"Political Realignment, Class Warfare & Regressive Costs"

 This is a subject about which I have been thinking for some time, and which deserves consideration and debate. I recognize others have addressed it as well, probably more thoroughly and eloquently. At any rate, here is my two cents worth:

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Political Realignment, Class Warfare & Regressive Costs”

December 9, 2020

 

“His pioneering 1982 book, The State Against Blacks, is an eloquent data-rich

broadside against occupational licensing, taxicab regulations, labor union privileges and

other fine-sounding government measures that inflict disproportionate harm on blacks by

restricting the employment options and by driving up the costs of goods and services.”

                                                                                                       Donald J. Boudreaux (1968 -)

                                                                                                       Professor of Economics, George Mason University

                                                                                                       On death of Walter Williams (1936 -2020)

            Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2020

 

The single biggest change in politics in my lifetime has been the reorientation of the political parties. Historically, Democrats represented the working classes, while Republicans had the backing of the monied classes on Wall Street and the occupiers of office suites in big businesses. Labor versus capital was a simplified definition. 

 

Things have changed. Roles have been reversed. My State of Connecticut is a proxy for wealthy blue states. It is the 5^th wealthiest in terms of income and was solidly Republican when I was growing up. This year, it voted 59% for Joe Biden. The three towns in which I have lived for the past fifty years, Greenwich, Old Lyme and Essex – all in the top 12% of Connecticut’s wealthiest towns – voted between 61% and 63% for Joe Biden. November’s vote was not a one-time event. All five House members are Democrats. Connecticut’s two U.S. Senators are ranked eight (Richard Blumenthal) and sixteen (Chris Murphy) in terms of most progressive. The last Republican to serve in the House of Representatives was Chris Shays who lost re-election in 2008. The last Republican U.S. Senator from Connecticut was Lowell Weicker, who lost re-election in 1988. This Democratic Party is not your grandfather’s Party. It has become the Party of the establishment. The only two counties in Connecticut to vote for Donald Trump were Windham and Litchfield, the two most rural counties. In both counties, his margin of victory was four percentage points. Sixty years ago, Connecticut was as solidly Republican as it is solidly Democratic today.

 

Why has this happened? The shift took place during the 1960s and 1970s, during a period when I became registered as a Democrat. For me, in my late 20s, it was a combination of civil rights and Vietnam, and a feeling that whatever my parents were for I should be against. By the mid 1970s, when markets and the economy turned down, I realized my parents may have been smarter than I had thought – that to succeed financially, intellectually, personally and emotionally, one had to be aspirant, have a positive outlook, be self-reliant and willing to work hard. 

 

Throughout most of the 1980s, living in Connecticut was like living in Switzerland for those working in New York. There was no income tax, and property taxes were relatively low. It is a beautiful state, with 253 miles of shoreline and the largest river in New England, the Connecticut, which flows into Long Island Sound between Old Saybrook and Old Lyme. Roughly 130,000 acres of the state’s farm and woodland are under conservation. It is conveniently situated between New York and Boston. But Democrat control has left a dismal record of fiscal irresponsibility. Today, it is 5^th in terms of debt as a percent of GDP, 4^th in terms of local and state debt per capita, 4^th in terms of unfunded pension liabilities, 3^rd in terms of wealth inequality and 2^nd in terms of combined sales and income taxes. Not surprisingly, Connecticut was one of ten states to lose population over the past ten years. Like other high-taxed states, the loss was due to people moving to other states, not because deaths outnumbered births.

 

As the state became more Progressive, its policies and taxes became more regressive. The State’s income tax is, admittedly, on a sliding scale. However, complication in the tax code is a boon to accountants and tax lawyers; they are hired by the wealthy and thrive in this environment. Surely, it is not coincidental that Connecticut ranks 4^th in terms of lawyers per capita. A flat tax, with no deductions, would be the simplest and most progressive, but lobbyists for lawyers and accountants will never let that happen. Other taxes, like sales, gasoline and property are regressive, in that they consume a larger percentage of the income from low earners than high earners. The lottery, casinos and sports betting (something Connecticut is considering) appeal to the less wealthy, as visions of unearned riches parade before them. Green energy sounds like a good idea, but keep in mind who bears the cost. Connecticut ranks 3^rd in terms of cost of energy, measured in cents per kilowatt hour. While the United States has witnessed a natural gas bonanza because of fracking and horizontal drilling, and natural gas prices have declined from $5.00 in December 2010 to $2.89 in November 2020, Connecticut homeowners’ electricity costs are almost double what they were ten years ago. Once batteries are capable of storing energy for months, solar may make sense. But the wind farm Connecticut is constructing in Long Island Sound will, in my opinion, prove to be an environmental disaster, with construction of the turbines damaging the seabed and the inevitable killing of birds who live on and migrate through the Sound. And where is nuclear? 

 

Excessive regulations benefit big businesses, as they limit competition from minority-owned smaller companies and start-ups, as Walter Williams pointed out in his 1982 book, The State Against Blacks, quoted in the rubric. But the truth is their effect is regressive on all small businesses and budding entrepreneurs. Reactions to COVID-19 show how distanced progressives have become from lower income people. In a case of “Big Brother knows best,” lockdowns, which hurt the most economically vulnerable, are enacted by officials and supported by the media who are less at risk of losing their jobs. Elites in business, government, entertainment, the media and the academy have lost their sense of what it was like to start out.

 

Even education has suffered under progressive leadership. Increased spending per student has not generated the results expected. Governor Ned Lamont recently boasted that Connecticut’s K-12 schools ranked third in the country. What he did not mention were the reading and math proficiency scores for fourth and eighth graders, as measured by the National Assessment and Educational Process. In both areas, proficiency for the State’s public schools were less than 50%. That this is mainly a Democratic cause can be seen in the fact that the two principal teachers’ unions give 90-95% of their political contributions to Democrats. 

 

As the Parties realign, what strikes an observer is that class, not race or gender, is the fault line. In the 1930s through the 1960s, the Democratic Party became the preferred venue for blacks. Prior to that, they had generally voted with the “Party of Lincoln.” We are witness to another such shift – this time driven by economic class warfare. In losing the election, Trump picked up support from minorities, women and the LGBTQ community. Where he lost support was among suburban white men. Arrogance and condescension emanating from Progressives do not help those who struggle to make ends meet, individuals who also value their freedom and independence. It is an example of that age-old Chinese adage: it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. The latter feeds him for a day, the former for a lifetime. Today’s privileged, measured by wealth or education, do not want to upset the status quo, which they find in the Democratic Party. The Republican Party has become the Party for those climbing up economic and social ladders, irrespective of race, religion or gender. It is, thus, the more radical Party, in that it recognizes the need for change, while hewing to those principles of tradition and family, which have helped previous generations become American success stories.

"What Ails Us?"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“What Ails Us?”

February 24, 2020

“When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

                                                                                                            Mark Twain (1835-1910)

                                                                                                            Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1935

                                                                                                            Editor, Albert Bigelow Paine

In the summer of 1961, after my sophomore year in college, I worked in the smelter of Canada’s Falconbridge Nickel Mines just outside of Sudbury, Ontario. There were a number of Canadian students – all men – working in the mine that summer. On weekends, we would head into Sudbury to have a few beers and otherwise relax. One evening, fortified with libations, we attended a student union debate. The subject: “Resolved: I Would Rather be Dead than Red,” a common debate topic at the time. At the debates’ conclusion, members of the audience were asked if they would like to come up and speak, first for the affirmative and later for the negative. Having enjoyed debate in school and with vocal cords loosened with a couple of Molson Ales, I approached the dais and gave my reasons in the two minutes of allotted time. A few other students did as well. Then the moderator asked who would speak for the negative. At first no one rose, so again I approached the dais, this time to applause, to offer my opposing views.

The idea of debating two sides of an issue was always good training. Aristotle is alleged to have said that “it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” I would go further and claim that if one does not understand an opponent’s position, then there is no possibility of reaching compromise. We have entered a twilight zone where biases are so extreme that we no longer communicate but talk over one another. Institutions, like family, church (or, at least, traditional Christian churches) and community organizations are in decline. They have been replaced by groups like #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, #Resistance, #MAGA and social media, which give participants a chance to gather on like-minded platforms but offer little opportunity to witness or appreciate opposing views.

Unlike Swedes, French, Chinese or Japanese, we are Americans by choice, a choice that was either ours or that of our forefathers. While a typical Swede or Chinese can be imagined, a typical American cannot. We are too diverse. While our land was inhabited by immigrants in the early 17^th Century, our nation was formed in 1789, with men wise in the knowledge of laws and with an understanding of the governments of other nations, past and present – their strengths and their weaknesses. Like Shakespeare’s King Lear, the Founders knew that “…unaccommodated [uncivilized] man is no more but a bare, forked animal…,” metaphorically suggesting he was anarchical, with the capacity for good and evil. They also knew, through a study of history, that governments without restrictions become instruments of tyranny. So, they devised a government in which laws, not men, set boundaries, and one in which three, counter-forcing branches balance one another, so that no individual or group would wield power indiscriminately.

Our Founders were not perfect by today’s standards, but measured against those of 250 years ago, they were extraordinary, enlightened men. From the start, we were a polyglot nation. In those far away days, according to Joshua Kendall’s biography of Noah Webster, The Forgotten Founding Father (and my four-greats grandfather), more than fifty languages and dialects were spoken in Pennsylvania alone. Overtime, the country became – and is still becoming – a melting pot. The mixing of religions, ethnicities and races. Not too many years ago, Germantown, Little Italy and Chinatown were culturally distinct neighborhoods in New York City, not marketing venues as they are today. Europe, with its long history of nativist populations, has had a far more difficult time integrating immigrants, as has been seen in violent attacks in France, Sweden, Germany and Britain. Yet the consequence of progressives today, with their emphasis on identity politics and victimization, is to divide a people struggling to unite, to create a salad bowl, a place where the radishes, carrots, peppers and tomatoes have their distinct places. Their reason for doing so is political, as it is easier to tailor messages to distinct groups – ones of race, religion and heritage, and others of gender and sexual preference, but not ones of ideas based on a study of history and civics. What has been lost is a sense of what America means, of a people of disparate opinions, backgrounds, aspirations and abilities who formed (and are still forming) a nation unlike any other on Earth.

As well, the composition of our political parties has changed. It was in 1860 that the first presidential election pitted a Democrat against a Republican. The 2020 election will the 40^th such election where those two main parties represent the myriad views of millions of voters.  Today’s population is eleven times bigger than it was in 1860. A microcosm of the change that has taken place in political parties over the past sixty years could be seen in Connecticut’s 2018 gubernatorial election. The Democrat Ned Lamont is the great grandson of J.P Morgan’s partner Thomas W. Lamont. He grew up in Laurel Hollow, Long Island and attended Phillips Exeter and Harvard. His father worked in the Nixon Administration. The Republican Bob Stefanowski grew up in a working-class family in North Haven, CT. His father was a scoreboard assistant at the Yale Bowl. He is a graduate of North Haven High School and Fairfield University. Sixty years ago, Lamont would have been the Republican and Stefanowski the Democrat.

Privileged is a word tossed around carelessly today. Those of us fortunate to live in the United States are all privileged. We live in a nation without aristocracies, where backgrounds account for less than talent and aspiration. We live in a nation of laws that protect private property. We have abundant resources and no enemies on our borders. We come from all corners of the globe. According to the Census Bureau, over three hundred and fifty languages are spoken in this country. Success is a function of desire, ability and a willingness to work hard. Yet, all of us do not accept the opportunities our privileges permit.

Contradictions abound in today’s political environment. Extreme right-wing Republicans push nativist policies, incompatible with our multicultural country. Progressive Democrats, push dependency on government, to reassure their re-elections. Dependency is necessary, when individuals cannot care for themselves, but in other cases dependency deprives the capable and aspirant from realizing their hopes and dreams. What makes this ironic is that technology, particularly the internet, has boosted opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs. What Joseph Schumpeter described as “creative destruction” has hit our economy, destroying old industries – some known for lifetime employment – but creating new ones, which offer risk and opportunity. The taxi industry is a good example. Collusion between politicians and medallion owners limited competition in cities like New York. When Uber and Lyft entered the market, they felt the wrath of government, even as consumers benefitted. Creative destruction is not a new phenomenon. It is the way economies and societies advance. Booth Tarkington’s Pulitzer prize winning novel The Magnificent Ambersons – subsequently made into a movie directed by Orson Welles – described the horse-carriage businesses bankrupted by the new automobile industry. Without adapting, businesses die. Retail, communication, entertainment industries and others are undergoing “destructive” change, with positive consequences for consumers and opportunities for risk takers. In many sexual abuse cases, presumption of innocence has too often become assumption of guilt. News programs have given up a search for truth and become advocates for policy preferences. Families have been subordinated to “villages,” in terms of raising a child, yet where else than from a family does a child receive unconditional love?

Ironies abound. There is irony, as Victor Davis Hanson recently noted in National Review, in universities that have achieved record endowments, while their students are burdened with record levels of debt. What allowed this to happen? If colleges and universities, not just U.S. taxpayers, had assumed some of the financial risk of student loan default, would tuition prices have risen as rapidly as they did? Colleges and universities took no risk. They knew they would be paid, so lifted prices and competed on the basis of physical plant and administrative help in non-educational endeavors. Attitudes toward government have changed. The call of duty, so famously echoed by John F. Kennedy, has been replaced by a demand for entitlements. Vulnerable children from troubled and impoverished families are no longer called “at risk.” They are now “at promise.” Is there not a difference between a child at risk, and a child who, given his or her untapped talent, has a promising future? In mass shootings, we blame the weapon but place no responsibility or accountability on he who pulled the trigger. We have entered an Orwellian world where universities, places that light the flame of curiosity, have banned books considered offensive to a few. That such actions are similar to those taken by tyrants in despotic states seem to be of no relevance to today’s college administrators.

Why are we in this place? We are wealthy. GDP is at record levels and unemployment at record lows. We are free, privileged to live in a democracy. We are engaged in no major wars. Despite climate-scaremongers, our carbon emissions are lower than they were ten years ago, and our rivers, lakes and beaches are cleaner than ever before. Can we do more, and should we not help developing nations? Of course, but celebrate what has been done. Blacks and Hispanics are repeatedly told that the economy and politics are not working for them, that they are victims of white oppression. Yet their unemployment is at record low levels and their real wages have begun to rise for the first time in years. President Trump is accused of being crude (which he is), yet his accusers talk of assassination without condemnation or even comment. He is accused of authoritarian tendencies, yet he has reduced regulations. Which President weaponized the IRS in 2013 to go after conservative organizations? And which political party colluded with the Justice Department and the CIA to publish false information on Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2017, first the candidate and later the nominee? Why has hatred for Mr. Trump so infested mainstream media and members of the Washington elite, that reason is no longer an arrow in their quivers? Cannot bureaucrats in Washington and elites in Hollywood, the media and in cities like New York, San Francisco, Boston and Austin understand that is a lack of consideration of some of these facts and a failure to respond to unanswered questions that led to the election three and a half years ago of Donald Trump, and which will likely lead to his re-election this November?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote: “It’s a universal law – intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impertinence, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.” What ails us is a sense of arrogance that there is only one side to an argument – the one we profess, that those who disagree with us are stupid, elitist, blind or deplorable. As Mark Twain suggested, when you find yourself among only those who think like you, it may be time to regroup. Would not teachers in schools and colleges be wise to require students to debate issuess from a position opposite from what they believe? Would not that help them formulate their own ideas, as well as to help them learn something of the opinions of their opponents? Should not college be a time to be skeptical and a place to delve into the murkiness of history, to learn from the wisdom of those who came before?

The Month That Was - March 2019

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

The Month That Was – March 2019

March 31, 2019

“March is the month God created to show people who don’t drink what a hangover is like.”

                                                                                                            Garrison Keillor (1942-)

                                                                                                            Wobegon Boy1997

March is when we move from winter to spring. We had days with temperatures in the single digits and others when the thermometer approached seventy. Mark Twain once wrote about spring, “I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.” Perhaps we weren’t that extreme, though it did snow here in southeastern Connecticut on the third full day of spring. And there were days when Robins must have thought they came north too early. March is when the clocks advance by an hour – an anachronism from a time when family farms were ubiquitous, and more daylight hours were important. In 1920, 27% of the U.S. population lived on farms. Today, 2% do. So, why do we still change our clocks?

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The month blossomed with news, if not with flora. A terrorist attack on two mosques in New Zealand; the release of the long-anticipated Mueller report; the fatal crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8 in Ethiopia; the fifteenth (or was it the sixteenth?) announced candidacy for the Democrat nomination for President; Brexit; a college admissions scandal that rocked Hollywood, Wall Street, law firms and some of our top universities; Nicolás Maduro gained traction in Venezuela, with help from China and especially Russia, while Juan Guaidó’s wife Fabiana Rosales visited the White House; President Trump acknowledged the reality of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and he issued his first veto (sustained) over Wall funding; the ISIS Caliphate in Syria was defeated; China enlisted a deeply indebted Italy into its Belt and Road Initiative; friends in high places, and hatred for Trump convinced the Cook County State’s Attorney to drop charges against Jussie Smollett for a feigned racial attack.

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Three events during the month said much about modern American culture – none of it positive, which should give us pause. The first was the revelation uncovered in the college admissions scandal, a scandal that said a lot about the values of so-called elites – how they lied and cheated to get their children into top colleges. Many of the accused are the same who are contemptuous toward ‘deplorables,’ their attitudes toward guns, God, immigrants and transgenders. The second was the reaction of many Democrats and much of the media to the Mueller report, which exonerated President Trump and his campaign team from any Russian collusion – their refusal to admit they had been wrong. The third was the Jussie Smollett affair, which saw a perpetrator rewarded for lying and evading personal responsibility.

While the William “Rick” Singer college admissions scandal will likely fade from the front pages, it should not; for it says a lot about us as a society and, should, therefore, continue to command our attention, especially the sense of entitlement displayed by elites. Universities fired culpable coaches; but did nothing to excuse the acceptance of a squash court for an otherwise unqualified candidate; they have never clarified why diversity of appearance (ethnicity) is more important than diversity of ideas. Colleges have taken advantage of a societal and government-induced demand, where society says college is for everyone, no matter the interest, the cost and no matter how little is learned. Government has guaranteed student loans, which give universities the ability to raise prices at double the rate of inflation. The consequence is that half of all students fail to graduate within six years yet are saddled with debt – an amount, collectively, approaching $1.5 trillion. In a collection of his sermons Strength to Love(1963), Martin Luther King wrote “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” The most elite of our universities would be better off instructing the basics, teaching wisdom and debating ideas, rather than protecting students from “hateful” speech and fostering victimhood. As Yuval Levin wrote during the month in National Review, no society is without elites. Ours now come from merit, but when rules get broken, society breaks down. Personal responsibility, not entitlement, should come with success, just as restraint, not pride, should come with victory. An honest university would forego some federal funding in exchange for more independence and would worry less about rankings in the annual “U.S. News and World Report” and more about creating an educated graduate.

For two years, Democrats in Washington told the American public that Mr. Trump colluded with Russians to win the 2016 Presidential election. House Intelligence Committee leader Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) repeatedly said they had “proof” that Mr. Trump colluded with Mr. Putin. So, where is it? Former CIA Director John Brennan called Mr. Trump’s actions “treasonous.” Will Mr. Brennan be held accountable for his comments? James Clapper said that Watergate “pales” beside the Trump-Russia allegations. Has he apologized? Congress still feels the need to for their own investigation, as though Mueller’s team had been sitting on their hands for the past two years. Mr. Mueller completed his work with the help of nineteen lawyers, forty FBI agents and 500 witnesses. He issued 2800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants and spent thirty million tax dollars. Does Congress need to do more? Where is the acknowledgment from the media and Democrats that they were wrong in their wilful accusations? 

Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation brought 34 indictments, but none for collusion with Russians, which was his mandate. The report suggested no more indictments. Any possible claims that Mr. Trump or his team obstructed justice was left to Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, both of whom said there were no charges worth pursuing. The truth is that the media, Democrats and some Republicans just don’t like Mr. Trump. After all, they are denizens of the swamp he promised to drain. They especially don’t like his character, and, certainly, he is no paragon of virtue. But, is he any worse than Hillary Clinton, his opponent in 2016? She lied about Benghazi, sold 20% of our uranium holdings to the Russians in exchange for a $145 million donation to the Clinton Foundation and hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS to find incriminating evidence against Mr. Trump, which, unverified, was accepted by FBI Director James Comey. Is Mr. Trump’s character worse than Mr. Comey’s, John Brennan’s, James Clapper’s, Andrew McCabe’s, Peter Strzok’s or Lisa Page’s? Is it worse than that of Eric Swalwell (D-CA) who repeated his claim this week that President Trump is an agent of the Russian government? To support his claim, Mr. Swalwell used false data about sanctions, Syria and NATO. Is Mr. Trump’s character worse than that of Jussie Smollett, the darling of the #HateTrumpMovement, who has yet to accept responsibility for the perfidious trick he pulled? Is it more flawed than those in the media who never investigated the alleged Obama-Clinton collusion with the Justice Department and FBI, those who reported what they wanted to believe? As one report put it: “Pursuing legal challenges against Mr. Trump has become something of a sport among Democratic attorneys general over the past two years…” Democrats have seemingly borrowed the playbook of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Joseph Magats, Cook County prosecutor, dropped sixteen felony charges against Jussie Smollett who was arrested for faking a racially motivated ‘hate’ attack. Both Chicago’s Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson and Mayor Rahm Emanuel were disgusted with the outcome, the latter calling it a “whitewash of justice.” The dropping of the case was not due to lack of proof or of innocence. It was attributed to a text message sent from Tina Tchen, once Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, to Kim Foxx, Cook County State’s Attorney. Ms. Tchen is a friend of the Smollett family, so used her influence.

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Elsewhere, President Trump’s issued an executive order denying federal funds to colleges that suppress student free-speech rights – an understandable wish, but one that makes the Executive the determinant of acceptable speech, which I find unacceptable. The month saw four more candidates throw their hats into an already-crowded 2020 Presidential ring – Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, 46, former House member from Texas; Bernie Sanders, 77, Senator from Vermont; Jay Inslee, 68, Governor of Washington, and John Hickenlooper, 67, former Governor of Colorado. They join eleven already-announced candidates. The list is expected to grow. Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses will be held February 3, 2020, and the first-in-the-nation primary is tentatively scheduled for February 11, 2020 in New Hampshire. The Democratic National Committee chose Milwaukee for their July 13-16, 2020 Convention. Ronald Sullivan Jr., a black Harvard Law school professor and dean of Winthrop House (an undergraduate residential dorm) was protested by Winthrop House residents who said they no longer “felt safe” with him in charge. The reason: Professor Sullivan agreed to join the Harvey Weinstein criminal-defense team. As Heather MacDonald wrote in a Wall Street Journalop-ed, student agitation could have been an opportunity for a lesson in the values of Western democracy…”that a lawyer who defends someone accused of a crime doesn’t thereby condone [the] crime…he is upholding the principles that all defendants, even guilty ones, have a right to legal representation and that the state may criminally punish someone only after proving his guilt in a rigorously contested adversarial process. History shows that without such a requirement, state power slides toward tyranny.” Harvard administrators took the easy and politically-correct way out, siding with students, whose ignorance was palpable. Thus, they worsened the divide and ignored the fact we are a nation of laws.    

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Horrific shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand dominated international news. A certified nut case, claiming roots in white supremacism, murdered fifty-one Muslims as they gathered for Friday morning prayers. While the attacks were despicable (and made more so as they were filmed and put on social media), perspective is needed. During the first two weeks of March – and virtually unreported by mainstream media – two hundred and fifty men, women and children were killed in fifty-five attacks in a dozen countries on five continents. All killed by Islamic extremists. Among the dead were 120 Christians in Nigeria, slaughtered by Boko Haram. To a parent, spouse, sibling or child, every person’s death is a tragedy. Not the color of the skin, the race or the religion of the victim makes any difference to loved ones left behind. It is death that is final. In Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, John Donne wrote: “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind…”  And what was true for Donne four hundred years ago is true for all that value human life today. An Ethiopia Airlines jet, a Boeing 737 Max 8, went down shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 aboard. As this was the second crash of this plane in six months. all 737 Max 8 and 9 planes were subsequently grounded. While such tragedies are sobering, we should keep in mind that over 100,000 flights take off around the world every day.

Britain staggered toward the exit. On the 12^th, Parliament voted to reject Theresa May’s second negotiated proposal. The next day, Parliament voted not to leave the EU without a deal, and on the 14^th, they voted to ask the EU for an extension to the Brexit process.  The latter was granted…conditionally. If Mrs. May’s new proposal (the third) would be acceptable to Parliament, departure will be delayed until May 22^nd. If not, Brexit will occur on April 12^th. On the 29^th, the day Britain was supposed to leave the European Union, Parliament voted to reject Mrs. May’s third proposal, so April 12^thnow seems to be the date. But there will be at least one more attempt. However, a “no-deal” Brexit has become more likely and Mrs. May’s days appear numbered. It is a shame, and consequences are unknown. What should have been a clean and respected divorce has become a Marx Brothers farce, except no one is laughing. Theresa May has not represented her constituents well and European leaders have become bureaucratic grandees. Emmanuel Macron struts around like a Bantam rooster, while Angela Merkel is but a shadow of the leader she had been before letting in a million migrants in 2015. The concept of an economically and militarily united Europe is a good thing. But too much centralized control and an abandonment of voters’ wishes, threaten to destroy what had been achieved. Already, we have seen a backlash from Eastern Europe, nations that know better than those in the West what it is like to live under authoritarianism.

Germany passed a budget that limits defense spending to no more than 1.25% of GDP. She did this, inexplicably, as Russia and China have become stronger and NATO has become weaker. U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell criticized the decision: “NATO members clearly pledged to move toward, not away, from 2% by 2024,” an accurate observation which upset German officials. That European unity is crumbling could be seen as Italy signed onto China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project, becoming the first member of the Group of Seven to do so. She joins other European nations like Greece, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Poland, Hungary and Portugal. As the New York Timesput it, “There is growing concern …that China has arrived in Europe not as an economic collaborator, but as a conqueror…” It should be a reminder that the world never sits still – not in terms of its climate and not in terms of its geo-politics. Everything is always in flux. U.S. backed fighters, along with the Kurdish-led SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) declared military victory over ISIS in Syria, with the destruction of the village of Al-Baghuz Fawqani. That ended a four-year battle against ISIS. However, its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi remains at large. ISIS is an outgrowth of al Qaeda. Like the mythological Hydra’s heads, expect new groups to form. Nevertheless, four years ago their caliphate in Syria-Iraq was home to eight million people; now it is gone. But, like the Phoenix, it is not dead. 

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Markets were relatively calm during the month (the VIX, a measure of volatility, declined 46% in the first quarter), at least until March 22 when the yield curve inverted, with Three-month Treasury Bills yielding 2.48% versus the 10-Year Bond at 2.44 percent. That day the DJIA dropped 1.8%, the first time since February 15^ththat the DJIA closed up or down more than 1.5 percent. (By the end of the month, stocks had recovered that loss.) If extended, an inverted yield curve can be a predictor of economic recession. But as one wag suggested an inverted yield curve has anticipated twelve of the last five recessions. Adding to concerns, new job growth of 20,000 was below expectations and the lowest since fall of 2017. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, in a speech on March 21, said the Fed had finished tightening, at least for the time being.

As to whether this marks the start of recession and the end of the ten-year bull market is not for me to say. My crystal ball is cloud-filled, wrapped in gauze and hidden beneath two feet of dirt. Nevertheless, I don’t sense the ebullience usually associated with the final days of a bull market. The legendary investor John Templeton once said: “Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.” However, one cannot ignore our national debt whose size is masked by very-low interest rates. One cannot ignore the substantial increase in student loan debt, which hinders young adults as they make their way into the job market. Nor can one ignore the long-term implications of declining births, as measured by total fertility rates. Europe, China, Japan and the U.S. are all experiencing births below replacement levels. (Sub-Sahara Africa and parts of the Middle East are the only places in the world where births are consistently above replacement levels.) Unchecked, the consequences will be aging populations and falling economic growth.

Stocks were essentially flat during the month. Bond prices and gold rose slightly. Crude oil was up 5% and Bitcoins rose 7.5%. Levi Strauss returned to the public market after a 34-year absence and Lyft went public. The former was valued around $8 billion on about $500 million in operating income. The latter was valued at about $24 billion (and rose to $30 billion on its first day of trading), on a loss in 2018 of $911.3 million. 

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For over two hundred and twenty years winning the Presidency has required winning the Electoral College. Some Democrats, like Elizabeth Warren, would like to change that, as Electoral College victory does not always equate to popular vote victory. In 2016, neither candidate won a majority of the popular vote. Hillary Clinton won a plurality (48.2%) to Donald Trump’s 46.1%. However, in the Electoral College Mr. Trump won 304 votes to Mrs. Clinton’s 237 votes. She was the fifth Presidential candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election, the last being Al Gore in 2000. In only one instance, the election of 1876, did the losing candidate actually win a majority of the popular vote. Now Democrats have put forth a National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement between states that says no matter which candidate wins a state, once votes nation-wide are tallied all its electoral votes would go to the candidate who won a plurality of the nation-wide popular vote. The Compact, which disregards the wishes of a state’s voters, would go into effect once enough states join that total 270 Electoral votes. The movement emerged in 2006. This past month Colorado, with nine Electoral votes, became the 13^thstate to join the Compact. Democrats are in the forefront of this movement to surreptitiously bypass the Constitution, with states like New York, California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and Washington having joined, while Texas, Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Virginia have not. The Compact, should it reach 270 Electoral votes will surely be challenged in courts. Our bicameral legislature, in which the people are represented by members of the House of Representatives and the states with Senators, has served the Country well for over two centuries. For one thing, abandonment would encourage minority candidates, suggesting the President could be one with just a third of the popular vote. The Electoral College is integral to our election process. It should not be abandoned. 

President Trump vetoed a Congressional effort to kill his emergency border funding bill. His veto was upheld. Gambino boss Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali was shot outside his Staten Island home. An “associate” arrived with a suitcase containing $45,000 to pay for the funeral. Presidential hopeful “Beto” O’Rourke admitted to having been a member of a computing hacking group – the Cult of the Dead Cow – while in Congress. This was before he had a video of his dental work placed on his Instagram account! Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) cited American Jews as being more loyal to Israel than to the U.S., saying they were driven by “Benjamins” – $100 bills. Her anti-Semitism received no reprimand from Democrat Congressional leadership. Instead, in another example of a perpetrator claiming victimhood, the House` passed a resolution condemning all hate speech, specifically including Islamophobia. In a case of sad news following dreadful news, two students from Parkland school in Florida committed suicide. The cause, we are told, was “survivor’s guilt.” And, so did the father of a young girl killed in the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting.

A tornado ripped through southeast Alabama killing at least twenty-three. Floods in Nebraska killed three and caused an estimated $3.0 billion in crop and livestock losses. At an event in New Hampshire, Presidential wannabe Mayor Bill De Blasio brought out all of six people to his “town Hall,” apart from members of his advance team. Baseball’s opening day was March 28. The Yankees won. The Red Sox lost. A debate has been joined as to whether the census should ask about citizenship – the objective being should non-citizens be counted in terms of Congressional seats? Michael Avenatti, a Democrat favorite when he represented “Stormy” Daniels in her suit against President Trump and when he claimed Brett Kavanaugh had run a gang-rape ring when in high school (termed “serious and credible” by Trump haters), was arrested for attempting to shake down Nike for $20 million. Connecticut’s new Democrat Governor Ned Lamont and the state’s all-Democrat Legislature proposed a number of new taxes: a one-mill statewide property tax; the establishment of a statewide automobile tax of between fifteen and nineteen mills; eighty-two electronic tolls on Connecticut highways; the permitting of a third casino to allow collection of a percent of slot machine takes; a tax on sugary drinks and electronic cigarettes; the taxing of services, like haircuts, dry cleaning, legal, boat repair and accounting, all at the same rate as goods; a ten cent tax on plastic bags at grocery stores, and the permitting of recreational marijuana. The State is even considering a bill that would impose a $15.00 fee on the purchase of a dog or cat from an animal shelter. Keep in mind, these taxes are regressive, as their impact falls most heavily on low and middle-income people. Like so many Democrat-controlled states, Connecticut is in financial distress. Reducing spending is never an alternative. Increasing taxes are the only answers they know.

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In other news overseas, Cyclone Idai left almost seven hundred dead, with an estimated three million people affected, principally in Mozambique but also in Zimbabwe and Malawi. Pro-democracy parties in Thailand may have won enough seats to form a majority government to replace the military junta that has been ruling the country since 2014. A cruise ship, the Viking Sky, lost one engine and began listing after leaving Tromso on Norway’s northwestern coast. Half the passengers were airlifted off the ship; the rest stayed aboard, as the ship was towed into port. Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, became embroiled in a scandal, as he allegedly interfered in a corruption case involving one of Canada’s biggest companies, SNC-Lavalin, a Montreal-based engineering company. President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, deemed “Brazil’s Trump” by the Financial Times, visited the White House in hopes of establishing closer relations with the U.S. This is an important step in countering an aggressive China that has already established Belt and Road Initiatives with Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, along with a dozen smaller countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The U.S. State Department estimated that between eight-hundred thousand and two million Muslims have been forced into “internment camps” in Communist China where they are “re-educated” “to erase religious and ethnic identities.” A European Medial Literacy Week took place in various European cities March 18-22, to develop “critical thinking by the user” and to help “counter the effects of disinformation campaigns and fake news spreading through digital media.” As to who defines what is fake and what is appropriate was not identified, but there is no question that this is “Big Brother” imposing his will on the people. A South African photographer, Rainer Schimpf, while scuba diving off the coast of Port Elizabeth, was swallowed by a whale, and a few moments later spat out.

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Death struck. Charles McCarry, one of my favorite spy novelists, died at 88. Dan Jenkins, Sports Illustrated writer and author of Semi-Tough, died at 90. W.S. Merwin, Poet Laureate of the U.S. 2010-2011 and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, died at 91. And Julia Ruth Stevens, daughter of Babe Ruth, died at 102.

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A culture of divisiveness, driven by identity politics and political correctness, defines our Country. One had hoped the Mueller report would have had an ameliorating effect – that people would have been pleased that, while we knew there was Russian interference in our elections, at least no candidate had colluded with the enemy. But that was too much to hope for. Lines had been drawn and Trump derangement Syndrome persists. We should be careful, lest we think this divisiveness the fault of one man. It is not. Nor did this division originate in 2016. Its recent roots go back to the 2000 election. Personal animosity is a symptom of a society where the desire for power supersedes concepts of decency, responsibility and accountability. Unfortunately, it will not end soon or easily. As individuals, the best we can do is ensure that the culture in schools prioritizes learning and behavior. If our generation cannot (or will not) provide solutions, we should ensure that future generations understand that a free nation’s success depends upon civility, education, rule of law and a strong military. Unfortunately, these are not concepts being taught.

Welcome to April!