s existential threat to the survival of Europe’s independent nations. Real peace did not come for another 27 years, when the Axis powers unconditionally surrendered at Reims on May 7, 1945. Now, 79 years later, a revanchist Russia is threatening the survival of Ukraine, along with other eastern European nations like Moldova and the Baltic states. Long periods of relative peace cause nations to relax, to cut defense spending, and cause people to lose the will to fight for survival.

 

Of course Nazi Germans and Imperial Japanese also fought for their survival, just as the Palestinians and their Hamas leaders fight for their survival today. Fortunately, in the 1940s, people knew who were the good guys and who the bad guys. Today we find ourselves enveloped in moral laxity with the lines betwixt good and evil blurred. In the 1940s, our fight was not with the German or Japanese people but with those who led them. Today, Israel and Ukraine’s fight is not with the Palestinian or Russian people, but with their political leaders – Hamas’ and Iran’s despotic leaders, and Putin and his cronies. 

 

During its almost 250 years, the United States has fought twelve major wars – and many others, mostly against native Americans – but only three were critical to its survival: the Revolution, the Civil War, and the Second World War. The fact that wars for survival are rare means that when they come nations and individuals are often ill-prepared and unmindful of the sacrifices that will have to be made. The idea of a mother having her 18-year-old son go off to war is something we can hardly imagine. Yet, it is what mothers did in the early 1940s, and it is what mothers in Israel and Ukraine are doing today. It is a subject Tolkien, a veteran of the Great War’s trenches, addressed in The Fellowship of the Ring: “‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’” 

 

Israel and Ukraine are fighting wars for survival. Neither wants more land or to impose their values on their neighbors. They are fighting to maintain their independence and to keep their way of life. Iran and its proxies have said they want to annihilate Israel, not shrink its borders. Putin has not gone that far with Ukraine, but the analogy of a camel getting its nose under the tent applies. To the extent that Israel and Ukraine are our allies we have a duty to support them in their existential wars.

 

Israel is not a colonialist power. Over three quarters of a century it has created a thriving democracy on land from which their ancestors came. Today they combat forces that want to drive them from their land. Former Iranian president Rafsanjani called Israel “a one-bomb state,” that one nuclear weapon could erase Jewish civilization. Palestinians speak of the “River to the Sea,” effectively extinguishing the state of Israel. Israelis fight for their survival. If Rafah is not taken Hamas, a political party elected by Palestinians to govern Gaza, will survive, and threats to Israel will persist. 

 

Ukraine was once part of the Russian empire and later part of the Soviet Union. In 1991 the nation drafted a declaration of independence, which received overwhelming support in a public referendum, and it was recognized as an independent state that year. It now fights to keep its independence. Yet Putin has said that Ukraine is an “aberration that doesn’t really exist.” He considers it a province of Russia and a country whose language should be obliterated. Should we help them? If we do not, does anyone think Putin will stop with Ukraine? 

 

The forces of despotism, developed in and emanating from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, are aligned against the concepts of self-government, individual freedom and open markets. Apart from the United States, there is no country that can take the lead in support of the democratic principles that have governed the West, principles that have served us so well for so long.

 

Almost 95% of Americans alive today were born after 1945. So it is no surprise that it is difficult for the U.S., which has not had to fight for survival since World War II, to understand how important it is to be prepared for the unexpected. Had the Nazis conquered Europe, as seemed possible in early 1942, or had Japan conquered much of Asia, as also seemed possible at the same time, how different the last seven decades would have been for the world. Would Israel exist? Would Ukraine be an independent country? Would speech in the UK and the U.S. be free? Would women have equal rights? Would standards of living be as high as they are? Would students at UCLA or Columbia be able to protest? The questions are hypothetical, but the answers would probably be no.

 

Empires and nations have no guarantees. History is littered with examples of those that failed. The free world, led by the U.S., will not survive if it lacks the means and the will to defend what it has built. China is a threat. With its totalitarian regime, it has brought 150 countries into its 2013 Belt & Road Initiative – a global infrastructure development strategy – including seventeen countries in Latin America. China is no longer a threat limited to the Pacific. A war for our survival may be in the offing. Choices will have to be made, choices requiring a strong defense and moral guidance.

 

We who live in the West are fortunate, as we are heirs to those who fought and died so that we are free. With China, and its satellites in Russia, Iran and North Korea, intent on global domination, we cannot forget that democracy is fragile and that freedom is not free, that a strong defense is the best offense, and that we have an obligation to pass on what we have received to those who follow us. That means we must be prepared to defend our freedoms from those who would take them from us. We are not now in a war for survival, but we could be in a few years. We must realize the stakes involved; we must appreciate history and recognize that the West is unique.

"Debt"

 

I do not claim expertise about U.S. Treasuries, nor about any fixed income securities. And I am not an economist; so there are those that may argue with some of my assertions and conclusions. Nevertheless, I worry as to what the unprecedented period of exceptionally low interest rates we experienced, beginning in the wake of the 2008 credit crisis and then re-adopted during the Pandemic, may have done to our attitudes toward debt.

 

By the way, if you get a chance Google Daniel Hannan and his March 24, 2009 speech to the European Parliament, the speech from which the rubric heading this essay comes. In the speech he eviscerates the British Prime minister Gordon Brown, as only an English Parliamentarian is able.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Debt”

May 3, 2024

 

“You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.”

                                                                                                                                Daniel Hannan (1971-)

                                                                                                                                British Member of European Parliament

                                                                                                                                Speech, March 24, 2009

 

Many problems we face make the front pages, and deservedly so: seven and a half million illegals through our southern border over the past three years; A Messianic belief that man alone is responsible for climate change; pro-Palestine and anti-Semites protesting on college campuses for misogynistic Hamas; rising crime; an aggressive China and revisionist Russia; a domestic education system that focuses on identity politics rather than fundamentals of learning; a belief that equal outcomes should replace equality of opportunities; and that energy inflation can be cured by controlling prices and limiting supplies. With that, debt and deficits are relegated to the back pages.

 

………………………………………………………………

 

Yet too much debt moves the hands of the doomsday clock closer to midnight. However, when entered into judiciously, debt can be a good thing. Mortgages, auto loans, and the purchase of appliances on time have allowed consumers to live lifestyles unavailable to their forebearers. Student loans, when not overwhelming, lead to improved earnings. We should, however, live within our means. As for the state – a nation must be able to keep secure its people and its principles. As well, it must be able to fund infrastructure projects and other necessary expenses. Because the state has the ability to print its currency, living with a balanced budget, while preferable, is not necessary.

 

However, when too much leverage is employed – examples being NYSE margin requirements of 10% in the 1920s and reduced/no-down-payments on housing in the 2000s – debt leads to a collapse in pricing and a loss in values. When incomes fail to keep pace with debt accumulation, risks of bankruptcies rise, as happened in 2023 when bankruptcies reached a 13-year high. And when a nation’s spending causes it to raise taxes to a level that inhibits, or limits, economic growth, everyone suffers. 

 

Over the past several years, we have become addicted to low interest rates, which encourage borrowing and discourage savings. After years of near-zero Fed Fund rates, following the 2008 credit crisis and despite 23 subsequent quarters of positive GDP growth, the Fed only began to raise rates in the 4^th quarter of 2015. With the advent of Covid in the first quarter of 2020, the Fed again lowered the rate to near zero, which is where it remained for two years, until the second quarter of 2022, despite strong GDP growth in 2021. When inflation became a problem the Fed raised its benchmark rate. Now, despite inflation still running ahead of the Fed’s target, many are urging the Federal Reserve to lower rates before year end. And perhaps they will. Politically it is tempting, especially in an election year. However, consequences of years of exceptionally low interest rates include government bloat, an increase in debt, a rise in asset prices, and inflation – an unsustainable burden on our children and grandchildren, a burden they will have to bear. 

 

Between 2003 and 2022 total household debt almost doubled, rising from $8.3 trillion to $16.4 trillion, while median household income rose 13%, from $65,860 to $74,580. These numbers are disturbing, but it is what happened at the national level that is of more concern. In 2000 federal debt was $5.63 trillion, a little more than half of that year’s GDP of $10.3 trillion. Twenty-three years later, federal debt stood at $32.99 trillion, while GDP in 2023 was $27.4 trillion – the first time since World War II that federal debt exceeded GDP. Interest expense on that debt in 2023 was $659 billion, or about two percent. Should interest rates remain at current levels (4.6% on the 10-year and 5.00% on the 2-year) interest expense will more than double over the next three to four years. Of course with continued deficit spending total debt will increase, further raising interest costs. Since both political parties have contributed to deficits and debt, the outlook is daunting. Neither party offers solutions.

 

In contrast, consider the immediate post-War years: In 1945 the U.S. generated $250 billion in GDP, with national debt of $258 billion. Fifteen years later, GDP had more than doubled to $543.3 billion, while debt had increased less than 50% to $382.6 billion. According to Trading Economics, GDP growth averaged four percent in the 1950s. Since the start of the new century, GDP growth has averaged about two percent. 

 

So, what are the risks? For one: In an August 7, 2011 interview on Meet the Press, Alan Greenspan said the issue was not one of credit rating: “The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.” The risk, rather, is Milton Friedman’s “hidden tax”– continuing inflation. A second risk is higher taxes to pay for swollen government, an impediment to economic growth as high taxes limit returns on investment. A third risk is increased regulation, which hinders innovation. Adding to fiscal and economic problems has been a dearth of births. Economic growth is dependent on innovative products and services, productivity gains driven by technology, an increase in purchasing power of a nation’s consumers…and growth in the nation’s population.

 

The latter is a concern and a risk. In 2023, in the U.S., there were 3.6 million births and 3.46 million deaths – a year in which America’s birthrate hit a new low, with a total fertility rate (an estimate of the number of children a woman is expected to give birth to over her lifetime) of 1.62. A total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.1 is needed to keep population steady, absent immigrants. As China has discovered, a low TFR is difficult to reverse. So our future population growth will be dependent on immigration, suggesting to this observer that what is needed is a two-to-three fold increase in legal immigration, along with a closing of our southern border. Illegal immigration, over the past three years, has amounted to over two million per year. While some of these people will become productive residents, most incur costs. Legal immigrants, according to the National Immigration Forum, number about a million per year. Most of these people, many of whom have waited years to become citizens, add almost immediately to our nation’s economic growth.

 

Solutions to problems do not usually announce themselves in advance, so perhaps there is a way out of the quagmire in which we find ourselves. Nevertheless, smooth sailing does not seem to be in our immediate future. Federal debt (forget unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) exceeds GDP, with deficits continuing to expand, and with interest rates having returned to, historically, more normal levels. The Administration is adamant about writing more rules, increasing regulations and placing further restrictions on fossil-fuel energy production and distribution, all of which will increase costs to consumers. To pay for their expansion of government, they talk of raising taxes which will disincentivize investment and savings. Added to this unhappy picture are the demographic challenges we, and most of the West, face. It is hard to be Panglossian about the world we will leave for our children and grandchildren.