Monthly Archives: November 2016

Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on by
Reply

I first posted this in 2011.  I think it bears repeating today.

 

 
Today I thought I’d share some thoughts on the matter offered by other folks who are a bit more articulate than I.  In the meantime, be thankful for who we are and where we are: whatever straits we in which we find ourselves, we’re orders of magnitude better off than most everyone else in the world.

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be — That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks — for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation — for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war — for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed — for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
-George Washington, 3 October 1789

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. … No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
-Abraham Lincoln, 3 October 1863

We are profoundly grateful for the blessings bestowed upon us: the preservation of our freedom, so dearly bought and so highly prized; our opportunities for human welfare and happiness, so limitless in their scope; our material prosperity, so far surpassing that of earlier years; and our private spiritual blessings, so deeply cherished by all. For these we offer fervent thanks to God.
-Harry S Truman, 22 November 1950

Perhaps no custom reveals our character as a Nation so clearly as our celebration of Thanksgiving Day. Rooted deeply in our Judeo-Christian heritage, the practice of offering thanksgiving underscores our unshakable belief in God as the foundation of our Nation and our firm reliance upon Him from Whom all blessings flow.
-Ronald W Reagan, 27 November 1986

This Thanksgiving, as we enjoy the company of family and friends, let us gratefully turn our hearts to God, the loving Source of all Life and Liberty. Let us seek His forgiveness for our shortcomings and transgressions and renew our determination to remain a people worthy of His continued favor and protection. Acknowledging our dependence on the Almighty, obeying His Commandments, and reaching out to help those who do not share fully in this Nation’s bounty is the most heartfelt and meaningful answer we can give to the timeless appeal of the Psalmist: ‘O give thanks to the Lord for He is good: for his steadfast love endures forever.’
-George H W Bush, 14 November 1990

And then enjoy yourselves; have plain, raw fun.  That’s not just allowed, it’s a Good in its own right.

Free Trade

Posted on by
Reply

Specific trade deals might be good or bad, but that’s specific to the deal; such efficacies don’t say much of anything about free trade or free trade deals in general.  There are, in fact, two primary reasons for encouraging free trade, zones of free trade, and the deals that enhance free trade and generate free trade zones.  One reason is the economic benefits for the partners of the free trade deals, including lower costs—and so downward pressure on price inflation—for the citizens of the nations involved, and net (if small) job creation, which stems from those lower costs and domestic companies benefiting from the increased demand that flows from those lower costs.  It’s true that particular jobs disappear as production moves to lower cost areas (and that’s true for entirely domestic regions, too), but other jobs get created as other businesses crop up to take advantage of production shifts.

The other reason, though, and the reason that’s the emphasis of this piece, is free trade and free trade zones as instruments of foreign policy.  There are lots of ways free trade operates here, ranging from enhancing relationships among the members of the free trade arrangement to demonstrating the economic benefits of free markets to potentiating the freedoms associated with free markets to countering the influence of our enemies.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership pending deal and the People’s Republic of China’s responses present an example of that last.  The TPP initially involved a dozen nations rimming the Pacific including the US, Canada, Chile, and Peru on the eastern side and, importantly, including Japan and many of the nations surrounding the South China Sea.  Recall that the PRC has seized and is actively occupying the South China Sea and is attempting to seize the East China Sea; these aggressions are at the direct expense of those South China Sea nations and of Japan.  Aside from the naked grab aspect, the PRC’s behavior is aimed at harming American interests in the Pacific through those harms to our friends, allies, and potential allies, the aggressions are aimed directly at those nations: to subordinate them economically, and then politically, to the PRC.  Keep in mind that 30% of the world’s seaborne trade goes through that South China Sea, including more than $1 trillion of trade bound for us, with the bulk of the rest not going to the PRC being critical to the economies of those rimming nations and Japan.

The TPP by design did not include the PRC.  The failure of the TPP is being filled by a PRC-led trade pact in the offing in conjunction with its in-progress Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.  But neither this new trade pact nor the RCEP are agreements among trade equals.  The members of these deals will be required to toe the PRC line regarding censorship, intellectual property rights, cyber security, so on.

And

In the next five years, China will import $8 trillion of goods and invest $750 billion abroad, [PRC President Xi Xinping] said.

Those are $8 trillion of goods—and services—that could be going to members of the TPP and to us rather than to the PRC.  Further, that trade imbalance—to the extent that President-elect is correct about trade imbalances—constitutes a lever that could be used to…encourage…the PRC to withdraw from its occupation and attempted occupation of those two Seas.  Frankly, I don’t think Trump is right on trade imbalances, per se, but the economic isolation of the PRC possible from those numbers, to the extent Xi believes it, still represents a long lever.

Japan has gone ahead and ratified the TPP, and other members of the pending pact should do so, as well.  This would not only work to the mutual prosperity of the ratifiying nations, it could serve as a strong economic check to an aggressively expansionist PRC.  The economic integration potentiated by the TPP would enhance the region’s own leverage against the acquisitiveness of the PRC by making them, as a group even without us, much closer to the PRC’s equal in economic power and leverage.  Details of the deal may well want improvement, but that should be for Round Two of the negotiations while the deal’s effectivity and weaknesses are observed empirically.

The containment of the PRC makes the deal as it stands worth it.  Especially with a Round Two.

The Bias of the Press

Posted on by
1

It’s going to continue, as Howard Kurtz, writing for FoxNews has recognized.

Many in the media, mostly on the liberal side, have come up with a verb that captures their disgust at the man who will be America’s 45th president.

It’s a word that clearly signals that they will remain in opposition, in a state of perpetual outrage, that, in truth, they don’t fully accept the results of the election.

Donald Trump, they say, should not be normalized.

Especially that perpetual outrage part.  That’s not normal; that’s pathology.  Here’s Slate, as cited by Kurtz, describing the typical NLMSM and its refusal (not inability) to accept Donald Trump as the duly elected next President:

In an essay for the New York Times Magazine, Teju Cole wrote, of the days following Trump’s win, “All around were the unmistakable signs of normalization in progress. So many were falling into line without being pushed. It was happening at tremendous speed, like a contagion.” David Remnick told CNN, “We’ve normalized [the results] already. Less than a week after the election is over, suddenly Washington is going about its business talking about who’s going to get what jobs. You would think that Mitt Romney had won. It’s a hallucination.” …  “He is not normal,” insisted John Oliver over the weekend. “He is abnormal.”

The NLMSM as Fourth Estate?  Not anymore.

A Minimum Wage Mandate Demonstration

Posted on by
Reply

McDonald’s, which already has ordering stations—kiosks at its restaurant tables from which diners can order their meals and have them delivered to them—at some 500 of its restaurants in Florida, New York, and California.  The Daily Caller, citing CNN Money, says more of these kiosks are scheduled to be added, next year, in McDonald’s restaurants in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, and DC.

Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signed into law a new $15 minimum wage for New York State in 2016, and the University of California has proposed to pay its low-wage employees $15. Florida’s minimum wage will rise I January 2017. Seattle raised its minimum wage to $15 in 2014, followed by San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Notice that.  The additional kiosks are going into areas that have raised (Chicago and Boston in addition to San Fran and Seattle) or will raise soon their required minimum wage, instead of letting that be an item of negotiation between free workers and free employers.  It doesn’t cost $15 to operate one of these kiosks for an hour.  Even given the up-front costs of acquiring and installing the kiosks, their life cycle costs are much less than those of a $15/hr unskilled order-taking worker doing unskilled work, given the worker’s training (even if minimal) and high turnover rate costs.

Which is what the Left has known all along, because serious economists have been telling these Know Betters about these outcomes right along.  The Left’s policies are actively destructive of the prospects for those the Left claims it’s aiming to help, but those of the Left would rather virtue signal and feel good about themselves than do actual good for others.

Aparna Mathur, Resident Scholar for Economic Policy at the American Enterprise Institute [emphasis added]:

We know that we don’t really need someone to take an order…and we will eventually have machines do it. It is risky to fight for something that could put you out of work[.]

There’s an understatement.

 

H/t AEIdeas

Of Course

Posted on by
Reply

Here‘s Senator Mark Warner (D, VA):

The coalition needs to be broader.  The Democratic Party has a history that it’s been about working Americans. We cannot be a party of the East Coast, West Coast and metropolitan areas.

And yet, that’s exactly what the Progressive-Democratic Party of Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) and Bernie Sanders (I, VT) and Barack Obama (D, President) has made itself into, with policies that actively suppress, with Know Better monumental regulation and governance by Executive Order, the middle and poorer classes of Americans.  Here’s that divide in geography, in two maps from The New York Times.  The first shows the vote for Donald Trump; the missing parts of the US are regions that voted for Hillary Clinton. trumpmap_1

This second map shows the vote for Clinton; it emphasizes the regions of Progressive-Democratic Party support, which are the two coasts and some urban enclaves.trumpmap_2

That’s the physical location of their bubble.  This, from the subhead of the WSJ piece under the first link above, illustrates their intellectual bubble.

There are big parts of the country that just aren’t hearing us.

Of course Progressive policies are panacea.  Us Americans are just too stupid, or to deaf, to hear and understand the Progressive message.  Or we’re just too irredeemably deplorable a collection of bitter, gun toting religion clingers.

Yeah.  That’s the ticket.  That’ll get the Progressive-Democratic Party back into power.