March 2021 – On Liberty Watch

Why Have Woke Colleges Abandoned Admissions Tests?

When Darwin published Origin of the Species in which he presented his data in support of his theory of evolution, the Archbishop of Canterbury was said to have offered a prayer: “Dear God” he said “Please let it not be true, or at least let it not be widely known.”

The same prayer is being uttered across the land of woke in instance after instance as inconvenient facts are discovered. One example is SAT tests. See the video on college admissions tests by John Stossel below. And then ask why the woke brigades are such fans of cancel culture. To ask the question is to answer it.

JFB

The Nanny State is Here to Help You

It was the Clinton operation in 1992 that brought us the permanent campaign. Then the financial crisis of 2008 provided the all-purpose excuse for more expansion of federal power. It was during this time that Rahm Emmanuel famously said never allow a crisis go to waste. Now the sentiment among the nation’s control freaks, otherwise known as progressives, seems to be never let a pandemic go to waste. For instance, Bloomberg Magazine, a kind of bible for Nanny Staters, recently published an article by Andreas Kluth entitled “We Must Start Planning For a Permanent Pandemic”. It is a reaction more than vaguely reminiscent of HL Mencken’s observation that Puritans were haunted by the fear that somebody, somewhere, might be happy.

And so the rise the Dead Enders proceeds apace. Consider, a little over a year ago in January of 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci was busy reassuring Americans that there was no need to wear masks. Now he recommends wearing double masks for what seems to be the foreseeable future, vaccination progress notwithstanding. And speaking of vaccinations, back in April of 2020 Dr. Fauci said the earliest the U.S. would get a vaccine would be 12 to 18 months. Other “experts” noted that it typically would take up to 10 years to get the FDA to approve a vaccine.

As of today, 11 months later, about 90 million U.S. citizens have received vaccination shots. The U.S. is third in line behind Israel and the U.K. for shots-in-arms per capita. As a result, we could be on the cusp of herd immunity. We will almost certainly achieve herd immunity over the summer months.

Europe, on the other hand, is a mess. Its vaccination programs are stalled; Italy is locked down once again, and Germany and Spain, along with Italy, are facing another wave of infections. In the meantime, Sweden, which faced intense mainstream criticism for its relatively laissez-faire policy for dealing with the virus, has fared relatively well. More about later.

There has been considerable controversy among scholars about the effectiveness of lockdowns for protecting public health. You could be forgiven for being unaware of this by relying exclusively on the mainstream press. They have proceeded under the assumption that lockdowns are not only effective, but crucial to public health, irrespective of circumstances and implementation.

Empirical questions remain however. For example, how has Sweden fared relative to other countries? Data collected by the EU statistics agency Eurostat suggests that, comparatively speaking, Sweden has done rather well. In an article published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), John Miltimore uses these data to take a hard look at the costs benefits at lockdowns.

He writes:

“Preliminary data from EU statistics agency Eurostat compiled by Reuters showed Sweden had 7.7% more deaths in 2020 than its average for the preceding four years. Countries that opted for several periods of strict lockdowns, such as Spain and Belgium, had so-called excess mortality of 18.1% and 16.2% respectively.

Twenty-one of the 30 countries with available statistics had higher excess mortality than Sweden. However, Sweden did much worse than its Nordic neighbours, with Denmark registering just 1.5% excess mortality and Finland 1.0%. Norway had no excess mortality at all in 2020.”

However, in a separate article published by FEE, Miltimore demonstrates that, for most of the pandemic, Finland and Norway adopted policies that were even less restrictive than Sweden’s.

John Carlson, Director of Sweden’s Public Health Agency sums up. “Some believed that it was possible to eliminate disease transmission by shutting down society. We did not believe that and we have been proven right.” (See the entire article here.)

It is true that U.S. cases have recently experienced an uptick after almost 3 months of rapid decline. Whether the uptick is lasting, or the result of loosening restrictions remains to be seen. So far, a causal link between restrictions and infections has been difficult to pin down.

For example, New York and New Jersey have had some of the most stringent restrictions while Florida has been far less so, earning it lots of Bronx cheers from…New York. But look at the outcomes. New Jersey has had 274 deaths per 100K. Excluding New York City, New York State has had 169 per 100K. New York City, the epicenter of infection for a good part of 2020, had a staggering 369 deaths per 100K. The wide variation between New York City and the rest of the state strongly suggests that statewide mandates are not particularly useful.

Then there is Florida. Statewide, Florida had 154 deaths per 100K. That’s 44% less than NJ and 58% less than New York City.

At the very least these data suggest that the severely restrictive policies many governments have adopted have not been very effective if the goal is to protect public health. Add to that the policy induced economic crash, the shutdown of schools, the rise in suicides and the deepening sense of isolation felt by many, and the policy response is now starting to look catastrophic.

So why, given their obvious and material harms, have general lockdowns persisted as a prime policy tool despite a lack of evidence proving their efficacy?

Control.

In fact, the entire progressive project is about control. The goal is control over the everyday lives of citizens through the centralization of power and the tools of command-and-control. Hence the assault on free speech, the hysteria over school choice and the rules, regulations and guidelines about masking, business hours, family gatherings, having people over for dinner and all the rest of it.

The idea of a virtuous and educated citizenry is tossed out the window like so many campaign promises. So shut up and eat you spinach. Your betters are here to take control.

Never let a pandemic go to waste.

JFB

Watch the Bond Market

It bears mentioning that not only were the grandiose goals of the Obama Administration never met, some Obama policies actually produced results that were the opposite of those promised. Remember, for instance, that if you liked your doctor you would be able to keep your doctor? Or the promise that the cost of health insurance for the average family would decline about $2,500?

Well we know how that worked out. Health insurance costs rose substantially, and plenty of people lost their doctors. The same story can be told about pretty much everything Obama touched. A sane person would go back and check the assumptions backing the failed policies.

But we are not talking about sanity. We are talking about the Biden Administration. They argue that the policy failures of the Obama Administration were not failures at all; the policies just didn’t go far enough. And the Biden Administration, we are told, has no intention of repeating that mistake. They are going to “go big” and repeat the failed policies of the Obama Administration. Except bigger.

Hence the recently passed spending blow out, with more to come.

Fans of the Democratic spending spree keep on insisting (1) that the U.S. economy is weak and needs stimulus and (2) the U.S. needs to spend additional huge amounts of money to get the population vaccinated against Covid-19. Further, they argue, interest rates are exceptionally low so the cost of financing of all this spending is negligible.

However, economic growth has been far stronger than almost anyone predicted. Going forward, Bank of America estimates growth for 2021 around 6% and 5% for 2022. Similarly, the Fed projects GDP growth of 6.5% for 2021 with the unemployment rate dropping to 4.5%. Democrats surely know this, but in the spirit of never letting a crisis go to waste, they are going to spend every dime they can get their hands on, and then some.

While the Democrats claim this is needed stimulus, it is manifestly not so. The party simply passed a progressive policy wish list on a strict party line vote.

Here it is also worth noting that as far as Covid relief is concerned, only about 5% of the spending is actually directed at immediate Covid relief. Not only that, the bill does not allow any states that receive federal money to reduce state and local taxes. This provision will probably be thrown out as a violation of the 10^th amendment’s prohibition against the Congress commandeering state resources. Not that the U.S. Constitution holds much sway with progressives.

What is truly interesting about all this is the reaction of the bond market. Net spending by all levels of government (federal, state, local) is going to amount to about $9 trillion this year. From February 2020 to February 2021, the national debt held by the public increased 25% rising from $17.4 trillion to $21.8 trillion. And that’s before the just passed $1.9 trillion in additional spending, all to be financed by borrowing.

Responding to all this, the bond market has sold off substantially with some long rates tripling from their lows. The yield’s of both 10 year Treasury notes and 30 year Treasury bonds have risen more than 1 percentage point since the summer to 1.65% and 2.42% respectively. The auction of 7-year Treasury notes held on February 25, 2021 came close to failing.

If the Democrats continue with their irresponsible behavior, and all signs are that they will, it may not be Republicans they have to worry about. It may just be the bond market. If investors lose confidence in the willingness of the United States to tame its finances and control inflation, they will not be seduced by happy talk from the administration, much less the utterances of ignoramuses like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Undisciplined fiscal policy, monetized by the Fed, presents the prospect of a collapsing dollar, rising inflation and soaring long-term interest rates. That’s what we experienced in the 1970s. It could happen again.

JFB

The Enduring Fantasy of the Moderate Democrat

Congress is poised to pass President Biden’s spectacularly misnamed $1.9 trillion Covid Relief and Recovery Act. The bill will pass on a strict party line vote. And there is nothing moderate about it. Not only does the bill contain relatively little that actually addresses Covid-19, it will almost certainly delay the recovery, or at least make it less vigorous than it might have been.

The reason is fairly simple. The bill, which essentially represents the enactment of a progressive wish list, actually pays people not to work. For instance, by adding $300 per week to State level unemployment benefits Congress made sure that plenty of people get paid more by staying home than by going to work.

Not only that, the package is going to be financed by the issuance of more Treasury debt which the Fed is going to buy. In effect financing will be accomplished by monetizing the debt the way they do in other advanced economies. Like Zimbabwe for instance.

Lest anyone think this particular $1.9 trillion package of pork is either sensible or a one-shot, it is worth thinking about a few things. First, Senator Bernie Sanders (D. Rolling Stone) is now chair of the Senate Budget Committee. He has already promised an additional $2 trillion for infrastructure spending. Second, the bill provides $86 billion in relief to bail out union pension funds on the brink of insolvency, thus divorcing performance from reward. In addition, they are providing a couple of hundred billion in relief to state and local governments even though some, like California, have experienced large increases in tax collections. Third, most of the $1.9 trillion will flow to government unions, a portion of which will find its way back to the coffers of the DNC.

Thus far over the last year the Congress has appropriated something on the order of $3.4 trillion to Covid relief. Add this latest bill and the total comes to around $5.3 trillion. To put this in perspective, Covid relief, both real and in name only, now amounts to something like 25% of US GDP. Altogether the CBO now estimates that Federal outlays for 2020 will be around 32% of US GDP, up 11 percentage points from 2019. Public debt is projected to rise to 98% of GDP in 2020 and continue to rise through 2030 at which point it is expected to rise to 109% of GDP.

One of the arguments that the bill’s champions advance is that financing all this spending won’t be a problem. The reason often cited is that interest rates are at historic lows which makes it relatively painless to borrow. There are lots of reasons why this is simply incorrect.

The first is that market interest rates have risen substantially since that argument was first tested out. Back in August of 2020 the 10-year Treasury note yielded about 0.5%. Since then the rate has more than tripled to slightly over 1.5%. Second, if now is such a great time to borrow, private firms and individuals should be able to take advantage of the opportunity without being crowded out by government borrowing. Third, financing projects by borrowing doesn’t make them costless. It just shifts the time when the bill has to be paid in full.

Fourth, it is worth noting in passing that there is a great con going on here. Basically this gargantuan spending spree is not about the acquisition if goods and services. It just represents an enormous transfer of income from disfavored constituencies to favored constituencies. That is, to put it mildly, not a productive use of capital. Finally, by expanding its balance sheet to slightly over $7 trillion to accommodate the spending blowout, the Fed is planting the seeds of an upsurge in inflation, perhaps the cruelest tax on the poor that has ever been invented.

It bears repeating that this bill is being passed on a strict party line vote. It will not receive a single Republican vote. It will receive the votes of all Democratic Senators and all but a couple of Democratic Congressman. It is blatantly partisan and there nothing moderate about it.

The fantasy that there are moderate Democrats is belied by their actions. And there is more to come.

JFB

A Sign of Hope in the Midst of Idiocy

It is unquestionably the case that we live in an era in which abject stupidity has risen to a high art form. However amid all the nonsense a sign of hope has emerged. That sign is in the recent surge in the sale of Dr. Seuss books. The #1 seller on Amazon is “The Cat in the Hat.” In fact the top 6 slots in the Amazon Best Sellers list are occupied by Dr. Seuss books.

Why is this a cause for hope? It is because the American people en masse decided to go out and buy these books, currently under siege from the Social Justice Warriors, precisely because they are under siege. These buyers are not racist troglodytes celebrating white supremacy. They simply do not buy the argument that childrens’ books published decades ago that expressed then common sentiment should be cancelled for not measuring up to the tender sensibilities of today’s lefty activists.

No, people want to buy Dr. Seuss books for their children. They refuse to be intimidated and they are not about to let the book burners get their way. That represents a glimmer of hope, however slim. But there remains a long, long way to go.

Consider for instance the behavior of the bureaucrats in in ever-so-woke Loudon County in Northern Virginia. County school administrators “… have instructed employees to disassociate Read Across America Day from Dr. Seuss’ birthday.” During “… the past couple of years… LCPS Public Information Officer Wayde Byard added that teachers dressing in Seussian garb for Read Across America Day — for instance, the Cat in the Hat’s iconic headpiece — is discouraged but “not prohibited.”

How encouraging.

Then there is the National Education Association (NEA). The NEA partnered with Dr. Seuss Enterprises for over 20 years as part of a program to get kids to read. But then the Social Justice Warriors made an appearance and published a “study” entitled “The Cat is Out of the Bag: Orientalism, Anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy in Dr. Seuss’s Children’s Books.”

And guess what? Dr. Seuss is now off the reading list. And not surprisingly, President Joe Biden, whose literary history includes several instances of plagiarism, one of which got him suspended from law school, conspicuously left Dr. Seuss books out of the White House message for Read Across America Day.

But—and here is the good news—the campaign against Dr. Seuss seems to be failing, mostly because everyday people are revolting against the high-handed stupidity (there is no other word for it) of the Social Justice keyboard warriors.

Unfortunately, the insanity of the era is not restricted to the juvenile behavior of affluent university students who want to be protected from the world of ideas. It also includes the bureaucrats who run various public agencies. For an example, let’s turn our attention to the World Health Organization (WHO) for a moment.

The Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, actually said that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused more “mass trauma” than World War II. When you think about it for a moment you realize it would take a great deal of effort to come up with something to match that for idiocy.

World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. Estimates are that as many as 70 to 85 million people died as a result of that conflict. That amounts to about 3% of the population of the world at that time. About 50 – 55 million of the deaths were directly caused by the war. Another 20 or 30 million were the result of disease or famine.

Six million Jews were murdered in places like Auschwitz as part of the Nazi war effort, which had as one of its goals the extermination of Jews. Some would consider that a bit traumatizing. Which is not to omit the Polish Officer brigade murdered by the Soviets in Katyn Forest. Or the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Or the nuclear bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or the siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) where millions of Russian civilians were systematically starved to death by the German Army.

It takes a special kind of stupidity to claim that Covid -19 is more traumatic than World War II was. Just as it takes a special type of idiocy to try to cancel Dr. Seuss, or to rename Mr. Potato Head to just Potato Head in order to deny the existence of sex differences.

Fortunately, the American people have responded by buying lots of Dr. Seuss books. And Hasbro has backed down and restored Mr. Potato Head’s rightful name. Perhaps this is the beginning of a return to sanity. There is always hope.

JFB