In a story published by the New York Times this morning the headline reads: As U.S. Guns Pour Into Canada, the Bodies Pile Up. So with that assertion in hand, the Times invites us to buy into the assumption, proclaimed to be universal truth by gun control fanatics everywhere, that the mere existence of guns is a cause of “gun violence”.
The Times’ story notes that
“American firearms are spilling increasingly into a country where gun control is far stricter than in the United States, according to government data and the authorities.”
It is important to note that not only is the preceding sentence manifestly false; the Times’s interpretation of the situation is incorrect and the underlying data is problematical.
First things first. There is an obvious question, namely this. If gun control in Canada is far stricter than it is in the US, then how is it that guns are increasingly spilling into Canada from the US? A reasonable conclusion to draw is that enforcement of gun control measures in Canada is very lax, which calls into question just how strict Canadian laws are in practice. A second question concerns whether it is it in fact correct that guns from the US are ‘increasingly spilling’ into Canada and if so, if that increase is causally related the increase in murders.
The Times article uses gun seizures at the border as a measure that captures the quantity of guns that slip over the border from the US. Note that the incidence of seizures may or may not be related to the quantity of guns entering the country. Note too that the number of seizures may or may not be related to the number of crimes committed with those guns.
Nevertheless, the Times insists on claiming (implicitly) that an increase in guns from across the border necessarily implies an increase in crime. But the number of gun seizures at the border has, in recent years, gone down rather than up. See the graph below.
Still, the Times insists that
”…The proliferation of illegal guns from the United States has fueled bloodshed in Canadian cities and even in remote northern communities.”
However, notwithstanding the Times’s assertions, both the number of homicides and the homicide rate in Canada have remained essentially flat for the last 5 years, according to the central statistics office in Canada. See the graph below. (Years from 2019 through 2024).
It may very well be the case that the murder rate has actually risen in Canada. But the Times article doesn’t reflect that. It actually shows the opposite. But even disregarding that, the Times article fails to show a causal link between an increase in crime and an increase in guns—legal or otherwise.
The article does illustrate one thing that any economics student could predict.
According to the article “…The price of trafficked guns has risen sharply in recent years…Today, a handgun bought in Florida for $500 can fetch up to $4,300 in southern Ontario…”
The article notes that
“In 2023, Canada further tightened control over handguns, making them virtually impossible to buy or transfer legally.”
The rise in the price of trafficked guns reflects the increase in the incentive for traffickers to ply their trade. Still that explanation does not illustrate a causal relationship between an increase in crime and an increase in guns.
But the willingness of gangs to use guns might be strategic. It therefore might be a causal link. Further, the hesitation to prosecute is more than likely to be the connection between crime and shootings. Which is to say that the cause is the behavior of people: gangs, prosecutors and the body politic. Trying to foist off the availability of guns as a cause is a cop out. It is human behavior and the incentive structure created by a society that represents the causal link.
Asked where he wants interest rates to be a year from now, Trump said, “1% and maybe lower than that.” He said rate cuts would help the U.S. Treasury reduce the costs of financing $30 trillion in government debt.
—The Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2025.
We are rapidly approaching banana republic territory here.
After announcing in a WSJ interview that rate cuts would help the U.S. Treasury reduce the costs of financing $30 trillion in government debt, president Trump went on to say “…I’m a smart voice and should be listened to.”
On the contrary, he is not smart, not by a long shot. And he should be ignored for the simple reason that he hasn’t got the slightest idea what he is talking about.
Consider: the inflation rate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5% to 3.00%. President Trump has nevertheless embarked on a campaign to have the Fed lower overnight rates to 1% or “…maybe lower than that”. Let’s suppose that the Fed were to lower the overnight rate to 1%. Does anybody seriously believe that market rates on the long end of the market would follow? If so, why haven’t they done so already?
Let’s go to the video tape. The Fed started its current path of easing monetary policy in September 2024. Up until that point, the overnight policy rate had been set by the Fed at 5.25% to 5.5%. Today the policy rate is 3.5% to 3.75%—which is lower by 175 basis points (1.75%). And yet, market rates for Treasuries with maturities longer than 5 years are higher, not lower. See the Table below.
Market Rate 1
Market Rate 2
September 2024
December 2025
Change
Overnight Fed Funds
5.25% — 5.50%
3.25% — 3.5%
-1.75%
3 Month T Bills
4.61%
3.62%
-0.99%
2 Year T Notes
4.57%
3.52%
-1.05%
5 Year T Notes
3.48%
3.74%
0.26%
10 Year T Notes
3.75%
4.19%
0.44%
30 Year Bonds
4.10%
4.85%
0.75%
* These are actual market rates
The data clearly show that longer term rates rose even though the Fed lowered the overnight Federal Funds policy rate a full 175 basis points (1.75%). And let’s not kid ourselves: people finance their housing loans on the long end, not the short end of the market. So mortgage rates have not really declined materially despite press reports about the Fed “lowering” rates.
That is not the only thing to consider. Donald J Trump wants to lower overnight interest rates below the inflation rate. What does he think the inflation rate is going to do? Inevitably the inflation rate will rise—just as it did during President Biden’s term in office. And no phony happy talk is going to change that.
When HRH Donald Trump says that financing the federal deficit will be easier with lower rates he is pulling a hand-is-quicker-than-the-eye stunt. What he really means is that by suppressing short term rates he is implicitly trying to inflate the accumulated $30 trillion debt away. And he intends to do that by selling lots of short term Treasury Bills at rates below the inflation rate.
The cost of that maneuver is a massive (but hidden) tax rise. This is for two reasons. First, because there is a de facto decrease in purchasing power that benefits the government. Second, because the government will tax nominal interest earnings even though purchasing power is declining. That is what Trump really means when he says lower rates will ease financing accumulated debt. It is a con.
Another consideration comes to the fore. It is that the interest rate that really matters is the “real rate”. That rate is defined as the nominal rate plus inflation expectations. Pushing the nominal rate down below where the market would otherwise put it, necessarily causes the real rate to rise. And central banks around the world who have been massive buyers of Treasury securities will be forced to re-evaluate their holdings.
The market however is not stupid. Prices of fixed-income securities will respond by widening the spread between short term and long term securities. That, along with rising inflation, is the price of an errant Fed policy designed to punish savers. It also includes reduced savings, reduced investment and perhaps a flight from the dollar.
So charitably speaking, maybe we should just ignore the very smart voice of Donald J Trump. Especially when he is spouting off economic nonsense, which he does with clockwork regularity.
President Trump and the Republican Party received a major league thumping at the hands of the voters on Tuesday. Both Democratic candidates and their propositions won by large margins and across the board. New Jersey elected Democrat Mikie Sherrill as governor of New Jersey by double digits. Not only did Virginia elected Democrat Abigail Spanberger, they also threw out the incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares in favor of Democratic candidate Jay Jones. The newly elected Jones fantasized—in writing no less—about killing the Republican opposition. Apparently the silence is violence crowd couldn’t have cared less.
New York elected the self avowed Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani to be mayor. Mamdani, among other things, is an anti-semite. Ordinarily that would be prove to be disqualifying, especially in New York which has the largest Jewish population of any city in the US. But not today.
Mamdani also promised to freeze rents, place greater taxes on the wealthy, provide free day care, free public transportation, rein in the police, and open city run food stores. For its part in response to a Texas gerrymander, California voted to approve Prop 50 by around 25 – 30 points. Prop 50 would allow the state to further gerrymander the distribution of its Congressional seats so that Democrats could be in a position to pick up 5 to 7 seats.
Pennsylvania voters returned 3 Democratic state Supreme Court justices who rewrote the state’s electoral laws on the fly, as it were. Maine voted overwhelmingly not to require photo ID’s for in-person voting. Similarly, Colorado voted not to return $12.5 million in excess property taxes to tax payers. They instead voted to use the cash to fund a free school meals program. And in Georgia the two Republicans who were running to retain their seats on a public utility board were ousted in favor of the Democratic candidates. The last time a Democrat won a seat on the state utility board was 2007.
So it is fair to say that the Republicans received a serious drubbing. It is also fair to say that Democrats crushed Republicans in what were mostly deep blue states, like NJ, NY and California. But not all the states were deep blue. Maine and Georgia, for instance, are not.
There are some take-aways from all of this. First, there was a reaction against Donald J Trump. How much is an open question, but there should be no question that there was a substantial reaction to Trump. Second, the progressive wing of the Democratic party is still ascendant. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will probably challenge Chuck Schumer in the 2026 Democratic Party primary for Senator in 2026. And more young Democratic candidates will run as avowed socialists.
Gavin Newsom of California scored a big win with Prop 50. His chance to get the Democratic nomination for a 2028 presidential run just got a big boost. Kamala Harris probably fell out of the running altogether. It’s also hard to see how JB Pritzker comes out ahead here. Rahm Emmanuel still remains a dark horse, and potential running mate for Newsom.
The Republicans on the other hand just got a very big wake-up call. No longer can they rely on President Trump to drag them across the finish line. Perhaps they will stop mindlessly repeating whatever Trump says. If the Republicans had any brains, which they don’t, they would move to impeach Trump for refusing to execute the law. For instance, last I checked Tik-Tok is still in Chinese hands, and is alive and well even though the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the law requiring its divestiture. Which law Trump has pointedly refused to enforce.
As for Trump himself: in all probability he will go into another bout of denial. There should be little doubt that he faces serious political trouble. He may try to talk the Republicans into tossing the 60 vote filibuster rule. They would be extremely foolish if they did. Up until this point though, that hasn’t been a huge obstacle for either political party. Regardless, we may be seeing peak Trump. Only time will tell.
JFB
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Posted inPolitics|Comments Off on A Democratic Sweep
The volume of bad reporting in 2025 is truly astounding. Never have so many trees been felled for so little accurate information. For instance, the NY Times published a story that sniped at Bari Weiss, now the editor-in-chief at CBS news. In its story the Times decided to make several points, all of which hammered home the idea that the NY Times doesn’t think that Ms. Weiss was a good choice for the job. So that’s the news that fit to print.
The article began with a simple question (easily answered by anyone who lives outside of Manhattan). The question, posed by Ms. Weiss to the senior staff of CBS’s 60 minutes program was: Why does the country think you’re biased? The question, according to the Times, was “met with stunned awkwardness.”
The correct answer to the question of why the country thinks CBS is biased is (drum roll please): because CBS is in fact, biased. Now, that answer should not be surprising to almost anyone who lives outside of certain enclaves. For instance, it is standard practice for researchers to avoid bias by using randomly drawn data samples to examine social science questions. Other than the obvious example of polling data (where the methodology should be disclosed) journalists (and especially photo journalists) typically do not rely on random samples. They rely on camera angles.
In fact, the article in question, as reported by the Times, was “…based on interviews with 10 people with knowledge of the inner workings of CBS News, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about internal conversations.” Which in essence means that 10 non-randomly selected people with (presumed) axes to grind were given free rein to tell whatever story they wished to tell, with no way to check the veracity of the story. And plenty of it was grousing about the new boss. Who, by the way, resigned from the NY Times accusing it of bias.
So we have payback from the Times, motivated, by among other things, jealousy. After all, not only did Weiss leave the Times to form her own spectacularly successful news / opinion organization, she reportedly sold it for $150 million. And let’s not forget that while CBS is a sometime competitor, both the Times and CBS are playing on the same ideological team.
Let’s look beyond the Times carping at Bari Weiss. Let’s look at coverage of the Great Government Shutdown of 2025. The Democrats (who decried the legislative filibuster when they held the Congressional majority) have to decided to — filibuster the Republican funding bill and shut down the government. Their chief demand is that “emergency” Obamacare health care subsidies due to sunset at the end of 2025, be extended. In reality these subsidies flow to health care insurance firms that provide insurance on ACA exchanges.
For their part, the Republicans claim that they will discuss these subsidies once the government re-opens. The clear message is that the spend-a-thon will continue. And for good measure, the Democrats claim that health care costs will “spike” without the subsidies.
So let’s ask a couple of simple questions. 1. How are subsidies going to avoid a “spike”in aggregate health care costs? 2. Where is the money going to come from to avoid said spike?
The answers to the question are, once again, fairly simple. First, subsidies are not going to reduce costs; in fact they will probably raise costs. They will do so by increasing demand for health care services over and above what they otherwise would have been. Further there will be no addition of supply. Voila, prices will rise.
Second, the funds for this will come from innocent victims, namely taxpayers, which makes the subsidies an income transfer, pure and simple. Rising costs will not be avoided; they will merely be shifted to taxpayers whether now or in the future.
At this point it is worth mentioning something Congress apparently considers trivial, namely the fact that the US has by now accumulated about $37 trillion in debt. And according to the plan, it is due to rise further. The chief difference between the Republicans and Democrats at this point seems to be which party will spend the money on which constituency.
That said, the Democrats seem to have a larger appetite for taxpayer dollars, which is not exactly a new development. According to the newspaper of record, the fight “…is a demand by Democrats for add-ons: more than $1 trillion for health care programs, and limits on President Trump’s spending power.”
It is also worth noting that there have been no plans made public that call for spending restraint. None. Zippo. That and the public’s adamant refusal to accept the consequences of their collective desire for free stuff, is the reason that we are in the fix we are in today. And it is a fix.
We have seen this movie before. And their are no happy endings. Strap in.
The Wall Street Journal ran a story this morning about the recent end, for now, of the war in Gaza. The headline of the story, which read After Israeli Withdrawal, Hamas Launches Violent Crackdown on Rivals in Gaza would seem to be self explanatory. And in a sense it is.
The Wall Street Journal went on to report that
“As Israeli troops pulled back…Hamas surged security forces in behind them—a public assertion of authority intended to make clear the group remains the enclave’s governing power.”
That, by the way, is the Hamas that was supposed to disarm and relinquish any governing power over Gaza.
The Journal went on to report that:
“Videos…show Hamas fighters dragging a number of men from [a rival] family into a public square in broad daylight, forcing them to kneel and executing them in front of a crowd of onlookers.”
Hamas Prepares Public Executions–the WSJ
Please, can someone remind me, is that the Hamas that protesters claimed was protecting Palestinian rights. Is it the same Hamas that was supposed to disarm as an integral part of the cease-fire arrangement? When queried about that, President Trump made the following assertion:
“They’re going to disarm…and if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them.”
Does anyone really believe that? If so, I’d like to know who that person is. Who, for instance, believes that the United States is going to send US troops to fight what effectively amounts to a guerrilla war in Gaza? Especially with the goal of establishing control and asserting authority over the area? That strategy produced a colossal failure in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq. Which, not to put too fine a point on it, Trump claimed to oppose.
The reality is that the US has no desire—none— to try to establish control over Gaza. Not now, not ever. So let’s make the heroic assumption that President Trump made the sudden discovery that telling the truth is important. Then the relevant question is: what does he (Trump) mean by “we” as in “we” are going to disarm them? Who exactly does he have in mind? Egypt? Does he really believe that Egypt is capable and willing to disarm Hamas? And does he really believe that Egypt (or any other predominantly Muslim country) would attempt to disarm Hamas without the involvement of US troops?
H.R. McMaster, who briefly served as National Security Advisor in the first Trump Administration, analyzed the cease-fire and came to these conclusions.
He describes the cease fire as a “temporary truce”, with no clear path for resolving the underlying issues, which includes Gaza’s postwar governance.
He voiced the opinion that the chance that Hamas would voluntarily disarm as “pretty near zero.”
He predicted more military action saying that Israel “is going to have to destroy” Hamas.
It is this writer’s opinion that McMaster’s observations will appear to be prescient, possibly in the near future. Because if Hamas is allowed to keep its arms and then reasserts control over Gaza, Israel’s war aims will not have been met. Neither will US aims have been met. US backing, including the destruction of Iran’s nuclear buildup, will have been for nought. Not only that, before too long, we will find ourselves right back in the same place we were in before.
Except that Hamas will have had time to regroup. And Israel will have to militarily destroy what is now a battle hardened Hamas. All of which assumes (1) that Israeli political leaders stop the game of trying to “manage” the conflict by playing the Islamist groups off one another, (2) that US political leaders suddenly develop a spine and back Israel to the hilt, and (3) China has not moved on Taiwan.
So I would wait before popping the champagne corks. A lot can still go very badly wrong.
Hamas appeared to signal tentative agreement with a peace plan president Donald Trump proposed. Under the plan, as reported by the NY Times,
“…Hamas would free the remaining hostages within 72 hours and hand over its weapons, and its rule in Gaza would end. Israeli forces would gradually withdraw from Gaza and allow an internationally supervised Palestinian administration to assume responsibility for public services there.”
Hamas then attached conditions to its ostensible acceptance of the plan. As an examination of the terms of Hamas’s acceptance makes clear, the real purpose of the conditions is to (1) buy time, and (2) undermine the whole purpose of the plan.
For instance, Hamas demanded certain conditions on the ground be met which would require further negotiations. Further, Hamas was vague about whether it would fully disarm or to fully relinquish its dominant role in Gaza.
Specifically, Hamas said that:
“…In this context, the movement affirms its readiness to immediately enter, through the mediators, into negotiations to discuss the details.”
So much for releasing the hostages in 72 hours. And while Hamas agreed to some basic terms of the prisoner swap, there is no agreement on whom the Israelis will release back to Hamas. We can therefore expect Hamas to attempt to bargain, name by name, over who the 250 convicted prisoners will be and also the 1,700 prisoners captured during the war.
Further, the reference to “necessary field conditions” really means that Hamas will claim that it either does not hold or cannot find some of the hostages it agreed to turn over. It further suggests that Hamas will attempt to bargain over the scope of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and that Hamas will try to prolong any negotiations for as long as possible.
Now also consider that Hamas said that it would act “…based on Palestinian national consensus and supported by Arab and Islamic backing.” How exactly does that square with Hamas agreeing to end its role in Palestinian decision making? And not to put too fine a point on it, when was the last time Hamas truly cared about a Palestinian national consensus. They had a one-and-done election in 2006 and that was it. And they used the Palestinian population as human shields for their fighters. So much for their concern about the population.
The upshot of all this is that the Trump Administration demanded what effectively amounts to an unconditional surrender. And Hamas will never agree to that unless they are finally beaten, full stop. Absent that, they simply have no reason to, or intention of, quitting the fight.
Besides which there is (possibly) a split in the leadership of Hamas. For the sake of argument we will play along with the idea that there are distinct political and military wings of Hamas. The political wing resides in Qatar where, the story goes, the leadership was shaken by the Israeli bombing of the capital. They, it is argued, want to take the deal Trump offered. They are supposedly practical.
On the other hand, according to this version of the story, the military wing is still active in Gaza and wishes to continue the fight. They are full of religious conviction. They are fighting a holy war. If such is actually the case, it begs the question, who is in charge? If the political wing is incapable of enforcing its agreement, then as a practical matter, its pronouncements are irrelevant.
And let’s get around to admitting what should be an obvious truth. The Palestinian people (while we are pretending that there really is such a people) enthusiastically and overwhelmingly supported the October 7 attack on Israel. What makes anybody think that an agreement with Hamas is going to change that? Why wouldn’t another group, like e.g., Islamic Jihad, simply pick up the reins.
Even if Hamas were to agree to an unconditional surrender and lay down its arms, its followers are unlikely to do so. So we have a recipe for guerrilla war. And as long as Arab and Persian governments in the Middle East continue their propaganda campaigns against Israel and refuse to differentiate between Church (or Mosque) and State it is unlikely that anything will fundamentally change.
Hamas, and its allies, are winning the propaganda war both in the Middle East and the West. But they are losing the military war. It is in their interest (given their set of beliefs) to draw out the “peace” process as long as they can, while in the meantime trying to rebuild their strength. At the same time they continue to hammer a feckless West with propaganda. (And let’s not forget that the Arab states backed Hitler’s Germany in WWII.)
The way forward is for both the West and the governments of the Middle East to adopt (or in the case of the West to re-adopt) the classical liberalism of the Enlightenment. And the same holds true with respect to Russia’s war on Ukraine and the increasingly tense situation in Taiwan. Quite simply, the West must be willing to defend Western civilization.
Will that happen? Who knows, it’s a tough call.
JFB
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Posted inPolitics|Comments Off on Hamas Says Yes…With Fingers Crossed
The absurdity of the moment is almost beyond belief. Almost, because as it stands now, there is nothing that is beyond belief. Consider:
The US Government is scheduled to “shut down” at 12.01 AM on October 1. But of course, the Government will not shut down. Only the services that Donald J Trump deems non-essential will cease to operate as usual—which is to say—badly. In addition, the Trump administration has served notice that it will use the alleged shutdown as an excuse to fire thousands of federal employees, thereby closing some agencies permanently.
Meanwhile the two political parties are busy acting like schoolboys pointing fingers at each other along the lines of “he started it” while trying to blame each other for the potential shutdown. Of course, there is no discussion whatsoever, none, nada, zip, about the wisdom of any of these programs to begin with.
The Democrats claim to be trying to “save” additional subsidies of Obamacare insurance premiums created by legislation passed during the pandemic. The first round of subsidies (which were supposedly due to sunset in 2022) was signed by President Biden on March 11, 2021. The bill (the American Rescue Pan) expanded premium subsides and eliminated the income cap for eligibility. The bill passed on a straight party line vote.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, when the time came for the subsidies to sunset, the spectacularly misnamed Inflation Reduction Act came to rescue. The subsidies were extended once again on a strict party line vote, this time until 2025. And the cost of those subsidies, if renewed, run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Apparently, in the Senate the emergency is still with us, even though Congress declared it over on April 10th 2023. In the Senate there were 68 votes to end the emergency and 23 votes (all Democratic) to keep the emergency. Schumer voted to maintain the emergency. And so here we are today.
To be clear, both parties tend to operate on what their respective caucuses can jam through. The other party is simply ignored. There is little substantive discussion about anything more important than naming post offices.
Beyond all the theatrics, there are real reasons (but not good ones) for the shutdown if it comes to pass. First and foremost, a shutdown serves the political interests of party leaders. Chuck Schumer, the Ranking Senate Democrat, is terrified of a primary challenge by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. So he has to “look tough” to appeal to the base. Mike Johnson the Republican Speaker of the House is keenly aware that his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, lost his post as Speaker because he deigned to get Democratic votes to forestall a shutdown.
Second, and maybe the heart of the issue, is the Democratic answer to the question: how much money do you need? Their answer is invariably: more. There is simply no spending limit the party knows or at least acknowledges.
But that answer is, unfortunately, becoming the Republican answer as well. The only difference seems to be the constituency being rewarded. And the one constituency whose interests are considered above all else is none other than those of Donald J Trump.
After all it is those former Constitution quoting free traders in Congress who have acquiesed on virtually every tariff that HRH Trump has announced. This despite Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution which reads (in part):
“Congress shall have Power…To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations…”. Which is the clause that the Supreme Court will probably rely on to slap down most of the Trump tariffs.
And then there is the stake in Intel that the US is taking; the 15% of revenues that Nvidia and AMD agreed to fork over to the US as the price of their rent-seeking; the golden share that US Steel agreed to that gives the US President veto power over the firm, and the various stakes that the Trump Administration is reportedly seeking in other companies. And then they call the Democrats socialists.
That is not to mention the attack on the first amendment that the Republicans have begun, continuing on from where the Biden Administration left off. For instance, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, has all of a sudden discovered “hate” speech, which basically doesn’t exist as a legal construct in the US. But you would never know it if all you listened to were the free speech restrictionists in the respective political parties.
For that matter, consider the retribution campaign Trump launched against his political enemies, James Comey the most prominent among them, with more to come. The retribution campaign is of a piece with the lawfare that was directed against him by NY State AG Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, or Atlanta prosecutor Fani Willis to name a few. But these actions don’t make the behavior of either the blue team or the red team justifiable. It just makes both of them contemptible.
And while all this is going on, we have amassed a huge budget deficit ($37 trillion headed soon for $39 trillion) and we are involved in two shooting wars (Israel and Ukraine), not to mention Cold War II with China. Glad to see the political parties have their priorities straight.
The results of a poll released by the Gallup Organization on Monday were very instructive. In the poll they asked each respondent if they had a positive image of capitalism “just off the top of your head”. They also asked the same question about socialism.
The results are illustrated in the Table below.
Democrats
Republicans
Independents
Positive View of Capitalism
42%
74%%
51%%
Positive View of Socialism
66%
14%
38%
Let’s grant that the terms are undefined; let’s also stipulate that the proverbial man on the street basically knows very little, if at all, about economic theory. That said, the results of the poll are more than a little illuminating.
Only 42% of self-identified Democrats reported a positive image of capitalism. This stands in contrast to 74% of Republicans and 51% of independents. Where Socialism is concerned, a majority of Democrats (66%), said they had a positive image. This is in contrast to only 14% of Republicans and 38% of independents.
These results go a long way towards explaining our current political malaise, but not in a way that is apparent at first blush. Consider the following hypothesis. Assume the Democratic Party has fully embraced socialism. Such a stance would explain Democratic enthusiasm for the command-and-control policies they clearly prefer. Now consider that only a bare majority of independents (51%) say they favor capitalism.
That explains why HRH Donald J Trump championed a 10% government stake in Intel; a 15% export tax on Nvidia and AMD; and a golden share of US Steel, not to mention the whole tariff regime with its continually shifting rationale. Or, for that matter his full throated embrace of industrial policy, which is to say picking winners and losers.
It also explains why the debates about social policy are so intense. A good deal of what we laughingly call social policy has to do with interest groups competing over budget allocations that can be divvied up among “providers”. You can look high and low to find the benefits that allegedly accrue to those in need and you will come up empty handed.
For instance, take the school system. It routinely produces failure, especially in the big cities. Today’s New York Timesreports that “The reading skills of American high school seniors are the worst they have been in three decades…The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, long regarded as the nation’s most reliable, gold-standard exam, showed that about a third of the 12th-graders who were tested last year did not have basic reading skills.”
Math skills were abysmal as well. The Times reports that “In math, nearly half of the test takers scored below the basic level, meaning they may not have mastered skills like using percentages to solve real-world problems.” Percentages. About half the kids are not even equipped to deal with percentages, much less calculus.
The real question is why is anyone surprised by this since the results are absolutely predictable. They are simply a continuation of a trend that has been in motion for a very long time. Obviously this is a management problem. And a leadership problem. At least part of the reason is that public schools, especially in the inner cities, are run for the benefit of teachers unions, not the kids.
The Times goes on to report that Republicans generally have devoted their efforts toward supporting vouchers. That might conceivably deal with the management issue indirectly, although that possibility is not discussed in the paper of record. But financing is only the first step. It can be a contributor to a solution, but it is not, by itself, the solution.
A solution to the problem requires management, backed by strong political leadership. Fortunately we know what management steps work; it is leadership that is lacking. The management steps needed are: (1) more instruction time, (2) high expectations, (3) frequent teacher feedback, (4) data-driven instruction and (5) high-dosage tutoring. Ronald Fryer, an economics professor from Harvard, explains all this in fuller detail in an op-ed piece in today’s Wall Street Journal.
Of course while Republicans seem to have grasped the importance of school reform, they have proven to be quite adept at spouting off nonsensical pieties that satisfy their base. See for instance the arguments about tariffs. Or the war on foreign aid; a war that in budgetary terms doesn’t even rise to the level of a rounding error.
On the other hand, the Democrats, according to the Times, are more focused on social supports for students (like nutrition and mental health counseling) than they are on academic rigor. But this is all just a distraction; a sop to the teachers unions. The real point is to avoid true reform.
If the nature of the problem really had to do with a lack of “social supports” then test scores would have risen with the advent of social supports. But they haven’t. As the Times noted, “For about 10 years, declines have been most pronounced among low-performing students, indicating that the floor of academic achievement has fallen.”
The school system really represents a microcosm of modern progressivism. Progressivism is a materialistic weltunschauung that sees everything through the lens of class. And it absolutely refuses to admit failure or especially, accountability. So it blithely goes on while blaming all its myriad failures as stemming from racism, sexism, ableism, hatred, misinformation, climate denialism, phobias about transgender claims, Islam, (or any phobia you’d care to dream up). Anything but accountability and effort.
Which, when you think about it, is what capitalism is really all about. Risk taking and individual effort for the possibility, not the probability, of outsized returns. A radical restructuring of the idea of rights as inherent to the individual, not to a class. A very new idea that began during the Age of the Enlightenment.
Socialism, on the other hand, represents turning back the clock to a very old idea, one that dominated human thought for most of existence. It harkens back to the time when your fate was determined by your birth, i.e.—race, class, gender. Effort and accountability didn’t count, except in exceedingly rare circumstances. And so what it produced was mediocrity, tyranny and wars of conquest.
Tim Kaine, Virginia’s junior Senator decided to assert himself. At a Senate hearing for the nominee to be assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights, and labor, he pushed back against the nominee, Mr. Riley Barnes. Mr Barnes apparently committed the grave offense of uttering a politically incorrect opinion. He said “We are a nation founded on a powerful principle, and that powerful principle is that all men are created equal, because our rights come from God our Creator — not from our laws, not from our governments.”
The Senator, incredibly, decided to take issue with that opinion. He said in response “The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator, that’s what the Iranian government believes,” Kaine said. “It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians and other religious minorities.”
He went on to dig himself a deeper hole by saying “So, the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.” He then went on to say that he (Kaine) was a [“strong believer in natural rights”] but noted that if natural rights were to be debated by people within the committee room with different views and religious traditions, [“there would be some significant differences in the definitions of those natural rights.”]
Where to begin.
Let’s start with this: Mr Barnes is precisely correct. You don’t have to take my word for it—you might try out what another Virginian by the name of Thomas Jefferson had to say on the subject. Mr Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, said in that document that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”.
That would seem to settle that.
Beyond the narrow historical point that seems to have eluded Mr Kaine is a far more troubling issue. The good Senator seems to believe that we have, for instance, free speech and equality before the law solely because he as a sitting Senator joined the majority in saying so. After all, how else are we to interpret Kaine’s insistence that our rights actually come from government, not externally. And how does Mr Kaine square government’s denial of equality before the law in the Jim Crow South with his insistence that rights emanate from that very same government?
Leaving all that aside, Mr Kaine claims that he is a “strong believer in natural rights”. Except that it takes only a moment’s reflection to dismiss his claim (strong believer or not). It is perfectly obvious to everyone (excepting of course Mr Kaine), that any claims to natural rights depend on inherency. Their existence does not, and can not, depend on government. Moreover it should be clear that there is an inherent tension between government and rights.
Which brings up another point. In the Declaration Jefferson made the point that Governments are instituted among men to secure—not to grant–these rights. Moreover he said, Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. But when government becomes destructive of the goal of securing these rights, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the government.
And then there is Mr Kaine’s unfortunate inability to distinguish between the how the US and Iran differentiate between church and state. By way of (tortured) explanation he says of the notion that rights come from the Creator not government “…that’s what the Iranian government believes…”. So by implication, someone who believes in natural rights (as Mr Kaine claims, see above), is just another bloodthirsty killer.
Let’s not belabor the point. Senator Kaine made an unforced error. Rather than figure out a way to back out gracefully he decided to dig himself in deeper.
That leaves the residual question of what Mr Kaine actually believes. The citizens he claims to represent really are entitled to know. If he actually believes our fundamental rights really do emanate from government we should be aware of that fact. If so we should understand that this whole business was more than an embarrassment, but a governing philosophy. And then we have something to worry about.
In an excellent new biography of Rasputin, British military historian Antony Beevor argues that perception can be a more powerful shaper of world events than reality.
National Review