SOYBEAN SORROWS AND LOBSTER LOSSES

How’s Trump’s trade war going for you? 

Trade is the mother of money. ~ Thomas Draxe (1613)

News about the US-China trade war has been eclipsed by the midterm elections. The elections are now (almost) over; the trade war continues.  

     Thousands of products’ prices have been increased by the US and subsequent Chinese tariffs. The US tariffs, started in May by the president, are imposed on $200 billion (B) of Chinese imported goods, 40% of 2017 Chinese imports to the US. You can see the full list of tariffed items from the US Trade Representative here. This document is 194 pages long; starting with “Frozen retail cuts of meat of swine, nesoi” all the way to “Furniture (o/than seats/than of 9402) of plastics (o/than reinforced or laminated).” In retaliation and predictably, China has imposed tariffs on roughly $60B US exports to China, which represents 46% of 2017 US exports to China. Although China has certainly stretched WTO protocols to its advantage and broken others, it’s highly doubtful that hardball tactics like 194 pages of tariffs is worth the pain and cost that’s harming soybean farmers, lobstermen and thousands of other business-people and citizens.  

The US imports more goods from China than any other nation in the world. This fact is reflected in the sizeable trade deficit the US has with China, $375.6B in 2017. China’s dramatic economic growth over the past decade has been export driven. It is the leading exporter of goods in the world, ahead of the US. China’s exports of goods represent a large 18.6% of its GDP. In contrast, US exports of goods represent just 6.9% of our GDP. As a consequence of the trade war, the monthly US trade deficit increased in September from $53.3B in August to $54.0B in September; extra costly imports increased more than curtailed exports.

In examining the current trade conflict with China, I here focus specifically on US farmers, who are enduring heavy and direct economic cross-fire from the president’s trade war. Currently, more than 20% of US agricultural exports face reciprocal tariffs from China and other countries.

I examine an incongruous pair of harvested products, soybeans and lobsters, which are now subject to Chinese tariffs. Last year, before the president initiated his tariffs, the US exported to China $21.6B of soybeans and $128.5 million of live lobsters. Before we dive into marine crustaceans, let’s first consider soybeans.

Soybeans.  The soybean (Glycine max) is a legume species native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean. US  farmland is awash with soybean plants, shown below. For the first time in 35 years, soybeans are now planted on more acreage than any other crop– 89 million acres. In other words, soybeans are big, very big agriculture. Soybeans are the nation’s single largest agricultural export, more than double that of corn. In part this is why China imposed a retaliatory 25% tariff on US soybean exports. The other part is based on where soybeans are grown – in true red Trump country. The top 6 soybean-producing states are rural parts of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and Indiana. In addition to being the source of all things in the tofu universe, unfermented soybeans are used in animal (especially pig) feedstocks, and as an ingredient for biodiesel fuel and crayons. Fermented soy foods include soy sauce.

Over the past 6 years American soybean production has increased 44% in part to meet ever-growing export demand. In 2016 US exports represented 47% of total US production. The Chinese market dominates US soybean exports; it’s 6.5 times as large as the EU, the second largest foreign market for US soybeans.

The Chinese tariffs likely have changed all that. US soybean sales to China plunged by 98% since the beginning of this year. Prices have fallen 22% since April. “It’s a big concern,” understates David Williams, a Michigan soybean farmer. In addition, the USDA expects farm incomes to drop by 13% this year. The ratio of farm debt to assets is forecast to rise to its highest level since 2009. The trade conflict, which the president initiated with steel and aluminum tariffs, has spread far afield.

Some optimistic soybean farmers hope that because they help feed the growing Chinese middle class, where soybean-fed pork has become a mainstay of their diet, China’s need for US soybeans will become more acute later this year when Brazilian soybeans – the world’s second major producer that China has recently turned to – grow scarce as their growing season ends. Hope springs eternal.

In any case, US soybean farmers have taken it in the beans with respect to their livelihood. Those of us outside the soybean belt may remember that the Trump administration has offered $3.6B to soybean farmers to offset price drops. This new subsidy will end up being about 82.5₵ per bushel, covering less than half of the farmers’ losses. Half a soybean is better than none at all, but as a non-farmer, I cringed when I learned of this announcement. Why? Because industrial ag commodity growers, like soybean farmers, already receive sizeable government subsidies – about $25B per year for “farm income stabilization,” Now they’re receiving billions more because the president initiated a trade war that’s hurting some of his political flock.

Are soybean farmers upset at the president? Some are, most aren’t. Grant Gebeke, a large soybean grower in North Dakota, isn’t happy. “I’m trying to follow and figure out who the winners are in this tariff war,” Gebeke said. “I know who one of the losers is and that’s us. And that’s painful.” In addition, he laments that “They [the US and Chinese trade negotiators] could get together tomorrow and iron this thing all out and I don’t think we’ll ever get all of our market back.” Just like happened in 1979-81, when President Carter embargoed wheat exports to the Soviet Union. Soybean farmers have been thrown under the tractor as the president’s tariff war bumbles along.

Lobsters.  Lobsters are large marine crustaceans. North Atlantic lobsters, Homarus ameicanus, are found off the ocean coasts of New England and Canada. Lobsters are sold and shipped as living animals. They can live up to 50 years in the wild. The largest lobster ever caught weighed 44.4 lb. in Nova Scotia. The preferred commercially harvested lobster is much smaller, weighing 1.25 lbs., aka “a quarter.” The largest producer and exporter of American lobsters is the state of Maine, which I’ve written about before.

The famed author David Foster Wallace wrote his “Consider the Lobster” article that was published in Gourmet magazine about the State Crustacean of Maine. Being Wallace-written, the treatise contains a fair amount of food for thought, but not about lobsters per se. He likened these creatures to giant sea insects. Wallace tells about his attending the 2003 Maine Lobster Festival, an “enormous, pungent, and extremely well-marketed” affair. Perhaps in finite jest, Wallace called these benthic denizens of the depths “garbagemen of the sea, eaters of dead stuff.” He also reminds us that our fondness for lobster meat is recent. During US Colonial times until into the 1800s lobster was considered low-class food, only given to poor and institutionalized folks and prison inmates. The inmates only ate lobster once a week because more often would have been considered cruel and unusual punishment. My how times change. 

For the majority of the essay Wallace travels way beyond the festival and discusses the “inconvenient” moral issue directly connected with eating lobster: because each lobster is supposed to be alive (as shown in the above picture) when you, or the cook, kills it in a kettle of scalding water. Basically, the lobster’s pain issue boils down to whether it feels pain when this happens, and how a lobster-eater deals with this likelihood. The vast majority of lobster eaters attempt to disregard the issue completely, much to PETA’s chagrin.

But enough lobster philosophizing. For New England, and especially Maine, lobsters have been a large and growing business. In 2016, the US “landed” 161.1 million (M) pounds of live lobster. Maine’s 5,400 independent lobster fishermen alone provided 132.5M lb., worth $540.3M. Both numbers are records. The lobster industry has experienced significant growth; in the last dozen years the lobster catch has sustainably increased 76.3%. As mentioned above, the US exported $128.5M worth of live lobsters to China in 2017. But in 2018 lobster exports to China have shrunk by 17% so far, due to China’s retaliatory 25% lobster tariff imposed in July. Similar to soybean growers, some lobstermen are upset, most apparently are not.

Kristan Porter, the president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, has said the issue of China’s tariffs and Trump’s trade wars “is a long way down the list for most guys” of things they worry about. From Porter’s perspective other concerns are more important; including revised regulations that will increase the cost of lobster bait (herring), the rising temperature of ocean waters that reduces lobster catches, and stronger protections for migrating North Atlantic whales that swim in the same waters as lobsters. The reality is that recent times have been wonderful for the Maine lobster industry, which provides some pluck – others would say complacency – for the nonchalance regarding tariffs.

 “We’ve been kind of spoiled the last few years,” Porter says. Other lobstermen are concerned because exports to China during the past 5 years have increased 322%, accounting for much of the industry’s expansion and added profit. The Chinese tariffs may change this complacency.

Mark Barlow, owner of Island Seafood, a large business that ships live Maine lobsters around the world, has a view very different from Kristan Porter’s. Barlow mentions that as soon as China slapped its 25% tariff on US lobster exports, I said to my sales team, “China’s dead.” His Chinese customers confirmed his expectation. “I don’t think there is [a] way to import US lobster,” one Chinese buyer stated. Barlow believes the Chinese tariff is a significant blow for Maine. As Barlow put it, “The orangutan in Washington woke up from a nap and decided to put tariffs on China, and the Chinese stopped buying [Maine lobster] immediately. We’re getting absolutely slaughtered.” Trumpian tariffs have thrown lobstermen overboard.

Introducing US tariffs on thousands of imported goods may ultimately benefit US exporters and citizens, but right now everyone from Maine lobstermen to Minnesota soybean farmers are seriously suffering, along with millions of consumers who are paying more for all kinds of imported goods.

As Thomas Draxe perceptively stated over 400 years ago, trade is the mother of money. Soybean and lobster exporters – and virtually every US consumer – now have less money than they expected due to the president’s myopic, contemptuous, hardball trade tactics. Too bad we can’t trade him in before 2020.

A Coda Regarding Nancy.  The upcoming election of a new House Majority Speaker will surely anoint Nancy Pelosi. But the media’s recent swirl of stories makes it seem that someone else will also be in contention to challenge her. No other Dem has yet announced his/her candidacy and most likely won’t. No matter. Sixteen Dems are now on record opposing Ms. Pelosi, without anyone else to vote for. The vexation of the Dem progressives, who seem to think their political power transcends their numbers, is based principally on ageism. The Congressional Progressive Caucus represents about one-third of the Democratic Caucus. [At last count 4 years ago, there were 697 caucuses in the House.]

I believe there isn’t anyone else who should be Speaker. No other Democrat is as qualified, capable or proven as Ms. Pelosi. Her legendary ability to achieve success was reaffirmed on Nov. 20, when Ms. Pelosi offered Rep. Marcia Fudge, the only other Dem to say she was "interested in considering" a run for Speaker, a subcommittee chairpersonship. This was an offer Rep. Fudge could not say no to; she accepted. Rep. Fudge is now firmly in Ms. Pelosi's camp.
Other than eagerly seeking influence, there are no direct benefits to the circular firing squad approach the Progs now have been using. Their media-centric tactics magnify the chants of a small number of newly-elected Prog Dems, who have negligible substantive power, but do have the media’s focus. Their momentary dramas in hallways, letters or press statements have produced no alternative candidate for the speakership. It’s completely appropriate for multiple Dems to vie for this important job, but the Progs’ candidate-less approach wounds their cause in many voters’ minds. The media’s attempts to make it seem viable simply compound the miscalculation.

I offer two suggestions. First to the Progs; realistically look at the midterm elections results. The Prog candidates won in House districts that are already blue. The soon-to-be Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a media-darling, is a sterling example. She deserves her victory. But guess what; if the Dems really aim to take control of the Senate and the White House 2 years from now, there simply aren’t enough cobalt blue districts to do it with strongly progressive placards. As a reference, consider the state-wide defeats of dynamic Prog candidates in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Going lefty left isn’t yet a viable election strategy beyond geographically-limited House seats. And in 2019 they will surely need proven leadership. 

Second and as I mentioned on Nov. 11, after winning the Speakership this January Ms. Pelosi should nobly announce a year from now she’s resigning. The concerns of younger House Dems about the hoary nature of their current leadership have merit. Even before January 3, and certainly afterwards, she should work with Dems who represent all the flavors of Democratic progress (perhaps as many as 233 flavors?), to facilitate younger Dems’ entry into the hallowed halls of Democratic House leadership.  

BLUE WAVE OR RIPPLE?

The waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. ~ Edward Gibbon 

Praise be. The Democrats have managed to overcome their usual cacophonous campaigning and gained control of the House of Representatives, come January 3. They fielded enough interesting, empathetic, authoritative candidates to win 225 seats, with 13 still to be called. Alas, the same result couldn’t be duplicated in the Senate, where the Dems won only 46 seats, the Republicans 51, with 3 yet to be called. In these troubling times, the House’s half-a-loaf of legislative authority for the Dems is far, far better than the Dems living in the WOPPed (wholly out of political power) 115th Congress.

The media’s obsession about this election centered on how big the Blue Wave would be. Would our fractious population somehow collectively come together in voting booths? Nope, but a lot more folks voted than expected. Would millennials and people of color finally start voting? Probably yes and we won’t really know for several months. For the Dems, it’s been the year of non-traditional candidates, meaning folks who aren’t older, white men. Dem candidates included historic numbers of women, African Americans, LBGTQ, and even socialists. Some won, more lost as always.

Given the Dems’ victory in the House, they will elect a new Speaker. It’s not yet completely certain, but it’s also very hard to believe the new Speaker of the House won’t be San Francisco’s own Nancy Pelosi, and thus second in the line of presidential succession. Assuming she becomes Speaker in 2 months, it will be the second time she’s held this formidable job. She became the 60th Speaker of the House and the first female Speaker in American history in 2007 and held it until 2011.

I have a suggestion for Ms. Pelosi. She rightly deserves to be the 63rd Speaker of the House of Representatives. And in order to advance the Dems’ chances in the 2020 elections, I suggest she resign her speakership when the Congress convenes in January 2020. Like it or not, the Repubs have painted Nancy Pelosi as the “face” of Democrats. The Repubs, especially the president, always use her as their foil. In their eyes, she has more than enough baggage, simply by being female let alone from true blue San Francisco, to merit false overage charges that are displayed in multitudes of their campaign ads.

She’s ably served in Congress for 31 years. If she is Speaker during the 2020 campaign season, her alleged notoriety will be a hurdle that many Dem candidates will have to jump over, go around and through continuously. By nobly resigning her speakership, but not her House seat, she can cast aside that hurdle and further heighten her aura and Dems’ prospects.

After her one-year term as Speaker, her resignation will serve two purposes. She will no longer be as prime a foil for the Repubs and perhaps more importantly, it will force the current, elderly Dem Congressional leaders to find a younger leader, hopefully even several (like for the Majority Caucus Leader and Majority Whip). These new leaders can vigorously carry the Dems’ banner and state a clear, unwavering and convincing message as to why people should vote for Dems in 2020.

Unfortunately and not for the first time, the Dems’ messaging in this mid-term election was muddled and disjointed. What was the Dems’ message, beyond being anti-Trump? It wasn’t evident. What were the Dems actually for? It wasn’t clear. Enough of the Dems’ stronger, mostly moderate House candidates developed their own messages and succeeded. But senatorial candidates appeared more challenged and less effective. The Dems lost 3 seats, including 2 incumbent women. There was no elevating Blue Wave in the Senate, only a downward red-tinged swirl.

Even if the 2018 election wasn’t the “most important” ever – after all, every election is that, despite the media’s fixations – it was a much-needed, decent blue ripple. It assuredly was the most important election since 1920 by and for women. Women voters and women candidates created historic waves. The New York Times stated there were 257 women candidates for Congressional office, including 19 who identify as LGBTQ and 84 women of color. Election results so far (as of 11/10/18) indicate that a record 35 newly-elected women won House seats and 2 new women candidates won Senate seats. CNN projects that the new 116th Congress with have at least 102 newly-elected women in the House and 12 newly-elected in the Senate. Thus 44.4% of the female Congressional candidates won their elections. Batting 444 will get one into any Hall of Fame.

After 4 years meandering in the Congressional political desert, the Dems finally can exercise some political and legislative power in Washington, D.C. Their control of the House will provide some obligatory checks and balances on the Repubs’ and especially the president’s misguided, dangerous, misanthropic actions.

I believe the House Dems should now focus on 3 legislative priorities; first, provide DACA-recipients with a proscribed, legal path to citizenship. Second, increase public investment spending for our nation’s infrastructure (including rural areas), to be paid in no small part by revoking the Repubs’ “give the 1% more money, forget the rest” tax package. Third, and probably most importantly, improve health care.

As I’ve stated before, I’m not in favor of the progressive’s Medicare-for-all (M4A) mantra. Besides being a divisive strategy that appeals chiefly to left-leaning liberals, it’s fiscally budget-busting (not that that seems to matter anymore) and will require raising taxes. M4A has many important, powerful stakeholders strongly opposed to it, including doctors and hospitals. Instead, the Dems should strengthen and enhance the existing federal health care law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Like anything politically meaningful, this will be a challenging but worthy effort. Progressives won’t like it, but the mid-term election results didn’t reveal enough broad voter support either for Prog candidates (see Beto O’Rourke, Stacey Adams, or Andrew Gillum) or their talismanic programs like M4A. A majority of surveyed Dems stated that they prefer Congress to improve the ACA rather than create a new single-payer (e.g., M4A) national health care plan. 

The Dems should focus on 3 improvements to the ACA. First, allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare Part D beneficiaries and other public programs. This common sense approach to lowering America’s sky-high drug costs has been argued about for way too long. Amazingly, just before the election, the president said he wanted to lower prescription drug prices. Ta da, the Dems should take him up on his new-found interest. Second, increase funding of community health centers and provide incentives for more people to enter the primary care workforce. More community health centers should be established, including those in rural areas, as a focus for locally-provided, lower-cost, basic health care services. Third, the Dems should stabilize the health care marketplace that’s been sabotaged by the Repubs. As part of this needed effort, the Dems should indemnify folks with pre-existing medical conditions so their insurance costs will be non-discriminatory, just like they were when the ACA first became law.

If the Dems can effectively navigate the upcoming political waves created by the Repubs and use them advantageously, their political beachhead in the House can be expanded in 2 years. Here’s hoping.

TRIPPING ACROSS AMERICA, BOTH WAYS. A Double Cross-Country Tour.

There is no certainty; there is only adventure. ~ Roberto Assagoli 

For 7 days, from September 18 through September 24, my good friend Chuck and I drove westward from his home in Maryland to Monterey, CA across the United States (US) in his Porsche Macan S. We then drove back to MD in 6 days; from September 29 through October 4. Because of the looong-distance nature of this trip, we wisely (although initially reluctantly) decided to venture in his Macan rather than his 911. After beginning our expedition we realized the wisdom of taking his Macan in terms of our comfort and contentment. Like its 911 cousin, the Macan is one fine automobile. Its 340-hp twin-turbo V-6 engine can reach 62mph in a mere 5.4 seconds, not bad for an SUV. The Macan performed flawlessly, no unexpected mechanical pit stops were required, with one minor exception in New Mexico.

Summary.  Our adventure covered 6,200 miles. We drove a total of 95 hours over 13 calendar days, with an average speed of 66 mph at 24.0 mpg. For those who like to count, that’s a little more than 250 gallons of premium fuel. We traversed 19 states, generally following Interstate 70 on the way west to California, occasionally driving on other interesting, scenic roads, as described below. The ultimate destination was near Monterey, CA where the 6th Porsche Rennsport event occurred at Laguna Seca Raceway to celebrate Porsche’s cars, especially its racing cars. After Rennsport, we headed a bit south and then east, taking Interstate 40 from California back to Maryland, with a few variants, like the famous US Route 66.

Westward.  We drove west on Interstate 68 to Morgantown, WV and afterwards connected with I-70W. After we got into the wider open spaces (beyond Dayton, OH going west, and beyond Barstow, CA heading east) we easily cruised at 100+ mph along the route for a while each day. Insurance against roadside stops by the polizia was faithfully provided by our radar detector and by Waze. The farther west we went the more 100+mph opportunities presented themselves (described below) and we took advantage of them. We and the Macan thoroughly enjoyed touring the US in style and speed.

Our first westward stop was outside Dayton, OH at the impressive National Museum of the US Air Force. Setting aside any issues connected with the rationale for or sizeable public expenditures connected with these airplanes, they are quite impressive. My favorites included the WWII F-82 Twin Mustang, which had a range of over 5000 miles! Here’s a picture of the F-82, which was the last American piston-engine fighter plane ordered by the Air Force.

From Dayton, we continued on I-70W through Indiana and Illinois to the gateway of the west, St. Louis, MO. We stayed at a hotel within 2 blocks of the Arch, which we visited when the moon was rising, as this picture shows. Pretty impressive, yes?

The next morning we continued our westward progress through most of Missouri and Kansas. We passed miles of Kansas wheat, corn and sorghum fields, and stayed in far western Kansas for the night. We also encountered Kansas’ dramatic weather – an impressive dust storm immediately followed by a wind-driven nearly horizontal-rain thunderstorm. Oh, yeah. The next morning was clear and we proceeded into Colorado. After going around Denver we departed I-70 for far more scenic US-40 that winds its way through the Rocky Mountains through gorgeous turning-yellow Aspens. We took a slight side venture to visit the C-Lazy U ranch near Granby where as a youth I enjoyed extended summertime horseback rides exploring Colorado’s mountains.  

We stayed that night in Winter Park. We continued on charming US-40 until we got Dinosaur, CO, where we stopped briefly to see the nearby Dinosaur National Monument. No, we didn’t actually spy any stray Stegosauruses. After that we headed through stunning countryside for Park City, UT to stay with my fine friends Steve and Kara. They provided great overnight hospitality. Thanks.

The next day we took I-80W to I-15 South driving down the eastern edge of the Great Basin. We left I-15 at Holden, UT and commenced our 460+ mile journey on “the loneliest highway in the US,” US Rt-50. As its name implies, there were very few vehicles travelling with us on Rt-50. The stunning high-desert landscape flew by as we passed through valleys and low mountains often at well over 1.5 mi per minute.

We reached our stopping point in the early evening – Cold Springs Station Resort – near Fallon, NV. It was the most interesting place we stopped at on our cross-country adventure. Cold Springs Station began in 1860 as a Pony Express stop. It’s now a motel and RV park, along with a restaurant. Here’s a picture inside the resort’s down-home restaurant. Make note of the several mounted trophies displayed above the rifles used to kill the beasts. The TV is showing professional cowboys riding bucking bulls in a rodeo; what could be more appropriate? The proprietors and staff were utterly welcoming. Our motel room was pre-fabricated. The following morning we discovered the sizeable photovoltaic panel array behind the RVs that provides most of the power for Cold Springs Station. The second picture is looking across Rt-50, and shows how truly wide open this part of western Nevada is.

The next day we drove over the Sierra at Donner Pass, stopped in Auburn where Chuck enjoyed his very first In N Out burger (yum), and arrived in Berkeley. After relaxing for a day at our home, Chuck and I completed the first half of our cross-country tour with the short trip south to Monterey.

Rennsport.  Our Porsche pleasure began as Rennsport VI started on September 27. Because 2018 is the 70th anniversary of Porsche’s building sports cars, this Rennsport was special. Porsche flew over from Stuttgart its very first sports car, the 1948 Gmund coupe, among other classics from its museum. Rennsport is a triennial festival of all things Porsche held at Laguna Seca Raceway, this year it featured over 350 vintage Porsche race cars. The picture below shows several. Other racers included everything from 356s, 550s, 904s, 911s and 935s to the awesome Porsche 919 Evo. The Evo is a 900hp electric-gas hybrid supercar that won the 2017 24-hour Le Mans race. It broke the lap record at the famed Nurburgring track in June, where it exceeded 229mph going down the track’s longest straightaway. For good measure, the Evo broke Leguna Seca’s lap record as well.

Our fun continued when we successfully adopted a Wedding Crashers strategy for attending the festival’s VIP dinner on Thursday night. After crashing the party (not our car) and enjoying pre-dinner drinks and discussions with fellow attendees we sat down. I ended up next to Neel Jani, the lead driver of the 919 Evo. As the picture above shows, my new friend Neel and I had a wonderful time talking about his Olympic-level car racing, his life as a pro racer and my much, much more limited but enjoyable experiences as a Porsche owner and Berkeley resident. The second picture is from CEO Magazine, which wrote a story about Rennsport and took pictures of important people who attended festival dinner, including Chuck and I, on the right. We’re no doubt discussing various Porsche racing strategies with others at the table including the head of Porsche’s North America racing. Chuck is on my right; on my left is my buddy Neel. It was quite a meal.

Eastward.  After enjoying more than our fill of Porsches at Rennsport, we began our trip back east to Chuck’s home. On the way back we took the southern route, mostly driving on Interstate 40. We arrived in Maryland after 6 days going through Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia. We made several side trips. One to Winslow, AZ on Rt-66, made famous by Jackson Brown’s celebrated “Take it easy” song, sung by the Eagles. Here we are standin’ on that celebrated corner looking for a flatbed Ford, which didn’t show up.

We next made a brief stop at the Petrified Forest National Park near Adamana, AZ where we saw some very old, colorful and perfectly preserved trees from way long ago. Continuing our drive on I-40E we arrived in Gallup, NM where we stayed for the night at a motel that also had a Zuni jewelry shop. The next morning Chuck noticed that the pressure of one of the Macan’s tires was 7 lb. below normal. We had a going-flat tire. The tire fates were smiling on us and we found a tire shop within several blocks of our motel and they quickly patched the tire. You get bonus points for successfully guessing how much it cost us to have that tire fixed in downtown Gallup.[1] We arrived next in Albuquerque, where public officials and the citizenry have worked to produce impressively designed bridges that are as much public art as thoroughfares. See my Awards section below for more details.

We then drove through the Texas panhandle, where it’s always flat and always windy. We travelled by dozens of rotating, big wind turbines. As we headed to Amarillo, we passed mile after mile of turbines that were part of the Wildorado Wind Ranch that has been generating 370 MW of electricity at peak wind speeds for over a decade.

Next up was the state of Oklahoma, 338 miles wide, that we drove through just stopping just for gas, we felt quite OK about that. We stopped for the night in unremarkable Russellville, AR. This city might not have been memorable, but the Arkansan countryside certainly was. The rolling hills countryside was rich with green plants, bushes and trees that merited a listing in my Awards.

Tennessee was our next and ante-penultimate state. In TN I found our most memorable rest stop, see the Awards. Although I’d been to the Volunteer State before, I’d never been to Nashville. The music/bar scene in Nashville is truly impressive. The city’s almost 240-year history is represented in the above picture. On the right right side is a recreation of the town’s original fort, Fort Nashborough, established in 1779 as an American outpost in Native American territory. On the left side of the Cumberland River is Nashville’s modern NFL Titan’s stadium.

Nashville’s downtown music scene was notable, especially if you’re into Country & Western. And no, I didn’t buy any cowboy boots.

We continued our trek eastward on I-70 and made our last travel day the longest and farthest one; we covered 670 miles from Nashville through scenic TN and VA countryside to Chuck’s home in Maryland. Oh, yeah.

After a day of rest, and as an apres-trip dessert, we headed to the premier Cars & Coffee event in the Washington, DC area, Katie’s Cars & Coffee in Great Falls VA. Chuck knows many of the participants. As usual, it offered an amazing display of all things motive, including this beautiful red Triumph TR-3 (that was driven from Kansas!), parked next to Chuck’s 911.

   Would I call our cross-country highway voyage successful? You bet. Do I plan on doing it again? Not likely. But traveling with Chuck and seeing at ground-level the hugely variegated beauty of our nation, an overused but completely a propos descriptor, was exquisite and delightful.

And now, here are the places we drove through that deserved special citation.

Awards.

Best buffalo. We stopped for gas in Moriarty, NM and got more than gallons. Yup, inside this “gas station” was a stuffed Buffalo (as you can see here) and much, much more. There were rooms full of tchotchke gifts. Who’d of guessed?  

Best dust storm.  The dust storm we witnessed near Quinter, KS. Wow.

Best hot-air balloon siting. After leaving the fine Rocky Mountain town of Winter Park, CO, we sited a beautiful balloon rising in the distance. When we left town it was a brisk 35˚F, so I’m betting the balloon riders had at least very hot coffee to fend off the bracing early-morning mountain air.

Best infrastructure architecture. Albuquerque’s bridges over I-40 use designs that make them and the medians stunning public art. Go here to see the bridge art.  

Best interior wall of a motel/hotel: the Amarillo, TX Embassy Suites’ “living wall” with ivy and other planted greenery in the lobby.

Best public floral display. Heber City, UT where there was mile after mile of giant hanging, flowering plants 🌺 on every street light down the town’s extended main drag. I gave up estimating how much water was being used to produce those thousands and thousands of blooms, but they sure were pretty.

Best rest stop. The Loretta Lynn – Hank Williams rest area. I kid you not; it’s on I-40 near Sugar Tree, TN. Their music wasn’t piped into the rest rooms, but it was memorable nonetheless.

Breakfast. Best: Embassy Suites in Amarillo, tastiest and widest choices, 5 stars. Worst: Days Inn in North Nashville, TN. The proprietor was friendly and volunteered helpful info about where to go to see Nashville’s vaunted music scene. But the breakfast consisted only of bread-toast, coffee and juice, strictly 1 star.

Most topologically surprising state. Arkansas’ rolling-hills countryside was impressively lush with trees and greenery. It was utterly different from the “golden” (aka, brown) California landscape I’m used to seeing in late summer. 

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[1] The Gallup tire store charged us the grand sum of $15 to remove the nail from the tire and install a patch. For their fine, prompt pit-stop service, we provided a generous tip. 

MYTHS COMMON TO BERKELEY RESIDENTS AND OTHERS WHO LIVE IN COBALT BLUE BUBBLES

A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world.  Rollo May  

Here are five myths that residents of Berkeley, California may abide by.

1.      The majority of food consumers are vegetarians or vegans.  Nope. The “Vegetarianism in America” study published by Vegetarian Times showed that just 3.2% of US adults follow a vegetarian-based diet. Approximately 0.5% of those are vegans, who consume no animal products at all.

2.      Nearly everyone eats organic food.  Not yet, probably not ever. In 2017 total organic food sales reached a new high, $45.2 billion. However, these organic sales represent a petite 5.5%, also a new high, of all food sold in retail channels in the US. Organic food is more expensive than “regular” food products. Organic price premiums can range from 25% for veges and fruits to over 70% for milk products.

3.      Electric vehicles and hybrids have captured the auto market.  Hardly. L It’s true; the SF Bay Area has had the highest per capita electric vehicle (EV) sales for a while. Berkeley enjoys the 8th highest purchase share of EVs of California cities, about 18%. When you drive around Berkeley the number of Teslas, and to a much lesser extent Chevy Bolts and Nissan Leafs, is quite impressive. Nevertheless, when I travelled 6,200 miles on highways back and forth across the US within the last month, my EV sitings were very far and very few between. No surprise; the market share of battery-powered EVs across America is a meagre 2.4% as of September. If you add plug-in hybrids, the EV market share inches upwards to a frail 3.1%.

4.      Summer.  Summer in Berkeley is a myth. It’s filled with fog and cool temperatures. Daily high temperatures in Berkeley during the usual summer months (June – August) are much nippier than many other places. Visitors to the SF Bay Area during summer are often shocked that they need sweaters, not just t-shirts to feel comfortable during the day. That’s because the weather in Berkeley is dominated by the cool Pacific Ocean. As Mark Twain allegedly stated, "The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco." Berkeley’s warmest (e.g., summer) month is actually September, when the average daily high temp is 74.8˚F. The average high temp for June through August is a chillier 73.8˚F. If you want to be cool, Berkeley’s your place. But to avoid the myth of Berkeley summer, you’ll need to know the way to San Jose, where the average high temp for June through August is balmy 81.0˚F.

5.      Inequality.  For decades the City of Berkeley, and its voters, have been actively engaged in reducing many forms of social and economic inequality. Yet by some measures Berkeley’s inequality is persistently higher; it’s not utopian pure parity. The Berkeley Unified School District was the first in the nation (in 1968) to voluntarily implement a two-way busing program to facilitate desegregation. In June, Berkeley opened the doors of another and new $2.4 million shelter for the homeless. Starting Oct. 1, the city’s minimum wage is $15/hr. It has offered a host of social services for those who don’t have resources and/or opportunities that others have. However, one curious result is that the city’s Gini Index (GI) – a statistical measure of income inequality – is much higher (indicating more inequality) than its neighboring communities. The GI for Berkeley is 0.532 (comparable to that of Guatemala, ranked 10th highest in income inequality). In contrast, the GI for Alameda County is 0.459 and for nearby Concord is 0.389. Why is this, despite the city’s demonstrably broad efforts to provide for its poorer residents? Most likely, it’s because of the fairly large degree of economic "natural diversity" within the city. This is also why the GI's for Concord and Alameda County are much lower, since they’re less economically diverse. In this sense, Berkeley’s lower GI, although concerning, may not be totally dire. 

ANOTHER COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY. One More Time with Feeling

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. ~ William Butler Yates

Tis the season. Erstwhile high school seniors are now working on their applications to enter college next fall. This has been an increasingly popular fall pastime for young people, as I’ve noted before. This fall 2.9 million freshmen are starting their college journeys. The National Center for Educational Statistics expects 19.9 million students to attend the 4,627 American colleges and universities this year. That represents a whole lot of essays written in the past 4+ years.

The percentage of US adults that have at least a baccalaureate degree has never been higher at 34.2% in 2017 (latest year available). Interestingly, this share of adults who have attained at least a B.A. degree is virtually identical with the share of US adults who graduated from high school 67 years ago. What a difference a few generations make.

In the spirit of seniors I interact with at Berkeley High School, I’ve decided to write now another college application essay, to my hypothetical first-choice college, “All About University" (All About U). It’s been 56 years since my last essay. I’ll give it one more try with great feeling. Hopefully by writing this essay I can empathize with this year’s seniors, as well as summarize “my story” in a measly 650 words, which is the word limit for an essay submitted as part of the Common Application. The Common App website states, “Every applicant has a unique story. The essay helps bring that story to life.”

There is no lack of online or offline assistance available for those of us who face writing this essay. Over the years, it has become a very large cottage industry. When I Googled “How to write a college application essay” I received 326 million responses in 0.48 seconds, including one that cited the Modern Language Association’s recommendation that the essay be written in double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman. I’m neglecting these two formatting suggestions at my own peril. So here’s my unique story; I’m sticking to it. 

My Essay.  Plato’s Socratic paradox states, "The only thing I know is that I know nothing.” My educational life, from kindergartening through garnering a Ph.D., has been devoted to reducing the “know nothing” portion of this paradox. This essay reflects my interest in further diminishing my know nothingness via added education at All About U.

I characterize my formal education beginning, with a tip of my hat to Plato, as knowing nothing about virtually everything and ending up knowing virtually everything about next to nothing (in this case, my dissertation topic). This essay is the story of what I’ve learned and gained insight about. The greater domain of knowledge remaining for me to acquire remains. Attending All About U will offer succor in my quest.

My life has been filled with luck and good fortune because I’ve done the right kind of work that I was passionate about and because of perpetual support of family and friends. Although I wasn’t an all-star academic student throughout most of my K-12 and college career, my optimista nature, social competence, talent, inquisitiveness and ability to envision pathways to achievement were rewarded. A bit of luck was involved in selecting a then-obscure industry – electric utilities – as the focus of my dissertation research. I became one of a small number of energy experts at a fortuitous moment before the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo dramatically changed the US’s economic and energy perspective. Energy was no longer a background topic, it was very front and center as drivers waited for hours to fill their tuna boat-sized cars with gasoline. That crisis suddenly amplified my worth and helped guide my professional career in energy efficiency studies for decades to come.

After retiring from energy consulting in Berkeley, I found another career passion. I decided to “pay it forward” and volunteer my time assisting students at Berkeley High School. Specifically, 12 years ago I became involved with tutoring students who enrolled in two of the school’s college-level economics classes. I’ve helped them to start thinking like economists. Useful economic analysis requires careful, systematic, evidence-based thinking.

It’s been 50 years since I first taught introductory econ as a grad student teaching assistant; my how time has flown. I’m pleased to now be an elder TA, in a sense returning to where I began.

It’s a substantive understatement to say much has changed during the past five decades in our economy. Nevertheless, some overly-aged, now irrelevant concepts – like the Phillips Curve – still reside in these courses’ syllabuses. Despite this I’ve greatly enjoyed working with the teachers and their students. I estimate about 2,500 students have taken these courses since I began. I’m reassured that my efforts have made a difference for a number of them. I’ve also learned more about myself, economics and teaching.

I’ve learned the value of patience, perspective and priorities. It’s crucial to know the details of a particular issue, but also to comprehend the broader perspective and context about how it’s related to the rest of the economy and society. I’ve learned that the most important “law” of economics isn’t the Law of Supply or Demand; no, it’s the inescapable Law of Unintended Consequences.

Another insight I gained in my educational and professional career was to always take advantage of an Open Door policy, referring to the time teachers, supervisors and clients make available for interacting with them. Despite their fears of entering a teacher’s or supervisor’s office/workspace, undergraduates will not be embarrassed by posing questions. In fact, entering their office will directly benefit you because it demonstrates your interest in learning and doing well and positively distinguishes you from many of your colleagues. Just do it.

My education and career have allowed me to travel extensively, meeting fascinating people and seeing fascinating places. I look forward to continuing to expand my knowledge – and reducing my know nothingness – of people and places. Entering All About U will facilitate my journey.  [650 words, oh yeah!]

IT’S ABOUT TIME

But for those who love, Time is not. ~ Henry Van Dyke 

I’ve been interested in time for a long time. I’ve enjoyed books about time, such as The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (published in 1895, perhaps the first popular time-travel story); A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking; and The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov. I’ve delighted in reading poems about time like “Time Is” by Henry Van Dyke, “On Time” by John Milton and “To Think of Time” by Walt Whitman. Movies like “The Time-Travelers’ Wife,” “Interstellar” and “About Time” have enchanted me.

The nature of time has been considered by eastern and western philosophers and scientists for ages. One interesting hypothetical concept is Time’s Arrow, the "one-way direction" or "asymmetry" of time. Arthur Eddington, a British astronomer, developed time’s arrow 91 years ago and it remains an unsolved question. He argued that time’s arrow, or direction, can be determined by studying the organization of atoms and molecules. Physical processes at the microscopic level are believed to be either entirely or mostly time-symmetric. If the direction of time were to reverse, the theoretical statements that describe them would remain true. But assessing time’s arrow at macroscopic levels it often appears that this isn’t always the case: there is an obvious direction of time.

One of the arrows in the quiver of time that’s most interesting to me is the casual arrow of time. A cause always precedes its effect: the causal event occurs before the event it affects. For example, even though birth and death are both passengers on time, birth always follows a successful conception and not vice versa. Thus causality is intimately connected with time's arrow. Not everyone always follows the causal arrow of time; witness analyses that have succumbed to the cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

Economists and time get along uncomfortably. We fastidiously never state a specific number of years that distinguishes short run versus long run trends. Other than to assert as John Maynard Keynes did: in the long run we are all dead. Instead, when pressed by a student, client or Congress-person to differentiate between the short-run versus the long-run effects of economic policies (e.g., price controls, fiscal and/or monetary procedures) economists say that in the long run, all factors of production (land, labor, capital) are variable. The short run is different because at least one factor is fixed in quantity or price. Such an answer is seldom satisfying for the questioner. So it goes…

In the early to mid-20th century one of the hot topics of macroeconomics was business cycles. A nation’s business cycle is the upward (expansion or growth) and downward (contraction or recession) movement of real gross domestic product (GDP) over time, around its long-term growth trend. During this period many economists hypothesized about how long a macroeconomic business cycle actually was, and what factors most influenced it. Arthur Burns and Wesley Mitchell took an encompassing view in their 1946 book Measuring Business Cycles saying the business cycle’s duration can vary from more than one year to ten or 12 years. The Russian economist Nikolai Kondratieff posited in 1925 that the period of a cycle ranged from 40 to 60 years. Agreement among economists about the correct duration of the business cycle has yet to ensue; we’ve moved into other fields of debate. The current business cycle’s period of sustained economic growth is over nine-years long. When will it end? No economist knows.

In recent times, some people have said that time’s been speeding up due to improvements in technology that increase how much we can accomplish or produce in a specific period of time. Economists have a concept describing this occurrence – higher productivity. In 2Q2018, annual labor productivity increased a haggardly 1.3%.

Beyond labor productivity, it seems that digital technologies have speeded up not just work-related activities but social ones as well. Exhibit L for this improved social “productivity” is a cover story in The Economist, “Modern Love. Dating in the digital age.” Around the world, about 200 million people now use dating apps and rely far less on friends and family.

Unlike digital dating, physicists note that the Earth's rotation has been slowing slightly over time. Hence, a day now is longer than in the past. This is due to the tidal effects the Moon has on Earth's rotation. Atomic clocks show that a modern day is longer by about 1.7 milliseconds than a century ago. Do you thus feel any older now? I didn’t think so.

Financial analysts tend to pay far more attention to three-month intervals of time called “quarters” than almost any other time period. The financial world is filled with a plethora of time-dependent factors like price-earnings ratios, debt-to-equity ratios, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and working capital ratios (current assets/current liabilities). These and other statistics are dutifully reported quarterly and in annual 10-K reports.

At the opposite end of economists’ and financial analysts’ time spectrum is that of geologists. Geologists’ views of time aren’t bound by minor temporal concepts like quarters, business cycles or unspecified short- and long-runs. Nope, their time periods consist of millions of earth-years covering all of this planet’s 4.54 billion year history (rounded to the nearest 10 million years, which is a great many quarters).

Let’s take a geologic look at the history of California; way before the Gold Rush. Like all other land on Earth California has moved quite a bit during the various paleo-geologic ages. Look here to see how it and its neighbors, once a very long time ago part of Pangea, have traversed the globe, and continue to.

For most of its 500+MYA (million years ago) history what’s now California was covered by deep ocean waters. To set the stage for California’s recent (geologically-speaking) rise above water, the Mesozoic Era (250 – 65 MYA) saw the merging of the ancient Sonoma “island arc” of land with the North American Plate to its immediate east. This merger did not require FTC approval and extended the western edge of the North American Plate into what’s now central Nevada.

The creation of dry-land California happened in the Late Cenozoic Era that began 20 MYA. The North American Plate was overriding the spreading center between the Pacific Plate and the Farallon Plate. This spreading center migrated eastward causing massive crustal extension and lifting beneath what is now the Great Basin Region (which spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Oregon and Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, and Wyoming).

The western edge of the North American Plate then overrode hotspots in the Earth’s upper mantle that resulted in extensive volcanism in the Yellowstone, Columbia River and New Mexico regions. It also created the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains that powder-skiers now enjoy. Remnants of this volcanism include Mt. Lassen, Mt. Shasta, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainer. By the way, changes in plates’ boundary configurations created the San Andreas and other regional fault systems about 30 MYA.

The San Andreas Fault is about 800 miles long, stretching from the Mendocino coast south to the San Bernardino Mountains and the Salton Sea. Researchers have measured identical rocks offset by 150 miles across either side of the fault. For example, the volcanic rocks in Pinnacles National Park south of Monterey match volcanic rocks in Los Angeles County. Geologists think the total amount of displacement along the fault since it formed is at least 350 miles.

On the west side of the San Andreas Fault sits most of California's population, riding the Pacific Plate northwest while on the east side the rest of North America creeps south. The Pacific Plate is moving northwest at about 3 inches each year, and the North American Plate is heading south at about 1 inch per year. Those inches add up in geologic time. Assuming (heroically) this rate of movement continues unabated, scientists project that Los Angeles and San Francisco will be adjacent to one another in approximately 15 million years, thus making the commute between Santa Monica and Berkeley a breeze.

The San Andreas Fault system moved a maximum surface displacement of about 20 feet in 1906, causing the great 7.9 earthquake, and resulting fires, that destroyed more than 80% of San Francisco. More recently the San Andreas Fault caused the 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake that played a small part in the 1989 A’s-Giants World Series. This picture I took shows a fence over 40 miles south of San Francisco straddling the San Andreas Fault in Los Trancos Open Space Reserve that was displaced by the 1906 earthquake.

Geologists estimate that over 10,000 earthquakes occur each year along the San Andreas Fault, but just several hundred are greater than magnitude 3.0, and only about 15-20 are greater than magnitude 4.0. Is this supposed to be reassuring for those of us who live along this long, sinuous, moving neighborhood? Are you ready for the next “big one”? It’s only a matter of time.

FANTASY DEMOGRAPHICS

The future is keeping you out of the present time. ~ Van Morrison 

It’s now less than 100 days before the November 6 midterm elections. The media is keen to show its viewers and readers their prognostications about who the election winners and losers will be. Media doyens have been hyperbolically stating how our world suddenly will change after this the most important midterm election since 1066.

I exaggerate. William the Conqueror’s victory in September 1066 did change British history, but he wasn’t elected subsequently. He ascended to the British throne as William I on Christmas day after he, as a Norman, had laid waste to the Anglo Saxons at Hastings.
Maybe our upcoming midterm elections might possibly slip into the “top 10 historic midterm elections” listing, beginning with the one in 1858. Does anyone remember that top 10 election? However, the ephemeral nature of midterm election victories, like those in 1986, 1994 and 2010, means you shouldn’t get your hopes up beyond 93 days.

Nevertheless, it is notable that the Democrats are now confronting a within-ranks struggle for authority. Not too long ago it was the Republicans who were fighting internecine battles between extremist, hard-right factions, like the tea partiers and House Freedom Caucus, and the more “establishment” conservatives. But now Congressional Repubs are seemingly one all too big, content political family under the erratic and solipsistic leadership of the president.

In contrast, the Dems are having their own identity crisis, skirmishing between progressives and centrist “establishment” liberals. Several primary election victories by hard left candidates have blown leftish gusts into the Progressives’ sails. A widely-publicized example is the New York City primary victory of newly-coronated political prom queen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28 year old former campaign organizer for Bernie Sanders. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of American and unburdened by any previous government service.

Are Progs ascending in influence and dominance within the Democratic Party? It seems so, according to the liberal media. In the 2018 primary elections so far Progs represent 41.1% of all Dem candidates. Nevertheless, the Progs’ primary success rate (the number of Prog primary winners relative to the total number of Dem candidates) is just 11.9% to date. So far, more centrist Dem candidates are winning much more than Progs, but that’s apparently not really news. The news is all Progs.

In their move leftward the Dems have aimed at a set of assertive constituencies, including millennials, women and minorities. The Progs’ mantra emphasizes expansive government action in the name of socio-economic justice. Progs are heavily promoting policies like Medicare-for-all healthcare; abolish ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency); $15/hr federal minimum wage; preserve the Roe v. Wade decision; remedy income, wealth and evermore types of inequality; restore open internet (net neutrality); reestablish open borders; stop discrimination and promote equity based on gender, race, ethnic heritage, age and sexual preference; and support the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Community has become a significant new Blue identity word.

This mantra can be powerful and although individual pieces are eminently worthy, as a whole it’s divisive. It’s contentious because the Dems’ and Progs’ divergent “Big Tent” objectives attempt to juggle deviating racial/ethnic/social groups along with distinct socio-economic clusters of voters. Having this multi-faceted mantra often divides rather than unites their coalition of identity groups.

David Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College, believes that many voters can simultaneously take a liberal position on one or more individual socio-cultural issues and may still believe more generally that the liberal vision, like the Progs’ mantra, requires changing the country too much and/or too quickly. Repubs no doubt will raise this issue in their campaigns, as well as how we can pay for all the federal government’s expansion. A recent cost estimate for favorite Prog programs is $42.5 trillion over the first ten years; that's almost equal to the federal government's total expected tax revenues ($44T) in the next decade. 

I believe this mantra, together with the media’s prominent airing of it, helps explain why the percentage of voters describing Democratic candidates as “in the mainstream” fell from 48% to only 33% from 2016 to 2018. The percentage describing Democratic candidates as “out of step with most Americans’ thinking” rose from 42% to 56%. In contrast, over the same two-year period the public assessment of Republican candidates somehow remained essentially unchanged, 59% “out of step” in 2016 and 56% in 2018; 31% “in the mainstream” in 2016, 33% in 2018. These alarming numbers do not bode well for the Dems’ political goal of returning to the majority in the House and the Senate.

Adding more challenge to the Dems’ difficult goal is the continuing issue of election participation for their crucial, targeted voters. In a word, it’s dreadful. Key constituencies of the Dems, like younger and minority voters, have disproportionately not shown high voter turnout in either presidential or midterm elections. This is not a new issue. Hispanic voters in the 2016 presidential election comprised only 9.2% of the electorate and 7.0% in the 2014 midterms. More concerning is that analysts have estimated between 11% and 28% of Hispanic voters cast their ballots for Trump. Black voters were 12.4% and 11.9% of the electorate in 2016 and 2014 respectively. Young voters, aged 18-29 years, were 15.7% and 10.0%.

In contrast, white voters in the 2016 presidential election comprised 73.3% of all voters; in the 2014 midterm election white voters represented 76.9% of the electorate. Citizens 60 years and older have cast ballots much more consistently than other voters. They accounted for 33.6% and 39.4% of the electorate in 2016 and 2014 respectively. The Progs and Dems ignore white and older voters at their own peril, as they learned in 2016.

Fervent progressive advocates, glowing from their 11.9% primary success rate, dismiss actual recent voter behavior as passé. Instead, they paint a set of fantasy demographics for this November (and in 2020) where expected future demographic changes miraculously appear now which magnify millennials’ and minority voters’ potential importance. In this invented vision, young and minority voters across the US (especially in non-urban areas) will shake off their ballot-filling lethargy and vote progressive Dems into political power.

This Dem, and now Prog, imagined vision has been created more than once, but has yet to produce electoral success. Could it happen in 93 days? Maybe, but to ensure victory I ardently hope the Dems’ promote a less divisive policy agenda that doesn’t cause more centered voters to jump the Democratic ship, or just sit out the midterm. The Progs and Dems need to remember Van Morrison’s apt song lyric, so the future doesn’t keep them out of the present. 

A Post-Election Addendum. It’s Wednesday, August 8, the day after the latest set of primary elections in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington. Oh yes, there also was a special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional district that the media obsessed about, even though the same two candidates will be campaigning against each other again for the “real” two-year House seat in just three months.

Once again, Democrat-Progressive candidates lost by big margins. In the Michigan gubernatorial race and in a Missouri House race Progs went down to defeat, despite much media play and personal appearances by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Neither election was close; each Prog candidate lost by about 20 points. The victorious Dem gubernatorial candidate, Ms. Gretchen Whitmer a former leader in the Michigan State Senate, said during her campaign she refused to support Medicare-for-all, and instead ran with the slogan “Fix the Damn Roads.” Ah, infrastructure.

The Ohio 12th Congressional district election remains “too close to call;” naturally, both candidates are declaring victory. The Repub candidate is leading by a slender 0.7 points, with provisional ballots still to be counted. Despite his apparent defeat, the Dem candidate’s run is being called a “triumph” in the liberal media. Nevertheless, elections aren’t played by horseshoes’ rules, being “close” to victory doesn’t provide any electoral benefit. In defeat, the Dems say this election will spur the Dems’ hopes and represents an ominous omen for Repubs in November. Why; because District 12 has been a true blue Repub stronghold for decades; their 2016 victory margin in the 12th exceeded 36 points. Today the Repubs are  pleased since their full-on Trumpist candidate is actually ahead of his Dem rival, and expects to be victorious after the remaining ballots are counted. So it goes… 

KOKO AND THE VOTERS

It’s hard for the ape to believe he descended from man. ~ H.L. Mencken 

For me the dispiriting reality of our current federal political scene is that the administration’s morally-vacuous, hurtful policies are being countered only with logically-based rejoinders that are wholly inadequate. As we’ve all come to expect, these mostly frail, spiteful but unsystematic policies are founded only on the president’s nanosecond, fact-free demonic impulses, not careful thought. The Republican Congress is wholly complicit in allowing such draconian social and economic plans to stand without reprimand, censure or opposition. The Democrats are guilty of not offering unified alternatives that have a chance of widespread public acceptance. Both parties seem far more interested in medieval jousting rather than crafting solutions for our mounting public issues.

As part of their preparations for the November elections, the Democratic leadership and other critics would do well to remember Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America. The protagonist in this novel mentions that he hadn’t understood “how the shameless vanity of utter fools can strongly determine the fate of others.” Neither had most of us on November 9, 2016. But the “fool” is no longer in the closet; he’s in the White House. And he’s successfully playing to many people’s heartfelt fears, not their logic or best interests. The latest Gallup presidential approval ratings show that a formidable 87% of Republicans support the president.

In addition to bemoaning the 18-month tenure of our 45th president and wondering what species he really is, I also mourn the passing of Koko. Koko was a female western lowland gorilla born 46 years ago and died this past week who knew over 2,000 words, and mastered using 1,000 ASL signs. Did she rival our vainglorious president’s vocabulary; we’ll never know. She befriended two of my favorite people, Mr. (Fred) Rodgers and Robin Williams, in addition to large numbers of her followers. The Gorilla Foundation mentioned in Koko’s obituary that she became a renowned icon for interspecies communication. Compared to the political zoo at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, inhabited by a fair number of unknown, perhaps alien species, Koko’s life appeared wonderfully positive and affirmative. Her genuine interspecies communications talents will be sorely missed, especially in Washington D.C.

But back to the political animals vying for elective office in 131 days. As a raft of talking heads has mentioned here and here, the Repubs have been taken over by the gang of Trumpist cronies and the man himself. As usual, progressive and moderate Dems are wrestling among themselves about what path to take for electoral victory and to determine who’s going to assume the mantle of the party this fall.

The Dems continue focusing on identity groups including Hispanics, Blacks, women, immigrant citizens, millennials and the LGBTQIA+ communities. Although Bernie Sanders hasn’t had much success in backing primary election victors so far, he, Elizabeth Warren and other liberals have clearly moved the Dems’ policy and legislative dreams significantly leftward, should they regain actual political power. The Dems’ policy thrusts include single-payer health insurance, sturdy but unfettered immigration, minimum wage based on living costs, universal pre-K and childcare and universal basic income. Each one might be potentially worthy, but will require significant changes, much-expanded government activities and higher taxes.

Whatever messages, tactics and policies the Dems and Repubs each adopts in this fall’s campaigns, getting out the vote on November 6 will be crucial for success, as always. Recently the US Census has made available data describing the composition and participation of people who registered for and voted in the November 2016 presidential election. These data confirm the long-standing challenges of getting younger and minority citizens to actually vote. Midterm election voter turnout has been miserable. Only 36.4% of eligible voters voted in the 2014 midterm elections.  
     The following table summarizes the reported voter participation for the November 2016 election. Overall, just 56% of citizens voted in the last presidential election. The US ranked 26th out of 35 highly-developed, democratic nations in voter turnout. 

Reported Voting Participation in the November 2016 Election

Population Segment		Total Reported Voting
Total Population, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		56.0%
18-24yrs		39.4%
65-74yrs		70.1%
Hispanic, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		32.5%
18-24yrs		27.2%
65-74yrs		47.8%
White Alone, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		58.2%
18-24yrs		41.1%
65-74yrs		72.0%
Black Alone, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		55.9%
18-24yrs		40.2%
65-74yrs		62.1%
Education Level, Both Sexes, 18yrs+older
9th-12th grade, no diploma		29.3%
High School graduate		47.4%
B.A. degree		69.2%
Advanced Degree		73.9%
Source: Current Population Survey, Nov. 2016.
By Segment: Highest voting rate in Bold; Lowest
voting rate in Italics.

As the table shows, young voters (18 to 24 years old) across the US voted only 70% as often as the overall total population (18 years and older). Black voters participated at the same rate as all voters. However Hispanic voters, a key Democrat target, participated only 58% as often as the total voter population. The Dems have yet to figure out how to motivate more young and Hispanic citizens to step inside a voting booth. Expectedly, the more educated a voter is, the higher is his/her voter participation rate. Voters with a B.A. degree participated 24% more often than the total population.

Perhaps the 2018 midterm elections will be different than 2016; they’ll need to be. For Dems, encouraging information about this year’s primary elections is that their supporters have been turning out and voting in record numbers. If that also happens in November, Democrats in the Congress may be celebrating the beginnings of a really super-divided federal government. Oh yeah. And it’s a l o n g road before that may happen. The primary season doesn’t actually end until November 6, when Louisiana holds its primary for all parties on the same day the rest of the country holds the general election. Go figure.

In the meantime I’m going to pause for several moments each day to remember Koko and her extra-ordinary accomplishments that aided humans in a purely positive fashion. We need more Koko’s and far fewer kooks inside the DC Beltway and beyond.