Tag Archives: politics

Inflation

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The headline screams Fed’s inflation measure soars by most in 30 years. The lede then cries out

The Core Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure, accelerated last month by the most on an annual basis in 30 years.

And

Core PCE, which excludes food and energy, rose 3.6% year over year in July, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the most since 1991.

2020 is an aberrational year, though, with its economic dislocation caused by government fiat rather than by economic forces. All comparisons with 2020 should come with an asterisk.

A better comparison is with 2019, the last year prior to the government’s interference. Core CPE rose only around 2.4% per year compared to those two years ago, according to my third-grade arithmetic and data from FRED (with the graph adjusted to start 2019-01-01), roughly in line with the Fed’s target of 2%.

That’s a rate worth watching, but it’s nothing to get excited over. It’s also the case that, within the current year, month-over-month inflation may be decreasing. It’s too early for this to be taken as a serious trend, but it also bears watching.

Thought Police

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They’re metastasizing into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a guide to “inclusive language” in order to promote “health equity” and “inclusive communication.”

For instance, their “Corrections & Detentions” section “suggests”

replacing terms such as “Inmate,” “Prisoner,” “Convict/ex-convict,” and “Criminal” with terms such as “People/persons,” “Persons in pre-trial or with charge,” “Persons on parole or probation,” or “People in immigration detention facilities.”

The problem with euphemisms, though, is that they mean precisely the same as the word they’re intended to replace. Persons on parole or probation still are criminals. That’s the status of folks on parole or probation—they’re still criminals, felons, until they complete their sentences. People in immigration detention facilities remain illegal aliens—that’s why they’re being detained.

The substitutes may soften the language in a misguided attempt to disguise or obfuscate the facts, but that’s only a temporary condition, and the frankness of the underlying meaning ultimately (and quickly) comes through. That’s why there’s a constant search for euphemisms.

The problem with government agents—the men and women who populate government agencies—being the ones pushing for euphemisms is that their push becomes mandates, and government mandates are nothing more than restrictions on free speech, limits on one of our most basic individual liberties. When government agents presume to dictate how we must term concepts, they’re dictating how we must think about them.

Even the worthies in government know that. Which is maybe why they’re making their push.

Escalating

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First (well, almost first, but the early large), President Joe Biden (D) surrendered in Afghanistan, and he did it so abjectly that he abandoned Americans (he was correct when he said through his Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, that he wasn’t merely “stranding” them), allies’ citizens, and Afghan partners in his desperation to meet the terrorist Taliban’s deadline.

Then Baby Kim has resumed northern Korea’s weapons grade plutonium-producing nuclear reactor—and not even troubling to conceal that effort.

Now this.

In a move that could have ramifications for the free passage of both military and commercial vessels in the South China Sea, [People’s Republic of China] authorities said on Sunday they will require a range of vessels “to report their information” when passing through what China sees as its “territorial waters,” starting from September 1.

And

[The PRC] claims under a so-called “nine dash line” on its maps most of the South China Sea’s waters, which are disputed by several other countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

And by Japan and most of the rest of the world, including—used to be, anyway—the United States.

It’ll be instructive to see how the Biden/Harris administration responds to this demonstration of contempt for their timid fecklessness. Compare their response, then, with the prior administration’s reaction to the PRC government’s declaration of an ADIZ that encompassed significant swaths of the South and East China Seas airspaces and tried to require all air traffic to check in with the PRC. (Spoiler: that administration ignored the PRC’s demand, and so did most of the rest of the world.)

It’s shaping up to be a disastrous period of American headlong retreat under this Progressive-Democrat administration.

Government Fiat

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This is what the Progressive-Democrats in charge of our Federal Government are plotting [sic] in the way of drug pricing under Medicare Part D (the drug provision of Medicare), per the Tax Foundation.

Under HR 3 [the Elijah Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act], if drug manufacturers do not agree to participate in negotiations, or do not agree to the negotiated price, they would be subject to an escalating excise tax on the sale of the drug in question. The tax would kick in at 65 percent and would rise by 10 percentage points each 90 days the manufacturers are in “noncompliance,” reaching a maximum tax rate of 95%.

What “negotiation?” This is the price we’re negotiating for, says the Health and Human Services Secretary, the Government official that HR3 says will represent the Government.

Here’s our counteroffer, says the drug manufacturer.

No, no, that’s too high, says SecHHS, repeating his original offer. Then he says, Here’s your noncompliance tax.

This isn’t negotiation, yet that’s what will occur, with the Government holding all the cards. Targeted drug manufacturers and sellers would not even be allowed to opt out of Medicare under HR3.

The Tax Foundation is concerned about drug innovation, and rightly so.

I’m also concerned about the fate of free enterprise and of individual freedom.

Life Sentences and Parole

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Robert F Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, is up for parole, again. Sirhan’s current defense attorney, Angela Berry, in arguing for his release on parole this time (the 16th time he’s faced a parole hearing):

We can’t change the past, but he was not sentenced to life without the possibility of parole[.]

That’s true enough (he was sentenced to death originally, but when California subsequently (and briefly) eliminated the death penalty, his sentence was commuted to life). However, a life sentence with the possibility of parole carries no guarantee of parole.

Beyond that, parole boards that deny parole aren’t extending the felon’s court-determined sentence; they’re only requiring more of the felon’s sentence to be served in prison. That’s not always a bad thing.

In the particular case, Sirhan’s parole board has granted parole; now the matter goes to the board’s staff, and if they agree, the question will go to the California Governor for approval or disapproval.