During the Covid pandemic, we often heard the chant, “follow the science!”  Unfortunately, there was very little real science to follow, and it was a time for political demagoguery, scientific intolerance and power abuse of our fundamental rights.  We all face another threat to our individual freedoms with the liberal legalization of marijuana by cities and states on a daily basis. Unfortunately, no one is chanting “follow the science” when actual science is available.

The article linked below provides information that has been known for years but which is being ignored by our elected officials and bad actors in their rush to legalize marijuana. Why is that?  Although the reasons are not spelled out, another chant comes to mind; “follow the money”.  It is no secret that governments in their never-ending quest for new sources of tax revenue have a vested interest in legalizing marijuana.  Indeed, politicians proudly forecast a wonderful new revenue stream coming from marijuana regardless of proven harm done to users, especially young users.

So, the politicians get their tax windfall and society gets increased schizophrenia, chronic psychosis, anti-social behavior, and other wonderful side effects. Do the politicians require today’s stronger marijuana to carry black-box warnings of the dangers involved by use? Of course, not as that just might impact sales and thus tax revenues. Gone are the idyllic days when we believed the government was there to protect us from the bad players of the world.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-you-arent-reading-about-marijuana-permanent-brain-damage-biden-schedule-iii-9660395e?page=1

Even though we are surrounded by scores of information sources, the sheer number is enough to make one go numb.  Factoids will be posted periodically to bring you bits of news which may or may not catch your fancy.  Most of the Factoids will be posted to bring you counter-intuitive information which may not be covered by traditional news sources; Question: why aren’t they covered?  Possibly they may go against the grain of political or cultural “acceptable” thought.  Or, perhaps because they cannot fit into the thirty-second sound bites without raising more questions than they answer.  Hopefully you will find some of them of interest!

1.  Definition: The trade-to-GDP ratio is an indicator of the relative importance of international trade in the economy of a country. It is calculated by dividing the aggregate value of imports and exports over a period by the gross domestic product for the same period. Although called a ratio, it is usually expressed as a percentage. Definition source: Wikipedia

The US’s trade-to-GPR is only 25%.  Other nations have a larger ratio, such as China, Russia and Japan which vary from 38 to 47%.  Western Europe is in worse condition with France and the U.K. at about 70% and Germany is at 100%. (FT, 2/17-18, pp18)

What does that mean?  The smaller the percentage, the less a nation is dependent on foreign trade; the old dream of national autarky (a policy of national self-sufficiency and non-reliance on imports or economic aid) could be realized. The downside of autarky is a smaller economy but a smaller percentage means that a nation has more leverage over trading partners, and they are less likely to give into a weaker nation demands. Since WWII, the U.S. has built numerous institutions (the U.N., NATO, the IMF, etc.) which has been more of a benefit to other nations than to the U.S.. Given the frictions in the world today, it is clear that our allies need the U.S. much more than we need them and that is a power that the U.S. will continue to wield as long as the U.S. is seen as a stable shelter for capital and investments.  Politicalization of national institutions, such as the FBI, CIA, DOJ is a threat to the perception of a stable national order.

• Government “Improper Payments”:  According to the GAO (3/26/2024), for FY 2023 the federal government made an estimated $236,000,000,000 (billion) in “improper payments”.  They roughly break out in the following manner:
  • 74% or $175 billion to deceased individuals or those who no longer qualify for government programs.
  • $11.5 billion were underpayments.
  • $44.6 billion were unknown payments, meaning the government has no idea is the payment was in error or not.
  • $4.6 billion where a recipient was entitled but the incorrect statute or regulation was used.

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

• The good news is that this figure is about $11 billion less than the prior year.
• The bad news is that over the past 20 years, the government has made about $2.7 trillion in such improper payments.

About 79% ($186 billion) was concentrated in five program areas: Medicare, Medicaid, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit and Paycheck Protection Program.  It is not clear how many billions went to federal prisoners, foreign individuals, foreign corporations, etc.

The federal government is seeking to hire tens of thousands of individuals for the IRS; perhaps we would all be better off of instead of focusing on U.S. taxpayers, those agents focus on the individuals/corporations/etc. who scammed us and on tightening up the sloppy bookkeeping and management at the various federal agencies.  When the employees are unionized, protected by civil service and contribute to the politicians who control the budgets of the agencies, don’t be surprised that this type of sloppy work is allowed to continue.

As Illinois Everett Dirksen of the U.S. Senate use to say: “A billion here, a billion there and soon you are talking about real money”.

Winston Churchill once said, “Never was so much owed by so many to so few.”  Those were dangerous times. Our times are also dangerous, so to paraphrase Churchill, perhaps we should say, “Never have so many had to accommodate so few.” 

The attached link will take you to an excellent article about, yes, J.K. Rowlings takedown of Scotland’s Hate Crime & Public Order Act, but will examine the shallow thinking behind the act, the sloppy lawmaking, and the driving forces behind a heinous law. If you have any interest in preserving our Constitutional right to free speech, read on and see how those who set themselves over the rest of society and the common values work to overturn your individual rights.

Queen of the Gender Crits (quillette.com)

If you are a minority, a felon and currently serving time for a crime you committed, you will now be able to get a new trial or sentence.  All you need to do is to “demonstrate that in the past, criminal suspects of his race were arrested, prosecuted or sentenced more often or more severely than members of other racial groups”.  It does not matter if members of your race actually committed more crimes, in fact, if that is the case then that is actually better for you.  This flies in the face of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that stated that a defendant had to show that “decision makers acted with discriminatory purpose; statistical disparities aren’t enough”. Thus, if a police office stops a suspect and uses the phrase “high crime area”, the officer has shown a “bias against people of color”, even if the area is in fact a “high crime area”. 

How exactly does this law protect law abiding citizens?  It does not as in Los Angeles, “blacks are 21 times as likely as white to commit a violent crime, 36 times as likely to commit a robbery and 57 times as likely to commit a homicide”. And who are the victims?  In Los Angeles for example, blacks are 17 times as likely to be victims of homicide.  Being lenient on predators only harms the law abiding.

One final point on this new law is that it may enhance the number of pleadings to lesser charges. Using “government speak”, this will mean that politicians will be able to point to a decrease in more serious crimes.  Everyone except the average citizen is a winner.

Use the link below for more details.

https://manhattan.institute/article/california-finds-a-new-way-to-be-soft-on-crime

In the posting of February 14 (The New Sick Man of Europe), I pointed out some of the severe challenges facing Germany. China is successfully challenging Germany’s old business model, they face deindustrialization due to the excessive cost of energy as they ship jobs and technologies to China and the U.S. and there is no common front among the captains of industry in Germany.

The article linked below takes us one step closer to realizing the problems that face this traditional powerhouse of Europe. With a projected growth rate of 0.1%, everyday Germans are facing a period of challenges they have not faced in decades. How will they respond? If they begin to seriously cut back on their commitment to “green” energy to become more competitive in the areas of their traditional strength, they could face a major political struggle.

There is no easy answer but as the article says, the clock is ticking.

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/germany-passed-its-first-chinese-testthis-one-is-trickier-740ae21b?page=1

Factoids That Should Make You Think

Even though we are surrounded by scores of information sources, the sheer number is enough to make one go numb.  Factoids will be posted periodically to bring you bits of news which may or may not catch your fancy.  Most of the Factoids will be posted to bring you counter-intuitive information which may not be covered by traditional news sources;  Question: why aren’t they covered?  Possibly they may go against the grain of political or cultural “acceptable” thought.  Or, perhaps because they cannot fit into the thirty-second sound bites without raising more questions than they answer.  Hopefully you will find some of them of interest!

1. The Worse Polluter in the World:  Who is the worse polluter in the world? Is it the United States?  Try again.  Wait, I shall let you know; it is China.  In fact, China’s emission level of carbon dioxide is 50% greater than those of the U.S., Europe, and Japan combined!  So much for Xi Jinping’s claim to be building an “ecological civilization”.  One would think he would be concerned as 75% of China’s surface water supply is contaminated and undrinkable while much of China’s farmland is polluted with salinization and heavy minerals.  No wonder China is the world’s largest importer of food grains. (WSJ, 4/8/24, ppA17)

• Gender-Reassignment and Suicide: According to a report from The Journal of Urology, transgenders attempted suicide rates have doubled after they have received a vaginoplasty.  “The study analyzed the rates of psychiatric emergencies before and after gender-altering surgery among 869 males who underwent vaginoplasty and 357 females who underwent phalloplasty in California from 2012-2018”. (The Epoch Times, 4/3-9, 2024, ppA2)

• Good Intentions, Poor Results: From 2018-2023, the State of California has spent an amazing $24 billion to battle homelessness.  The result?  California has 30% of the nations homeless (about 171,000) and the number keeps growing.  Even more amazing is that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (CICH) which is responsible for coordinating and allocating resources stopped tracking outcomes in 2021! (WSJ, 4/10/2024, ppA2).  The CICH is part of the Business, Consumer Services & Housing Agency which has a staff of over 8,000. Does it make you wonder if they want to solve the problem or are these just another set of government make work/busy jobs?

• U.S. No Go Zones:  France has over 700 no go zones.  These are areas throughout the country where police escorts are often needed to protect emergency services such as fire and others responding to calls for help.  Recently “Death of America” was chanted in Dearborn Michigan.  Is this the formation of our own no-go zones and how will we respond to such a threat?  So far, nothing from the Governor of Michigan regarding those calls demanding our destruction. Is that leadership?

 Have a good day!

It never ceases to amaze me how individuals and governments can pursue and believe in policies that have 1) failed throughout history, such as Marxism, socialism, etc. and 2) continue to follow a policy in the “name of science” when the totality of “science” is directly opposed to the promises of that policy. There are “believers” both in government and out who stumble along through life, claiming that “this time it will be different” or clearly choose to deny inconvenient facts.

The German policies regarding the “greening” of that economy has met with failure after failure yet the government seems more committed than ever to additional failures. From the huge investment in solar and wind power which has led to higher CO2 emissions, skyrocketing energy costs which has led to the fleeing of industries and increased unemployment, masses of Germans continue to believe that somehow physics and nature can be ignored and altered to fit into their naïve mind set.

The attached link points out the German commitment to failure and the price which will be paid by Germans and most of Europe. This at a time when a very real and immediate threat from Putin’s Russia is starting all of Europe in the face. The “green” policies of the Germans threaten the needed rearmament of the German military and thus pose another dagger aimed at the heart of Europe.

Germany’s Murder of Europe :: Gatestone Institute

What do you call a country where 70% of prison inmates are from one group, where there are two hundred rapes a day mostly committed by that same group, where 25% of the population one group rejects the national name, and where there are over seven hundred “no-go zones”? You call it France.

France is disappearing; a nation which has given the world so much beauty in literature, music, architecture, food, and more is slipping away. France is not alone in the challenge it faces as the same problems faced by Belgium, Germany, Sweden, and others. Yet somehow it is sadder because of the hundreds of years France stood for all that was good about European culture.

The greater question is why is it being allowed to happen? Where is the political leadership that can stop the deadly challenge of France? Are we to believe that French politicians for example, wish to see all that is good in France to disappear? Are French political leaders afraid of a minority which often seems to wish to march bravely back into the seventh century and who insist on the fruits of those they despise but reject the cost? Where is the modern day De Gaulle, Clemenceau, or Richelieu?

And what about the average French citizen? Are they so cowed, so weak, so blind that they do not see and do not care about the threat to their way of life? How can they continue to elect politicians who seem to care more about maintaining their lavish perks of power rather than face the very existential threat that grows stronger with every day? Where is the pride of the average citizen?

There are options and solutions to answer the threat but where is the will? Can France and Europe be saved? Or is it too late?

France’s Skyrocketing Threat :: Gatestone Institute

I have always been conflicted about intellectuals. On the one hand, it must be a wonderful thing to be recognized as an expert in one’s particular field of intellectual excellence. On the other hand, I recognized that many intellectuals have an overwhelming sense of superiority not only about their field, but a strange sense of self-righteousness about areas far removed from their particular discipline. Many have a belief that they understand so much more than the average person and that the world would be so much better if only they were allowed to direct the fortunes of humanity. All too often, when they have exercised power or influence outside of their specific field, the results have been disastrous. Seldom have they ever admitted their failures (the one exception I can think of is Robert McNamara’s written regrets of his decisions in the Viet Nam war) and in fact, their opinions are still sought and carry weight.

The attached link is an interview with Thomas Sowell, himself an intellectual, as he discusses the rise of intellectuals and their influence in our Republic. They can shape public opinion and policy but as he says, they never have to pay a price for their actions. Mr. Sowell is the type of intellectual who exemplifies what is the best of that title. I hope you enjoy the interview.

You may have to copy the link and put it in your search bar.

Thomas Sowell on the second edition of Intellectuals and Society (youtube.com)

Niall Ferguson is a noted historian and social commentator. In this interview, he discusses and compares the modern-day university with the German universities of the late Weimar Republic and how German universities acted as a recruiting ground for Hitler and the Nazis. He points out that just as the German universities of that time stifled free speech and drove out those who dared to question the direction of the universities, so too today many universities have become merely reflecting pools for those who espouse antisemitism and strict adherence to DEI which is the exact opposite of individual freedom and opportunity.

In the university world today, Jews who were once at the top of the academic food-chain in Germany are now, along with whites and Asians, at the bottom and viewed as the oppressors in much of the West. Antisemitism has a long history of being used by the Left such as when the Soviet Union used it to win over various Arab states.

In the end, unlike many talking heads, Ferguson offers solutions to undo the damage done by the Left at universities; these include but are not limited to excluding government participation in the administration, funding, rules for scholarship and the mountain of reports demanded by the government in return for funding. Money always comes with strings and there is no indication that those strings have done anything except hinder independent thought at the university level.

It is a pleasure to hear such clarity of thought on the subject and a welcome change from the bloviating that we hear every day on the various “news” outlets.

“The Treason of the Intellectuals,” with Niall Ferguson | Uncommon Knowledge (youtube.com)