An Upstart Election Win

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Andy Burnham, a deep back bencher in the UK’s Labour Party, won the special district election held in the dinky little district in northern England, defeating his closest competitor, a Reform candidate, by 55%-34%. This puts him in line to overtly push his challenge to the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and at least get Starmer tossed as PM. Starmer has been insisting all along, in the face of his collapsing support and popularity, that he won’t go quietly.

Labour has long been the strongly dominant party in Makerfield, so the Reform candidate had no real chance. The Conservative candidate, who would have been the traditional strongest challenger, might as well have not bothered: he got all of 2% of the vote.

This raises a question in my pea brain. Is Nigel Farage, Reform’s leader, Machiavellian enough to get the Makerfield Reform candidate to tank the election in order to bump up Burnham’s numbers in order strengthen Burnham’s effort to get Starmer tossed in order to longer-term benefit Reform in the ensuing national election?

Inquiring minds are curious.

Driverless Trucks and Good Paying Union Jobs

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Keith Hernandez, of Teamsters Local 727, doesn’t like driverless trucks.

Driverless trucks endanger good-paying jobs and the communities that rely on them… he says. And

Automation would remove the real-world, first-hand experience and knowledge drivers gain on the road.

No, they wouldn’t and don’t. All that “real-world, first-hand experience and knowledge” is contained in the computers that operate the autonomous vehicles. Delivery drivers are my friends and sales people, as Hernandez also claims? They may well be friendly, even friends, but that’s wholly outside of and separate from their role as drivers. And, no, neither the UPS driver, nor the FedEx, nor Amazon—nor even the Door Dash driver nor the pizza delivery guy are salesmen and women. They don’t pitch me, and I wouldn’t be interested if they did.

Driverless trucks, though, to the extent they succeed in safe, efficient, speedy delivery actually will reduce costs to consumers by taking the labor cost out of the picture. And if they don’t succeed, the truck drivers will continue to thrive in their own right.

No, leave it to a union man to take this tack. Your money belongs to the union. If it can’t get your money by forcing dues payments, it’ll try to get it by featherbedding into unneeded jobs, driving up your costs.

A Reformed Fed

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David Malpass, Undersecretary of the Treasury during Trump I and World Bank President during the reign of ex-President Joe Biden (D), correctly noted that the Federal Reserve Bank as currently constituted is using the wrong economic models and, as a result, has been a singular failure in controlling inflation and that it has been a failure all of this century.

He proposed some remedies.

  • Current models…need to be replaced with economic models that welcome strong investment, innovation, and job growth and recognize dollar stability as a prerequisite for price stability.
  • shrink its balance sheet to allow private-sector liquidity markets to rebuild
  • reduce staff and buildings
  • include the dollar in its inflation models
  • disentangle the Fed from fiscal policy
  • extract itself from the climate regulatory morass
  • allow regulatory innovations in banking and liquidity markets

A capitalist Federal Reserve Bank—what a concept.

There’s another reform, though, that’s an even more critical Critical Item, but this one is firmly on us citizens; it’s the responsibility of We the People. That is to reform Congress by firing those Representatives and Senators who disdain or are indifferent to the imperatives—and the intrinsic morality—of capitalism, and replace them with those who actively support capitalism.

As a man once said, that’s what elections are for. We the People are the electors.

“Extreme Emotional Disturbance”

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The lawyers defending Luigi Mangione for his (alleged) murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson are planning to say that Mangione admits to his murder, and then the lawyers will argue that he can’t be held liable for his murder because he had an angst.

Guilty but insane is a viable defense in some jurisdictions, and New York, where Mangione is supposed to have committed his crime, has something of the sort. Typically, the plea results in confinement in a psychiatric facility for treatment, and on successful treatment (if that occurs), the guilty person is then transferred to a prison wherein he serves the remainder of the sentence he would have received had he been simply convicted of the crime.

That works for me.

In the event, the defense decided not to run that defense by the judge or the jury. Too bad, from my perspective. That would have gotten Mangione locked up sooner, saving the court time and the people tax money.

A Thought on the MOU

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Of course this depends on how accurately the press is reporting an unnamed official’s “readout” of what the press alleges is the Memorandum of Understanding between us and Iran regarding the Iran war. Adding skepticism to the accuracy of this readout is Iran’s insistence that the text of the MOU not be released yet.

Paragraph 1. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war, by signing this memorandum of understanding, declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and other provisions of this paragraph.
WSJ analysis
The inclusion of Lebanon is highly controversial in Israel, which is fighting a war there with Hezbollah. This official version includes tougher language on Lebanon’s sovereignty.

It’s more than controversial. The inclusion of Lebanon in this MOU is Trump’s mistake. The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel is entirely separate from the conflict between the US and Israel (and now US only) and Iran, and it should have been kept so.

Paragraph 2. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.
WSJ analysis
President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began the war calling on Iranians to overthrow the regime, a goal that faded as the government in Tehran held firm.

This is so blatantly wrong that the WSJ‘s “annotators” can only be taken as lying. Neither Trump nor Netanyahu (whose commentary would be irrelevant, anyway) never called for regime change—they—Trump—only said that it would be nice, and “here’s an opportunity for the Iranian people.”

Paragraph 5. Upon the signing of this memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will be reinstated. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialog with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.
WSJ analysis
Iran’s main obligation under the deal, lifting its chokehold on the strait. The updated version says Iran agrees not to charge fees for transit for 60 days and blesses an Iranian plan to work with Oman on the future administration of the strait, but says they must involve other Gulf states in the discussion.

This is Trump’s mistake. He needed to insist on Iran openly acknowledging the international waters characteristic of the Strait. At most, at this point, he should not have agreed to any sort of consortium involving Iran for “managing” the Strait.