Good for Them

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A number of universities are raising cash in large amounts, though not as large as suspended Federal government transfers to them, in their efforts to shield themselves from government pressure to rid themselves of antisemitic bigots and terrorist supporters among their student and professor populations.

Princeton University is issuing $320 million in bonds, while Northwestern secured $500 million and Harvard raised $750 million. Yale University, which has flown under Trump’s radar so far, is trying to sell billions in its private-equity holdings.

I say good for them.

These institutions are under no obligation to accept Federal dollars, and the government is under no obligation to send those dollars to them. So long as the institutions accept Federal dollars, though, the government gets to specify how those dollars get used, just as is the case with any other donor. No Federal dollars, no Federal strings.

Beyond that, though, with all of that money-raising—and the institutions are just getting started on this round—these institutions are demonstrating how little they actually need Federal dollars to carry out the various researches they cry so piteously are at risk from losing those dollars.

Even as these institutions “free” themselves from Federal strings, though, so long as they tolerate—condone, actually—those bigots and terrorist supporters, they are no fit institutions for our children’s post-high school education.

It’s true enough that colleges and universities can be highly useful centers of technology development and of basic research, including in areas critically important for our national security, and Federal dollars can be highly valuable impetus and support for those efforts. There are a plethora of such schools, though, that are not hotbeds of bigotry and support for terrorists; these are the schools who should be getting those dollars.

Americans’ Intellectual Property at Risk

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And that risk stems from President Donald Trump’s (R) alleged trade wars according to Daniel Gervais, a Vanderbilt professor and Director of Vanderbilt’s Intellectual Property Program, who should know better. In his letter to The Wall Street Journal‘s Tuesday Letters section, he wrote

The US is turning its back on the multilateral trading system it helped create after World War II, threatening Americans’ intellectual property…. Embodied by institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), this system has provided stability through clear trade rules and dispute-settlement mechanisms….

And

The most important set of international rules protecting IP rights is the WTO’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or Trips. The agreement obligates member countries to provide IP rights, with limited exceptions, and enforce them at their borders and in national courts.

What Gervais ignored is that it is the PRC that’s been busily blowing up the global trading system ever since its accession to the WTO. Politically, the PRC ignores WTO rulings it doesn’t like, including one regarding its seizure and militarization of South Sea islands that belong to other nations and not the PRC. Specific to that ruling, the PRC is ignoring the Republic of Philippines’ ownership of—not mere responsibility for—the islands in its EEC.

Regarding intellectual property, Gervais also ignored the PRC’s assault on other nations’—particularly the US’—intellectual property and proprietary technologies. The PRC has long had (for all that the current regime recently has begun paying lip service to limiting) requirements that foreign companies partner with PRC-domiciled companies and agree to intellectual property and proprietary technology transfers that comport with PRC-mandated requirements at zero compensation beyond the privilege of doing business. These requirements go far beyond the WTO’s minimalist transfers with compensation for the transferring company.

Gervais also ignored the PRC’s long standing and extremely extensive intellectual property and technology thefts through corporate espionage.

It’s not the current administration that’s turning its back on the multilateral trading system and the WTO, it’s the PRC with its long-extant studied efforts to destroy them.

Two Responses

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The headline tells the tale.

California is winning the war on ‘Big Oil,’ but experts say victory will bring higher gas prices

California’s “victory” has resulted in this:

Valero Energy Corporation has announced it will idle or close its Benicia Refinery in California—just the latest in the exodus of fossil fuel companies from the state.
Six months ago, Phillips 66 announced the closure of its Los Angeles-area refinery by the end of this year—it’s since bumped the date up to October—and a few months before that, Chevron announced it would be moving its headquarters from San Ramon, California, to Houston.
After the two refineries close, it’s not clear exactly where California will find more gasoline and other finished petroleum products, such as jet fuel, to satisfy demand.

And this:

Newsom blamed oil companies for high gasoline prices and promised further regulation of the industry would solve the problem for residents.

Here are two responses, should the management teams of the companies involved (finally) find the backbone to implement them. One is for oil and natural gas companies outside California decline to sell any of their products into California. They easily can make the case that it’s not sound economically or business-wise to produce products that meet California’s enormously stringent requirements and still be able to sell into the rest of our nation at market prices.

The other is for car and truck companies to decline to sell their vehicles into California. They easily can make the same economic and business argument: it’s not feasible to produce vehicles solely for the California market, and making those California-compliant vehicles for nation-wide sales only drives the costs of those vehicles far above the market prices that otherwise would obtain.

Those moves also would satisfactorily answer Newsom’s problem. With no further oil and gas flowing into California from outside, there would be no gasoline for which to abuse gasoline prices. With no further vehicles being sold into California, there would be reduced demand for gasoline at any price, a demand that would fall to zero as existing ICE vehicles age out.

Winners all around.

A Sort of Start on a Student Loan Fix

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Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon has proposed a series of steps to correct our nation’s student loan miasma.

• mov[e] roughly 1.8 million borrowers into repayment plans and restart collections of loans in default
• in some cases wages would be automatically garnished
• push colleges to be responsible and transparent

That last is especially curious. McMahon does not say how she defines “responsible and transparent,” nor does she say what constitutes her “push,” how hard she will push, or what consequences—concrete, measurable, and publicly accessible—she will apply for noncompliance, or how promptly.

These steps need to be taken, but by themselves they can be only stopgap, and they are wholly inadequate. What’s really necessary is to get the Federal government completely out of the student loan business: no Federal student loan guarantees, no Federal student loan-supporting programs whatsoever.

Because money is fungible, that must include drastically curtailing the range of student grants and scholarships originating from Federal programs. The same reasoning for getting rid of DoEd altogether applies to any sort of Federal involvement in education.

McMahon can do these things from within DoED while she’s setting the stage for Congress’ elimination of the Department (note: not merely defunding the department; eliminate it altogether). However, for the complete solution, Congress needs to act:

• statutorily require colleges and universities to publish the average, median, and range of income at the five years employment mark for their graduates in each of the major fields offered
• statutorily require student loans to be originated by private lenders or colleges and universities
• statutorily require colleges and universities to guarantee at least 50% of each loan granted their students
• statutorily allow current and future student loans to be discharged in “ordinary” bankruptcy proceedings

Only when private lenders and colleges and universities are the only ones with skin in this student loan game will those loans and their borrowers be carefully screened for repayment risk. That will prove optimal for the student borrowers and for us taxpayers.

What Cold War?

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The press continues to pretend obliviousness to what’s been going on between the People’s Republic of China and the United States for many years. The headline and second sentence of a recent Wall Street Journal article lays out the sham ignorance quite clearly.

Breakdown in US-China Relations Raises Specter of New Cold War
…
Today, with economic relations between the two careening off the rails, China and the US are headed toward what could be a Cold War….

The fact is the PRC has been inflicting a cold war on us for 15 or more years, and we’re only just starting to respond to it. For instance,

• The PRC has coerced intellectual property and proprietary technology transfers to PRC businesses and companies as a condition of doing business with them or within the PRC
• The PRC has coerced partnering with PRC-domiciled companies as condition of doing business inside the PRC to facilitate those transfers
• The PRC has demanded placement of party apparatchiks into company management
• The PRC has demanded backdoors be installed into company operating software to allow PRC officials—those apparatchiks or others—to monitor company behavior and to copy data of interest
• outright theft of intellectual property and proprietary technology
• cyber espionage, data theft, sabotage of data, entry into cyber, energy, water network nodes, demonstrations against several of those nodes

Some of those actions the PRC claims to have discontinued or never implemented, but we have only the word of PRC government officials on that, or the word of company managers desperate to have access to the PRC domestic market.

It isn’t credible that the august publishers and news writers and commentators really haven’t recognized this, even as they cite examples from the long standing cold war. The news writer at the above link mentioned a couple in passing:

• data, call logs, and other information it [PRC] gathered from years of intrusions into computer networks at US ports, water utilities, airports, and other targets
• PRC acknowledgment of a series of cyber assaults on US infrastructure

The question, then, is why these members of the press have insisted on turning a blind eye toward this cold war of some duration, “worrying” about it only since President Donald Trump (R) has begun fighting back.