Daily Archives: 9 May 2016

Divide and Conquer is Conquering

Posted on by
Reply

Davao City is a major city on the southern island of the Philippines; indeed, it’s on the far side of the Philippines away from the South China Sea.  The mayor of that city, Rodrigo Duterte who’s running for President of the Republic of the Philippines, thinks it’s appropriate to

talk with Beijing and is open to discussing joint exploration of resources in the South China Sea.

It doesn’t matter to him that this plays directly into the PRC’s goal of occupying the Sea, both by military force and by one-on-one “discussions” with the nations rimming the Sea—each one of which is smaller than a province in the PRC, and each one of whose navy is no match for the Chinese navy—even the flotillas currently occupying the Spratly and Paracel Island groups.

Duterte showed his true colors in a campaign speech ahead of this week’s election, though:

[He] pledged to ride a jet-ski to plant a Philippine flag on a disputed atoll now controlled by Beijing.

A publicity stunt for stroking his ego and pumping his election chances.  Never mind the damage done to the Philippines’ interests in the South China Sea.

Divide and conquer has many paths.

Wealth Redistribution

Posted on by
Reply

Now it’s threatening to spread to our education institutions.

Lawmakers have a new solution for the high cost of college: make the wealthiest universities pay for it.

Of course.  Because competition among colleges to bring down costs, or reducing Federal funding for them under [pick an excuse] programs to reduce the non-student population money available to drive up costs just can’t be done.  Too many special interests would be perturbed by such a thing.

Elite US schools have grown richer since the 2008 financial crisis by investing their endowment money in everything from California vineyards to Chinese startups.  State and federal policy makers now want to tax those profits….

Gotta punish that success.  How dare these institutions accrue moneys without a government’s faretheewell?

…or force the wealthiest schools to spend down their endowments—to defray soaring student bills and refill depleted higher-education budgets.

Which governments could do easily by not sending so much taxpayer dollars to these schools.  But…special interests.

Interestingly, Republicans are in on this move.

Congressman Tom Reed (R, NY)…floated a plan late last year that would require endowments bigger than $1 billion to pay out a quarter of their earnings in grants to working-class families or face steep penalties or even the loss of their tax-exempt status.

It isn’t Government’s place to tell these schools—or any other institution—how to spend its money.  It is Government’s place to not send taxpayer dollars to these schools—or to any other institution.

No wonder Conservatives are so angrified.