Higher minimum wage hurts employment

Another study shows increasing minimum wages reduces the number of jobs. 

“We find a robust negative relationship between minimum wages and employment.”

https://www.socsci.uci.edu/~jantonio/Papers/minwage_czones.pdf

Biden Shrinks Real Personal Income Feb 15, 2023

 

With the excessive money spent by Biden and the resulting inflation combined with the attempts to mange the economy and it's negative effect the growth in Real Personal income continues to be significantly less than what was seen under Obama and Trump. 

Inflation Continues

 

7.9%  greater than 1.75%

D’oh

When you put certain characteristics above competence 

Border Fixed? (or hidden)

 

Amazing! One month with significant reduction of border apprehensions and the Administration is claiming problem fixed.  We shall see.

Also interesting to note that unlike previous months where the Administration significantly delayed release of the data until late in the month, January data was released less than 2 weeks into the month.

And, unfortunately, due to an Executive order that essentially moved tens of thousands of what would have previously been classified as illegal entries to lawful entries seeking parole, the actual immigration data is now suspect. This Executive order is in question and being challenged in the courts  because it is required to be done on a case by case basis, but instead Biden has developed an app to allow any to claim asylum.

“ January 5, 2023a Expanding the Parole Process for Venezuelans to Nicaraguans, Haitians, and Cubans. Today, the Biden Administration is announcing it will extend the successful Venezuela parole process and expand it to nationals of Nicaragua, Haiti, and Cuba. Up to 30,000 individuals per month from these four countries, who have an eligible sponsor and pass vetting and background checks, can come to the United States for a period of two years and receive work authorization.”

“ Now, about Biden’s new border plan: It is not reducing the number of illegal aliens detained at the border; it is concealing the number of illegal aliens released into the country through a “parole” scam.

The scam works this way: Rather than trying to cross illegally at the border, aliens are now encouraged to arrange entry into the U.S. at CBP ports set up in northern Mexico. There, even if they do not have a valid asylum claim (which the vast majority do not, because a valid claim must meet a high evidentiary burden), they will be given “parole” so long as they can show a potential claim of credible fear of persecution in their home country (a very low standard).”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/02/bidens-sotu-boasts-about-decreasing-illegal-immigration-were-fraudulent-too/

Biden’s border policies continue to be a mess, put many innocents at risk AND allow Mexican cartels to get rich.

I support immigration. A lot of immigration. But legal immigration, with a mix of merit based  (engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, doctors, mathematicians, etc.) and opportunity-based (people who want to work hard, adopt American values, and get ahead). 

(Note-The numbers are the apprehensions. We do not know how many people get through without being apprehended.)

One Nation

What is the point of a Black National Anthem?

CRT is a Cult

 

February 10, 2023

Vince Floyd PhD is a black professor at Villanova who directs the black-studies program, lead anti-racism and transformative-justice workshops and published books on anti-black racism and prison abolition. He lives in a predominantly black neighborhood of Philadelphia, his daughter went to an Afrocentric school, and he is on the board of his local black cultural organization.  He has been dismissive of criticisms of the current discourse on race in the United States.  Even recently he dismissed John McWhorter’s book that asserted that anti-racism is a new religion.

Last summer he found that CRT and it’s perversion of anti-racism to be worse than a religion: it is a cult.

“Pushing anti-racism to its limits, what we reach isn’t just hollow doctrine, but abuse: Pathological relationships that cut us off from the world, from the give-and-take of reasons and feelings unfolding over time that makes up life in the world.”

“They [his students] had learned, in one of their workshops, that objective facts are a tool of white supremacy.

The Telluride Association maintains a low profile, even in higher-education circles, but it has played an important role in shaping the US elite. Its alumni are ideologically diverse: queer theorist Eve Sedgewick and postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak (its first female member), Georgia politician Stacey Abrams and journalist Walter Isaacson, neoconservatives Paul Wolfowitz and Francis Fukuyama (who served on Telluride’s board). Launched by mining entrepreneur L.L. Nunn in 1911, a few years before he founded Deep Springs College, Telluride aims to cultivate democratic communities among high-school and college students. It runs houses near Cornell and the University of Michigan, where students receive scholarships, govern themselves, and incorporate intellectual life and service work into their residential communities. In 1954, Telluride started its high-school summer program.

Floyd taught a seminar in 2014, “Race and the Limits of Law” for Telluride’s Ithaca location.  Students came with extraordinary abilities; they asked probing questions; and they were sometimes awkward. Then, as the six weeks went by, I could see the students forming bonds with each other and with me, and I could see their commitment to the course. They always showed up on time. They always did the work. In 2014, participants in the two seminar groups lived their lives together seamlessly outside of the seminar, exploring Ithaca and the Cornell campus, eating and laughing together, and setting up a system to govern their community together.

In 2022 Floyd again tried to teach a seminar, "Race and the Limits of Law", for Telluride. In 2022, he was told that the “Critical Black Studies” students would live and learn separately, creating a fully “black space.” “Anti-Oppressive Studies” students were separated from them. Furthermore, in the 2022 community, afternoons and evenings would no longer be spent having fun and doing homework but instead being taught by 2 college-age students about anti-racism: experiencing hardship conveys authority; there is no hierarchy of oppressions—except for anti-black oppression, which is in a class of its own; trust black women; prison is never the answer; black people need black space; allyship is usually performative; all non-black people, and many black people, are guilty of anti-blackness; and, there is no way out of anti-blackness. The non-black students learned that they needed to center black voices—and to shut up. As the weeks went by, fewer and fewer students turned in written reading responses, fewer and fewer students showed up on time. They fell asleep in class, and they would walk out for extended snack breaks in the middle of the class.

Full Story: https://compactmag.com/article/a-black-professor-trapped-in-anti-racist-hell

Disney's disservice to America

 

Disney+ is doing a disservice to this country with it’s recent Proud Family episode with a rap, Juneteenth, regarding black history that is a false narrative.

Slavery and the racism that followed slavery was a horrible tragedy in the past but misrepresenting what this country was founded on, the relative contribution of various populations, and what are the factors of the disparities that exist today does a disservice to the United States and all of its populations, including black Americans.

First, like Hannah Nicole Jones’ false narrative of US History that claims the United States was formed to preserve slavery, Juneteenth repeatedly claims that the United States was built on slavery and that salves built this country (see lyrics below.)

A review of slaves, immigrants and citizens of the United States shows that the actual numbers of slaves brought to the United States (~250,000), the ultimate number of slaves (~4 million), and the number of descendants of slaves compared to the total number of immigrants, and non-black citizens in the United States has always been small percentage of the populations and that the immigrants and non-black citizens were a large majority of the populations and no doubt contributed significantly to building the United States.

Second, is that it is well recognized that this country was actually founded through the “Great Compromise” between the Northern States that were against slavery and the Southern States that were for slavery.  This country outlawed bring new slaves into the US in 1808, the first year this was allowed by the constitution.  This country limited new slave states to match non-slave states to prevent slave states from gaining control (Missouri Compromise).  This country then had one of the costliest, deadliest wars to end slavery (the Civil War.)

Juneteenth also claims that the descendants of slaves in America have earned and continue to earn reparations. It is not clear how these descendants TODAY have earned anything.  Just as citizens and immigrants are required to work hard to improve their lives, all citizens of all colors should be given equal opportunities.  And TODAY that is the case.  Yes, there was systemic racism in the past, but since the 60’s this has been illegal, discouraged and ever exceedingly rare and in fact, through Affirmative Action, blacks have been given a form of reparations where all things being equal they have been given preference in jobs and educational opportunities and this advantage has had an incredible value.

Last is the ludicrous claim by Juneteenth that blacks have made me, and all others, rich.  I am a mix of 2^nd and 3^rd generation immigrant from Croatia and Mexico and my ancestors worked hard to improve their lives and provide opportunities to their children.  They scrimped, the saved, they sacrificed.  They had “the talk”, they encouraged hard work, education and Judeo-Christian values.  It is impossible for me to see how anyone made me rich. TODAY, any systemic racism that may exist is minor, and is an unimportant factor in explaining the disparity that exists today between blacks and whites.  The disparities today are primarily one of culture. I saw my ancestors work hard to get ahead.  I see immigrants from all of the world, including black immigrants, working hard to get ahead.  They succeed.  There is no systemic racism today stopping anyone from working hard to get ahead and from having and raising children that can get ahead.

Disney+ Proud Family Explaining Juneteenth - February 1, 2023 (Lyrics)

This country was built on slavery.

Which means slaves built this country, tilled this land from sea to sea. First there was rice, tabaco, sugar cane, then Whitney did his thing and cotton became king. And we were its soldiers, four million strong, fighting for America’s freedom even though we remained America’s slaves. Built this country, the descendants of slaves continue to build it

Slaves built this country

And we the descendants of slaves in America have earned reparations for their suffering and continue to earn reparations every moment we spend submerged in a systemic prejudice racism and white supremacy that America was founded with and still has not atoned for.

Slaves built this country

 Not only field hands but carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, musicians, inventors built cities from Jamestown to New Orleans to Banneker’s Washington. Forty acres and a mule. We’ll take the 40 acres. Keep the mule.

We made your families rich, from the southern plantations heirs, to the northern bankers, to the New England ship owners, the founding fathers, former Presidents, current senators, the illuminati, the New World Order

Slaves built this country

Turner, Frederick D. Then they say Lincoln freed the slaves, but slaves were men and women and only we can free ourselves. Emancipation is not freedom. Jim Crow, segregation, redlining, Public schools feeding private prisons, where we become slaves again.

As we celebrate Juneteenth for the umpteenth time our account is still outstanding, cause this country was built on slavery.

Which means slaves built his country and we demand our 40 acres and a mule. Bump that. You can keep the mule. Keep the forty. We’re taking our freedom

Biden still stopping stoves

The Energy Department proposal, published Wednesday, sets first-of-their-kind limits on energy consumption for the stoves 

https://www.regulations.gov/document/EERE-2014-BT-STD-0005-0096

ChapGPT Biased and CRAZY

Biased and CRAZY 

ChatGPT is a relatively new web based artificial intelligence program that is quite good and can actually answer most questions, creat content, etc., BUT turns out its programmers have their own political biases that will limit its usefulness. One example below. 

Culture or Poverty?

 

Leading Cause of Death for Young Black Males: Homicide not Police.

Using the most recent data from the CDC, 2021, on the cause of death and the Washington Post's Police Shootings we see that blacks are being murdered at more than 10 times the rate of whites and almost 100 times the rate they are shot by police and even of these police shootings only 3.4% were of unarmed victims. And based on the 2020 FBI Crime in the United States 88% of black homicides are committed by blacks. 

If black lives matter, and I think they do along with all other lives, I am amazed that more people, especially the Democrats and BLM, are not focusing on reducing the black homicides.

And while poverty is a minor factor in crime rate, it is clear that there are other key factors correlated with race that are associated with higher crime rates

Couldn’t resist

 

So sad

Regardless of whether Joe Biden is lying, misinformed or confused this is so sad. Maybe sadder is how many people will believe him and a little the mainstream media will care.

Omar Out

Even MSNBC understands

“The decibel level at which Democrats are arguing in Omar’s favor is designed to convince you that a grave injustice is being done to her. But the relevant precedents, Omar’s conduct and the case her fellow Democrats made against her betrays the theater of it all.”

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/ilhan-omars-committee-removal-was-long-time-coming-rcna68872

48% of Democrats can’t denounce socialism

House of Representative Resolution: “Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America,”

For: 219 Republicans , 109 Democrats

Against: 86 Democrats

Present: 14 Democrats

Vaccines-Biden stuck on impulse power

Trump’s Operation Warp Speed developed a 1st generation, new vaccine for a new virus in an astonishingly short time and was the highest benefit to cost ratio of any government program since the Manhattan Project.(1)

Unfortunately, Biden seems to be stuck in impulse drive and has done little to accelerate the development of the 2nd generation vaccine needed. 

Since early 2022 there have been calls to develop 2nd generation vaccines and since August 2022 it was clear that repeated mRNA boosters making essentially the same spike protein antigen was problematic. mRNA Boosters seem to cause B cells to switch from producing IgG1/3 to producing IgG4. This class switch was associated with a reduced capacity of the spike-specific antibodies to mediate antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis and complement deposition  This reduction in booster vaccine efficacy was not seen with adenoviral vectors. (1)(2)

(1)https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/04/an-operation-warp-speed-for-nasal-vaccines.html

(2)https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciimmunol.ade2798?rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed&url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org

ChatGPT - Biased

ChatGPT is a relatively new web based artificial intelligence program that is quite good and can actually answer most questions, creat content, etc., BUT turns out its programmers have their own political biases that will limit its usefulness. One example below. 

Biden is intellectually dishonest

Lying - to make an untrue statement with the intent to deceive.

Intellectually Dishonest - to make a factual statement out of context with the intent to deceive.

Biden often makes claims that sound like he is doing a great job: reducing debt, lower gas prices, lower inflation, lower deficits, more jobs, etc.  However, if you listen carefully, he makes these claims relative to arbitrary baselines, often influenced by the negative effect of the pandemic. If his claims are looked at in context they are completely intellectually dishonest.

A quick review of Biden's first 2 years:

Fixing the debt problem - NOPE - The US continues to increase the size of its debt and more critical, significantly increasing the size of it's unfunded liabilities (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.) Money doesn't grow on trees and someday the US will have a big problem with its debt that will require massive cuts to entitlements either directly or indirectly through significant inflation.

Gasoline Prices - NOPE - still higher, still restricting crude production and still stealing from strategic oil reserve.

Natural Gas Prices - NOPE - still higher and still restricting production.

Inflation - NOPE - prices are higher and climbing faster.

Mortgage Rates - NOPE - higher.

Deficits - NOPE - still higher than normal.

Jobs - NOPE - too many people not working

 

Biden killing nuclear power

NRC (1) staff has proposed an alternative risk evaluation approach in the draft Part 53 rule, the alternative evaluation of risk insights (AERI), that results in mathematically impossible conditions(2).

(1) https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/fs-reactor-license-renewal.html

(2) https://thebreakthrough.imgix.net/AERI-whitepaper-2.pdf

World NEEDS more nuclear energy

The increased intensity of energy usage has been a critical factor in the successful development of the world.  Energy for industrialization, farming, light, fresh plentiful inexpensive food, clean water,  temperature control, computers, transportation, medical equipment, etc, have all contributed to the successful development of the developed world. The world currently consumes ~565 EJ (1 exajoule = 174 million barrels of oil.)

However, and unfortunately, there are still billions of people on the earth, primarily in undeveloped parts of the world, that do not have access to cheap abundant energy and are still living with limited food, temperature control, access to medical care, transportation etc. 

It is estimated that the world will need 1.6-2.8 times more energy than currently produced to provide adequate energy supply for the developed world to attain the standard of living of the developed world.

With this clear need for significant more energy for the world the questions becomes one of what type of energy should be used.

There is a current trend towards claiming that renewable, primarily wind and solar,  energy is the answer based on the claim that these energy sources are clean and have reached the cost of fossil fuels.

However, what is ignored in this position, ignoring any discussion regarding their cleanness, is their hidden cost.  For both wind and solar there is a significant additional cost required because there are extended periods when the wind doesn't blow, or blows to hard, and when the sun doesn't shine.  This means that when you add electrical generating capacity based on solar or wind, you have to build and operate a completely additional redundant system to cover the time that renewables aren't produce.  Whether these are fossil fuel, nuclear, or energy storage, they are costly and required.

The question seems to be what energy source might be best.  Based on economics, if you believe that fossil fuels have a significant externality, then nuclear fuel would be the most cost effective solution and specifically the Small Modular Reactors (SMR) recently developed that greatly improve the already safety of nuclear power.

And for those concerned about the storage of nuclear power waste there are two pragmatic solutions.  First is to just store long term the small amount of waste.  A typical large nuclear power plant might produce a cubic yard of solid nuclear waste. Second, and even better, would be to utilize high temperature nuclear reactors to further burn/utilize the spent fuel from SMRs to generate more electricity, more fuel and reduce the remaining waste to a tiny fraction, ~6 inch cube.