Tidbits Political Quotations
To Accompany the May 16, 2021Edition of Tidbits
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2021/tidbits051621.htm  
         
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University




The Jewish Express:  A Brief History of Antifa: Part I ---
https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/a-brief-history-of-antifa-part-i/2020/06/14/

The Jewish Experess:  A Brief History of Antifa:  Part II ---
https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/a-brief-history-of-antifa-part-ii-antifa-in-the-united-states/2020/06/24/
Also see
https://www.wnd.com/2020/09/biden-claims-antifa-isnt-real-wnds-free-22000-word-e-book-proves-lying/

When Antifa received word that Ngo's book was for sale at Powell's bookstore, they decided to show up and demand that the local chain cease selling it all together ---
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2021/01/11/watch-antifa-demands-a-local-bookstore-stop-selling-andy-ngos-book-about-antifas-nasty-tactics-n2582974?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=01/12/2021&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167
Nobody want to be the target of Antif's's arsonists

Antifa members threaten to 'burn' down DC during Black Lives Matter march ---
https://www.foxnews.com/us/antifa-members-threatens-to-burn-down-dc-during-black-lives-matter-march

FBI director calls Antifa 'a real thing' ---
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/516911-fbi-director-wray-calls-antifa-a-real-thing '

Antifa group continues occupation of Seattle-area hotel with plans to stay permanently for free ---
https://thepostmillennial.com/antifa-takes-over-seattle-area-hotel
Did you notice how the major media no longer reports these takeovers?

According to The New York Times, potentially 90 percent of those who have tested positive for COVID-19 have such insignificant amounts of the virus present in their bodies that such individuals do not need to isolate nor are they candidates for contact tracing ---
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html

Supply Chain Complexity:  A dose of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, for example, requires 280 components from multiple countries ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/03/supply-chain-sentences-to-ponder.html

My Latest Web Document
Over 700 Examples of Critical Thinking and Illustrations of How to Mislead With Statistics --
-
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/MisleadWithStatistics.htm

What's Wrong With Wind and Solar? ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqppRC37OgI

Electricity prices are already going up because of the 'wasteful, duplicative solar and wind on our grid' Facebook Twitter Comments Print Email ---
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/biden-climate-actions-to-jolt-electricity-prices

Animated  Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010) ---
A Visualization of the United States’ Exploding Population Growth Over 200 Years (1790 – 2010)

USA Debt Clock --- http://www.usdebtclock.org/
The published national debt is a lie
Here's the real federal debt ---
https://www.truthinaccounting.org/about/our_national_debt

Debt to GDP Ratio by Country 2020 ---
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-national-debt/

Human Population Over Time on Earth ---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE 

MIT's Links to Covid-19 Trackers Around the World ---
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/07/1000961/launching-mittr-covid-tracing-tracker/

Johns Hopkins University:  Updated Map and Table on the Number of Coronavirus Cases for Every Nation ---
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Accuracy is subject to wide margins of error for every nation and varies greatly between nations.

Covid019 in New Hampshire ---
https://www.nh.gov/covid19/

The best maps for comparing counties and towns in your state are provided by your state. For example, here's the map showing the distribution of cases for New Hampshire counties and towns ---
https://www.wmur.com/article/new-hampshire-coronavirus-map/32009329#
 

Cities such as Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, Portland, Ore., and Austin, Texas, have shifted funds from police departments to social services programs see an spike in violent crime ---
https://www.foxnews.com/us/police-defunded-cities-murders-crime-budget


 

Beautiful News Daily (news and statistics to offset all of today's bad news) ---
https://informationisbeautiful.net/beautifulnews/

 

 Here's a humorous and serious TED talk that seriously argues why the world needs billionaires

https://www.ted.com/talks/harald_eia_where_in_the_world_is_it_easiest_to_get_rich
 

Why did Cuba abandon its socialist/communist dream of equality for everybody?
The Guardian:  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.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/12/cuba 

 

Here's a somber and serious Guardian article on why the Cuban model of income equality for all is a disaster ---
Fidel Castro says his economic system is failing ---
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/09/fidel-castro-cuba-economic-model

 

Cuba lifts ban on most private business to deal with worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union ---
https://worldnewsera.com/news/finance/cuba-lifts-ban-on-most-private-business/
Socialism Doesn't Work ---
https://reason.com/2021/02/10/socialism-doesnt-work/

 

Nordic Countries are Not Socialist Paradises ---
https://www.theepochtimes.com/a-moms-research-part-1-nordic-countries-are-not-socialist-paradises_3695026.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-02-12-3
Nordic countries are capitalist

 

Miracle of Chile --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile
Movie:  The Chicago Boys of Chile ---
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/chicagoboysenglish

 

How to Fix Economic Inequality? ---
https://www.piie.com/microsites/how-fix-economic-inequality

 

Cuba’s Dubious Miracle ---
https://www.hoover.org/research/cubas-dubious-miracle

 

The Singapore Dream:  How Singapore's richest man went from welding in a factory for $14 per hour to owning a $17 billion hotpot restaurant chain ---
https://www.businessinsider.com/life-of-singapore-richest-man-from-welder-to-hotpot-billionaire-2020-1

 

After 40 years of capitalism, China’s income is divided almost as unequally as America’s ---
https://qz.com/1591961/thomas-pikettys-new-research-shows-rising-inequality-in-china/
China has more billionaires than any other country in the world (and generating more at a higher rate than any other nation) ---
https://qz.com/1919974/china-created-a-record-number-of-billionaires-despite-covid-19/

 

A Letter to My Children Regarding Bernie Sanders ---
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/digital/a-letter-to-my-children-regarding-bernie-sanders/
A study of Bernie's past reveals a very dangerous man who could bring down the USA

 

History Tells Us to Worry About Inflation (in spite of what Paul Krugman says) ---
https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/macroeconomic-history-tells-us-to-worry-about-inflation

 

The Bill Is Coming Due for China’s ‘Capitalist’ Experiment ---
https://www.yahoo.com/news/bill-coming-due-china-capitalist-113012069.html
Thanks Wm. Dennis Huber for the heads up

 

What's Wrong With a Wealth Tax?
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/whats-wrong-with-a-wealth-tax

 

While a move is underway to destroy the American Dream of rags to riches (by taxing away the riches) the Chinese dream is on the rise.
The Chinese Dream
How a Chinese billionaire went from making $16 a month in a factory to being one of the world's richest self-made women with an $8.3 billion real-estate empire ---

https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-richest-self-made-woman-wu-yajun-net-worth-2019-2

Top 50 Billionaires in China ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_by_net_worth

Jensen Comment
The question for students to debate is why a supposed communist country allows so many billionaires to rise up from poverty.
That's supposed to happen in the USA where a child growing up in deep poverty (think Oprah Winfrey or Howard Shultz) became a multi-billionaires.
But is it also supposed to happen under communism? If so, why?

 

One reason is that many billionaires can afford to pour lots of money into high risk ventures. When's the last time you heard about a high risk (think Silicon Valley) venture in Europe?

 

Here's a humorous and serious TED talk that seriously argues why the world needs billionaires

https://www.ted.com/talks/harald_eia_where_in_the_world_is_it_easiest_to_get_rich

 

Vaccine Politics in Europe Versus America ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/01/vaccine-politics-in-europe-and-america.html

 


 

Wikiquote from Wikipedia --- https://www.wikiquote.org/

 

I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write ---
Voltaire

 

"This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House, with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone"
John F. Kennedy at a White House party

 

As cities chose to reduce police budgets for 2020, this is what happened to their murder rates ---
https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/murderspike.jpg

 

Harper's:  A Letter on Justice and Open Debate --- |

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/thomas-chatterton-williams-on-race-identity-and-cancel-culture

 

They're Coming to America ---
https://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2021/01/21/theyre-coming-to-america-n2583446?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=01/21/2021&bcid=b16c6f948f297f77432f990d4411617f&recip=17935167

 

Scientists suggest US embassies were hit with high-power microwaves – here’s how the weapons work
https://theconversation.com/scientists-suggest-us-embassies-were-hit-with-high-power-microwaves-heres-how-the-weapons-work-151730

 

The Guardian:  American classics among most ‘challenged’ books of the decade in US (protesters want them removed from libraries and schools) ---
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/28/classics-books-most-often-challenged-and-banned-in-us-banned-books-week-to-kill-a-mockingbird
Bob Jensen's threads on banned books
 

In 1785 the state legislature of Virginia unanimously rejected a proposal from evangelicals to free the state’s slaves ---
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/09/virginia-fact-of-the-day.html

 

When the Great Scorer comes to write against your name, one unforgiveable sin (racial profiling) outweighs all the good you've done in life.

Bob Jensen

 

Kobe Bryant:  We need to make the most of every minute we have ---
https://www.newsweek.com/i-wont-take-see-you-later-granted-148449

 

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

 

Political Correctness:  New York Times Conveniently Revises History on the 2020 Antifa/BLM-Led Riots ---
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/01/new-york-times-conveniently-revises-history-on-the-2020-antifa-blm-led-riots/

 

The 2020 Election Was a Rebuke of Socialism ---
https://reason.com/2021/01/18/the-2020-election-was-a-rebuke-of-socialism/

Even Though Biden Won, Republicans Enjoyed The Largest Electoral College Edge In 70 Years. Will That Last?

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/even-though-biden-won-republicans-enjoyed-the-largest-electoral-college-edge-in-70-years-will-that-last/

Taiwan’s Crowdsourced Democracy Shows Us How to Fix Social Media ---
https://wearenotdivided.reasonstobecheerful.world/taiwan-g0v-hackers-technology-digital-democracy/

The Result of "Too Much Money": Asset Price Inflation and Inequality ---
https://mises.org/wire/result-too-much-money-asset-price-inflation-and-inequality?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=70a67886d5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-70a67886d5-228708937

 

James Baldwin Talks About Racism in America & Civil Rights Activism on The Dick Cavett Show (1969) ---
http://www.openculture.com/2020/08/james-baldwin-talks-about-racism-in-america-civil-rights-activism-on-the-dick-cavett-show-1969.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+OpenCulture+(Open+Culture)

 

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. And it’s an unreliable guide to the future

Bill Gates, “The Road Ahead”

 

Hermann Weyl born in Hamburg, Germany. He wrote, "One may say that mathematics talks about the things which are of no concern to men. Mathematics has the inhuman quality of starlight---brilliant, sharp, but cold ... thus we are clearest where knowledge matters least: in mathematics, especially number theory." ---
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Weyl.html
Also see Mathematical Analytics in Plato's Cave
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm#Analytics

 

And nevertheless conclude that the optimum amount of restriction of immigration is zero point zero, zero, zero? Amazing. Economics are generally skeptical models that yield corner solutions ---
https://www.econlib.org/do-you-talk-about-it-in-open-borders-yes/
Jensen Comment
To the list of questions I would add "Do your talk about the Tragedy of the Commons?"
The problem with open borders is somewhat related to the economic problem of "The Sharing of the Commons" where giving everybody the right to use a free resource leads to everybody losing that resource. At what point will allowing billions of people share in the free medical care, free college, and other scarce resources ruin it for everybody ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

 

China ‘forcing Uighur Muslims and other minorities to work in cotton fields’ ---
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-forcing-uighur-muslims-and-other-minorities-to-work-in-cotton-fields-6vz3750t6
Socialist and communism advocates often overlook instances of slavery forced by governments rather than capitalists

 

U.S. physicists rally around ambitious plan to build fusion power plant ---
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/12/us-physicists-rally-around-ambitious-plan-build-fusion-power-plant  

 

A short history of corruption in Illinois ---
https://www.data-z.org/news/detail/a-short-history-of-corruption-in-illinois

 

History of United States Immigration Laws ---
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwGCkZzrvQkcFbRplBPwBFwmFDs

 

Persecution Of Christians: The 21st Century Crisis Which Is Not Making Headlines ---
Click Here

 

'Cancel Culture Gone Mad': Fans React as 'Captain Underpants' Book Pulled Over Racism Concerns ---
https://www.newsweek.com/cancel-culture-gone-mad-fans-react-captain-underpants-book-pulled-over-racism-concerns-1579602

 

To Rob, Rape, and Kill Again:  76,000 California Violent, Repeat Felons Get Earlier Releases ---
Click Here

‘We have…roughly 400 companies from China listed in the U.S. that are literally beyond the reach of investigation and enforcement,’ a short seller and leading fraud detector claims many should be delisted ---
https://www.wsj.com/articles/carson-block-calls-for-delisting-of-many-chinese-firms-in-u-s-11620238009?mod=djemCFO

White Farmers Excluded From Biden Loan Forgiveness Program Sue To Stop “use of race discrimination as a tool to end ‘systemic racism’” ---
https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/05/white-farmers-excluded-from-biden-loan-forgiveness-program-sue-to-stop-use-of-race-discrimination-as-a-tool-to-end-systemic-racism/

How Trillions in Newly Printed Money Created a Labor Shortage ---
https://mises.org/wire/how-trillions-newly-printed-money-created-labor-shortage

The "Miracle Recovery" Narrative: We'll Just Print Our Way to Prosperity ---
https://mises.org/wire/miracle-recovery-narrative-well-just-print-our-way-prosperity

CBS News:  Wealthy would dodge 90% of Biden's capital gains tax increase, study says ---
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-capital-gains-tax-wealthy/
Jensen Comment
Biden probably knew this from the start. However, his backup plan to print trillions of dollars will pay for the new social programs he wants to initiate. What's wrong with simply printing the money to finance these programs? The Federal Reserve is printing money now to provide liquidity for old programs. It's called Quantitative Easing ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing
The other alternative to hugely raise taxes on businesses. However, as far as inflation goes such tax increases will probably be as disastrous as printing money since business firms will pass most tax increases on to customers with price increases. Why bother with increased taxes or borrowing. Simply print the money!

These European Countries Beat Poverty and Increased Wealth with Low Taxes and Low Regulation ---
https://mises.org/wire/these-european-countries-beat-poverty-and-increased-wealth-low-taxes-and-low-regulation

Yahoo Finance:  The truth about Trump's tax cuts by the numbers, not by Biden ---
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/truth-trumps-tax-cuts-numbers-120026435.html

Cops Continue To Get Killed On Duty While Media Stays Silent ---
Click Here

 




 

Does National Debt Still Matter? America's Greatest Gamble ---
https://reason.com/video/2021/04/05/does-national-debt-still-matter-americas-greatest-gamble/

. . .

Is there a point where taking on too much debt is an unacceptable risk? 

"The United States isn't going to default on its debt. We borrow in our own currency. So there's zero default risk," says Furman. "There is definitely inflation risk if you borrow too much and can't pay it off, but it's not like you go from one and a half percent inflation to hyperinflation in the blink of an eye. There's a lot of steps between here and there. I think there is certainly some risk and in the event that that risk materializes we will have to, very quickly, sit down and figure out how to raise taxes or cut spending."

Cochrane has a different perspective. 

"Things always go boom all of a sudden, and so the key to fiscal management is to keep some dry powder around to have some ability to be able to borrow more," Cochrane says. "Imagine if world war breaks out, and we've already borrowed the 100 percent debt-to-GDP ratio that we ended World War II with. Well, once we're at a 100, 150, 200, our ability to meet that next crisis with borrowing is gone and then that next crisis is a catastrophe."

Jensen Comment
What I question is how relevant previous research (when the government borrowed in the billions or hundreds of billions) when progressives want to borrow trillions or hundreds of trillions without giving consideration to problems of scale.

I also question how we can "cut spending" when we find that tax collections are enormously below what liberal economists project. It's not so easy to cut spending when the social programs for free health care, free daycare, free college, student loan forgiveness, guaranteed annual income, green initiatives, etc. are legislated. Biden wants guarantee all those entitlements and then worry about how to pay for it later.

One difference is that in the past there were investors (think China) in the billions or hundreds of billions of dollars in USA debt securities. What happens when the only investor for trillions and hundreds of trillions in USA debt securities is the Federal Reserve such that the USA government is really investing in its own debt --- when the only way for the Fed  to pay for it is to print money (the Fed calls it Quantitative Easing).

There are some myths that the liberal media just is not explaining truthfully. One is that we can easily raise trillions by increasing business taxation. What the media (and liberal economists) fail to mention is that businesses don't pay taxes. They pass those taxes on in higher prices to you and me (consumers). We (consumers) are thus really the ones being taxed. And the business taxes are highly regressive since the masses of poor consumers are the ones hit relatively hardest by price increases for food, fuel, housing, and medical care.

The other myth is that taxing the super rich will pay for trillions in new social programs. The tax collections from the super rich will be woefully inadequate.

CBS News:  Wealthy would dodge 90% of Biden's capital gains tax increase, study says ---
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-capital-gains-tax-wealthy/

In the just over 100 days that Joe Biden has been president, he’s proposed $6 TRILLION in new spending...Yet Biden and his progressive media refuse to address the basic question I and many Americans keep asking: ‘How do you plan to pay for all of this, Joe?’
Jensen Comment
Biden says (vaguely) that new taxes on the super rich and corporations will pay for all this new spending, but he's not specific on what happens if the new taxes are woefully short of $6 trillion. And new taxes on corporations will be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. So that leaves borrowing and printing money. Borrowing won't work well for trillions of new go9vernment debt because the only customer at that level is the government itself (read that Federal Reserve). And to buy that debt the Federal Reserve can only print trillions of dollars. Welcome to Venezuela north of the Rio Grande.

The "Miracle Recovery" Narrative: We'll Just Print Our Way to Prosperity ---
https://mises.org/wire/miracle-recovery-narrative-well-just-print-our-way-prosperity

How Trillions in Newly Printed Money Created a Labor Shortage in the USA ---
https://mises.org/wire/how-trillions-newly-printed-money-created-labor-shortage
Also see
Click Here


 

Three Reasons Why the Biden Tax Increase Makes No Sense ---
https://mises.org/wire/three-reasons-why-biden-tax-increase-makes-no-sense

First, estimated real revenue impact is negligible.
Second, the impact on the economy will be larger than what the Biden administration estimates.
Third, the problem of mandatory spending is not even addressed.


Spain’s Four-Day Work Week (32 hours with no reduction in pay)  Is a Game Changer ---
Click Here

Jensen Comment
This has to increase the cost of most everything. For example, public workers (think police and firefighters) have to be on duty 24/7. Supposedly more such workers will have to be paid or the same workers will start collecting overtime after 32 hours. This will require a significant increase in tax dollars. Similarly, private sector products and services will cost more with most of those costs being passed along to customers in the form of higher prices. The saving grace may be more robotics in some instances, but more robotics may translate into higher unemployment in some instances (not all). Spain's unemployment rate is around 16%. The 32-hour work week will both decrease increase costs in some sectors and decrease costs it in other sectors where robotics and other technology will come into play.

One thing is bound to happen. More workers will start working two or more jobs, thereby defeating the purpose of the reduced work week.

For professors who both teach and conduct research it's hard to count hours of work. My guess is that this change in the work week will have little or no impact on their time spent on "work," although the number of assigned classtime hours may be reduced, thereby leaving more time for research.

 

Jensen Comment

Hi Jim,

Productivity is hard to measure (think an automobile assembly line) when each worker only contributes a small fraction of the total productivity. If the assembly line keeps rolling five days a week, each worker will either have to be replaced with another worker or a robot, thereby adding to cost. I think cost is more of a consideration than productivity since most organizations will try to remain as productive as ever with greater costs.

A reduction in hours provides some cost efficiencies, but in some industries the costs are likely to rise ---
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-economics-four-day-week-businesses-money.html

One of the main challenges outlined by our research is that the four-day working week can be difficult to implement in service industries where customer demands need to be met, and particularly for smaller businesses. It would also imply a significant change in public services like teaching and nursing. But Labour did recognize that different sectors will need to respond in different ways.

Meanwhile, research by the Centre for Policy Studies, a center-right think tank, also found that reducing the hours of public sector employees would mean at best a £17 billion cost for the Treasury and at worst a possible £45 billion cost, assuming no increase in productivity and a need to expand the workforce in public services.

 

 


President Joe Biden sought to ease tensions with his political allies by quadrupling the limit on the number of refugees who can enter the U.S. after months of administration wavering and reversals over increasing the cap ---
Click Here 
Doesn't much matter much with the thousands crossing into the USA that are not counted and remain safe from deportation in sanctuary cities.

Last month, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) projected that as many as 184,000 unaccompanied children could reach the border in fiscal year 2021 ---
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/migrant-children-border-down-600-march


How to Mislead With Statistics

The Gender Gap in Pandemic Job Losses Has Been Wildly Exaggerated ---
https://reason.com/2021/05/11/the-gender-gap-in-pandemic-job-losses-has-been-wildly-exaggerated/

Jobs data casts doubt on the idea that the COVID-19 pandemic is uniquely setting women back.

For more than a year, the U.S. has been flooded with gloomy headlines and dire predictions about women and work. "The pandemic is devastating a generation of working women," opined one Washington Post writer in February. Citing data showing that 2.5 million women dropped out of the workforce since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Vice President Kamala Harris said "the pandemic has put decades of the progress we have collectively made for women workers at risk."

Harris called it a "national emergency"—albeit one that could be fixed by greenlighting the Biden administration's coronavirus spending plan.

And so the narrative typically goes: women's employment prospects are in crisis; the way out is passing the Democrats' preferred economic policies. (See Matt Welch in Reason's June print issue for more on this rhetoric.)

But the magnitude of this gender gap has never been as great as many have made it out to be. And recent data cast further doubt on the "she-cession" narrative. At the end of April 2021, the unemployment rate for women was slightly lower than the unemployment rate for men. And the women's labor force participation rate had recovered more than the men's rate had.

Just How Big Are These Gender Gaps Now? 

To read headlines about gender and job losses, one might get the impression that U.S. women are faring drastically worse on the coronavirus-era employment front than men are. Yet such losses have never been as drastically gendered as many doomsayers let on.

"Labor force participation—defined as all civilians working full or part time, as well as those who are unemployed but looking for work—fell dramatically for both genders between March and April 2020," noted Gallup. In April 2020, men's labor force participation was at 97.8 percent of its February 2020 level and women's labor force participation was 96.9 percent of its February 2020 level—a gender gap of just 0.9* percentage points.

he labor force participation rate is a separate measure than the unemployment rate, which is concerned with how many people are out of work and actively seeking a job. On unemployment, U.S. women are also faring better than their male counterparts (though "better" here does come with some caveats, since unemployment numbers don't include people out of a job and not seeking a new one).

In April 2021, the unemployment rate for U.S. men ages 20 and older was at 6.1 percent, down 7 percentage points from its April 2020 peak. For women ages 20 and older, it was at 5.6 percent—down 9.9 percentage points since the previous April.

Put another way, women's unemployment rate is now just 2.5 percentage points higher than it was in pre-pandemic times, while men's unemployment rate is 2.9 percentage points higher.

The Truth Behind the Panic 

It is true that American women initially lost more jobs to COVID-19 than their male counterparts did (in contrast to the typical recession pattern).

In February 2020, the civilian unemployment rate for women age 20 and up was 3.1 percent, according to BLS data. For men, it was 3.2 percent. But by the end of April 2020, the unemployment rate for women had jumped to 15.5 percent, while for men it only jumped to 13.1 percent.

Two explanations for this discrepancy have emerged. First, women tend to outnumber men as the primary caregivers for children and elderly or ailing family members, leaving them more vulnerable to work disruptions when schools and child care centers shut down, when kids need homeschooling, or when relatives need care. Second, women are more highly concentrated in retail, leisure, and hospitality jobs, which were more heavily affected by pandemic-related closures, restrictions, and mandates.

While the first factor has gained the most attention, the second one may be the bigger culprit.

Labor force participation for women with children did indeed drop more than it did for men with children, "consistent with the theory that working mothers disproportionately took themselves out of the labor force to care for children who were no longer able to attend day care or school," noted Gallup. Yet "the drops among women without children and men without children are also sizable," which "suggests that factors other than child care have significantly influenced decisions to leave the workforce."

"Overall, these labor force patterns seem largely tied to occupational differences between women and men," according to Gallup's analysis of BLS data. "Occupations with a higher share of women have exhibited lower labor force participation rates and higher unemployment rates throughout the pandemic."

Either explanation suggests that—for both women and men—the drop is more likely short-term than long-term.

A Call to Arms? 

Given the current state of recovery, "it does not make sense to enact permanent programs, such as government-run paid family and medical leave, subsidized childcare, and universal pre-K with the justification of fixing a COVID -19 disparity that no longer exists," argues Heritage Foundation research fellow Rachel Greszler in a new report.

"Policymakers can do far more to help women and families by removing government-imposed barriers to flexible work, to employer-provided paid family and medical leave, and to accessible and affordable childcare than by adding costly and bureaucratic new programs and upending the labor market in ways that would limit families' incomes and choices," she posits.

 

By February 2021, labor force participation for both sexes had ticked back up somewhat. And while women were still seeing a less full recovery, the gap was again less than one percentage point. Compared to February 2020, men's February 2021 labor force participation was 2.2 percent smaller and women's was 3.1 percent smaller.

That's not nothing—"the gap in labor force changes amounts to roughly 493,000 more women than men being absent from the labor force since the pandemic began," Gallup pointed out in early March. But it's also not evidence that women have been uniquely devastated by pandemic-related job losses, especially when—contra previous economic downturns—many of the circumstances that initially created the job losses will remedy quickly as life returns to a more normal pace.

Indeed, that already seems to be happening, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In April 2021, the labor force participation rate for U.S. men 20 and older was 69.8 percent, down from 71.6 percent in February 2020. For women, it was 61.7 percent in April, down from the 63.3 percent in February 2020. So, while women's labor force participation was lower than men's at the start of the pandemic and still is, women are now slightly closer than men are to their pre-pandemic participation level, with the April 2021 labor force participation rate for men 1.8 percentage points lower and the rate for women down 1.6 percentage points.

Continued in article

 




Updates on Medical Insurance

 

The good, the bad, and the ugly of England's universal health-care system ---
https://theweek.com/articles/789287/good-bad-ugly-englands-universal-healthcare-system

 

Sponsored by California Nurses Association and authored by Assemblymember Ash Kalra, AB 1400 will ensure that all Californians, regardless of employment, income, immigration status, race, gender, or any other considerations, can get the health care they need, free at the point of service ---
https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/california-nurses-sponsor-a-bill-mandating-free-healthcare-for-everyone
Jensen Comment
There is no program for funding this massive expense; The expense is unknown, because it there's no way of knowing how many chronically ill people in the other 49 states will flock to California for free medical care, let alone how many chronically ill people in the world will flock to California under the Biden-Harris open borders plan. How can California offer free medical care and long-term nursing care to everybody that's now available in the USA only for the poor who are eligible for Medicaid? Free medical care alone could easily bankrupt the State of California in the first year of implementation.
California does not have the medical care capacity to provide free medical care to all the people that will flood California seeking free medical care.

 

Open immigration can’t exist with a strong social safety net; if you’re going to assure healthcare and a decent income to everyone, you can’t make that offer global ---
Paul Krugman
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/724654-open-immigration-can-t-exist-with-a-strong-social-safety-net

 

COMMON SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS (DRUG ADDICTION) ---
https://www.addictiongroup.org/resources/faq/sud/

 

Bob Jensen's threads on health insurance ---
http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm

 




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 homepage --- http://faculty.trinity.edu/rjensen/