"The Great Disruptor - Part II"

It has been more than two weeks since my last TOTD. We have a new Pope and, it would appear, a trade deal with England. The Bank of England cut rates by a quarter of a point, while the Fed stood pat. U.S. 1^st quarter GDP contracted by 0.3% and the DJIA has recovered over 1,000 points of the 2,000 points it lost. I bought a new iPhone and was told there had been no increase in price, because it had been shipped from India. Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and the Palestinians are still at odds. Iran inches closer to a nuclear weapon, while her neighbor Pakistan and India – two nuclear powers – are exchanging blows. At the risk of sounding sexist, I wish we could put Marjorie Taylor Greene in a ring with Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. One against two should offer even odds. Better yet, maybe they would wear one another out!

It is not for a paucity of news that I have been silent, but because I have been working on other projects.

 

In any event, I hope you enjoy this offering.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“The Great Disruptor – Part II”[1]

May 12, 2025

 

“Influential people are never satisfied with the status quo. They’re the ones who constantly

ask, “What if?’ and ‘Why not?’ They’re not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom and 

they don’t disrupt things for the sake of being disruptive; they do it to make things better.”

                                                                                                                                Travis Bradberry, PhD.

                                                                                                                                World Economic Forum

                                                                                                                                April 3, 2017

 

Creative destruction is a school in economics, popularized by Joseph Schumpeter[2], that explains the process by which innovation obsoletes older processes, equipment and products. While disruptive in the short term, it is the driving force for long term economic growth and progress. In Scenes from American Life: Contemporary Short Fiction (1973), Joyce Carol Oates wrote: “It is only through disruption and confusion that we grow, jarred by the collision of someone else’s private world with our own.” On November 5, 2011 in an op-ed in London’s The Guardian, Naomi Wolf noted: “Democracy is disruptive…there is no right in a democratic civil society to be free of disruption.”

 

Disruption is the antidote to complacency, the enemy of innovation, and it is challenging to those of the status quo – those whom we call the “establishment.” However, disruption is not always good. We can think of dozens of instances – a child throwing food at the table; protestors shutting down university classes; strikers blocking the entrance to a grocery store. But throughout history, progress has thrived on disruption. We see the beginnings of such positive disruption in Washington today: addressing the border crisis, eliminating fraud and waste embedded in federal bureaucracies and confronting anti-Semitism on college campuses. On the other hand, we are also witness to negative disruption: the, seemingly random, use of tariffs by President Trump and belittling comments about allies by Vice President Vance. 

 

That President Trump is a disruptive force is a fact universally accepted. The question we and the world face: Is President Trump a disruptive force for good or bad? “There are times,” Karl Zinsmeister, White House chief domestic policy director 2006-2009, wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal, “when some messy political demolition and noisy rebuilding are necessary.” Is this such a time? I believe it is.

 

To many there is much that needs to change: The porous southern border, which has recently been tightened. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability put the number of illegal migrant crossings at 8 million during the Biden years, with 6.7 million crossing along the southwestern border. And those migrants brought in an estimated 50,000 lbs. of fentanyl. Air Traffic Control (ATC), under the purview of Congress, obviously needs fixing. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has promised to revamp the technology. Culturally, a preference for DEI came to dominate schools and colleges; it is divisive in that it emphasizes identity politics, Wokeness, racial discrimination and transgenderism, while de-emphasizing family, church, community, and school choice. Banning books is despicable, no matter one’s politics. Yet books like Gender Queer,prohibited by the Right, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, forbidden by the Left, have been banned by schools and libraries. Federal debt has spiraled from $5.7 trillion in 2000 to $35.5 trillion in 2024. Interest expense last year exceeded defense spending and will continue to do so. Excessive regulation inhibits innovation and productivity. In 2024, the Biden Administration finalized 3,248 new rules, 124 of which will each have an estimated impact on the economy of at least $200 million, a record according to a study by George Washington University. Excluding the military, the federal workforce is approximately three million, a third larger than it was twenty-five years ago, with increased costs and diminished accountability. Our military needs revamping. The U.S. Navy lost more than a third of its fleet between 2000 and 2024, a loss of 172 naval vessels. Today, China’s 370 naval vessels compare to our 296 naval ships. China dominates the western Pacific. That situation needs to change. 

 

Will President Trump and his team shake up Washington in a positive way? Certainly, the opportunity is there for “creative destruction.” But alienating allies, praising dictators and randomly imposing tariffs, and what Karl Zinsmeister called the “flaming hubris and overreach” of the Trump era may prevent that from happening. 

 

While disruption may be the right prescription to our current polarized political state, any reform should be guided by principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence and in the words of our Constitution. It should take into consideration the inviolable bases for our Republic: the rule of law, the separation of powers, and government that is “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

 

Only history will answer the question as to whether President Trump’s disruptive ways will prove good or bad. There are no Pythia’s on the slopes of a modern day Parnassus. Regardless and in my opinion our government, with its ever-expanding bureaucracy, has strayed from our Founders desire for limited government and a belief in the fundamental rights of the individual. A disruptor is what Washington needs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                

 

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[1] This TOTD is titled “The Great Disruptor – Part II” because it follows a January 20, 2019 TOTD titled “The Great Disruptor.” In that essay, I began with a re-cap of Hans Christian Anderson’s tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” which tells of how a credulous people can be taken in by a false narrative, until truth is revealed in a disruptive manner.

[2] Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction, Thomas McCraw, 2010

"Europe - One Man's Perspective"

 Yesterday’s violent sell-off was a reminder to recall Benjamin Graham’s advice: “In the short run the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.”

 

I don’t pretend to have any insights as to the future direction of stocks, but I would caution against quick judgments. A grandson, a graduate student, born in 2001, asked me yesterday if he should be concerned about the market. While we should always be alert, ‘concerned’ was too strong a word. I told him that the compounded annual price return of the DJIA, since he was born, was about 6%, roughly the same annualized return since I was born 84 years ago. Not that that means anything, other than to suggest stocks may be fairly priced, but one has to expect volatility. Stocks can become overvalued, just as they can become undervalued. Five years ago, the market acted violently to the outbreak of COVID. In March of that year 20 days out of 23 trading days had the DJIA up or down more than 1.5%. On March 12, the Index was down 10%; the next day it was up 9.4%. Uncertainty leads to volatility, but long-term investors have always benefitted by the magic of compounded returns – that the market, in the short term, is a voting machine, but in the long term it is a weighing machine.

 

Now, on to today’s TOTD, which has nothing to do with the market.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Europe – One Man’s Perspective”

April 4, 2025

 

“Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.”

                                                                                                                                Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

                                                                                                                                British Prime Minister, 1979-1990

 

I remember my first trip to England, looking out from the plane’s window at the island’s green fields, thinking that it was from this place that most of my ancestors sailed westward across the Atlantic to a new world. Most were poor, traveling as indentured servants, but endowed with a belief in the promise of a new start in a new world. They were driven by optimism, a belief that an unknown future in a strange country would be better than what was ordained for them at home. It was with a sense of wonder and pride in their courage that I gazed at a land that, had they not emigrated, I might have called home.

 

However, what prompted this essay were recent condescending remarks of Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In his February 14^th speech in Munich, Mr. Vance said, “What I worry about is the threat from within.” While I am sympathetic to the idea of the threat from within – a failure to focus on economic growth, anti-democratic attempts to silence opposing opinions (for example, the extraordinary treatment of Marime Le Pen), and the failure of most European nations to assimilate hordes of migrants seeking refuge, and the consequence of their impact on culture. However, his patronizing tone unnecessarily imperils our relationship with Europe. And the comments by Vance and Hegseth, relayed by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, from what is now being called “SignalGate:” Vance: “I just hate bailing Europe out again.” Hegseth: “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s pathetic.” While it is true that most European countries have not complied, until recently, with the two percent rule for defense contributions, most have increased their spending since then President Trump made a fuss in 2017. They should give credit where credit is due

 

Americans should be careful about belittling old allies. The United States – for better or worse – is far different than Europe. More than a hundred and fifty years ago, Henry James wrote to Harvard professor Charles Eliot Norton: “It’s a complex fate being an American & one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting a superstitious valuation of Europe.” Unlike Europe, where migrants mostly live segregated lives, years of assimilation in the U.S. have produced a multi-cultural population, so that almost all Americans, whether white, black or Asian, can trace part of their ancestry to one country (or several) in Europe.

 

And consider what Europe has gifted us over the Centuries: Artists like Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Constable and Picasso. Writers like Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, and Dante Alighieri. Composers like Bach, Vivaldi, Debussy and Tchaikovsky. Scientists like Archimedes, Galileo, Darwin, Einstein and Enrico Fermi. Thinkers and philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle to Adam Smith, Voltaire and Nietzsche. Think of the palaces, museums and cathedrals designed by architects like Louis le Vau, Bernini, Juan de Villanueva and Christopher Wren.

 

These are gifts from the past that keep on giving, as can be heard in any symphony, seen in every museum, and read in libraries and classrooms. But what about the present and the future? The European Union is a worthwhile experiment. Keep in mind, the Continent was embroiled in two world wars in the 20^th Century. Peaceful coexistence is better than war. But there remains much that is unknown. Will a united Europe retain the customs, cultures and languages of their individual states? Or will it become an amorphous mixing bowl? George Washington once, allegedly, forecast: “Someday, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.” I hope so.

 

During the Cold War, Western Europe and the United States were united in their pledge to defeat the scourge of Soviet Communism. Europe was divided, because of an imperialistic Soviet Union, by what Winston Churchill described as an “iron curtain” that had “descended across the continent.” One consequence was the formation of NATO three years later, in 1949. Russia’s continued belligerence, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, meant that NATO remained relevant, but the situation changed. Russia was smaller, but still the possessor of thousands of nuclear weapons, and had aligned with other totalitarian regimes like China, North Korea and Iran. Europe, after being battered in two World Wars, a decade-long global depression, and a forty-five-year Cold War, focused on becoming social welfare states. Since the end of the Cold War, E.U. nations have spent roughly ten times as much on “social protection” as on defense. (Eastern Europe, with close memories of Soviet occupation, spends less on welfare and more on defense than does Western Europe.) 

 

But that generosity has brought other problems. As Margaret Thatcher once said: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Europe has not focused on the productive side of its economy. In 2023, the U.S., with a population 110 million less than that in the E.U., produced a GDP 62% larger. Since the turn of the millennium, Europe’s economy has increased 134% versus 172% in the U.S. Europe needs to ensure they can continue to afford the governments and societies they have created.

 

As well, the continent has a more significant problem – an unaddressed demographic problem, which will further affect their future well-being. Not enough women are having babies. The total fertility rate (TFR) in Europe in 2023 was 1.38. The last time that rate was above replacement (2.1) was 1974. Today, the population of the European Union stands at 449 million, with an average age of 44.7. Projections suggest that the population in Europe by the end of the Century will decline to 420 million, with an average age in excess of 50. Europe is not alone with this demographic challenge. South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong share the dubious distinction of having the planet’s lowest birth rates. China at 1.18 and Japan at 1.26 are both below Europe’s. The United States’ is higher but at 1.78, still below replacement. Low birthrates in Europe are being offset by increased migration. For example, in 2023 3.67 million babies were born in the E.U., while 4.6 immigrants arrived from non-E.U. countries. Nevertheless and as mentioned above demographers suggest the population will continue to age, and their culture will change to accommodate their changing populations. No one knows what the economic and cultural effects will be, but over the past several decades growth rates have shown a persistent slowing, yet the welfare state continues uninterrupted. That trend is unsustainable.

 

Nevertheless, for reasons both sentimental and practical, Europe is worthy of our friendship. It is the first line of defense against Russia. As well, it is our past and, given what it has produced over the past two thousand years, it is a fount of inspiration and brings pleasure to our futures. Despite despots and kings, wars and famines, the world is a better place because of Europe. It needs a correction but deserves our respect.

"Education Matters"

 According to the Julian calendar, then in use, George Washington was born on February 11, 1731. However, in 1752 Britain and its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar, which had the result of moving Washington’s birthday forward by one year and eleven days. Growing up, this day was always a school holiday, as was February 12, Lincoln’s birthday. While I recognize the value of a three-day weekend, I have always thought we lost something in not celebrating the actual birth dates of these two remarkable men and presidents.

 

This essay was particularly difficult to write. The subject is so large and there is so much information. But there is, perhaps, no more important issue facing us. Why do so many politicians allow teachers’ unions to hold back the education of our youth? I suspect most teachers are devoted to their cause. The fault lies not with them, but with the leaders of their unions and the politicians who place more value on their money than on the needs of children.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Education Matters”

February 22, 2025

 

“I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource most to be relied on for

ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue and advancing the happiness of man..”

                                                                                                            Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

                                                                                                             Letter to Cornelius Camden Blatchley

                                                                                                             21 October, 1822

 

“Student academic achievement is the cornerstone of national success and security. This

makes a lack of academic progress today a direct and urgent threat to our collective future.”

                                                                                                            Patrick Kelly

                                                                                                            National Assessment Governing Board Member

                                                                                                            On release of Nation’s Report Card

                                                                                                             January 29, 2025

 

A recent editorial in The Washington Post, lamenting threats to close the Department of Education, referred to a “landmark” 1983 Reagan Administration report, “A Nation at Risk.” The editorial divulged “that 13 percent of American 17-year-olds – and up to 40 percent of minority youths – were functionally illiterate” at the time. The editorial claimed the United States had been falling behind its adversaries, which caused businesses and the military to spend millions of dollars on “costly remedial education and training programs.” The editorial added: “Test scores have improved (apart from an alarming slippage in recent years), and presidents from both parties have worked to make American schools more accommodating for children with disabilities, and to improve low-performing schools.” But has that been true?

 

Today, the Department of Education spends approximately twenty-two times as much per student as it did forty years ago, yet the results are dismal. According to the recently issued report from the U.S. Department of Education – the bi-annual National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly referred to as the Nation’s Report Card – 60% of fourth graders scored below what the NAEP deems a proficient level in math. 8^th Graders fared worse, with 75% performing below proficiency. In reading, almost 70 percent of students scored below the NAEP proficiency level. In the report, the author Stephaan Harris quoted Governing Board member Patrick Kelly of Columbia, South Carolina: “Student academic achievement is the cornerstone of national success and security. This makes a lack of academic progress today a direct and urgent threat to our collective future.” It does; education is the foundation on which our democracy is built.

 

Internationally, our students are not where they should be. According to the 2022 to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, American students did best in reading, ranking 9^th overall, behind Macau and Canada. In science, however, they ranked 16^th, behind Slovenia and the UK. And in math, the ranked 34^th, below the average and behind Norway and Malta.  The scores, according to Education GPS, “…are among the lowest ever measured by PISA in mathematics. In reading and science, results confirm a long-term stability in result,” albeit at a mediocre level for a nation that prides itself on its schools.

 

These tests foretell a depressing story. We are a nation that has been the technological, medical and science leader of the world; and some might argue its cultural leader. Yet our public schools are a disgrace, with minorities and the poor suffering the most. 

 

School choice is the obvious answer, but it is widely opposed by teachers’ unions, and therefore by most Democrat politicians. Open Secrets reported that, for the 2024 election cycle, the two largest teachers’ unions, National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), gave a combined $32 million to candidates, with 94% going to Democrats. That dollar amount was up from $4 million twenty years ago. In the meantime, a Heritage Foundation survey (2023) found that 47% of House members and 51% of Senators enroll their children in private schools. In a February 1 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Michael Bloomberg wrote: “In New York, the teachers union has fought to maintain a cap on the number of charter schools, [schools that] have dramatically raised achievement levels, even as student waiting lists grow longer.” Hypocrisy thrives. 

 

The world faces many problems, and it is not simply the threat of foreign powers, like China with its Belt-and-Road initiatives, a revanchist Russia wishing to reclaim its lost empire, a Middle East under the threat of Iran and Islamic terrorism, or African Christians having to live with daily threats. Artificial intelligence and quantum computing are in their infancy. We must, as J.D. Vance warned our European partners in Munich, confront “the enemy within.” We must not allow fear of censorship prevent us from speaking out. We should, as Noah Rothman wrote in the January 2024 issue of National Review, “summon the courage to repudiate what passes for sophistication in the academy and renounce the trite moral relativism that cannot distinguish between the Western world and its enemies.” Western liberalism, which dates back two-hundred-and-fifty years to the Enlightenment, is under attack. One consequence has been the divisiveness of our political parties. Another is manifested in the current crop of political leaders from both parties.

 

The best antidote is an educated populace. “Education is the movement from darkness to light” is a quote attributed to Allan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind. Martin Luther King believed that the purpose of education was to help people “to think incisively and to think for one’s self.” This is particularly true as it applies to our roles as citizens. Our youth must read our Constitution, understand what makes our government unique, and how rare it is in the annals of mankind. All public school students should have some familiarity with the canon of classical liberal Western thought.     

 

Recently, Jason Riley, writing in The Wall Street Journal, noted: “Given the strong correlation between educational achievement and life outcomes, a society that allows such a large fraction of its youth to fall by the wayside academically is asking for trouble down the road.” We cannot allow this decline in education to be the “canary in the coalmine,” predicting a decline in our nation’s democracy and its global leadership. Education trains the mind to question assumptions, to challenge authority, to think, to be open to new ideas. It is the resource, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, that “most to be relied on…for advancing the happiness of man.” 

 

For forty-five years, Congress has shoveled increasing amounts of money into public school education. By itself, that money has not worked. Like other businesses, our schools need competition – not just the private schools primarily available to the wealthy – but charter schools and voucher programs that allows all parents to choose the best alternatives for their children. They need home-schooling and Catholic schools that once educated many of the nation’s neediest. Albert Einstein is alleged to have once said that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Yet that is what has become of our public schools. The poet William Butler Yeats once said that education is the lighting of a fire, the instilling in young students a passion to question, to learn. That is what our future demands. 

 

Yes, education does matter.

"Lighten Up, America"

 Tuesday morning my wife and I will go to the polls at the Essex Town Hall. Afterwards, we will drive to the Griswold Inn, also here in Essex, where my daughter-in-law Beatriz Williams and her two co-authors, Lauren Willig and Karen White, will discuss their latest book, An Author’s Guide to Murder, over lunch. The book is being released that day. The event promises to be good fun – three delightful, smart, articulate and funny ladies, as they take the audience through a rollicking good mystery. Agatha Christie, eat your heart out!

 

On Wednesday we begin a six-day trip to visit two grandchildren in college in Pennsylvania and one in boarding school in Virginia, so your e-mail in-box will be free of my offerings, at least for a few days.

 

God speed, and may your candidate win…though I hope mine does!

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Lighten Up, America”

November 3, 2024

 

“Like a welcome summer rain, humor may

suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.”

                                                                                                                The Book of Negro Humor, 1966

                                                                                                                Langston Hughes (1901-1967)

 

While Kamala Harris began her campaign with a promise of joy, it soon deteriorated into character smears against her opponent, with Ms. Harris calling him “fascist” and a “Hitler,” and with President Biden referring to Mr. Trump’s supporters as “garbage.” What makes the “fascist” label ironic is that, as Victor Davis Hanson wrote in last Thursday’s issue of American Greatness, “…he [Trump] has been the target of fascists machinations from her own party and supporters for nearly a decade.”

 

Mr. Trump has always appeared devoid of humor, except when polls swing his way. Writing in the current UK issue of The Spectator, Kate Andrews noted “…in the past few weeks, something has restored Trump’s humor.” As the audience left a recent rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, she quoted a man speaking to his family: “That was better than Netflix.”  Most of us smiled when Mr. Trump, wearing an orange reflector vest (and in response to Mr. Biden’s remark), jumped into a garbage truck in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump does have a habit of calling his opponents names that would make Gordon Gekko blush. Amidst this war of words, America seems an unhappy place. Last Thursday, The Washington Post editorialized: “…in an increasingly angry nation…incidents of road rage escalate across the country.”  As in 1888 Mudville, there is little joy in the U.S. today.

 

We have, as J.D. Vance recently reminded us, become overly sensitive, unable to distinguish between a comedian’s attempts at humor and the mean-spiritedness of a politician. Nevertheless, as a society, we (if not our politicians) have also become more sensitive to the feelings of others, a good thing. For generations, tasteless ethnic, racial, religious and sexual jokes were common. Perhaps because of that we were told that words could not hurt us. However today, we are told they can. Students and employees are warned against using “harmful” words. One consequence: we may become less of a melting pot than in those pre-and-post-World War II years – that our differences, not our similarities might define us. When my wife grew up in New York City, Little Italy, Chinatown, Germantown and Spanish Harlem were distinct places. While new enclaves have developed with new immigrants, those old boundaries can now be found only in history books. Immigrants of yesteryear, whether from Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Puerto Rico, or Asia, found it more comfortable, initially, to live in neighborhoods with people who spoke their language and understood their customs. Many new immigrants do so today. As time went by, those earlier immigrants added to the quilt that is the American people, and they became indistinct from their neighbors. Let us hope that today’s politics aimed at dividing us will not prevent the natural forces that unify us. Integration into our nation’s culture is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

 

It is important to remember that the build-out of a diversified population over the past half century happened despite an array of tasteless ethnic, religious and racial jokes. Those jokes – common forty-fifty-and-sixty-years ago – did not hinder the intermarriage of immigrants’ children and grandchildren. The Census Bureau reports that White-Hispanic marriages, White-Asian and White-Black marriages have soared over the past few decades. In 2022, 19% of newlyweds in the United States were married to someone of a different race or ethnicity, versus 3% in 1967. Will political correctness, which has led to the compartmentalization of people, cause that trend to slow or reverse? I don’t know. I am not advocating we revert to telling ethnic jokes. What I am saying is that, accompanied by self-deprecation, that form of humor did no lasting damage.

 

Campaigns, politics and governing are serious endeavors. But perspective is wanted. As the late, legendary ballerina Margot Fonteyn once said: “The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one’s work seriously and taking one’s self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.” In dividing people into groups – ethnic, religious, racial, gender – progressive politicians have focused on our differences rather than our similarities. The poking of fun is no longer allowed. This fear of offending others has ushered in a culture of avoidance, for fear of affronting – widening already existing gaps between political parties, and gender and ethnic groups.

 

In the Essays of Michel Montaigne, the 16^th Century French philosopher wrote: “The highest wisdom is continual cheerfulness; such a state, like the region above the moon, is always clear and serene.” Humor prevents us from taking ourselves too seriously. It helps us find the balance between being sensitive to the needs and wants of others, while being honest about ours, and others, strengths and weaknesses. When the going gets tough, humor greases the skids. Mark Twain is alleged to have once said: “Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.” 

 

We live in serious – some might say perilous – times. Nevertheless, laughter has long been an antidote to dreariness. In his 1851 novel Moby-Dick, Herman Melville wrote: “However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more’s the pity.” It is not mindless ‘joy’ we seek, but respectful and good-humored toleration of our differences, be they racial, gender or political. Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s opening stanza to her 1883 poem, as printed in The New York Sun, lends pertinence:  

 

“Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep and you weep alone:

For the sad old world must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.”

 

…………………………………………………………………………..

 

In two days the tension of the election will be behind us. Half the country will be happy; the other half disappointed, but we will survive. Results of elections are never as good as winners would have us believe, nor as bad as losers claim. My recommendation is to pick up a Wodehouse. Sink back into Edwardian England where the sun always shone, birds flew overhead, bees buzzed about, and Uncle Fred could be found flitting along a garden path, spreading “sweetness and light.” Whether or not your choice for President was successful, a smile will crease your face.

"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.