"A Cauldron of Challenges"

Yesterday, a grandson, a graduate student in 20^th Century European history, texted me a copy of the front page from the October 1, 1938 New York Times: “Czech Rulers Bow, But Under Protest.” British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had returned to London from meeting Hitler in Munich the previous day, declaring that, in offering Germany Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland he had brought “peace in our time.” My grandson was reminded of that event after President Trump’s urged Ukraine’s President Zelensky to give up Crimea to Russia.   

 

…………………………………………………………

 

While Francis was not my favorite Pope, there is no question that he was a compassionate man, especially to the poor and those unable to care for themselves. However, his allowing China’s Communist Party to select (or approve) Bishops I thought was wrong, but Francis may have concluded that it was the only way the Church could exist in that despotic, secular country. I also have long felt that like so many Socialists, Francis failed to credit capitalism as being the principal (albeit imperfect) force in reducing poverty. One has only to compare life in the Democratic and capitalist West with the Socialist world.

 

Nevertheless, I wish him eternal life, and, having watched the movie Conclave, I eagerly await the results of next month’s Conclave.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“A Cauldron of Challenges”

April 25, 2025

 

“Double, double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

                                                                                                                Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1 (1606)

                                                                                                                William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

 

“The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

                                                                                                                Attributed to Socrates (c. 469 BC – 399 BC)

 

President Trump has achieved a few goals. Border crossings by illegal migrants have declined by close to ninety percent. Military recruitment is up, with Army recruitment at 15-year highs. DOGE has exposed waste and fraud in many government agencies, and woke ideology is on the run. And, unlike the Biden years, we know who is in charge at the White House. 

 

But in other respects Mr. Trump has been less successful. He is wrong, in my opinion, when he calls for the capitulation of Ukraine, and when he advocates for tariffs – a tax on American consumers. His on-again-off-again tariffs have wreaked havoc with the stock market, weakened the dollar, and caused a pause in the economy. A weak dollar would result in higher interest rates for U.S. Treasuries. While illegal migration poses cultural and dependency risks, globalization and a strong dollar have raised living standards, as the cost of consumables, measured in hours worked, have declined over the decades, due to manufacturing being done where it is most cost efficient, along with technological innovations. Stronger education standards, secure borders, and a tax code that encourages innovation and investment are what is needed, not barriers to free trade. And I fail to understand Mr. Trump’s love affair with cryptocurrencies.

 

……………………………………………………

 

This essay focuses on a few of the challenges we face. (There are, obviously, many others). Shakespeare’s three witches had filled their cauldron with fillets of fenny snakes, eyes of Newts, tongues of dogs, and other such delicacies, but the cauldron of which I write is filled with threats: federal debt and unfunded liabilities at record levels; interest rates that encourage borrowing and discourage savings; public schools that don’t educate; declining birthrates – a world-wide phenomenon; an imperialistic China; a revanchist Russia; a soon-to-be nuclear armed Iran; and, I would argue, an absence of moral judgement. 

 

As a percent of GDP, today’s federal debt exceeds the level reached in 1945 when it peaked at 121.2%. Then, the United States financed a large portion of the Allies needs to fight a global war. Currently, the debt to GDP ratio stands around 122%, and is estimated to rise further, as a projected $1.3 trillion deficit for fiscal 2025 will be added to the current $36.2 trillion in U.S. federal debt. Today, more than half the federal budget is spent on entitlements. None of this debt, of course, includes an estimated $73 trillion in unfunded liabilities, principally from Medicare and Social Security. The reason that deficits continue to increase is simple – we spend more than we take in. Resolution can only lie with higher taxes or reduced spending, or a combination of the two. Reduced spending penalizes recipients of government largesse. Increased taxes inhibit economic growth. Will anyone in Washington address this problem? 

 

Low interest rates encourage consumption and speculation, and they discourage savings. When Treasury rates are only a percent or two above inflation they offer little incentive, apart for foreigners who benefit (or have benefitted) from the strong dollar, which explains why they currently own about one third of all U.S. Treasuries publicly held. If Mr. Trump is successful, in achieving a weaker dollar one can expect foreign investors to fade. If they do, rates will rise, as domestic investors will demand higher returns. 

 

Thomas Jefferson believed that for a society to be self-governed it had to be “educated and free-thinking.” Yet, according to Pacific Research Institute 43% of high school students in the U.S. graduate illiterate and innumerate. A debate between Republicans and Democrats over whether boys can play on girls sports’ teams and use their bathrooms may be worth having, but it should not detract from the fact that not all our children are being taught to read, write and do simple arithmetic. Superintendents and principals need to be able to fire non-performing teachers, without fear of retribution from teachers’ unions.

 

Attention must be paid to the demographic crisis soon to confront us. Total Fertility Rates (TFR) measure the average number of children a woman is expected to bear in her lifetime. A TFR of 2.1 represents replacement rate. For the last fifty years, the TFR in the U.S. has been below replacement. Today, the TFR in the U.S. stands at 1.76. And during the last fifty years, the average age in the U.S. has risen from 27.6 to 38.5, even as the population increased by better than 50%, or about130 million. A little more than a third of that increase reflects legal immigrants. Additionally, current population numbers include illegal migrants. Nevertheless, births in the U.S. outnumbered deaths by approximately 380,000 in 2023. However, declining birthrates and an aging population pose economic and social risks. In the EU the situation is dire. Deaths outnumber births by more than a million, and the TFR for 2024 is estimated to have been 1.4, with the median age having risen from 31.3 to 42.5 over the past fifty years. Birthrates below replacement, with increasing longevity will have economic consequences, yet politicians and the media seem to care little about what could become a monumental challenge. “Attention must be paid,” as Linda Loman says to her husband in Death of a Salesman.

 

Overseas, China dominates the Pacific and is making inroads in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East through its Belt & Road initiatives. Putin’s Russia seems determined to restore its Tsarist boundaries, while Iran and North Korea threaten the peace in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. U.S. defense spending, as a percent of the federal budget, has declined from 24.3% in 1980 to 13.5% in 2024. At the same time interest expense in 1980, when the Ten-Year yielded 11.4%, has risen from 8.8% to 13.2%, even as the yield on the Ten-Year has fallen to 4.2%. World peace demands a militarily strong United States.

 

………………………………………………….

 

If blame for the challenges cited above were allocated fairly among our two political parties, there would be no one to manage government. Playing to the choir and grabbing headlines is more important than debating controversial subjects. If Diogenes were to wander the streets of Washington searching for an honest politician, he would have better luck looking for a Rainbow Eucalyptus Tree on the Tibetan Plateau.

 

Perhaps I exaggerate the threats. We have been in tight spots in the past – obviously during the Civil War, but also in the 1960s, when Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement caused bloody protests, campus shootings and assassinations. Nevertheless, today’s divisiveness is disturbing. We need as President a Lincoln-like figure, an individual capable of uniting the diverse strands of our people, a person with humor and possessed of moral certitude based on the Judeo-Christian heritage on which our nation was built.

 

After all, we are the United States. Surely such an individual must exist…somewhere in this great Country.

"Watch What They Do"

 What sort of a moral sense inhabits the souls of presidents and trustees of some of the nation’s most elite colleges and universities where anti-Semitic student protestors have been allowed to terrify and physically harm Jewish students, block entrances to university buildings, and chant for the annihilation of Israel? These people head institutions that are supposed to help form future leaders. God help us if they do not uphold the values for which they claim to stand.

 

On the other hand, my normal cynicism toward Washington politicians was tempered this past weekend, when the House, under Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) passed three separate bills to support Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and a fourth bill that would seize frozen Russian assets and force a sale of Chinese-owned TikTok. Democrat House Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) deserves congratulations for his help in this bi-partisan show of support for these important pieces of legislation. The United States has been singularly positioned as the leader of the free world for more than a century. With size comes responsibility – not to impose our way of life on others, but to provide a vision of what is possible when the individual is the basis of a “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” If we relinquish that role, the world will be worse off.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Watch What They Do”

April 24, 2024

 

“Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.”

                                                                                                                Think Like a Freak, 2014

                                                                                                                Steven D. Levitt (1967-)

                                                                                                                Stephen J. Dubner (1963-)

 

It is said that Diogenes, an obviously odd but intelligent man who lived around 400BC, went about Athens’ marketplace with a lamp during the daytime. He claimed to be looking for an honest man. Apparently, he had little luck. We might well assume that a similarly futile search could be made in the nation’s Capital at any time of day. Politicians lie. So it is what they do that should galvanize our attention.

 

Lying is endemic and not limited to politicians. We all tell lies, or “white” lies as we euphemistically call them. Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf warned that when persistent liars do tell the truth, no one believes them – a lesson that politicians, reporters and others should learn. In the 19^th Century, Carlo Collodi of Florence, the pen name for Carlo Lorenzini, gave us the story of the sentient wooden puppet Pinocchio whose nose grew longer when he lied. Sadly, lying noses do not lengthen among those in Washington today. Rather, they believe Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister who said that if a lie is repeated often enough it is perceived as truth – like telling the public that only adherence to a Democrat-led agenda will save the planet from destruction. Climate change is a fact. The planet’s climate has changed thousands of times over millions of years. It will continue to do so. But people’s behavior is just one cause. 

 

While the media has been filled with Donald Trump’s lies, exaggerations and transgressions – and, certainly, Trump is a notorious liar – lying comes naturally to most of those who become politicians. It was Joe Biden who told the world he was arrested when visiting a jailed Nelson Mandela, that his uncle was eaten by cannibals in the Pacific during the Second World War, that he visited “Ground Zero” on September 12, 2001, and, to a Teamsters meeting, that he once drove tractor trailers. Mr. Biden, of course, has the excuse that he is “an elderly man with a poor memory.”

 

There have been other colorful examples: Nine months before he resigned on August 7, 1974 over the Watergate break-in, President Nixon told a group of reporters: “I am not a crook.” President Clinton on January 26, 1998, referring to White House intern Monica Lewinsky, declared: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” On September 5, 2002, President Bush told the American people that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.” And President Obama, on June 6, 2009, said, referring to his proposed federal takeover of healthcare: “If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor too. The only change you’ll see are falling costs as reforms take hold.” 

 

But consider some of what they did: One of the five “plumbers” (James W. McCord) who broke into the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972 was a member of Nixon’s Committee to Reelect the President. Stains on the blue dress worn by Ms. Lewinsky suggested a definitional difference in the words “sexual relations.” Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. And, according to the Peterson Center on Healthcare, the cost for medical care services has risen 49.6% since June 2009, double the rate of consumer prices.

 

Today, we are told that the southern border is secure, yet according to The Washington Post “illegal border crossings have averaged 2 million per year since 2021, the highest level ever.” We are told of extraordinary job creations in the past three years, yet part of the rise has been an increase in part-time employment, as the ratio between full-time and part-time has narrowed since mid-2023. As well, part of the job increases are due to growth in government jobs. J.P. Morgan reported that government jobs gained 56,000 per month in 2023, more than double the monthly gain of 23,000 in 2022. On April 10, President Biden was quoted: “…inflation has fallen more than 60% from its peak…” While that was true, it is also true that in March of this year, the CPI came in at 0.4%, double the Federal Reserve’s benchmark.

 

On September 29, 2023, speaking at the Atlantic Festival in Washington, D.C., Jake Sullivan, America’s National Security Advisor, rattled off a list of positive developments in the Middle East, a result of Biden’s policies: “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” Eight days later Iran’s proxy Hamas, headquartered in Gaza, launched an unprovoked attack on Israeli citizens, raping, mutilating and killing 1,200 civilians. Mr. Sullivan, in his comments, conveniently ignored the devastating withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the pursuit of Obama’s Iran Deal, which has allowed Iran to pursue their atomic program, and the reluctance to pursue the Abraham Accords, which had been leading to Sunni Muslims’ recognition of Israel.  

 

We are told that democracy is at risk, if the despised Donald Trump is re-elected. No one doubts that the continuation of our democratic republic is vital to all Americans. But does the much-watched Trump represent the sole risk to democracy? Is there not a risk from those who have gradually (and insidiously) strengthened the Executive branch, especially from those who believe that government knows best? Democracy has proven to be the most equitable political system ever contrived, largely because it incorporates free market capitalism, which provides the economic growth necessary for a nation’s operations, defense, and its social welfare programs. But markets work most efficiently when regulations do not impede innovation and when taxes do not limit investment. Consider what has been done and what is proposed: Forbes reported on December 29 that 2023 that the Federal Register, the daily depository of rules and regulations, wrapped up 2023 with 90,402 pages, “…the second highest tally of all time.” On March 11, President Biden sent Congress his proposed 2025 budget, which calls for a $5 trillion increase in taxes, to come from corporations and individuals making over $400,000 per annum. Barriers to economic growth, whether from regulations or taxes, have unfavorable consequences for all citizens.

 

Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that lies are sometimes necessary. For example, in time of war lies can deceive the enemy, or they can be used to withhold the truth from those near death and who are emotionally fragile. It may be more ethical to lie to help a friend save face in public; and secrets, whether corporate, institutional or government, to remain secret may involve fabrications or even, God forbid, fake news. There have been times when Presidents have had to lie to the public in the interest of national security.

 

But none of these examples exonerate politicians who lie to curry favor, to harvest votes, to further political careers, or to those in the media who aid their ignoble political friends by obscuring facts. Hannah Arendt, a refugee from the deadliest of European lies, once wrote that perhaps political deception is the greatest threat. In a recent Wall Street Journal review of Richard Sennett’s new book, The Performer, Barton Swaim quoted from Yuval Levin’s 2020 book, A Time to Build: “…the presidency and Congress are just stages for political performance art; when a university becomes a venue for vain virtue signaling, when journalism is indistinguishable from activism – they become harder to trust. They aren’t really asking for our confidence, just for our attention.” Sadly, that seems to be true.

 

In 1969, Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell said: “Watch what we do, not what we say.” We did. You know the rest.

"Integrity"

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Integrity”

May 1, 2023

 

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

                                                                                                                                Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

                                                                                                                                “Self-Reliance”

                                                                                                                                Essays: First Series, 1841

 

This essay was prompted by former deputy director of the CIA (2010-2013) Michael Morrell’s interview with House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH). In that interview Morell said he had phoned Antony Blinken in October 2020 about the Hunter Biden laptop story, which had appeared in the New York Post on October 14, 2020. A consequence of that call was that a few days before the 2020 election fifty-one former intelligence officers signed a public letter (a letter prepared by Morrell), which claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop story had all the classic earmarks of a Russian disinformation operation. As those officials have since acknowledged, the letter was written without any evidence of Russian involvement; yet those intelligence officers chose to propagate a false story to help Presidential candidate Joe Biden. Reporters from mainstream media were provided an out from having to follow up on the Hunter Biden laptop story. Integrity, where art thou? 

 

Why, I wondered, would someone with Antony Blinken’s pedigree stoop to such a dirty trick?  At the time he was a senior advisor to the Biden campaign, with hopes of a position in a Biden administration. And why would fifty-one former intelligence officers do something that may have affected the outcome of a Presidential election? Is integrity as rare among Washington’s bureaucracy as it is among elected officials?

 

When I first thought of Mr. Blinken, a man raised in privilege – educated at the Dalton School, École Jeannine Manuel, Harvard, and Columbia – abetting the manipulation of an election, my mind went to Eugene Field’s nursery rhyme, “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” only with names and words changed:

 

Biden, Blinken, and Harris

Sailed off in the Ship of State;

Sailed onward toward Utopia,

On a sea of deceit.

And what is your goal, voters did ask?

We have come for the power and glory,

And the gold that will follow,

Said Biden, Blinken, and Harris.

 

Politics and honesty have never mixed. One is reminded of Diogenes searching for an honest man. In his 1880 book, A Tramp Abroad (based on a trip to Southern Europe) Mark Twain wrote: “An honest man in politics shines more than he would elsewhere.” Twenty-six years later, Ambrose Bierce published The Devil’s Dictionary. In it he defined politics: “n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” Written in humor but highlighting a truism.

 

Most politicians, I fear, will never meet Webster’s definition of integrity: “The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.” This is not to say that there are no honest politicians, but, as a species, they are endangered. You are more likely to see an ivory-billed woodpecker out your window than an honest politician on Pennsylvania Avenue. They fabricate, dissemble, and tell half-truths. Elected politicians are accountable to voters, but they evade responsibility for bad decisions. They are masters of illusion and obfuscation. In his taped message announcing his re-election plans, President Biden said he wanted to “finish the job,” a frightening thought. Consider the examples these people set for our children – they lie, blame the other guy, procrastinate, and never take responsibility for bad outcomes. 

 

How will we disengage from this dank and dismal place? Finding honest politicians or government bureaucrats is a dream unlikely to be realized. Extrication may never be possible but if it is, it must lie with the media and education. The former could report facts and leave opinions to editorial pages. The latter could teach students to think independently. A reporter should be interested in uncovering the truth, regardless of where it leads. Will that happen? In today’s polarized environment, doubtful. The better solution – though also a stretch – lies with schools, colleges, and universities where students should be taught to think independently, to study facts, appreciate nuances, and then form and defend their own opinions. Sy Syms used to say, when hawking off-price clothes, “an educated consumer is our best customer.” Similarly, an educated citizen is the best way to keep democracy from collapsing. The most effective response to social media, biased reporting, and hypocritical politicians, is the ability to think for oneself, to read, listen, and to question. That may be wishful thinking, but it is our only hope.

 

Integrity is a personal trait, difficult to practice when society’s emphasis is on conformity; for example, being asked to put one’s signature on a letter that includes a false statement. Employees are warned about using correct pronouns; conservatives are banned from speaking at universities; universities have substituted social justice for merit. Individuals are subjugated to the state, as mandates are issued regarding gasoline-powered cars and as we are told how much electricity must come from renewable sources. Thrift is penalized; under Fannie Mae’s and Freddy Mac’s new rules, those with higher credit scores will be charged higher interest rates, so that people with lower scores can secure mortgages at lower rates – the socialization of credit risk, as The Wall Street Journal put it. Unnecessary government interferences impede free markets; regulations imposed by the Biden administration have had an estimated cost to the economy of over $200 billion, according to the Washington Examiner. Sensitivity readers are employed by publishers to ensure harmful words are eradicated. But perhaps there is hope? At the Time 100 summit last week in New York, Steven Spielberg spoke out against political correctness in the film industry: “No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are either voluntarily or being forced to peer through.” 

 

Technology is changing our lives, with so many “cultural and political earthquakes testing the cohesion of our society,” as Walter Russell Mead recently wrote in Tablet Magazine, that we need the guidance which fundamental principles provide. Integrity is one of those virtues, along with tolerance, fortitude, diligence, charity, humility, and others. In Emerson’s essay, from which the rubric above was taken, he wrote of the “need for each individual to avoid uniformity and false consistency and follow his own instincts and ideas.” In Hamlet, Polonius offered similar advice to his son Laertes: “To thine own self be true.”

 

Eisenhower is alleged to have once said: “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity.” It is a characteristic missing in almost all public figures, in the media, large corporations, banks and, perhaps most damaging, in schools, colleges and universities. Without principles to guide us, darkness prevails.