Projection

So, as we face the likelihood of a Biden Presidency, the saving grace for me is that the Republicans maintained control of the Senate and picked up seats in the House.  That's good news, because it means on some level, the identity politics and socialist aspirations of the group which has coopted the message of the Democratic party has not gained as much traction as I feared.  There were definitely a lot of people who simply voted to get Trump out, but also recognize the glaring weaknesses of the extreme left agenda.

I bring that up, because too much of what you see in the media represents the worst of what the Democrats have to offer.  It is accusations of racism all around, framing all issues in the context of identity politics, and generally misleading their audience on what matters and why.

Let's take a few examples.

We had the Black Lives Matter movement and the subsequent systemic racism/defund the police outcry.  If you listened to CNN, or read the NYT or Washington Post, you would think that all minorities had subscribed to the views espoused under those banners.  And then the election comes, and Trump does better with minorities than any Republican since 1960.  How to reconcile?

Maybe, just maybe, it turns out that the folks who bear the burden of these trends are the minorities who live in the communities where policing and the presence of law enforcement is most important.  Maybe, just maybe, legal immigrants in Florida and Texas agree that people should enter this country legally.  Maybe, just maybe, demographics is not destiny, and the best ideas still win.  Maybe, just maybe, what Trump was talking about is not just racism, racism, racism.  Maybe, just maybe, the folks who come from socialist countries know just how shitty that reality really is, and the messaging of AOC, Warren and Harris really only appeals to woke white people who have no idea what these "wonderful", egalitarian ideas evolve into.

After the election, I saw a number of articles in "serious" newspapers that simply doubled down on the racism explanation.  Disregard all of the above and continue to let dumb ideas guide you, because the Republicans are going to get even more seats in 2022,  And, my guess, they will get the White House back in 2024.

What the lunatic left is really doing is projecting their own worst tendencies onto the political opposition.  Guess what, looks like Trump lost, and no one rioted.  We know who the retailers in NY and LA and DC were actually afraid of.  The left accuses people of intolerance because they themselves are intolerant.  I don't pretend to speak for everyone who shares my political views, but I am comfortable in accepting that other views exist.  What we have learned is that the people who don't agree with me don't really have that ability.  They have to explain and rationalize the opposition in the most deviant and evil ways possible.  It failed this time, and it will continue to fail in the future.

Some Thoughts

Biden probably won, but the legal process will have to play itself out.  Nevertheless, some thoughts in the aftermath...

-"STOP THE VOTE!"...if you are not allowing Republican poll watchers in.

-"COUNT THE VOTES!"...before calling Arizona.

-The Pennsylvania Supreme Court did something unconstitutional and the vote in that state is going to be the epicenter of legal battles.  To explain, the Court unilaterally changed the election law, passed by the legislator in that state, such that ballots that arrived after 8pm on Election Day could still be counted.  There are multiple concerns here.  First, all authority to set election rules in that state are vested with the legislature, so a problem with what the court did to change a rule which is unambiguously clear in its intent.  Second, the law which they overturned also stipulated that the provisions were not severable, so if one portion failed, the whole law becomes invalidated.  Needless to say, this will make its way to the US Supreme Court, and I expect them to rule that the ballots received and counted after 8pm on November 3 should not be included, and the state flips back to Trump.  And for those wondering, the Republicans challenged the change before the election, and the USSC simply said that it would not rule on this matter before November 3.

-To say there is election fraud does not mean that Trump will win.  The second condition is that the fraud has to have meaningfully changed the outcome.  We should be allowed to find out whether both conditions have been met.

-Gore in 2000: Hero.  Stacey Abrams in 2018: Hero.  Trump in 2020: Wahhhhhhhhh!

-"They don't hate you because they hate Trump.  They hate Trump because they hate you."

Symmetry

I recall coming to this blog about 4 years ago to express my apprehensions about what was coming next.  At the time, it mostly manifest as concern that Hillary Clinton would become the next President.  And, that, even though I had no intention of voting for Donald Trump.

This time around, the same angst exists about a probable Biden victory, with the key difference being that I voted to re-elect the President.

I live in New York.  It is as blue as blue can get.  And amongst a largely educated set that I can interact with, the best explanation I get for supporting the Biden/Harris ticket is that it is not Trump.  To me, it is a position that is foolish and shows an inability to distinguish what matters from what doesn't.

What matters is policy that helps the economy to grow, particularly as so many remain unemployed.  We should be heralding 33.3% GDP growth in the third quarter (the largest such increase in our nation's history -- and a number that puts to shame any tepid recovery under Obama/Biden during the Great Recession).  But, we do not.  What do we think happens if you introduce higher taxes, greater regulation and put everyone back into lockdown in this environment?

What doesn't matter is Trump's trolling and wannabe stand-up comedian schtick.  I don't think he's racist (at least, no worse than any of his predecessors), and I do think that he has done a lot more in the form of criminal justice reform and empowerment of black communities than any President in recent memory.  Meanwhile, the party which likes to feign tolerance, and espouses that race and gender don't matter, selected a Vice President nominee entirely because of her race and gender (note that she did not hit 1% during the Democratic primaries for a reason, and bowed out before her party even voted in her home state of California -- although she did stick around long enough to call Joe Biden a racist).  It is the same party where its Presidential candidate and celebrity enablers tell black people who they can vote for and still be considered black.  That, by the way, is what racism looks like and is the underlying mentality -- that people of color have no agency and should just listen to us -- which leads to a failed welfare state.

As for COVID, I come from this as someone with two parents who fall within the demographic that is most vulnerable.  There is nothing that I wouldn't do to keep them safe.  But, when the mentality of the Democrats is that we should just listen to Dr. Fauci and that's it, it represents the worst form of single variable analysis you can fathom.  He is an infectious disease expert, but he also focuses on one thing to the exclusion of anything else and is not elected to run he country.  And in a country of 300+ million, you need to recognize the multiple moving parts and not act like everything stops in its tracks with a disease that becomes less and less fatal with every positive case.

But, moving beyond any single issue, my real fear is that the election of the Democrats represents the true empowerment of intolerance.  Whatever aspersions may be cast, it is the party of Biden which cancels those who disagree with them, calls everyone a racist or deplorable, riots in the streets, looks for injustices where they may not exist, and takes every opportunity to politicize.  They literally change the meaning of words.

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, the idea that Trump would nominate a new justice was decried as unconstitutional.  Quite literally, Joe Biden uttered those words.  A representative from his campaign said exactly the same thing while being interviewed on CNN by Jake Tapper.  For the record, it is not.  If there is a vacancy, the President can nominate a replacement.  And, if you have the votes in the Senate (the big difference from when Obama nominated Merrick Garland), you can get that person confirmed and scream from the hilltops that you just did something extremely constitutional.  By contrast, the Democrats deemed it court packing because Trump filled vacancies pursuant to the rules in place.  Come again?  Kamala Harris called it court packing during the VP debate because Donald Trump has not put enough people of color on the bench.  First off, whether true, that's still not court packing.  Second, what she is really doing is race hustling.  Do the Democrats like justices simply because of their race, as if that should be the sole qualification?  Why don't we ask Kamala how she feels about Clarence Thomas?  Meanwhile, it seems entirely likely that a President Biden would look to pack the court by expanding its numbers -- in effect, turning the judiciary, which is only supposed to interpret the laws, into another legislature.  So much for respect of the institutions.

People are prone to hyperbole at times like these, but I don't think my fears are unwarranted.  The Democrats are becoming the party of AOC, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris.  Their ideas run counter to the essence of our country -- we are about equality of opportunity, they are about equality of outcome.  The latter is what failed states throughout history are made of,

So, there you have it.  I guess I don't think it matters whether I like President Trump on a personal level -- in fact, as someone who comes from the real estate world, I used to root against him in that arena.  But, as President, as far as policy, he has largely gotten it right.  And that's why I voted for him.  And that's why I think the very crude logic of Biden supporters is going to lead us down a dark path.

The Deficit Myth

The subtitle is Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy and the author is Stephanie Kelton (2020).

Kelton is an economist with the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) cult, which has gained in popularity recently, counting Bernie Sanders and AOC amongst its supporters.  Kelton uses this book to explain the key tenets of MMT and to throw the traditional ideas of deficits and government budgets out the window.

The main ideas could be summarized as follows:

-If you are a monetary sovereign – that is, you can issue your own currency and do not borrow in anyone else’s currency – then the risk of default is non-existent, because you can always print more Dollars, Yen or Loonies.  Therefore, the idea that such governments are in any way like households, and need to stay within budget constraints, is an absolute fiction.

-With that first concept out of the way, the theory acknowledges that there are still constraints – namely, inflation, which could occur if government spending exceeds the capacity of actual productive goods and resources in the economy.  More specifically, in the form of a question, will the new spending go towards slack (the unemployed) or will it pull resources from other productive ends (which would not be good)?

-In addition, because the government is not constrained in its spending, taxation is not really a means of funding, so much as the stick that gets people to work and produce, so as to ensure that they earn the currency that they need in order to pay taxes.

With that all said, the question is whether MMT is really a panacea.  The basic idea that when there is slack in the economy (take the COVID pandemic and associated unemployment, as an example), there is plenty of room for government spending, without any crowding out or inflation, makes some deal of sense at first glance.  However, when you think a bit longer, you realize that, at its core, MMT is relying on the government to spend well and avoid boondoggles, and I am entirely skeptical of such a reality.  Malinvestment is a reality, especially with fiat currency, and it is why we have boom and bust cycles perpetually.

And that leads to the more global problem with MMT that is not dealt with in the book.  If being a monetary sovereign is so wonderful, why is it that any country would choose otherwise?  Why doesn’t every country print its own currency, never borrow in another currency, and pay for anything it wants?  The reason: because financial markets do not trust every country (in fact, they don’t trust most countries) not to spend recklessly and debase the currency.  Venezuela and Argentina both have their own currency, and Greece used to have the Drachma, but are forced to borrow in US dollars or Euros for exactly that reason.  If the US suddenly decides that the constraints are gone, we start going down the path of other currency debasers who lose their sovereignty.

So, MMT seems novel and offers insights that will probably blow a few minds.  But I don’t think they have proven that gravity no longer exists.

The Nonsense Factory

The subtitle is The Making and Breaking of the American Legal System and the author is Bruce Cannon Gibney (2019).

In a closing fury, the writer’s take on the American legal system is summarily explained:

“Law schools should teach students practical skills and receive appropriate public funding to reduce legal costs; Congress should expand its membership and staff so that it can fulfill its duties with something like minimal competence; agencies should be relieved of quasi-judicial powers; the shoddy and untenable doctrines of compulsory arbitration should be undone; correctional institutions should correct; prosecutors should be bound by codes of ethics enforceable by the public and the courts; and doctrines of sovereign immunity re-interred in their fourteenth-century graves.”

Of all things that he covers, though, Gibney’s biggest gripe is with the move in the past century towards an Executive Constitution, whereby the Executive branch has great facility to interpret and enforce the law however it deems fit – a perpetual state of the exception for the President to invoke and preempt other bodies.

He also takes great umbrage with the militarization of police forces.  As he deftly notes (quoting Battlestar Gallactica): “There’s a reason you separate military and the police.  One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people.  When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”

He covers a lot.  And it's recommended.

The Great Successor

The subtitle is The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un and the author is Anna Fifield (2019).

For me, this book was about trying to understand the situation in North Korea.  It is a brutal dictatorship that has become a family business.  And that familial lineage is likely the reason that the country will never open up in the way that other communist countries (like China and Vietnam) have -- to loosen the system and allow freer flow of information would implicitly weaken the Kim family's grip on power.  As far as nukes, they will never give them up.  They view them as the only defense against US aggression, and also saw during the Korean War how the threat of a nuclear strike by the US immediately ended that conflict.  The goal is to never be forced to entrust any other country with its national security.  This book is not a dense, heavy historical narrative, but it's a reasonable primer on this topic.

Post Mortem

When I told my son last night that KD and Kyrie were heading to Brooklyn, he said "I hate the Nets" and stormed out of the room.  I get the frustration.  To be a Knicks fan is an exercise in heartache and perceived inequities.

But, if he were a little older, he would know that this organization has been a dumpster fire for a long time.  Jim Dolan is a disaster.  The culture with the team starts with him, and there are simply too many bad stories about this franchise during his tenure to ignore.  There are too many over-promises and miscalculations.  Too frequently they peddle hope, in the form of cap space, and then never even get the meetings with the top guys.  New York is still a draw, MSG should be a draw...but clearly you get most of that, plus a better-run organization, by going to Brooklyn right now.

I don't think the Nets will steal Knicks fans in droves.  There is a longevity to Knick fandom that has passed through generations, from parent to child, that is stronger than Dolan's ineptitude.  But, the team itself will continue to suffer as long as he is the face.  I don't think the perpetual failures will cease until he is no longer the guy in charge.

In the mean time...