Tag Archives: responsibilities

Fault and Blame

Posted on by
Reply

This example is all too typical. An elderly couple was scammed out of their life savings–$5 million—by a “pig butcherer” who conned the husband into wiring the couple’s savings, in a number of tranches, to the scammer under the guise, among others, of investing the money in a sure-fire investment.

What happened:

A year or so earlier, Craig had responded to an online ad about investments and later received a text message from someone calling themself Tiffany, according to his hazy account. The person struck up a flirtatious exchange and was soon telling him about a lucrative opportunity. All he needed to do was wire money from his bank account.

And

The adviser [at an earlier bank where the husband had begun his “investing” with Tiffany] had repeatedly tried to convince Craig that “Tiffany” was scamming him, to no avail.

The husband after that had pulled his—their—money from that bank and placed it with another bank, from which the husband continued “investing” with Tiffany.

And

Shortly after discovering the scam, Anamarie learned something else about Craig that helped explain what had happened. His doctor told her that Craig had vascular dementia, likely due to a brain injury from a fall he took in 2015 while walking his brother-in-law’s dog.

The first the wife knew anything was amiss was when her credit cards were declined at a Walmart.

In the end, the couple is blaming bank for their having been scammed, claiming that the bank hadn’t acted nanny-ish enough [my term] to protect the couple from themselves.

I have questions, and I’m not entirely sympathetic with the couple or with their blame-shifting.

Why didn’t the wife know more about the couple’s financial situation? True enough, they’re of an age where money matters usually was the husband’s job, but that doesn’t excuse her ignorance; it only illustrates how widespread such ignorance is.

What was the husband doing getting flirty with an online person about whom he knew nothing about, including whether the person even was female? See below for this before readers get up in morality arms.

Why didn’t the wife know anything about her husband’s medical condition? Certainly, this is related to a couple’s internal dynamics, but there’s little reason for one member of the couple to be so ignorant of the other member’s medical state. This is another aspect of couples of an age, but again, this doesn’t excuse the ignorance; it only illustrates the widespread nature of it.

Sometimes…

Posted on by
Reply

A letter-writer, a founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology, wrote in The Wall Street Journal‘s Tuesday’s Letters section decrying the proposed funding reductions for the CDC and NIH.

Americans’ distrust of science isn’t merely leading to lower vaccination rates for such preventable diseases as measles; it’s also fueling shortsighted proposals to scale back public-health programs that save lives and taxpayer dollars[.]

It’s not so much that as it is that government bureaucrats who happen to have medical (or other science) degrees can’t be trusted. These worthies—Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins are only the most famous examples—have shown themselves more interested in political ideology than actual science.

The letter-writer added this:

Proposed appropriations aside, $11 billion in cuts in early 2025 to already cash-strapped state and local health departments are leading to layoffs and cancelled data-infrastructure upgrades that hamper their ability to keep their communities safe.

This has nothing to do with funding cuts in “proposed appropriations.” If States are losing personnel and equipment upgrades, that’s entirely due to the spending decisions of those States—their governing politicians clearly consider other matters more important than the medical weal of the citizens they pretend to represent.

The letter-writer closed with a quote from former CDC Director Thomas Frieden, as though the remark is somehow dispositive:

You don’t improve things by destroying them, you improve them by improving them.

That’s often, even usually, true. However, sometimes the only way to improve the product a failed institution is supposed to produce is to remove the failed institution and replace it completely.

No, It Won’t

Posted on by
Reply

This time, it’s an op-ed writer in The Wall Street Journal who is making misleading claims. In his piece regarding the likelihood of wealth flight from a Zohran Mamdani-run New York City, their subheadline reads

The state will lose wealthy taxpayers, and the federal government will have to cough up more aid.

The opinion-writer ties the weal of our nation to the weal of New York, and the article fails utterly on the false premise of a necessary Federal bailout.

No, the Federal government will not have to cough up more aid. New York’s political machinations, including its drumbeat attacks on successful Americans and on businesses domiciled there, would be coming to a head under a socialist Mamdani city administration, and that outcome is solely that New York State’s responsibility.

The good citizens of States running from Maine through New Jersey, Illinois, Texas, Wyoming, Nevada, on to California, Alaska, and Hawaii have absolutely no obligation to bail out a fiscally and regulatorily irresponsible New York City or State. The Federal government has no business forcing the rest of the nation’s citizens to do so.

The other side of the matter: only if New York—city and State—are left to stew in their own fetid spending, taxing, and regulation messes will either have any chance of mending its ways. In that way, the weal of the nation is impacted by the weal of New York State: a healthy State, not dependent of Federal funding, would be an unalloyed good for our nation.

Arrogance of an Activist Justice

Posted on by
Reply

The Supreme Court recently lifted a district court judge’s injunction that blocked President Donald Trump’s (R) Executive Order requiring heads of agencies to work with the Department of Government Efficiency on hiring decisions and developing plans for layoffs. The Court also ruled that it had based its decision on the legality of Trump’s Executive Order, and didn’t rule on whether any reorganization plans broke the law. And

The Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful[.]

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson piped up in her lone dissent.

This was the wrong decision at the wrong moment, especially given what little this Court knows about what is actually happening on the ground[.]

This is her Preciousness, and the arrogance of her activism. The Court knows little of what’s actually happening on the ground? But Jackson does know? Or in her shared Court ignorance, she would leave intact an injunction that’s blocking no known ill effects? Of course, highly talented and educated woman that she is, she knows full well that “don’t know” means…”don’t know.”

What she does know, though, as do all of the Justices on the Court (the other eight of whom voted to lift the injunction), is that no hiring decisions or layoff plans have been developed yet, much less begun execution. There is, then, no reason for the injunction, the EO itself being entirely legal.

This is the sort of activism—ignorant, not just ideological—that we can expect to deprecate the Supreme Court under a Progressive-Democrat President and Progressive-Democratic Party-dominated Senate.

Misplaced Attributions

Posted on by
2

A couple of letter-writers in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal Letters section are worried about the the Trump administration supposedly pressuring people out of their offices. These are misplaced attributions that exaggerate the strength of “pressure.”

One opines,

Reports that political pressure from outside forces may have contributed to the resignation of UVA’s president are troubling and strike at the heart of institutional autonomy.

This writer should concern himself more with the UVA President’s lack of courage. He resigned; he was not fired. Resigning is entirely a voluntary decision, no matter the level of perceived pressure to leave. What strike[s] at the heart of institutional autonomy is not “political pressure;” it is institutional managers in leadership positions who run away rather than stay and defend their institutions and their own actions in support of those institutions.

The other letter-writer wrote,

President Trump used his political and executive powers to force an end to [Senator Thom Tillis’ (R, NC)] public service….

Leave aside the fact that Tillis had, some months before, reached his decision to not run for reelection and that Trump’s supposed pressure merely accelerated his announcement of his decision. It’s possible that this letter-writer was unaware of that fact.

What should be obvious to this person is the same thing that is so apparent in the UVA President’s case: Tillis’ decision, and his choice of timing for announcing his decision, were entirely voluntary acts entered into by Tillis himself. No amount of pressure from Trump (which were, at bottom, merely words of opprobrium) should have been sufficient to “force an end.” That’s especially true in Tillis’ case, or that of any other politician: a President has no power to force a Congressman of either house to serve or not to serve. That choice is decided entirely by the incumbent in his decision to stand for reelection or not, and in the former case, falls next to the voters of his constituency and to no one else.

Pressure can be decidedly uncomfortable, but only the faint of heart succumb to it, and we’re all better off with the faint of heart departing.