MAGA Hypocrisy 101

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MAGA Hypocrisy 101:

We Hate Government Regulation Unless We Do It

Why would I provide side-by-side pictures of a once perceived to be moderate Republican – Marco Rubio – with the GOP buffoon-in-chief – Marjorie Taylor Greene? Aside from the fact that they both favor a virtual support of whatever-Donald-wants populism, the dramatic shift from Reagan’s laissez-faire free market mantra (the very basis for GOP policy for decades) to tightly controlled, highly regulated economy, is stunning. And these two Republican members of Congress now walk in lockstep over massive government interference in the business world, only seeming to embrace low taxes for the rich and corporate rich.

It bad enough when the GOP rants about rampant crime while supporting loosing what little gun control there is. It not surprising that they overlook the massive flow of illicit US firearms to points south, enabling narco-wars and gang/cartel ultra violence bordering on civil war… which drives an increasing number of immigrants to our southern border. Or that they struggle with their right to life constituency, the same base that favors the death penalty and the further relaxation of gun control. It begins to be a bit more interesting when the same GOP representatives (the “law and order” party), having lived through the 1/6/21 attack on the Capitol (hiding where they could) where police officers were seriously injured or died from that conflict, refer to the peaceful and “legitimate political discourse” of that violent mob… and call these violent and convicted January 6th violent felons “patriots” and “hostages,” worthy of immediate pardon.

Indeed, the values of personal freedom and keeping government out of citizens’ lives that was once a major plank of the GOP has now splintered and burned. MAGA politicians have learned to embrace “no compromise” extremism as a clear path to being elected. As the August 31, 2023, The Economist puts it, this is a global trend: “Unfortunately, the love of ‘us’ has an ugly cousin: the fear and suspicion of ‘them’, a paranoid nationalism that works against tolerant values such as an openness to unfamiliar people and new ideas. What is more, cynical politicians have come to understand that they can exploit this sort of nationalism, by whipping up mistrust and hatred and harnessing them to benefit themselves and their cronies.” A very good view of the MAGA GOP. It’s no longer “conservatives” vs “liberals,” but “paranoid” and misinformed MAGAns vs “everybody else.”

Nothing brings this home like the personal restraints on normal, acceptable individual choices that we have not seen since prohibition. Whether it is book censorship, whitewashing classroom lessons in primary and secondary school with severe consequences for offending teachers, banning “woke” companies from doing business in some red states (or banning them from government contracts) and the exceptionally unpopular severe restrictions – even outright bans without reasonable exceptions – on those aiding, providing or having abortions, based on Christian beliefs that are often quite different from those of other faiths.

But today, I would like to follow an LA Times April 10th editorial from Jonah Goldberg, who looks at what the MAGA plan would be to rein in corporation in ways that would make Ronald Reagan roll over in his grave: “The changing of the conservative mind in recent years could hardly be captured more pithily than in the headline of a recent op-ed: ‘Why I believe in industrial policy — done right.’ So opined Sen. Marco Rubio for the Washington Post and, at greater length, for National Affairs… What I’m referring to, rather, are the ideas, arguments and principles that once defined conservatism intellectually, among them rejection of the kind of government intervention in the economy that the Florida Republican now apparently favors. [Like Disney vs DeSantis?]

“Modern conservatism — the sort associated with Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, George Will, Thomas Sowell, Ronald Reagan and to some extent Rubio when he arrived in Washington — once regarded central economic planning and everything associated with it, including ‘industrial policy,’ to be dangerous folly… Buckley’s 1955 mission statement for National Review declared: ‘Perhaps the most important and readily demonstrable lesson of history is that freedom goes hand in hand with a state of political decentralization, that remote government is irresponsible government.’ He also noted that the “competitive price system is indispensable to liberty and material progress.”

“This conviction can be traced back to Edmund Burke and Adam Smith, but it became a defining principle on the American right during the Cold War, against the backdrop of the rise of the Soviet Union as well as the domestic programs of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society… There are many strands to the conservative argument against state efforts to shape the economy. One is the ‘knowledge problem,’ a phrase adapted from Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek’s brilliant 1945 essay ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society.’… The knowledge problem, simply put, is that society, including the market, is too complex and too dynamic for government experts to reliably direct it from afar. In a free market, prices capture information that even the best data-gatherers can’t. The closer you are to the problem, the closer you are to the solution.

“Public choice theory — what another Nobel laureate economist, James M. Buchanan, called ‘politics without romance’ — adds another layer of reasons to distrust central planning. Government experts and regulators are often ‘captured’ by the industries or activists most affected by their policies. Also, once politicians get involved, policy priorities multiply — extending to boosting employment, expanding diversity, favoring certain states or districts, protecting specific industries and so on — and the government’s stated goals become pretexts for other motives. ‘Crises’ — pandemics, war, unemployment, environmental problems — become excuses to reward favored constituencies.

“Take President Biden’s recent announcement that he would rebuild Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge both ‘as rapidly as humanly possible’ and ‘with union labor and American steel.’ Well, which is it — rapidly or with those restrictions?

“That brings us to Rubio. Take it from a longtime columnist, you can’t always blame writers for the headlines mischievous editors put on our articles. But ‘Why I believe in industrial policy — done right’ perfectly captures the senator’s argument and the trouble with the broader right-wing fad for central planning… Oh, you want to do it right? Well, that changes everything!... I mean, if only someone had told Hayek and Buchanan that their objections could be answered by just ‘doing it right.’

“The change in the conservative mind goes beyond industrial policy. It’s really about the use of state power generally. Too many Republicans no longer have any problem — moral or otherwise — with government imposing its will on society, so long as the ‘right’ people are doing it ‘right.’ The knowledge problem, they seem to believe, is confined to the left wing.” As the MAGA populist GOP (read: virtually all elected Republicans) centralizes corporate control under severe MAGA restrictions, this Trumpist movement looks a whole lot more like Chinese President Xi Jinping’ s re-centralizing his economy than any vision Ronald Reagan ever held for the United States. Oh, and Xi’s economy is faltering.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while I am no fan of Reagan’s failed supply-side (trickle down) economics, Reagan was whole lot more in tune with letting companies make their own business decisions and set their own priorities than are these MAGA economic autocrats.

Why is the Obvious Our Leaders Ignore that Others See So Clearly?

 

What never ceases to amaze me is how senior American leadership, immediately embraced by blind-followers who have totally outsourced their opinions to those leaders as well as corporations desperately trying to make profits without taxes or regulations by head-in-the-sand tactics, believe that ignoring a problem or kicking the can down a very long road is a good idea. I wrote a book, Not on My Watch; Hollywood vs. the Future (New Millennium Publishing, 2003), about the entertainment industry’s top management’s proclivity to make any serious problems become the next management’s headache… by minimizing, lying, accounting games, hiring high-priced consultants to tell them what they need to pretend the issues don’t really matter or simply hoping that a serendipitous success will bail them out… at least for a while. But someday, the piper comes with a huge invoice that must be paid.

And no, it’s not about our deficit, which could be fixed if the mega-rich actually paid taxes relative to their wealth. I’ve written about it before, but let me remind you that loan proceeds are not taxable and interest is often deductible… so if you are mega-rich with mega-assets… guess how you can avoid paying taxes?! No, instead I am focusing today on mega-trends, global realities that will impact every human being on earth (and most other biological species): 1. the growing intolerable consequences of climate change (and have we already passed the tipping point?) and 2. the rise of artificial intelligence, which if carried to the extreme, could foment new military conflicts and, by taking the value of education and experience away from people and giving it to artificial intelligence driven technology, force a new world social order.

Since I’ve already blogged frequently about climate change, let me just present this short summary of our pending “tipping point” reality from the April 9th BBC.com: “Last month was the world's warmest March ever measured, breaking the global temperature records for a tenth month in a row. March 2024 was 1.68C (3.02F) warmer than "pre-industrial" times. This all-time high was expected, partly because the El Niño weather system, which peaked in December, caused some of the extra warmth. But even El Niño can't explain why records were broken with such large margins over the past months. The climate phenomenon is waning, but scientists are worried that average temperatures might not cool down. ‘By the end of the summer, if we're still looking at record breaking temperatures in the North Atlantic or elsewhere, then we really have kind of moved into uncharted territory,’ said Gavin Schmidt, the director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The next few months will tell researchers if the past year was just out of the norm, or the sign of a sea change in our climate. But scientists are certain about one thing: the way to stop the world warming is to rapidly cut emissions of planet-warming gases.”

Now, inspired by an April 7th Wall Street Journal article by Peter Landers, I look at how generative artificial intelligence (where access to information is not limited but determined by the AI machines), could, as Lander’s headline reads: ‘Social Order Could Collapse’ in AI Era, Two Top Japan Companies Say: “Japan’s largest telecommunications company [Nippon Telegraph and Telephone] and the country’s biggest newspaper [Yomiuri Shimbun Group Holdings] called for speedy legislation to restrain generative artificial intelligence, saying democracy and social order could collapse if AI is left unchecked…

“Combined with a law passed in March by the European Parliament restricting some uses of AI, the manifesto points to rising concern among American allies about the AI programs U.S.-based companies have been at the forefront of developing…. The Japanese companies’ manifesto, while pointing to the potential benefits of generative AI in improving productivity, took a generally skeptical view of the technology. Without giving specifics, it said AI tools have already begun to damage human dignity because the tools are sometimes designed to seize users’ attention without regard to morals or accuracy.

“Unless AI is restrained, ‘in the worst-case scenario, democracy and social order could collapse, resulting in wars,’ the manifesto said… It said Japan should take measures immediately in response, including laws to protect elections and national security from abuse of generative AI.

“A global push is under way to regulate AI, with the European Union at the forefront. The EU’s new law calls on makers of the most powerful AI models to put them through safety evaluations and notify regulators of serious incidents. It also is set to ban the use of emotion-recognition AI in schools and workplaces.

“The Biden administration is also stepping up oversight, invoking emergency federal powers last October to compel major AI companies to notify the government when developing systems that pose a serious risk to national security. The U.S., U.K. and Japan have each set up government-led AI safety institutes to help develop AI guidelines… Still, governments of democratic nations are struggling to figure out how to regulate AI-powered speech, such as social-media activity, given constitutional and other protections for free speech.

“NTT and Yomiuri said their manifesto was motivated by concern over public discourse. The two companies are among Japan’s most influential in policy. The government still owns about one-third of NTT, formerly the state-controlled phone monopoly… Yomiuri Shimbun, which has a morning circulation of about six million copies according to industry figures, is Japan’s most widely-read newspaper. Under the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his successors, the newspaper’s conservative editorial line has been influential in pushing the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to expand military spending and deepen the nation’s alliance with the U.S… The two companies said their executives have been examining the impact of generative AI since last year in a study group guided by Keio University researchers.”

Questions arise like: “who owns AI software and hardware”? Rich people owning the technology through their controlled corporations? The government? Which party? If the value of people is devalued, who earns enough to buy the products AI creates? Do we battle for goods and resources? Is socialism the only system of government that can sustain a viable economic model? Who or what makes the decisions and allocations? Why would education continue to be relevant except for entertainment value?

I’m Peter Dekom, and if you think the above set forth the only real issues, you ain’t seen nuffin’ yet!

They Were Once Destined to Overtake the US Economy Forever

They Were Once Destined to Overtake the US Economy Forever

Oh Well, Maybe Centralized Autocracies Just Cannot Get There

After consolidating his power, eliminating term limits and extending amplified repressive measures against all of China, especially the Uighur region in Western China, and by ignoring the 1984 handover treaty with the UK (continuing the same of governance that that Hong Kong had prior to the actual handover in 1997 under 2047) imposing that repression onto that island city, President Xi Jinping pictured himself as the new Mao Zedong. Xi was set to redefine China under his brutal centralized control. The “state is the power” mantra led to Xi’s efforts to contain, if not crush, the decades of billionaire wealth-related arrogance and power based on capitalism. CEOs and major holders of wealth were arrested, often much of their wealth confiscated, and all were required to pledge absolute fealty to Xi and the Communist Party. The state (read: Xi) was the only power. The Chinese growth engine began to slow.

Xi illustrated his power by imposing an economy destroying “zero tolerance” policy against COVID outbreaks, even as the pandemic had subsided. Chinese productivity plummeted as factories closed. His commitment to the Peoples Liberation Army (the entire Chinese military which is part of the Communist Party and not the government itself) was reflected in the greatest military build up on earth, quickly eclipsing the US Navy and Army at least in size, while building an ultra-modern air force. His expanding the land mass of one of the Spratley Islands gave him a military base from which to extend PRC domination over regional seas. As massively overbuilt residential housing resulted in huge failures which rippled into the banking sector that funded this egregious effort was tanking access to capital, growth and bad economy ripples became waves. Unemployment, especially among younger, and often well-educated workers, soared.

All the saber-rattling, threats to invade Taiwan, China’s confrontational tactic with regional nations as it attempts to control neighboring waterways and undersea exploitation rights, its willingness to use its naval and air power in a war of risky brinksmanship as it attempts to assert control of what the rest of the world considers international waters and its willingness to use heavy debt loads imposed on regional powers under China’s Belt and Road initiative – intended to create regional commercial linkage infrastructure with China at the center – were part of the grand plan… but became the grand distraction to become a national rallying point to bring the Chinese people together under Xi’s “magnificent” leadership. China’s economy was actually unraveling under the litany of Xi’s attempt to rework his centralized control mode. To make matters worse, the birthrate in China dropped like a stone, well below replacement value. There were fewer younger workers (especially employed younger workers) to care for an aging and retiring population.

So, with double whammy of massive youth unemployment and an aging population, “China is aging so quickly that over the next quarter-century, 520 million people, or nearly 40 percent of its current population, will be older than 60. And over the next decade the public pension will run out of money, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government research institution… ‘Because of the aging population, people are skeptical about their future pensions,’ said Tao Wang, the chief China economist at UBS. ‘They worry that in the future the payout would be less.’… China is aging so quickly that over the next quarter-century, 520 million people, or nearly 40 percent of its current population, will be older than 60. And over the next decade the public pension will run out of money, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government research institution… Citing a rapidly aging society, difficult job market and uncertainty about the future, some young people are rejecting the idea of saving for old age.” Alexandra Stevenson and Siyi Zhao, writing for the March 5th New York Times.

Prices for Chinese exports are falling fast as Xi attempts to reignite his failing economic plan. In recent travels to China, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Chinese officials to stop dumping cheap goods into the US marketplace, that it’s time to transform the PRC economy for a modern world where it own people are prioritized. Yellin’s message includes telling the PRC “to stop relying on exports to prop up their underperforming economy and instead boost their own consumer market. ‘We don’t want to be overly dependent, and they want to dominate the market,’ she said in an interview. ‘We’re not going to let that happen.’” Andrew Duehren for the April 3rd Wall Street Journal. China may pass the US economy for a very short while, but then…

Xi’s grand plan is flawed at so many levels. As the April 4th The Economist tells us: “The scope of this plan is breathtaking. We estimate annual investment in ‘new productive forces’ has reached $1.6trn—a fifth of all investment and double what it was five years ago in nominal terms. This is equivalent to 43% of all business investment in America in 2023. Factory capacity in some industries could rise by over 75% by 2030. Some of this will be made by world-class firms keen to create value, but much will be prompted by subsidies and implicit or explicit state direction. Foreign companies are welcome, even though many have been burned in China before. Mr Xi’s ultimate aim is to invert the balance of power in the global economy. Not only will China escape dependence on Western technology, but it will control much of the key intellectual property in new industries and charge rents accordingly. Multinationals will come to China to learn, not teach.

“However, Mr Xi’s plan is fundamentally misguided. One flaw is that it neglects consumers. Although their spending dwarfs property and the new productive forces, it accounts for just 37% of GDP, much lower than global norms. To restore confidence amid the property slump and thereby boost consumer spending requires stimulus. To induce consumers to save less requires better social security and health care, and reforms that open up public services to all urban migrants. Mr Xi’s reluctance to embrace this reflects his austere mindset. He detests the idea of bailing out speculative property firms or giving handouts to citizens. Young people should be less pampered and willing to ‘eat bitterness,’ he said last year.

“Another flaw is that weak domestic demand means some new production will have to be exported. The world has, regrettably, moved on from the free-trading 2000s—partly because of China’s own mercantilism. America will surely block advanced imports from China, or those made by Chinese firms elsewhere. Europe is in a panic about fleets of Chinese vehicles wiping out its carmakers. Chinese officials say they can redirect exports to the global south. But if emerging countries’ industrial development is undermined by a new ‘China shock,’ they, too, will grow wary. China accounts for 31% of global manufacturing. In a protectionist age, how much higher can that figure go?

“The last flaw is Mr Xi’s unrealistic view of entrepreneurs, the dynamos of the past 30 years. Investment in politically favoured industries is soaring, but the underlying mechanism of capitalist risk-taking has been damaged. Many bosses complain of Mr Xi’s unpredictable rule-making and fear purges or even arrest. Relative stockmarket valuations are at a 25-year low; foreign firms are wary; there are signs of capital flight and tycoons emigrating. Unless entrepreneurs are unshackled, innovation will suffer and resources will be wasted.

“China could become like Japan in the 1990s, trapped by deflation and a property crash. Worse, its lopsided growth model could wreck international trade. If so, that could ratchet geopolitical tensions even higher. America and its allies should not cheer that scenario. If China was stagnating and discontented, it could be even more bellicose than if it were thriving.” Indeed, that need to appear tough as a distraction for failure, is a threat to world peace in a huge way.

I’m Peter Dekom, and to allow irrational and xenophobic economic threats, such as the tariffs on Chinese goods promised in Trump’s campaign rhetoric, is very much like waving a red flag in front of an enraged bull, a bull with an outsized military and ultra-modern weapons.

I Hate to Barge in, But….

    

In March, when a container ship (pictured above), lost all power after the tugs that could have taken over were released, the main shipping channel to one of America’s major east coast ports was entirely blocked as that vessel slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, sending the entire structure crashing into the water below. Baltimore Harbor and all the ships in that harbor were trapped. A few weeks later, a small opening in the channel allowed a few ships to transit the channel, but the clean-up and replacement will take years and cost billions, although the Army Corps of Engineers has yet to release a full assessment.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators reported that 56 containers on the vessel contained hazardous material, mostly corrosives and flammables, as well as some lithium-ion batteries. That shimmering golden picture above is a computer-generated visual of the sonic findings looking strictly at the structural steel underwater that has to be removed. But the economic loss of the full use of one of our larger ports means imports will cost more, exports will be delayed, and crowding at our other major ports will increase. Lots of folks will lose their livelihoods until the bridge is replaced… and folks who relied on the Interstate that crossed that bridge may be more than just inconvenienced. Just because no one funded the barriers needed to protect the bridge supports against major collision.

The picture on the right is of one of the Pittsburgh bridges hit by a barge from 26 day-loaded barges that broke away and drifted down the Ohio River on April 12th. Pittsburgh closed two bridges out of an abundance of caution. “No hazardous materials were on board the barges, according to the city. Of the 26 loose barges, 23 were loaded and carrying dry cargo, including coal, according to the news release… Eleven of the barges were located and pinned against the river bank by Brunot Island, according to a news release from the City of Pittsburgh. They were being held by a tugboat… Meanwhile, 14 continued down the river and six have gone over the Emsworth Dam, the city said.

“While there have been no reports of people injured, Peggy’s Harbor - a family owned and operated full service marina located on the Ohio River - was damaged, the release said. It’s unclear exactly what the damage to the marina looks like… ‘The barges are owned or operated by Campbell Transportation Company located on the left descending bank of the Ohio River, just downstream from the West End Bridge,’ Pittsburgh officials said in the news release.” CNN.com, April 13th. Those bridges were spared the impact of a larger, heavier vessel.

It is less than subtle that the United States has been facing trillions of dollars of deferred maintenance on our infrastructure from the lockstep doctrinaire GOP willingness to cut taxes for the rich (e.g., the 2017 reduction of the federal corporate tax rate that generated virtually no measurable economic benefits but has resulted in several trillion dollars being added to the federal deficit) and, except for defense, pretty much cut or threaten to cut the federal budget for everything else. At least a bi-partisan bill, passed in 2021, slowed the “kicking the infrastructure can down the road” for a while.

“In November 2021, Congress passed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The IIJA funds desperately needed improvements to the United States infrastructure. This historic bill is the largest commitment to U.S. infrastructure in over 100 years. The IIJA includes $500 billion allocated for surface transportation systems, $73 billion to update the electric grid, $55 billion to improve countrywide water quality and $50 billion to support community resilience in the face of climate change, cyberattacks and more.” BigRentz, Think Big Blog, United States Infrastructure: Past, Present and Future, February 16th.

So, just looking at our nation’s bridges – not looking at dams, levees, highways, power grids and energy generation, just bridges: “According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), 1 in 3 US bridges require replacement or repair. Of these bridges, 42,400 are deemed ‘structurally deficient,’ yet people cross them approximately 167 million times a day… They may not collapse in the middle of rush hour, but they need plenty of attention before existing issues deteriorate to a point where the structures are unsafe.

The estimated backlog for bridge repairs is $125 billion, and annual spending needs to increase from $14.4 billion to $22.7 billion to make necessary improvements. A systematic preservation program prioritizing preventive maintenance is crucial to address this issue… Fortunately, the new United States infrastructure bill recently allocated funds to the Bridge Investment Program. This program is the largest bridge investment in U.S. history and supports the replacement, rehabilitation and preservation of poor or at-risk bridges with $40 billion allocated over five years.” BigRentz

The US Department of Transportation has announced its Bridge Investment Program that provides funding for bridge replacement, rehabilitation, preservation, and protection projects that reduce the number of bridges in poor condition, or in fair condition at risk of declining into poor condition. This willingness to cut taxes for the rich, increase the federal deficit which sucks tax dollars to pay the massive interest carry like a mega-vacuum cleaner of steroid, and ignore what needs to be done to keep our country on track is horrifically self-destructive. Productivity relies heavily on education – which is increasingly unaffordable – and vigorous infrastructure (which is obviously in severe decay). Not priorities for GOP tax-cutters.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this catering to the rich and lovers of conspiracy theories while refusing to fund what makes us productive and great is killing us… as we watch income inequality grow, productivity plunge and our national debt continue to rise to staggering and unsustainable heights.

Sanctuaries from Sanctions

So, here’s the headline: as much as political leaders and angry voters like sanctions against rogue nations, like tariffs, they seldom work. First, sanctions are generally applied against nations with autocratic leaders, whose lifestyle remains unaffected, citizens are brutalized for blaming their leadership and there are no elections. Second, sanctions are usually used by autocratic leaders to point blame at outsiders in order to rally their population into populist rage at the imposing nation. Third, citizens from the nation pushing those sanctions are often exposed to higher prices (a consumer tax). Lastly, most nations figure out to backdoor and work around sanctions anyway, since there are always takers if the benefits are sufficient (they usually are).

You can start with the obvious: Russia may have been pushed around by Western sanctions, but with a lot of help from China, those two nations have found viable workarounds from Western sanctions and even the more powerful deterrent, US control of the flow of international trade via its SWIFT codes as sophisticated currency exchanges and models. There is a double whammy danger here, which would be accelerated if Trump were reelected: one, these workarounds would accelerate, and two, there would be an international push to remove the US dollar as the overwhelming reserve currency (the global measuring and pricing currency). US consumers would pay dearly for that reality.

Russia can still sell its oil, trade internationally through China, if necessary, purchase weapons from other nations facing sanctions (hence Russia’s purchase of drones from North Korea and Iran), and still maintain a fully functioning economy with little consumer sacrifice. While the ruble and the Russian GDP have been hurt, life in Russia has not changed much.

And that brings me to Iran. Back in 1979, when the current Islamist theocracy took over, American policymakers were certain that it would not take much to topple that repressive regime. They assumed the Ayatollah-governed nation would rail at the repression and restore Western-friendly democracy. It was not until the Obama administration that US policymakers realized Iran was not only unlikely to topple but was very likely to have viable nuclear weapons. That opened the door, with a moderation in Western sanctions against Tehran, for détente and a 2015 nuclear containment treaty that was working until, in 2018 and bowing to Israeli pressure, Donald Trump pulled the US out of that treaty. He reimposed sanctions and watched Iran reignite its nuclear program. Despite those sanctions, which helped spike oil prices globally, modern Iran has never been stronger. If there is a full-blown war between Israel and Iran, Iran could trash global commodity prices by sealing off the Strait of Hormuz, the entry-point for the Suez Canal.

And sure, nations that are subject to sanctions always ask for their removal to further diplomatic solutions. Kim Jong-Un always required a removal of sanctions as a condition for détente. He played Trump, and Kim has only accelerated his nuclear program. He has lots of nukes! Soon, I suspect, so will Iran, unless Israel is able to delay that development with a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. That would cause a few additional major problems, however.

As Venezuela has been our major leftist autocratic sore spot in the Americas, we did negotiate a reduction in our sanctions against that oil producer pending a restoration of genuine democratic elections. Free elections? Hell no! So, do we restore sanctions? “The Biden administration is leaning away from reimposing sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry despite President Nicolás Maduro’s moves to bar leading opposition candidates from the country’s July elections, said people familiar with the matter.

“U.S. officials are concerned that reverting to Trump-era sanctions that accelerated the decline of Venezuela’s oil production would raise the price of gas at U.S. pumps and prompt more migration from Venezuela as President Biden campaigns for re-election in November. Restricting Western oil companies would tighten global energy supplies and open the way for Chinese investment in Venezuela, they say… Biden administration officials have said they didn’t think that the oil sanctions—leveled against Venezuela in early 2019 in former President Donald Trump’s effort to force Maduro from power—was constructive.” Wall Street Journal, April 18th.

When economic sanctions are imposed, the first response of the sanctioned country is how to get around them. And while there is a negative impact from sanctions, you might be surprised at how folks try to avoid them, even those from the country imposing sanctions and trade barriers. Here’s a story, from the April 15th Wall Street Journal that just may shock you. Not only are nations around the world ignoring US sanctions and trade restrictions against China but so are many major US institutions. “Chinese companies are feeling a cold shoulder in the U.S.—except at universities, where they are welcomed as customers.

“American universities sign contracts around the world to sell their research and training expertise, and some of their most lucrative agreements have been with companies based in China. The decadeslong trade thrives despite a deepening U.S.-China rivalry and rising sensitivities about Beijing’s influence on American campuses… Nearly 200 U.S. colleges and universities held contracts with Chinese businesses, valued at $2.32 billion, between 2012 and 2024, according to a review by The Wall Street Journal of disclosures made to the Education Department. The Journal tallied roughly 2,900 contracts.

The extensive trade in American expertise presents a quandary for universities and policymakers in Washington: Where’s the line between fostering academic research and empowering a U.S. rival?... ‘It seems clear that when the Chinese contract with U.S. universities they are getting a capability they can’t get anywhere else,’ said Daniel Currell, a Trump administration Education Department official who has tracked foreign influence in higher education. ‘The big question is, what [contracts] should be legal, what should be legal and disclosable, and what should be illegal?’ he added.” If the ability to punish offending without military attack weren’t so popular, we wouldn’t have sanctions at all. But the philosophy of that punishment sounds so good, like so many other popular myths (like that “a rising tide floats all boats” falsehood), we just keep doing it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I suspect there is a national insanity in repeating the use of sanctions, which simply do not work, and hoping for a different result.

Sorry, Joe, What’s in It for Us?

Sorry, Joe, What’s in It for Us?

We Pay Good Money for Your Votes; Besides Trump Really Might Win

“No matter how genuinely they support or don’t support specific pieces, many are animated by greater antipathy toward Biden than attraction to Trump. And they’re averting their gazes from the parts they don’t like.” 

 NY Times Journalist Maggie Haberman, April 17th on US CEOs now supporting Trump.

“[Trump] looks at the economy from Mar-a-Lago, where he and his rich friends embrace the failed trickle-down policies that have failed working families for more than 40 years.” 

 Joe Biden, April 16th.

“Most C.E.O.s are not wild about a second Trump term. They had a rocky ride the first time around — though they did get the tax cuts and deregulation they wanted — and they are pretty sure he will bring instability, which is generally bad for business… Having said that, many are also down on President Biden, who has been much more aggressive about regulating business. And I don’t have the impression that they have absorbed the messages that Trump and his allies have been sending about what a second term would look like.” 

 NY Times Journalist Jonathan Mahler, April 17th on US CEOs now supporting Trump.

No matter how you look at it, modern state and federal legislation has always catered to special interests. Frequently, laws intended to regulate certain industries are often handed over to trade associations, major corporations or their law firms for drafting, despite the most obvious conflict of interest. This allows elected candidates to tout to voters their having passed regulations and laws reining in the excesses fomented by big business – mostly environmental and financial controls – and still “wink-wink” at their campaign contributors that nothing has changed.

Citizens United vs FEC, a 2010 Supreme Court decision, removed the spending caps on issue-oriented political contributions by treating these entities as individual people with individual people’s 1st Amendment rights. The resulting tsunami of political SuperPACs, mostly seriously right of center, allowed big money to dominate the political discourse arena like never before. If you wonder how MAGA took over the House of Representatives, look no further than this massive change.

And woe to a candidate who suggests raising taxes on the rich – even while maintaining taxes for the upper middle class of earners at present rates – when there is no check or balance on the amount the rich can spend to defeat such efforts. Generally, the corporate argument usually centers on job-killing or an out-of-control (but unsupported notion of a) freedom-crushing “deep state.” For many corporations and their richest controlling shareholders, the notion of a battle between democracy and autocracy doesn’t move them. Most do not believe that Trump and his Heritage Foundation federal appointment election committee would really be able to implement his threat of purging, even arresting, his opponents and undoing entire federal regulatory agencies. They are narrow focused on reducing costly regulations and lowering taxes further.

It does not matter that global warming related disasters are annually costing the world trillions of dollars and the lives and health of millions, the regulations set to limit and control these greenhouse gas emissions cost too many companies too much. Protecting consumers from avaricious corporations seeking to contain consumer rights, for the same cost-driven reason, is their enemy. And even though the United States effectively taxes the rich less than most developed nations (mostly by exemptions and loopholes; less than by simple rate hikes), the rich want cuts! They tout the supply side/trickle down “a rising tide floats all boats” economic theory to sell their program, even though there are no significant instances where this really happens.

Make no mistake; Trump is bad for business in many ways that most CEOs know. His policies are often unclear, whimsical, instill instability which is never good for business, and tout very unpopular and often religiously based views. Yet Republicans from Trump to Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Texas’ Greg Abbott are quite willing to impose restrictions on companies that defy their views on inclusion, who support “woke” sensibilities in their corporate governance (such as banning companies engaged in environmental, social, and governance [ESG] investing from state contracts) or open tolerance of LGBTQ+ employees. Corporate America does not want to fight even an American autocrat; it’s just too risky… and for what?

In the early period of Trump’s ascendancy toward the GOP to a 2024 nomination, big business joined the rising international chorus that clearly found the ex-president’s candidacy to be a dangerous global threat… but as Trump appeared to pass Biden in the polls, corporate America had to let Trump know they really did not oppose him. As NY Times Magazine Journalist Jonathan Mahler observes in his April 7th Magazine article: “There was anxiety in the thin mountain air when the planet’s economic leaders gathered in January at Davos for the 54th meeting of the World Economic Forum. Donald Trump had just trounced Nikki Haley in the Iowa caucuses, all but securing the Republican nomination for president. Haley was reliable, a known quantity. A resurgent Trump, on the other hand, was more worrying.

“The Davos attendees needed reassurance, and Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, had some to offer. In an interview with CNBC that made headlines around the world, Dimon praised Trump’s economic policies as president. ‘Be honest,’ Dimon said, sitting against a backdrop of snow-dusted evergreens, dressed casually in a dark blazer and polo shirt. ‘He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Trade. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China.’ Asked which of the likely presidential candidates would be better for business, he opted not to pick a side.” But he did.

While early in Trump’s campaign, his biggest corporate donors sat on the sidelines, watching Trump’s march through a litany of civil and criminal litigation, uttering threats to anyone who opposed him… not writing those big checks that typified his 2015/16 campaign. Trump openly embraced the policies of elected Hungarian autocrat and prime minister Viktor Orbán, a leader who used government regulations to push companies (many in media) who opposed his policies out of business to be bought out by his cronies. As Biden’s support in available polls dwindled, notwithstanding the progression of Trump’s criminal trials, more than a few of those big donors, making excuses like those of Jamie Dimon above, and lined as big Trump donors again.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we are paying a very steep price for enabling and encouraging special interests to be the major deciders of most relevant policies and candidates, especially those plutocrats who are focused on stopping candidates’ trying to contain their march to even greater profitability.

If I Win, You Lose… Big

   

If I Win, You Lose… Big

If You Win, There Must Be Limits

“It’s not a living document… It’s dead, dead, dead.” 

 Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, describing the US Constitution at Dallas-based Southern Methodist University in 2013

Increasingly, voters from both sides of aisle are coming to the conclusion that the nation cannot be governed through Congress, an unproductive, gridlocked body too often defined by inane conspiracy theories, extremism and false but strongly felt religiosity. They believe that power to govern, to fix and solve, is by default or design, must now be relegated to the President as the unitary executive. To MAGAns, that naturally leads to an autocracy led by cult-meister, Donald Trump, who can seal the deal with even more judicial appointments who hold the Bible as trumping the Constitution and insist that even when the Constitution might apply, it is severely limited to the historical context that existed when the constitutional provision was passed, that it cannot take into consideration social, political or technological changes since (“textualism” and “originalism”).

To Progressives, personal freedom – from control over your own body or ethnic/gender choices – should be restored, that the Department of Justice needs to purge rightwing extremism, and that everything from student loans to a more humane approach to immigration and incarceration must be implemented by the President alone. Both sides of aisle rail at the First Amendment and are heavily focused on expression on social media. The Dems want to stop destructive dis- and mis-information ranging from medical realities to elections. MAGAns want to allow their “alternative facts” and conspiracy theories to be given free and correction-free status as a matter of right. Nicholas Riccardi and Linley Sanders, writing for the April 8th Associated Press, put it this way: “Americans back limits on authority — unless their party wins the presidency, poll finds.”

The undercurrent in all of this seems to suggest that democracy no longer works. Even as China’s economy unravels and she bullies regional nations over sea lanes, a majority of Asians seems to think that the centralized control model from China is more effective today than the obviously messy American democracy. El Salvador gave up on trying to control rampant gangs and cartels through normal judicial authority… with some success. The rising rightwing is appearing in former bastions of liberalism, even in Sweden and the Netherlands.

But for those who still believe that democracy is the path, perhaps with a constitutional basis that accepts social change, there is a movement “in the middle,” reflected here in the United States, that “the U.S. government ‘go back to its original design’ — a system of checks and balances developed nearly 240 years ago to prevent any branch, especially the presidency, from becoming too powerful.” AP.

Indeed, the swinging contextual pendulum suggests that each party wants a powerful president when they win and a severely limited leader if their candidate loses. “A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Opinion Research finds that … view is common. Though Americans say they don’t want a president to have too much power, that view shifts if the candidate of their party wins the presidency. It’s a view held by members of both parties, though it’s especially common among Republicans.

“Overall, only about 2 in 10 Americans say it would be ‘a good thing’ for the next president to be able to change policy without waiting on Congress or the courts. But nearly 6 in 10 Republicans say it would be good for a future President Trump to take unilateral action, while about 4 in 10 Democrats say the same if Biden is reelected.

“The sentiment comes amid escalating polarization and is a sign of the public’s willingness to push the boundaries of the political framework that has kept the U.S. a stable democracy for more than two centuries. In the poll, only 9% of Americans say the nation’s system of checks and balances is working extremely or very well. It also follows promises by Trump to ‘act as a dictator’ on Day 1 of a new administration to secure the border and expand oil and gas drilling.

“Bob Connor, a former carpenter now on disability in Versailles, Mo., wants that type of decisive action on the border. He’s given up hope on Congress taking action… ‘From what I’ve seen, the Republicans are trying to get some stuff done, the Democrats are trying to get some other stuff done — they’re not mixing in the middle,’ said Connor, 56. ‘We’re not getting anywhere.’” AP

Indeed, the US Constitution is old; the original version passed in 1787, and the amendatory Bill of Rights in 1789. It is a document that, by its own terms, has become the least amendable constitution in the democratic world. Our last amendment – the 27th, which required an intervening election before Congress could give itself a raise – was passed in 1992 but was introduced in 1789.

The Constitution’s greatest flaw, perhaps, is that it assumed the president, Congress and our judges would act honorably, placing their country before themselves and their individual religious beliefs, acting wisely for the benefit of all Americans. It never envisioned social media, nuclear destruction or even AR-15s. Moral qualifications were never codified. But the Constitution can work, if approached with a mixture of common sense, honor and a realization that it was enacted to endure through changing times. If only we could elect honorable candidates.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as the United States unravels the very democratic principles that made it great, powerful and economically successful, it is indeed bizarre that the unravelers somehow think they will make the nation greater and more successful.

Too Many Inmates? Just kill ‘em! Oh, We Already Do.

  The dining room in a Norwegian prison.

 Prison in El Salvador

Over-crowding in California Prison

Ever ask yourself what the punishment for committing a crime that involves incarceration really is? I suspect that varies depending on where you are. In Mexico and much of central America, the prisons are vast cages where the population pretty much regulates itself, most from gang leaders and an economy loosely linked to the outside world. People die, get beaten badly, are forced into de facto slavery and, if they have no source of money from the outside, have a miserable existence with a fairly short life expectancy. If they are not gang members, they probably will be. Gang leaders do well in this world.

On the other side of the spectrum is Scandinavia, where the punishment is solely incarceration, but in a decent environment where forks and knives are permitted for cooking, often by the inmates themselves who frequently dine with unarmed guards. Norway, for example, provides a clean hotel-like environment. “Prison sentences are mainly meant to take away the freedom from the criminal, and have that as the main punishment. Norway really embraces this concept, and still keep treating the criminals as human beings who don’t have other rights taken away from them… This means that inmates will have access to some type of entertainment, are able to have a healthy diet with enough food, feel safe, have the opportunity to live in a clean environment, and are generally able to life a somewhat normal life inside the prison cells.” The Norway Guide.

Maybe American prisons beat incarceration in Central America, Russia, Thailand and vast swaths of the developing world, but as we all know, they are hotbeds of gang violence, horrible and dramatically unsanitary conditions, crumbling infrastructure, awful food and increasing over-crowding. Oddly, most US prisons are only a slight cut above that third world vision of prison. Picture what life is like in a very confined and even more dangerous, overcrowded environment… in an American prison where basic healthcare is supposed to be provided, when a highly contagious disease breaks out.

This time, I am not even talking just about the COVID debacle but all sorts of diseases that fester in US prisons across the land. Mark Bunin Benor, a family physician who worked in the Los Angeles County jail system from 2018 to 2023, wrote this piece for the April 2nd Los Angeles Times: “During my five years as a doctor in Los Angeles County’s jail system, I personally saw hundreds of patients with hepatitis C who were not being treated for the potentially deadly but curable disease. While hepatitis C treatment improved incrementally during my tenure, the system continues to fall woefully short of the sort of concerted effort that could dramatically reduce the toll of the infection within and beyond the jails.

“Hepatitis C, a viral, blood-borne liver disease, is very common in the jails. More than a third of inmates tested are positive. That suggests the number of people living with the virus in the nation’s largest jail system is likely in the thousands.

“Hepatitis C is new enough to medical science that until the 1980s, it had yet to be formally identified and was known only as “non-A, non-B hepatitis.” Thanks to the marvels of modern molecular biology, it’s now well described, and the available medicines cure almost every patient who takes them.

“Untreated hepatitis C nevertheless continues to claim the lives of about 14,000 Americans every year , a higher toll than that of HIV. Because these deaths are preventable, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends universal screening of adults for the infection.

“In this context, one might expect medical providers in jail to test for the disease broadly and treat it promptly. Monitoring and managing contagion is important in any correctional medical system, and it’s routine in ours for other diseases, such as tuberculosis and COVID-19…. Unfortunately, this wasn’t what I encountered in practice. All those taken into custody at the jail undergo a medical screening. But it’s usually cursory and doesn’t include an offer to screen for hepatitis C.

“When I started treating inmates in 2018, doctors rarely screened for the disease partly because known cases were almost never treated. The protocol was to consider treating patients only if their disease had progressed to a state of advanced liver fibrosis… What’s more, getting medication for a patient meant arranging a special police escort for an appointment at the county hospital and then waiting several more weeks for the antiviral pills to be delivered. The entire process took many months and generally discouraged treatment.” Yet prison life in the United States might even terrify Dante Alighieria, the 14th century Italian author who wrote The Inferno, describing the nine circles of hell. Nevertheless, there are people in government who still believe this can change.

Like the ancient Greek mythological tale of Sisyphus condemned to roll a boulder up a hill, on March 17th, California’s Governor Gavin Newsom began an effort to reduce our prison population and refocus on humane treatment and rehabilitation, announcing: “California is transforming San Quentin – the state’s most notorious prison with a dark past – into the nation’s most innovative rehabilitation facility focused on building a brighter and safer future… Today, we take the next step in our pursuit of true rehabilitation, justice, and safer communities through this evidenced-backed investment, creating a new model for safety and justice — the California Model — that will lead the nation.” I’ll believe it when I see it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as the toxic vitriol poisons the political discourse in this country, as MAGA bigots continue to dehumanize desperate and basically kind people, you can guess what their feelings about prisons lie… until they become “patriotic hostage” from their violent and fraudulent felonies.

There’s Really Slow, and Then There’s MAGA Ultra-Slow

If there’s one thing we have learned about MAGA politics, it’s just that MAGA elected and appointed officials have a minimal ability to govern pragmatically. The “no compromise” MAGA-controlled House of Representatives has managed to reduce the legislative flow through Congress by 90% when compared to pre-MAGA congressional sessions. They’re willing to stop government, antagonize elderly citizens reliant on Social Security and Medicare, defund popular programs like the recent Biden administration inflation reduction and infrastructure acts (yet take credit for the very bills they voted against when funded projects show up in their districts), actually oppose most Biden in initiatives even if they once sponsored them, and launch dead-end impeachment and investigative efforts based on conspiracy theories that generally go nowhere.

They will vote for legislation that imposes rightwing religious dogma in their culture wars. They favor letting business roll without regulation, love to cut taxes for the rich while cutting programs for everyone else, and even when they pass bills they like – such as defense spending – they have been known to hold up military promotions to attempt force their cultural prerogatives on our soldiers. They can co-sponsor desperately needed immigration reform, and then pull back supporting their own bill when so ordered by their cult-master, Donald Trump. Not to mention that “speaker ousting” is an increasingly popular MAGA sport.

MAGA-controlled state legislatures, particularly with MAGA governors, love to pass laws aimed at severely restricting women and minorities, exposing doctors to incarceration for life without the possibility of parole for performing the same medical procedures they had practiced without that risk for decades. They pass profoundly inane censorship, class lesson bills, and gender restrictions – changing practices that have gone on for centuries without alteration – and spend tens if not hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in unsuccessful legal battles to support their useless and even dangerous legislation. Climate change does not move their legislative needle, even as flooding, coastal erosion and severe tornados and hurricanes impact their states more than blue ones.

Ah, but then there are their judicial appointments, which despite efforts to limit “we know this judge will rule strictly along MAGA lines” forum shopping, continue to elevate the Bible above the Constitution. Despite the early March federal judiciary rule to discourage so-called “judge shopping” nationwide by making sure high-profile lawsuits seeking to overturn statewide or national policies are randomly assigned among a larger pool of judges, several Trump-appointed district courts have refused to accept this limitation. We have clearly politically biased federal judges, Trump appointments like Aileen Cannon in Florida and Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas, who are willing to risk censure and reversal to deliver a MAGA-approved decision, no matter how thin any judicial precedent may be in support (if any).

And if you think this effort to slow justice to a crawl, pushing MAGA doctrine whenever possible, does not apply to the US Supreme Court, by now you should know better. Firearms are now profoundly less regulated, minorities more vulnerable and facing reduced voting rights and the “right to life, but we support guns and the death penalty” crowd is pushing to pass state limitations on abortion under the high court’s reversal of a basic right to an abortion in Dodd vs Jackson.

It is equally clear that there is profound dissention within the ranks of the Supreme Court justices. Happy gift recipients like Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and mega-recipient Clarence Thomas… often with the “culture vs Constitution” remaining conservatives – John Roberts (CJ), Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh in tow – are clearly facing a very unhappy trio of liberals – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – who are forced to witness the undoing of decades of precedents.

Aside from this “great undoing,” the hamstrung court is also operating at a snail’s pace as it faces decisions that it is likely to make that will, as many the decisions of the Trump court have been, wildly unpopular with the majority of Americans. The April 6th CNN News (John Fritze) addresses this judicial pace: “But as the high court moves toward a busy and fraught final sitting this term, it is also once again slipping behind its past pace, issuing fewer opinions than it did at this same point in its nine-month work period just a few years ago. The court has handed down 11 opinions so far this term – most in relatively obscure matters that were decided unanimously.

“The Supreme Court has issued opinions in just 22% of its argued cases this year, compared with 34% through mid-April two years ago and 46% in 2021, according to data compiled by Adam Feldman, founder of Empirical SCOTUS. The share of resolved cases is up slightly over last year – a historic low… Taken together, the numbers point to a term in which the court’s decisions could be scrunched into a shorter time fame – potentially giving the court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority an opportunity to reshape the political debate around culture war issues just as Americans begin tuning into the Biden-Trump rematch for president.

“Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, said it had become a ‘clear trend’ in recent years that the court is ‘very slow’ releasing decisions. Though there are many theories about why that may be, the court’s opaque-by-design practice of negotiation and opinion crafting makes it difficult to say with certainty… A large share of the court’s docket touches on ‘enormously significant and difficult issues,’ Chemerinsky told CNN. ‘It also is a court that has deep divisions. I assume that all of this leads to delays in releasing decisions.’…

“The slower pace could prove particularly meaningful this year because of Trump’s assertion of immunity from special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion charges. Trump asked the justices to block a lower court ruling that flatly rejected those immunity claims. The high court agreed to hear the case in late February but did not set arguments until the end of this month.

“The case has put the Supreme Court on the clock and opened it up to criticism that delay will play into Trump’s broader legal strategy of pushing off his pending criminal trials until after the November election. Unless the court speeds up its work, it’s difficult to see how the Trump immunity decision would arrive before the end of June.” If this MAGA majority is troublesome and slow now – ignoring the maximum that “justice delayed is justice denied” – just think what a flood of additional MAGA populist judicial appointments, culled from the Heritage Foundation’s list of “right thinking” candidates, would be like if Trump were to win in November. Trump doesn’t like limitations of the Constitution much anyway.

I’m Peter Dekom, and except for the most zealous extremists, most Americans truly do not understand that commanding the military and appointing federal judges are the most important powers a president has… particularly one who scoffs at the purported obligation to “preserve and protect” the Constitution.