Author Archives: eehines

A Cynically Irrelevant Argument

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Here’s the lede:

A coalition of climate and health organizations sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday in an effort to combat its repeal of a landmark climate finding.

Because of course they do. The landmark climate “finding” that has been repealed is the finding that plant food in the form of atmospheric CO2 actually is a pollutant. That fiction has expanded costs of living for us American citizens for decades, and its removal is good riddance. Nevertheless, the climate funding industry is waxing hysterical over the nation’s turn toward rationality.

Their suit proceeds, cynically, from an irrelevancy. Peter Zalzal, of the Environmental Defense Fund:

Repealing the endangerment finding endangers all of us. People everywhere will face more pollution, higher costs, and thousands of avoidable deaths.

Even were that true—it isn’t—it’s irrelevant. The question is an economic, and so a political, one. Our courts have no jurisdiction for hearing this argument. Our judges and Justices are bound by our Constitution and their oaths of office to uphold and defend it, and by their oaths they’re further constrained to rule based on the text of any statute that comes before them. They cannot, legitimately, rule based on what they wished our Constitution and statutes said, nor can they, legitimately, rule based on their personal views of what’s good or bad for our society.

This sort of suit should be tossed at the outset, with prejudice, and with sanctions on the lawyers and their employing firms for bringing frivolous suits.

A Rhyme in History?

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In the ongoing rise of tension between the US and Iran, which latter includes ties with Russia and the People’s Republic of China, The Wall Street Journal had this bit:

Iran is an important partner for Moscow and one that it wouldn’t want to lose, especially after the US deposed Nicolás Maduro, an ally of Russia, in Venezuela last month. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t likely to come to the aid of Khamenei if US strikes appear on the verge of bringing him down.
“These relationships are highly pragmatic, highly transactional,” said Alexander Palmer, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, on Tehran’s security ties to Russia and Iran. “They don’t have a sufficient strategic interest in Iran to be willing to go to war with the United States over the country.”

Early in WWII, the UK and Russia invaded Iran and occupied most of the country. The two had agreed to leave Iran six months after the war against Nazi Germany had ended. At the end of those six months, the UK began withdrawing, and Russia indicated it intended to stay for control of Iranian oil. It was only under pressure from the US that the Russians ultimately withdrew.

These days it’s another contest between Russia and the US for controlling influence in Iran. Should the current Iranian government fall, there will ensue two questions: one is whether a stable government be quickly formed and installed. In that event, there likely won’t be much Russia can do, especially as bogged down as the barbarian is in Ukraine.

The other question flows from the political chaos that will develop if no national-capable government is quickly formed. In that event, Russia will move to gain overt control over Iran’s domestic affairs, particularly with regard to Iran’s oil, of which Russia’s primary need is denial of the oil to the world market in order to prop up the prices Russia can get for its own oil, and with regard to Iran’s war materiel production, especially its drone production. From this, the question expands to include the US response to Russia’s moves for control and the contest between Russia and the US over that control.

Deterrence and the Need for It

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In the present…negotiations…between the US and Iran, the US wants

…Iran’s nuclear programs eliminated, regional proxy forces disbanded, and ballistic missiles dismantled. Iran is seen as unlikely to agree to the last point, because it doesn’t have much of an air force and relies on missiles as its main deterrent.

Iran won’t agree to eliminating its nuclear programs, most especially its nuclear weapons development and (future) production programs, either. Nor will it agree, in practice, to disbanding its proxy terrorist entities, no matter how much the mullahs and their negotiating representatives might lie about agreeing to do in any agreement.

The bit about deterrence is what’s important in this post, though. One component of this failure to agree is on the US’ negotiators. Iran has no serious fear of attack by its neighbors, and so no real need of deterrence, since Iran has nothing in the way of resources, either in raw materials or in production output, that any nation might want that can’t be gotten far more cheaply and far more beneficially for both that (those) nation(s) and for Iran through freely achieved trade agreements than from invasion, conquering, and occupation. Not even from putative adversaries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Pakistan. Not even in tit for tat, blood for blood honor vengeance attitudes in the Middle East.

The US needs to make this case directly. President Donald Trump (R) already is hinting at it with his trade deal commentary, but he needs to be bluntly explicit about it.

A Proper Response

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People’s Republic of China’s President Xi Jinping is looking to bully President Donald Trump (R) into stopping arms sales to the Republic of China in order to ease Xi’s coming invasion of the RoC. Xi has ordered the PLA to be ready for the invasion by 2027, and the arms sales to the RoC are critical in forestalling that invasion or defeating it should it come.

As the Wall Street Journal‘s editors note,

giving in to Mr Xi’s threats on Taiwan would send a dangerous signal about America’s reliability as an ally. The Taiwan Relations Act obligates the US to supply defensive weapons to the island. If Mr Trump abdicates on that obligation, China will immediately use it to tell the Taiwanese people that America can’t be trusted to defend them. Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines will also get the message that Mr Trump’s priority in the Pacific is China, not their mutual defense.

It also would tell Xi that the US is a paper tiger, easily cowed, and his pressure on us would only increase.

The proper responses to Xi’s bullying attempt are two. One is to increase the sales of weapons—including offensive weapons, now—and to greatly accelerate their delivery. The other is to increase our own combat suites in and around the South China Sea and the island of Taiwan, with particular attention here to the Taiwan Strait. Every time Xi waxes angry and threatening, we should up the ante further, each time much more than the prior increase.

Who Owns our Economy?

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Greg Ip, a writer for The Wall Street Journal, says those of us older than 65 do.

As of the third quarter of last year, people 70 and over controlled roughly 39% of all equities and mutual funds owned by households, compared with 22% in 2007, according to Federal Reserve data. Their share of net worth—assets minus debts—was 32%, up from 20% two decades earlier.

And

Wealth accumulates with age, so people at retirement tend to have much more than younger generations, a pattern evident in Fed surveys back to 1989.

And so on.

Even were that true, it’s only a temporary ownership. What Ip missed is this truism: we can’t take the economy, or our wealth, with us when we relocate to Dirt Nap Acres. We leave that wealth to those younger generations, our children, and to a variety of charities and endowments, all of which benefit those younger generations.

All that means that tomorrow, those younger generations will own our economy, starting well before they become the next geezer owners of the economy.

It’s a generational cycle, and that background is the framework within which the economy’s business and political cycles play out.