Tag Archives: political economy

Progressive-Democrats and Economic Recovery

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Progressive-Democrats don’t seem to care about economic recovery, only about using the current Wuhan Virus situation and the economic dislocation the virus has spurred for their own political power gain.

This is made plain by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) in an interview she gave to CBS News‘ Face the Nation Sunday.

…what we will not support is the following. What they’re saying to essential workers, you have to go to work because you’re essential. We’ve place no responsibility on your employer to make that workplace safe and if you get sick, you have no recourse because we’ve given your employer protection.

This is completely disingenuous. There already exist a plethora of labor law making employers explicitly liable for the existence of workplace negligence as well as any injuries resulting from that negligence. There already is responsibility on your employer to make that workplace safe.

There’s also this exchange between FTN‘s Margaret Brennan and Pelosi regarding the Federal addendum to unemployment insurance payments:

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well- but specifically on what has just expired, that- that boost of $600 to federal unemployment. Republicans and the White House are saying that they want to keep some money going, but bring it down to about 70 percent of prior wages. Is that something you can accept?
SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, let me just say this. The reason we had $600 was its simplicity.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.
SPEAKER PELOSI: And figuring out 70 percent of somebody’s wages. People don’t all make a salary. Maybe they do. They make wages and they sometimes have it vary. So why don’t we just keep it simple? Unemployment benefits and the- the enhancement, which is so essential right now and that’s really where we are starting and–

Seventy per cent of somebody’s wages might be a little bit more complex than a flat rate, but the arithmetic is something any third grader can do. And we have these neat, new machines—the technology for which was first developed almost 100 years ago and constantly, rapidly improved since—even the Federal government has them, computers, that can do the mass calculations and record keeping necessary.

No, this is just an excuse to justify another piece of Progressive-Democrat obstructionism.

And this:

MARGARET BRENNAN: Will you stay in session until a deal is negotiated?
SPEAKER PELOSI: We can’t go home without it.

After months of hiding out in their several basements instead of convening to conduct the nation’s business—which the Senate has been doing all along, in person, in the Senate chambers. Pelosi is just cynically virtue-signaling with that.

Pelosi and the Progressive-Democrats she leads are simply raising all of this obstruction because they do not want serious support for our economy, for getting businesses back into production, workers back to work, consumers back to spending and saving, our economy back to thriving.

Economic chaos works for the Left. Prosperity works for everyone else.

Government and Student Debt

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In an article on the possibility of the Federal government extending its current moratorium on student debt repayment, The Wall Street Journal posed a question to its readers.

How should Congress address the backlog of student-loan payments borrowers will owe after Sept 30?

I say, mostly by leaving it alone. The loans are strictly business arrangements between the borrower and the lender.

In a free market economy, government has no role here, other than to allow student debt to be discharged through bankruptcy like most other debt. Such bankruptcies then must flow with all the ramifications they entail for both the lenders and the borrowers.

Government also should stop guaranteeing student loans. If there needs to be a guarantor in order to have a student debt market at all, let the colleges and universities be the guarantors, either individually or via a consortium. It is, after all, the colleges’ and universities’ high prices and non-marketable or low-income-producing majors that drive the difficulties graduates have with their student debts.

Internet Security

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There is a move afoot—and it’s making significant progress—to develop and deploy a quantum computing Internet.

A group led by the US Department of Energy and the University of Chicago plans to develop a nationwide quantum internet that could be functional in about a decade and with the potential to securely transmit sensitive information related to national security and financial services.
“What we’re moving forward on is building out quantum networks [to] someday…turn into a full second internet, a parallel internet to the digital internet,” said Paul Dabbar, the Energy Department’s Under Secretary for Science.

That would be terrific if it actually comes to fruition. Especially this part:

“Literally anything that would be transmitted encrypted today would be suitable for the quantum internet in the future,” Mr [JPMorgan Chase & Co’s Managing Director, Head of Research and Engineering, Marco] Pistoia said in an email.

Of course, that includes the personal and business correspondence of US citizens.

A problem I have with such a development, though, is this:

“A quantum network, because of physics, is by definition completely secure,” Mr Dabbar said.

No. A quantum network is not the network to end all networks. Such a network is not because of physics…by definition completely secure.

A quantum network is completely secure because of physics as we understand physics today. Security is, and always will be, an arms race between the cryptographers and their evolutions on the one hand, and the hackers and their evolutions on the other.

The biggest threat to security is just this sort of complacency.

There are other problems, and they are not unique to quantum networks, either. One such is a basic denial of service attack, where the hacker doesn’t care a single bit about encryption—at least not directly—but only in denying user access to the network or any node on it. The motive for that denial may be petty vandalism, “protest,” extortion—give me that document you’ve got encrypted on your quantum subnet (so much for quantum encryption)—to any number of other not yet imagined reasons.

Another is the phishing expedition wherein an employee is suckered into taking some action that grants the hacker access to the network.

Then there’s that personal communication secrecy—a citizen’s wish to keep his private communications private, including from the prying eyes of Government. Quantum network use would extend the tension between a citizen’s right to keep private things private and Government’s often entirely legitimate, even urgent, need to know. That, though, is just part of the noise of republican democracy.

By all means, develop and deploy the quantum Internet; it would be a huge step forward in data protection. Sooner is better.

But don’t be complacent about its security. And don’t let up on the need to protect against other forms of attack.

Some Actual Data

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Because as most in the current administration do, Progressive-Democrats natter on about, and the NLMSM bleats hysterically we should do, here are some actual data and some actual science that we should follow regarding the Wuhan Virus and our current situation.

The subheadline pretty much tells the tale.

Research suggests the new coronavirus kills about five to 10 people for every 1,000 that it infects, though rate varies based on age and access to health care

The Executive Summary:

That research—examining deaths out of the total number of infections, which includes unreported cases—suggests that Covid-19 kills from around 0.3% to 1.5% of people infected. Most studies put the rate between 0.5% and 1.0%, meaning that for every 1,000 people who get infected, from five to 10 would die on average.

Age matters, too, but the slope only increases sharply above an age:

Researchers in the US and Switzerland examined data from the Swiss city of Geneva to calculate fatality rates for different age groups. They found those over 65 had an infection-fatality rate of 5.6%….

As a side note, another avenue of research occurs to me from this datum. Sixty-five is associated with retirement (plus or minus) in the western developed world. How much does the increased level of sedentary-ness associated with retirement contribute to that higher mortality rate? Could a sedentary life-style itself be a comorbidity?

It’s instructive that Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden seems not to be aware of any of these data. It’s further instructive that the NLMSM studiously ignores them.

Let ’em Burn?

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That’s what Bill McGurn and some others think as Progressive-Democrat-run cities suffer increasing rioting and looting and chaos while those same Progressive-Democrat mayors increasingly vociferously object to Federal law enforcement personnel presence and actions.

Opening with

Because President Trump believes such [foreign] concerns aren’t America’s business, he has been reluctant to involve US troops abroad. So it’s surprising that he now appears eager to intervene in the mostly Democratic-run American cities that have been wracked by chaos, shootings and destruction in the weeks since George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Then, near his close:

There’s no doubt the president has both the responsibility and the authority to protect federal property, which is what DHS is doing in Portland. But Mr Trump would do well to narrow his rhetoric to make clear any federal intervention will be for this purpose and this purpose only—unless cities specifically ask for federal assistance.

Let the cities burn. Let the innocent burn in them alongside the thugs.  Don’t exercise any initiative.

Trump may not be responsible for the welfare and safety of a metaphorical 25 million Iraqis (as Colin Powell once suggested to President Bush the Younger), but he is responsible for the welfare and safety of 330 million Americans—all of us.

That includes the innocents whose lives are being destroyed and businesses razed—literally and through denial of access to customers—by rioters and looters in cities where Progressive-Democrat mayors, with the full backing of their Progressive-Democrat governors, have abrogated their responsibilities for the welfare and safety of the residents of those cities, the citizens of those States.

It might, in the short term, feel good to let the cities burn freely without Federal intervention, but it would also burn millions of innocent Americans, all to make a political point—which is what those mayors and governors are doing, to make a political point.

Then McGurn had this bit of excuse-making—it’s all the cities’ residents’ fault.

It’s difficult to argue that these leaders have done so without the consent of the governed. Whether it was Bill de Blasio running against the police in New York or Jenny Durkan offering her own progressive agenda in Seattle, they didn’t hide from voters what they stood for.

Those leaders were not elected unanimously, however. A significant minority voted against them or for the opposing candidates. We must protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority—that’s the basis of our federal republic structure of governance.

McGurn closed with this:

The chaos now consuming American cities has arisen on the watch of progressive politicians just like Mayor Wheeler, and they don’t deserve to be so easily let off the hook.

But the innocents don’t deserve to be hung on that hook along with the cities’ governing politician failures.

The misapprehension is widespread on the left, too. In response to a comment on McGurn’s article warning of the tyranny of the majority, one commenter asked, “[T]yranny of the majority? So who gets to rule?”

The answer would be obvious to anyone who’s actually had a jr high Civics class. No one gets to rule in the United States of America. Governing, though, is done by the majority—within the framework of respect for and protection of the wishes and rights of the minority.

Trump just needs to make the case directly to the people—around the nation and especially in those Progressive-Democrat-forsaken cities—bypassing the NLMSM gateway/filter/censor.

Update: Left out a couple key words that changed the meaning of my comment on McGurn’s excuse-making. Now corrected.