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Tidbits
Political Quotations
To Accompany the August 30, 2018 edition of Tidbits
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2018/Tidbits083018.htm
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University
USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/ ubl
In September 2017 the USA National Debt exceeded $20 trillion for the first time
---
http://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/national-debt-surpasses-20-trillion-for-the-first-time-in-us-history
Human Population Over Time on Earth ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE
State Income Taxes Ranked From Highest to Lowest
http://www.businessinsider.com/state-income-tax-rate-rankings-by-state-2018-2
The Federal budget for 2017 ---
http://ritholtz.com/2018/04/federal-budget-2017/
Jensen Comment
Note that even before the 2018 corporate tax cuts the corporate income tax has
been a shrinking part of the Federal budget of the most recent decades. I've
long been an advocate of replacing it with a VAT tax but liberals and
conservatives alike hate that idea.
Medicare and Medicaid are the least sustainable entitlements predicted for the future.
Interest on government debt is a huge worry since foreign interests (think China and the oil-rich nations of the Middle East) own so much of it with the threat that one day these large investors will stop rolling over their investments in USA debt.
To Whom Does the USA Federal Government Owe Money (the booked
obligation of $20+ trillion) ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2016/05/25/spring-2016-to-whom-does-the-us-government-owe-money-n2168161?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
The US Debt Clock in Real Time ---
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
In 2018 Foreigners (think Asia and the
Middle East) May Be Losing Interest in USA Treasuries ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-12/lackluster-u-s-bond-auctions-add-to-worries-of-foreign-pullback
Remember the Jane Fonda Movie called "Rollover" ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollover_(film)
One worry is that nations holding trillions of dollars invested in USA debt are
dependent upon sales of oil and gas to sustain those investments.
To Whom Does the USA Federal Government Owe Money (the
unbooked obligation of $100+ trillion and unknown more in contracted
entitlements) ---
http://money.cnn.com/2013/01/15/news/economy/entitlement-benefits/
The biggest worry of the entitlements obligations is enormous obligation for the
future under the Medicare and Medicaid programs that are now deemed totally
unsustainable ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm
How Americans Get Health Insurance ---
http://ritholtz.com/2017/08/americans-get-health-insurance/
This is an interesting 2017 graph of the USA's trading partner performances
---
http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/trade.png
It's easy to get distracted my big amounts, but look at the imbalances of trade
with nations like Japan, Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Switzerland. Add to this
what we spend helping to defend nations like Japan, Canada, Germany, and Italy?
The
enemy is fear
We think it's hate
But, it's fear
Gandhi
Here are the Ten Best Pieces of Advice from
2018 Commencement Speakers ---
Click Here
The Best Advice from 2018's Celebrity
Commencement Speakers ---
https://moneyish.com/heart/the-best-advice-from-2018s-celebrity-commencement-speakers/
Countries With the Highest Household
Wealth on Average ---
http://ritholtz.com/2018/07/countries-highest-household-wealth/
California Evidence: What Happens
When States Decide to Really, Really Soak the Rich With Taxes ---
https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2018/07/06/millionaires-flee-california-after-tax-hike/#34aa8f514189
Jensen Comment
This overlooks other tactics taken by the rich. For example, portfolios of very
people are heavy into tax exempt bonds which may have to be municipal bonds
issued in the state of residence in order to be exempt from state income taxes.
More commonly, rich people invest for capital gains that are not taxed until
realized (think common stocks and art work). Really rich people use off shore
tax havens that reduce both federal and state taxes. In other words it's very
difficult to soak the rich with taxes if they are astute enough to defer or
avoid those taxes. And sometimes they move to more tax-friendly states like the
nine states states that have no general state income tax ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_income_tax
However, it appears that only a small proportion of really rich folks in
California headed for Nevada, Texas, Florida, or some other state having no
income tax. In part this is due to the many magnets that hold people to their
long-time homes such as nearness to family and close friends and jobs.
More important is the impact of high taxes that prevent many wealthy people from
moving/retiring into California. California also has another barrier to
inflows --- the astronomical price of real estate. You have to be really,
really, really rich to consider buying even a modest home in San Francisco or
other parts of the Silicon Valley. When high real estate prices combine with
high upper tax rates you really don't need to build a physical wall at the
border to keep rich people from moving into a state like California. And
some rich folks don't like the fact that la la land politicians control all
branches of government in cities, counties, and the entire la la state of
California.
Eight Science Quotations from Commencement
Speeches
https://todayinsci.com/QuotationsCategories/C_Cat/Commencement-Quotations.htm
Sometimes the grass is greener on
the other side because it's been fertilized with more bullshit.
Anonomous
The Lucretius Problem is a mental defect where
we assume the worst case event that has happened is the worst case event that
can happen ---
https://www.fs.blog/2015/04/lucretius-problem/
The worst form of inequality is to try to make
unequal things equal.
Aristotle
The Economic Ignorance of Bernie Sanders ---
http://reason.com/archives/2018/08/09/the-economic-ignorance-of-bernie-sanders
How many times have we heard ‘free
tuition,’ ‘free health care,’ and free you-name-it? If a particular good or
service is truly free, we can have as much of it as we want without the
sacrifice of other goods or services. Take a ‘free’ library; is it really free?
The answer is no. Had the library not been built, that $50 million could have
purchased something else. That something else sacrificed is the cost of the
library. While users of the library might pay a zero price, zero price and free
are not one and the same. So when politicians talk about providing something
free, ask them to identify the beneficent Santa Claus or tooth fairy.
Walter Williams
Every great cause begins as a movement,
becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
Eric Hoffer.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal
sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of
miseries.
Winston Churchill
Shoot for the space in between,
because that's where the real mystery lies.
Vera Rubin
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/28/remebering-vera-rubin/?utm_source=Brain+Pickings&utm_campaign=f053a9c4e2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_179ffa2629-f053a9c4e2-234390133
Only those who
will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T.S. Eliot
There
is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
In honor of his centennial, the Top 10 Feynman
quotations ---
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/top-10-richard-feynman-quotations
Thomas Sowell (controversial
conservative black economist) ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell
The 30 Best Thomas Sowell Quotes ---
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/the-30-best-thomas-sowell-quotes/
Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Margaret Wheatley
Even conversations
that are not politically correct.
That government is best which governs the least,
because its people discipline themselves.
Thomas Jefferson
Why, we grow rusty and you
catch us at the very point of decadence --- by this time tomorrow we may have
forgotten everything we ever knew. That's a thought isn't it? We'd be back to
where we started --- improvising.
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Act I)
It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.
Babe Ruth,
Historic Home Run Hitter
What's sad is to witness what Syria has become because nobody gave up earlier.
The Atlantic: Punishing Putin Just
Makes Him Stronger ---
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/russia-sanctions-putin-approval/568228/
Jensen Question
Can we say the same for Trump?
And "because they're
nonstate actors, it's hard for us to get the satisfaction of [Gen.] MacArthur
and the [Japanese] Emperor [Hirohito] meeting and the war officially being
over," Obama observed, referencing the end of World War II.
We must be willing to get rid of the
life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
If everyone is thinking alike, then
somebody isn't thinking.
George S. Patton
And many writers have imagined for themselves
republics and principalities that have never been seen or known to exist in
reality; for there is such a gap between how one lives and how one ought to live
that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done learns his ruin
rather than his preservation: for a man who wishes to profess goodness at all
times will come to ruin among so many who are not good.
Niccolo Machiavelli
If you don't know where you're going, you might
not get there.
Yogi
Berra
Happiness is like a butterfly: the
more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to
other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
Henry David
Thoreau
You can get a lot farther with a smile and a
gun than you can with just a smile.
Al Capone
The Science Behind Social Science Gets Shaken
Up --- Again
https://www.wired.com/story/social-science-reproducibility/
Foxconn, known for manufacturing Apple’s
iPhones in China, is opening a factory in Wisconsin. Yesterday, it announced
that it was investing $100 million in research at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison ---
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/wisconsin/articles/2018-08-27/foxconn-uw-madison-leaders-to-make-announcement
Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you
will go far.
Teddy Roosevelt
Who was John McCain? The best answer is in
this 18-year-old David Foster Wallace essay ---
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/26/17783258/john-mccain-david-foster-wallace-essay
10 of John McCain's best quotes on courage,
happiness, and character ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/john-mccain-best-quotes-2018-5
John McCain's Farewell Letter ---
Click Here
Time Magazine: John McCain Hated the
Affordable Care Act. He Also Saved It ---
Click Here
Paying the Price: Why didn't California put more spending priority on
building fire breaks relative to other massive social programs?
Bob Jensen
It's not like enormous forest fires in California are hard to predict
Why would Lockheed Martin pay $6 Million to Comey in one year?
https://nypost.com/2018/08/22/ex-officials-actually-use-security-clearances-to-get-rich/
But today the ACLU stuck up for the NRA against New York Gov.
Andrew Cuomo ---
http://reason.com/archives/2018/08/24/aclu-teams-up-with-nra
New Cuomo 2020 Slogan: We Can’t Make America
Great Again , It Was Never That Great To Begin With ---
Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/08/15/exciting-new-cuomo-2020-slogan-cant-make-america-great-never-great-begin/
Where was he on D-Day or on the day Barack Obama became President of the USA?
New York City will be spending $2.06 billion
on its Department of Homeless Services. There are 61,421 homeless people in the
city which is spending $33,539 per homeless person. That’s only a little short
of the starting salary of an FDNY firefighter at $39,000 ---
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271045/billion-dollar-homeless-scam-daniel-greenfield
Philadelphia mom, 44, who shelled out $25k on
Arabian themed prom send-off for her son complete with camel and three dates is
charged with fraud for collecting disability and faces 140 years behind bars ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3679678/posts
Ethnic America, mapped: Your county’s biggest ancestral
populations ---
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/04/18/ethnic-america-mapped-your-countys-biggest-ancestral-populations/?utm_term=.f4d4d445a9b4
The New Farm Bill is Going to Suck ---
http://reason.com/archives/2018/08/25/the-new-farm-bill-is-going-to-suck
African American Business Ownership Up Over
400% in One Year ---
https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/08/african-american-small-business-statistics-2018.html
Did the major media report about this good news?
In Germany—the birthplace of the modern
automobile—carmakers are anticipating the day when people stop owning vehicles
and sales plateau before making a swift descent ---
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-17/-peak-car-and-the-end-of-an-industry?cmpid=BBD081718_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=180817&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily
Police Officers Are Not Disproportionately
Killing Black Men—Here Are the Facts ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnrlottjr/2018/08/27/police-shootings-n2513363?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=&profileid=
What’s killing rural Canada? Crime, opioid abuse, and fleeing populations are
destroying the country’s heartland ---
https://www.macleans.ca/killing-rural-canada/
To be, or to disband? A question facing shrinking towns ---
https://www.statedatalab.org/news/detail/to-be-or-to-disband-a-question-facing-shrinking-towns
What's killing Florida beaches
and marine life --- sugar subsidies? ---
https://fee.org/articles/how-sugar-subsidies-are-ruining-dozens-of-florida-beaches-and-destroying-vast-quantities-of-marine-life/
Iran's fake news push was much bigger than
Facebook, and spread to Twitter and Google ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/iranian-influence-campaign-twitter-and-google-2018-8
Tesla short sellers raked in $1 billion after
Elon Musk revealed his personal struggles in an eye-opening interview ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-money-tesla-short-sellers-made-after-elon-musk-interview-2018-8
Are his days as a master Wall Street manipulator coming to an end?
How to Mislead With Statistics
Chicago's mayor declared Chicago is on the firmest
financial footing in years, but taxpayers should understand that the pitch is
deeply misleading ---
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/opinion/how-emanuel-misleading-you-citys-debt
A 16-year-old managed to hack Apple, steal a
whole bunch of secure files, and access customer accounts ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/australian-teenager-hacked-apple-2018-8
A major attack on a heavily-travelled Israeli
highway linking Tel Aviv with the capital was foiled recently by Palestinian
Authority security forces ---
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/251006
Venezuela just devalued its currency by 95%
and pegged it to a cryptocurrency ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/venezuela-devalues-bolivar-and-pegs-it-to-cryptocurrency-2018-8
California Congressman Rep. Duncan Hunter and
his wife Margaret Hunter were indicted on 60 counts by a federal grand jury
related to $250,000 in campaign finance corruption, allegedly using election
funds for their own personal gain ---
https://www.newsweek.com/duncan-hunter-wife-margaret-congress-indictment-campaign-1084431
Latino Voters Don't Want Open Border Hoardes
4 reasons why anti-Trump Latino voters won’t
swing the midterms ---
https://theconversation.com/4-reasons-why-anti-trump-latino-voters-wont-swing-the-midterms-100570
Also see
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/09/the-next-populist-revolution-will-be-latino/565730/
NYT on a $1.7 billion annual failure
Labor Department Inspector General: “Job Corps could
not demonstrate beneficial job training outcomes.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/us/politics/job-corps-training-program.html?action=click&module=In
Other News&pgtype=Homepage&action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
NYT: The Danish open-air drug
market experiment is not going well ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/world/europe/christiania-freetown-copenhagen.html?action=click&module=In
Other News&pgtype=Homepage&action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
Short Term Management Mania
Donald Trump’s sudden interest in quarterly earnings
reports, explained ---
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/19/17755348/trump-twitter-quarterly-earnings-sec-indra-nooyi
Jensen Comment
There are many good things about frequent financial reporting, not the least of
which is that frequent might make insider trading a bit less advantageous
(certainly not perfectly). But frequent reporting also leads to questionable
short-term management decisions. Exhibit A is the apparent attempt by Tesla to
make it appear in its latest quarterly financial report that it was having less
cash flow problems. Tesla resorted to the gimmick of delaying cash payments to
suppliers. Delaying payments of bills does not make obligations go away, and
more often than not such delays make cash flow problems worse for the long run.
Please don't take this as meaning that I want to do away with quarterly
reporting. I simply point out that there are good things and bad things to
consider. Short term mania is an enormous problem in the world of business
management. Much of it is caused by pegging managerial compensation to short
term financial performance. This leads to decisions that can harm the long-term
profitability of a company. The classical example is when a company defers
maintenance expenses in such a way that these delays cause more expensive
long-term solutions.Think
of the expense of keeping a bridge safe versus expense of rebuilding a collapsed
bridge
Kevin Spacey ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Spacey
Kevin Spacey’s latest film, “Billionaire Boys
Club,” earned $126.00 at the box office on its opening day in eight theatres
this past weekend ---
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-kevin-spaceys-billionaire-boys-club-earns-126-friday-1135816
FLASHBACK: Obama Was Fined $375,000 for
Campaign Reporting Violations And Was Not Impeached ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3681200/posts
Trump's Secret Weapon is America's
Shamelessness ---
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/08/trump-manafort-cohen-secret-weapon?mbid=nl_th_5b7f3413a26d2c55ff4228cf&CNDID=31837029&spMailingID=14123069&spUserID=MjYxODM4NjEwMzYzS0&spJobID=1462136274&spReportId=MTQ2MjEzNjI3NAS2
Jensen Comment
America's shamelessness was evident before Trump, including how the populace
shrugged at the extramarital affairs of Ted and Bobby Kennedy while they
were in office
FLASHBACK: Just as the Senate is about to begin President Clinton's
impeachment trial in earnest, Mr. Clinton sent $850,000 to Paula Corbin Jones
today to settle the sexual misconduct lawsuit that started it all
---
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/27/newt-gingrich/gingrich-misleading-call-850000-paid-bill-clinton-/
A bronze statue of the satanic goat monster
Baphomet was unveiled Thursday at the Arkansas Capitol building in front of a
cheering crowd of free-speech activists and a smaller crowd of unhappy people
holding handwritten Bible verses ---
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/08/17/a-satanic-idols-3-year-journey-to-the-arkansas-capitol-building/?utm_term=.867347601d93
The EU wants to use the threat of fines
to force the tech giants to eliminate terrorist content from their platforms ---
https://www.ft.com/content/a4068e88-a22a-11e8-85da-eeb7a9ce36e4
The U.K. Is About To Regulate Online Porn, and
Free Speech Advocates Are Terrified ---
Click Here
The Atlantic: ISIS Is Ready For a Resurgence
---This is the year that hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles
began to really show some momentum ---
https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/fuel-cells/ups-to-deploy-fuel-cellbattery-hybrids-as-zeroemission-delivery-trucks
Jensen Comment
These fuel cells are becoming competitive in trucks such as UPS trucks in
Austin.
Double Standard
Progressives are giving thousands of dollars to confessed felon Michael Cohen
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/27/17783590/michael-cohen-go-fund-me-lanny-davis
Avital Ronell ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avital_Ronell
Double Standard?
Many women, led by the President Elect of the MLA, rushed to sign a letter in
defense of the female professor at NYU accused of sexually harassing a male
student. Now there are calls for the President of the MLA to resign ---
Chronicle of Higher Education: Judith
Butler Must Step Down as President-Elect of the MLA ---
https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/letters/judith-butler-must-step-down-as-president-elect-of-the-mla/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=80053a8f057f4126b1bc26b94cc9dfdf&elq=9913dbc821c24e808cc203b34290abd3&elqaid=20184&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9436
The erotic aspects obscure the fundamental issue --- power ---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Unsexy-Truth-About-the/244314?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=caa6cbc13c274d20828aebab3608a5d6&elq=a5f3a48be0dd461aa7b47a12d06f6347&elqaid=20202&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9447
Avital Ronell and the End of the Academic Star
---
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Avital-Ronellthe-End-of/244335?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=903dffe5880a41dfaad6b6f1cd6e8639&elq=a70b3a81f49f4bae94da4734a1f51227&elqaid=20280&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9495
India's Biggest Successes Versus the Biggest
Failures in Tax Reform ---
https://www.bna.com/insight-gst-indiaa-n73014481712/
Clapper Now Agrees Brennan's Rhetoric Is a Bit
Much ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2018/08/20/clapper-now-agrees-brennans-rhetoric-is-a-bit-much-n2511454?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=&profileid=
When Democrats Demanded that John Brennan
Resign ---
http://thehill.com/policy/technology/213991-senate-dem-calls-for-cia-chiefs-resignation-after-staff-spying
According to Gallup, Democrats now view
socialism in a more positive light than capitalism
---
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/8/16/17698602/socialism-capitalism-false-dichotomy-kevin-williamson-column-republican-ocasio-cortez
Jensen Comment
Traditional definitions divided on the raising/ownership of capital for industry
of these extremes are clouded in the younger generation.
Exhibit A is the casual way young people equate socialism with egalitarianism in
the Nordic countries like Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Nordic
countries are really capitalist with some exceptions for a few industries such
as health care, the oil industry in Norway, and Danish agricultural co-ops.
There are no examples of successful socialist nations of
over a million people. Even Castro finally admitted that the Cuban model
doesn't work. Nations like Cuba and Viet Nam move ever and ever closer to
capitalism with rising private sectors of their economies. And there are no
examples of totally capitalist nations in the world. Singapore is a leading
example of what is probably the most capitalist in terms of private sector
investment ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore
Bernie Sanders' Supporters Clinched A Big Win
At DNC's Summer Meeting: Reining In Superdelegates ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2018/08/26/bernie-sanders-supporters-clinched-a-big-win-at-dncs-summer-meeting-reining-in-n2513054?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=&profileid=
This was the egalitarian dream of Cuba in the 1960s: For years in Cuba, jobs as varied as farm workers and doctors only had a difference in their wages of the equivalent of a few US dollars a month.
But is Denmark socialist? …Denmark doesn’t at
all fit the classic definition of socialism, which involves government ownership
of the means of production. It is, instead, social-democratic: a market economy
where the downsides of capitalism are mitigated by government action, including
a very strong social safety net. …The simple fact is that there is far more
misery in America than there needs to be. Every other advanced country has
universal health care and a much stronger social safety net than we do.
Paul Krugman
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/opinion/something-not-rotten-in-denmark.html
Jensen Comment
What Krugman does not mention is that Denmark is mostly a homogeneous (white)
nation of less than 6 million people. It's much more difficult and expensive to
afford and maintain a similar safety net with over 300 million highly diverse
people located on top of a very porous border with thousands trying to sneak in
daily to enjoy the safety nets.
I wonder how Mr. Hogg will evaluate his oldest professors when
he's in college?
Is the traditional wing of the Democratic Party (think Obama, Clinton, Biden,
Pelosi) having almost as much trouble with young people as the GOP?
Older Democrats just won’t move the f**** off the plate and let us take control.
Nancy Pelosi is old.
David Hogg, Outspoken Parkland High School Student Survivor (who wants to
be the future socialist President of the USA)
https://www.newsweek.com/parkland-survivor-david-hogg-calls-politician-age-limits-older-democrats-just-1082296
Jensen Comment
The young are notably impatient in the 21st Century!
Lousy Timing
The rewriting of the South African Constitution to
seize farmland without compensation and the killing of some white farmers at the
moment is really poor timing at the moment with South Africa, especially it's
largest city, is on the verge of running out of water. The USA and many European
nations may become less sympathetic with helping to ease the water crisis in
South Africa while it turns into another Zimbabwe.
Bob Jensen (South Africa denies reports of widespread killings
of white farmers, although land is being confiscated without compensation)
Also see
Russia Offers Sanctuary for 15000 Christian
White South African Farmers ---
https://russian-faith.com/news/russia-offers-sanctuary-15000-christian-white-south-african-farmers-n1698
Australia Government Collapse: 13 Ministers
Resign, PM Turnbull Outed ---
https://finance.townhall.com/columnists/mikeshedlock/2018/08/23/australia-government-collapse-13-ministers-resign-pm-turnbull-outed-n2512380?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl
False Alarm: The Democratic National
Committee Was Not Hacked Once Again ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2018/08/23/dnc-hacked-again-n2512352?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=&profileid=
California's Proposition 13 ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978)
Keeping the Hollywood Movie Stars Happy
California homeowners get to pass low property taxes to
their kids. It's proved highly profitable to an elite group ---
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-property-taxes-elites-201808-htmlstory.html
California will become the first state
to eliminate bail for suspects awaiting trial under legislation signed into law
Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown ---
http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/404039-california-to-become-first-state-to-eliminate-bail-for-suspects
Those felonious defendants deemed high risk to the community will not be
released.
Those felonious defendants deemed low risk to the community and high risk of
never showing up in court will be released.
For many felons this is a Get Out of Jail Free card since
the California police do not have the resources to round up all the defendants
who don't show up in court.
All misdemeanor defendants will be released --- wave goodbye to them.
"Live Free or Die" --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die
Jensen Comment
So many naive visitors to New Hampshire look at are license plates and think
that the legislature that conjured up this phrase were anti-communist fanatics.
Actually the phrase has a deeper and somewhat more convoluted history.There
various claims to the motto on New Hampshire's license plates. I watched an
episode on Windows to the Wild (PBS) on Walden Pond that claimed "Live
Free or Die" has roots in the common land properties where several escaped or
freed slaves lived on or near Walden Pond. These slaves were from both New
England and the deep south. At one point the courts tried to kick them off the
land owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson but somehow they managed to live on there for
years without ownership deeds.
One of those slaves inspired Henry David Thoreau --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Pond
The writer, transcendentalist, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau lived on the northern shore of the pond for two years starting in the summer of 1845. Thoreau was inspired by former enslaved woman Zilpah White, who lived in a one-room house on the common land that bordered Walden Road and made a living spinning flax into linen fibers. Zilpah's ability to provide for herself at a time when few if any other Concord women lived alone was a great accomplishment. His account of the experience was recorded in Walden; or, Life in the Woods, and made the pond famous. The land at that end was owned by Thoreau's friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who let Thoreau use it for his experiment.[4] Thoreau is credited with encouraging a respect for nature at an environmentally degraded site.[7] The Concord Museum contains the bed, chair, and desk from Thoreau's cabin.
Conservatism --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
Chronicle of Higher Education: What Was Conservatism?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/What-Was-Conservatism-/238345?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=ad12bf5ef1ef492e9ebff19bdb2489b4&elq=a70b3a81f49f4bae94da4734a1f51227&elqaid=20280&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9495
. . .
And so conservatism has been routed by Trumpism, a movement driven by all the resentments that the right has dredged up over the decades with none of the ideas that once animated it. As Nash put it, there is a "return of the repressed" at work in the rise of the alt-right, with all the ugliness that Buckley once purged now on full display at rallies and on the internet. Perhaps there is an intellectual core buried within the alt-right; if so, that world awaits its Nash.
It took scholars decades to fully embrace the insight at the core of Nash’s classic work: that over the course of the 20th century, the intellectual and ideological energy that had driven the left to great heights and even greater depths had shifted, and it was conservatives who came to command the high country of the mind. Unless conservatism experiences a renaissance that restores its original spirit of intellectual vitality, the same will not be true of the 21st century.
Jensen Comment
In higher education around the globe conservatism was routed from campuses
and the media decades before Trump rose to power.
It was uprooted heavily by barriers to entry in doctoral programs and faculty
hiring in the latter part of the 20th Century.
The Closing of the American Mind: What Allan Bloom Got Right ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#PoliticalCorrectness
Scroll down to the Gitlin article
Big Data Trends You Can Study ---
https://pureb2b.com/blog/big-data-trends-2018/
132 Harvard Law Review (2018 Forthcoming)
SSRN
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3222222
33 Pages Posted: 14 Aug 2018
University of Chicago - Law School
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law
Date Written: July 29, 2018
Sometimes the government compels people to pay money to organizations they oppose. A lawyer may be forced to fund a bar association, a college student to fund student group activities, a public employee forced to fund a labor union. Unsurprisingly, people may bristle at such compulsion. Nobody likes having their money taken, and knowing that it will be spent on causes one opposes seems to add insult to injury. But when is it unconstitutional? For forty years, the Court has unanimously concluded that being required to pay money to a union, or to a state bar, is a serious burden on one’s First Amendment rights. This burden, the Court has held, is generally unconstitutional when the money is used for most kinds of political advocacy. In Janus v. AFSCME, a majority of the Court went further, and held that requiring public employees to pay union agency fees is categorically unconstitutional, even when the money is used for collective bargaining. Such public-sector collective bargaining, the majority held, is itself inherently political. And the government interests in mandating such payments don’t suffice to justify such requirements. There was a strong dissent by four Justices, but as we discuss in Part I, we think the majority had the better argument on both of these two points. But we think the majority — and for that matter the dissent, and the unanimous opinions in Abood v. Bd. of Ed. and Keller v. State Bar — erred on the preliminary point. The better view, we think, is that requiring people only to pay money, whether to private organizations or to the government, is not a First Amendment problem at all. The employees in Janus were not compelled to speak, or to associate. They were compelled to pay, just as we all are compelled to pay taxes; our having to pay taxes doesn’t violate our First Amendment rights, even when the taxes are used for speech we disapprove of — likewise with having to pay agency fees. If we are right, as we argue in Part II, then the result in Janus was wrong. In Part III, we turn from evaluating the decision to anticipating its consequences. We doubt Janus will have significant effects on government speech rights (Part III.A), but it will likely bar the funding of other forms of private speech. Janus will likely extend to a prohibition on state bar dues, at least so long as the bar is seen as sufficiently removed from other government agencies (Part III.B). It might also include constraints on public university student governments’ use of student activity fees, though universities can create accounting workarounds that will practically allow such student activity funding to continue (Part III.C). Finally, and perhaps most consequentially, Janus may lead to massive liability for unions that have collected the agency fees that are now viewed as unconstitutional. (Part III.D). Though the fees were seen as valid when collected, the Supreme Court’s precedents say that constitutional reversals in civil cases are generally retroactive, so everyone in Janus’s shoes can get agency fee refunds just as Janus himself could (at least so long as the statute of limitations has not lapsed). Moreover, private organizations such as unions are generally not entitled to qualified immunity or similar defenses. While the unions do have some possible arguments to mitigate the damages or try to claim a special form of good faith, those defenses are speculative, and cannot be counted on.
Keywords: Janus, First Amendment, Free Speech, Compelled Speech, Compelled Subsidies, Taxation, Unions, Abood, Keller, Otter Principle
Bob Jensen's threads on health coverage are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
How to mislead with statistics
It's cheaper to enroll people in Medicaid than to
subsidize their private insurance ---
Scroll down at
http://ritholtz.com/2018/08/10-sunday-reads-126/
Jensen Comment
This graph is misleading because it only looks at the short-term annual expense.
Subsidizing private insurance only covers short-term medical expense annually
and does not cover long-term nursing care. The two-ton guerilla is the excluded
Medicaid coverage of long-term nursing care that even Medicare won't cover. This
also is misleading in that private insurance might cover treatments by doctors
and hospitals that will not treat Medicaid patients.
NYT Editorial: Fixing Medicare
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/opinion/fixing-medicare.html
Bob Jensen's
Tidbits Archives ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm
Bob
Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Summary of Major Accounting Scandals --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals
Bob Jensen's threads on such scandals:
Bob Jensen's threads on audit firm litigation and negligence ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm
Current and past editions of my
newsletter called Fraud Updates ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Enron --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm
Rotten to the Core --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
American History of Fraud --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm
Bob Jensen's fraud
conclusions ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
auditor professionalism and independence are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001c.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
corporate governance are at
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance
Shielding
Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
· With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
· With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
· With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of Accountancy Ignores TAR
· With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
Shielding
Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
By Bob Jensen
What went
wrong in accounting/accountics research? ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most
Accountants ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW:
1926-2005 ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox)
that probably will never be solved
---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
Bob Jensen's economic crisis messaging http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
Bob Jensen's threads --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/