Monthly Archives: March 2023

We Got Ours

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And now we’re gonna take more.

This time it’s the infamous Fairfax County, VA, Board of Supervisors.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to move forward with consideration of a proposal to give themselves salary increases of up to 45%, even as the county, located just outside of Washington, DC, faces a shortage of police in the midst of a crime surge.

It was an 8-2 vote.

Springfield Supervisor Pat Herrity was one of the 2, and he had some thoughts on the matter.

It is unbelievable that this Board would propose a 37 to 45 percent raise for themselves when our residents are struggling with high inflation, a 50 percent increase in homeowner taxes over the last decade, and in a budget that does not address the staffing crisis in public safety and other critical county positions.

Nevertheless, the fat cats got theirs, and it’s not enough.

At Least There’s One

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One man in DC understands the situation. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee has this radical idea on getting violent crime, at least, back under control:

What we got to do, if we really want to see homicides go down, is keep bad guys with guns in jail. Because when they’re in jail, they can’t be in communities shooting people.

Sadly, that’s a concept that’s too complex for the wonders of the DC City Council, who passed—and overrode the Mayor’s veto to do so—an ordinance that

reduce[s] maximum penalties for violent crimes such as burglaries, robberies, and carjackings, along with abolishing minimum sentences for most crimes.

Contee illustrated the depth of the problem:

Right now, the average homicide suspect has been arrested eleven times prior to them committing a homicide[.]

Sadly, he’s only one in DC governance, though, for whom the simple solution isn’t too complex to understand.

Bye Bye

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The People’s Republic of China’s Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, seems to be dismayed with us. The Wall Street Journal‘s headline says it:

China’s Foreign Minister Says Ties With US Risk Going Off the Rails

According to the WSJ, Qin said that

the Biden administration was insincere in saying it wanted to preserve relations and warned the US against engaging in what he called new McCarthyism.

And his boss, PRC President Xi Jinping

criticized what he termed a US policy of “all-round containment, encirclement and suppression” of [the PRC].

Never mind that the PRC badly wants not just encirclement and containment, but a rollback from its seizure and occupation of the South China Sea and other nations’ islands therein, along with a pushback from its overt threats against the Republic of China.

Not to be outdone by his boss, Qin went further:

If the United States does not hit the brakes but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation.

It’s long past time to disconnect economic and technological ties with the PRC altogether, to rapidly plus up the RoC’s ability to defend itself, and to increase our defense assistance to the other nations rimming the South China Sea.

A Strong Economy

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Stipulate, arguendo, that we actually have one of those going on. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell wants to cool it down hard.

The latest economic data have come in stronger than expected, which suggests that the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated. If the totality of the data were to indicate that faster tightening is warranted, we would be prepared to increase the pace of rate hikes.

That is the Fed’s standard answer for dealing with inflation, manipulating interest rates are its primary tool, and it’s not an entirely wrong answer. Burgeoning economic activity that has demand for goods and services overwhelming the ability of producers to deliver the goods and services is a major driver of inflation, and that inflation hammers us average Americans by badly devaluing our incomes. Dampening demand is a way to deal with inflation.

However.

Consumer demand isn’t the only component of overall economic demand: Federal spending is another major player, and the Federal government creates completely artificial demand with its spending.

Repeat my opening stipulation. If our economy is strong, we don’t need nearly so much Federal spending. The Biden administration—and any following series of administrations—need to cut out the stimulus spending, cut back on “baseline” spending, and get out of the way of the private economy. Absent Federal…interference…in our economy, spending and supply will align quickly as us Americans decide for ourselves what we will buy, what we will produce, and the price levels at which we will carry out the relevant exchanges.

Take note, also: that puts a premium on the Republican House and Senate caucuses standing firm on requiring spending cuts beginning next fiscal year and continuing into the out years as a quid pro quo for raising the debt ceiling this year.

Needs

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In an editorial centered on the travails of a small pharmaceutical company, Novavax Inc, in developing medicines—here, particularly, Novavax’ Wuhan Virus vaccine in alternative to Pfizer’s and Moderna’s—there were these claims by then-NAIAD head Anthony Fauci in explaining the apparently deliberate regulatory delay in getting FDA approval:

We don’t need another vaccine.

And

It just seems rather unusual that people are waiting for something else when you have vaccines that have been given to now nine billion people[.]

This is another instance of Government presuming to dictate to us average Americans what our needs are instead of accepting that we know our needs and how to satisfy them much better than any Government bureaucrat.

Novavax’ alternative vaccine was 90.4% effective against symptomatic infection and offered 100% protection against moderate and severe illness, and now the company is on the verge of bankruptcy due to this governmental arrogance.

So much for medicine innovation.