CAVEAT EMPTOR POLITICO

In politics, absurdity is not a handicap. ~ Napoleon 

Promising a multitude of equality-filled rainbows when they’re elected, virtually all of the 23 fervent Democratic presidential candidates have been campaigning for a brighter future, come Nov 3, 2020. That’s a mere 529 days away. Given recent trends and Trump’s example (he formally began his reelection campaign on his Jan 20, 2017 inauguration); I expect the 2024 campaigns to begin just after we’ve finished 2020’s Thanksgiving stuffing. Oh, my.

As long as one anointed Dem is successful, a brighter future isn’t terribly hard to imagine, given our Drama-King president’s continuing record of fear-based ukases and misinformed, damaging policies covering all substantive issues.

What is hard now for every one of these candidates is first getting anyone to care what they are saying, including Iowans, where the earliest Democratic caucuses are but 255 days away. And second, for a specific candidate in the 22andMe throng, does anyone know I’m in the race and how can I distinguish my positions from everyone else’s, assuming somebody cares? At this point, it’s the very rare person outside of the political-media complex or the Washington DC beltway that cares at all.

Nevertheless, the media is overflowing with a plethora of “latest polls.” RealClear Politics lists 58 political polls being undertaken over just the past two weeks. At this neonatal state of the presidential campaign such polls hardly mean anything beyond whether the polled somebodies have ever heard of the candidate. Have you heard of Marianne Williamson or Wayne Messam? No matter who you now might possibly favor for president in 2020, there’s at least one extant poll that will support your choice in some fashion. Current polls about who’s winning the contest for the Dems’ candidate are essentially chaff, not kernels of worthwhile wheat. What else is excessive?

As of Apr 15, when there were only 15 announced candidates (not including Joe Biden), they had already raised $118.5 million. Bernie Sanders has the biggest war chest with $20.7M in his coffers (probably including the $6.1M left over from his 2016 campaign); Juan Castro was last at $1.1M. Naturally, the political-media complex has been reaping large sums of money from the candidates’ ads in this nascent stage of campaigning. According to the Federal Election Commission’s first-quarter filing, 12 of the Dem candidates spent $6.7 million on online advertising and assembling their digital strategy. Each and every Dem candidate is now in full, 24/7 primary voter acquisition mode. Realistically, the vast majority of these 23 candidates are at best competing for consideration as vice president, senator or governor in the Nov 2020 elections.  

These Dem candidates imply that ordinary people, together with their acolytes, won’t be paying any taxes for their plans, only the rich will be. Now they’re simply summarizing what their policies will somehow accomplish, like end inequality, perfect healthcare, put everyone back to work, pay reparations, provide debt- and tuition-free college education, reduce the voting age to 16 years and rapidly clean-up our environment. Such programs will require raising beaucoup government revenues, through increased taxes and public debt financing. Only a few candidates admit these fiscal consequences.

Meanwhile our strategy-free, solipsistic president persists in telling us that China has been paying for his tariffs (I’d give him 4 Pinocchios, adopting the Washington Post’s fact-checker icon) and that the Dems, especially these presidential candidates, are extreme socialists (another 4 Pinocchios), along with his ever-growing multitude of other fact-free fictions. His campaign now has $65.7M to spend, far exceeding that raised by any Dem. L

The Dem campaigns’ diminutive fiscal standing, together with our economy’s sustained strength (3.6% unemployment, 3.2% increase in average worker’s earnings, with 3.2% real GDP growth), represent ample challenges that any Dem will be facing to conquer #45. Defeating Trump will require victories in enough states beyond the coastal true blue ones so the winning Dem graduates triumphantly from the Electoral College, although probably not debt-free.

With rare exception, no candidate has revealed how their programs will specifically work or how they’ll be funded. However, Sen. Elizabeth Warren bravely stated in January that if elected, she would implement a new wealth tax imposed on the top 0.1% of income-earners and later added a new, larger corporate profits tax to finance several of her proposed pro-equality programs. Her policies would reduce student debt, provide free tuition and fees for students in public colleges and offer universal child care and early-childhood education. In making these and other definitive proposals she has positioned herself as the early race’s wonky, “I’ve got a plan” leader in the Dem candidate flock. Consequently, she has twice the number of paid campaign staff as Sen. Sanders. She needs such intellectual firepower to keep churning out thorough position/policy papers like no other candidate.

Actually implementing such wealth and profits taxes is far more problematic. Effecting such new taxes as federal statutes assumes the Dems keep control of the House, gain control of the Senate with her in the White House. Her proposed wealth tax will also need to overcome a number of legal and execution issues that have contributed to eight OECD nations getting rid of their existing wealth taxes. No matter; they are clever ideas that distinguish her from all other candidates. Successful politicians are rarely criticized for under-promising during their campaigns.

It’s quite safe for a progressive Dem like Sen. Warren to propose a wealth tax, because the people she’s casting votes for (progressives for sure, millennials and maybe folks who shower after, not before they work) rightly don’t consider themselves rich enough to be subject to her wealth tax. Her appeals for new government programs, like those of other Dem candidates, are portrayed as basically costless for their targeted potential primary voters. Other folks, the rich ones across the proverbial freeway or tracks will pick up the tax tab, not them. Each candidate knows a “free” program beats all others.

Progressive Dems are proposing momentous, major programs that, if enacted, will have substantial effects, including many unforeseen ones, on our economy and us. This is the “revolution” that Bernie et al. are focused on creating. Programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal will influence virtually every aspect of our lives. By voting for either Michael, Joe, Bill, Cory, Steve, Pete, Julian, John, Tulsi, Kirsten, Kamela, John, Jay, Amy, Wayne, Seth, Beto, Tim, Bernie, Eric, Elizabeth, Marianne, Andrew or even another Dem (are there any?), we expect our lives will be significantly improved and nirvana will move much closer to us.

At this point we consumers, taxpayers and eventual voters are mostly left in the dark about how these candidates’ policies and programs will actually affect our lives and what they will cost us. With such evidence we can make more knowledgeable decisions when we’re deciding who to vote for by also knowing how this person’s proposed programs will affect us. Such particulars can illuminate how a candidate’s policies will influence us individually and collectively.

As the Dems canter around their political race course and the field inevitably narrows, starting after the first debates on June 26 and 27, we will hopefully start receiving additional details so we can make more-informed judgements in the voting booth.

Knowing such details matters. Bernie’s single-payer Medicare for All Plan (M4A) has been endorsed by at least five other Dem candidates: Cory, Tulsi, Kirsten, Kamela and Elizabeth. When polls asking about his M4A state that it will eliminate all private health insurance and will increase individuals’ taxes, this program’s support drops dramatically to just 13%. Most published polls show a small majority of respondents favoring M4A; these polls never state the very likely (and unpopular) consequences in their questions.

Thus, we citizens should demand more details, the sooner the better, as well as abide by caveat emptor politico, denoting let the voter beware (my fractured alteration of the well-known 500-year old Latin phrase).

LET’S REDUCE OUR TRADE DEFICIT AND JUST EXPORT HIM

Trade is not based on utility but on justice. ~ Edmund Burke 

The misses and mistakes the president has been making with respect to our international trade policies, especially with China, have one unlikely remedy. Export him and thus reduce our trade deficit, both fiscally and spiritually.

In numerous pronouncements, Donald Trump has provided unequivocal proof that my high-school economics students understand far better how tariffs work and what the likely nasty consequences will be for US consumers and businesses as these import duties raise prices. David Ricardo is again rolling over in his grave. If for some strange reason you’re not already convinced about this lack of his common sense and knowledge, remember his fallacious tweets that “Trade wars are good, and easy to win.” (March 2018), and “Tariffs will make our Country much stronger, not weaker” (May 2019). Unlike the president, my students correctly realize that tariffs are simply taxes levied on imported goods that are ultimately paid by consumers of the goods. Although the many critics of the president’s tariffs have probably overstated their deleterious short-term macroeconomic effects (US exports of goods and services to all nations represent but 12.1% of our GDP; China’s are 19.8%; Germany’s are 47.0%), Trump’s tariffs and China’s reciprocal tariffs have already and will continue to harm specific, important sectors of our economy. Trump vastly broadened his import tariffs on May 10, which will soon raise prices for every US consumer of goods from China, including iPhones, Christmas tree lights and thousands of others. Consumers’ pocketbooks are being picked by the president’s “trade war.”

If the president was interested in gaining any historical knowledge, he’d have long ago understood that substantive tariffs, similar to those he’s actually and threatening to levy, directly extended our Great Depression (the Smoot-Hawley tariffs). It’s no matter to him. Although they can sometimes be a useful negotiating tactic, when implemented tariffs haven’t and won’t make our nation greater or stronger. Just ask a farmer.

His dutiful (pun intended) farmers throughout the mid-West and Great Plains are, once again, caught between their soil and a hard place with Trump’s and China’s tariffs affecting their livelihoods. Since last Spring they’ve seen their largest foreign buyers of agricultural commodities disappear behind tariff walls. But as rock-solid Republicans (so far), they will be loath to vote for any of the now two-dozen Democratic candidates, except perhaps Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, who announced his candidacy on May 14. The best the Dems can hope for is farmers’ political abstinence on November 3, 2020. It might be enough, but keeping many fingers crossed is wise.

My pick for where to export him is the British Overseas Territory of Tristan da Cunha, the most remote inhabited island in the entire world. Tristan is over 6,600 miles from Washington, DC, 2,000 miles away from South America and 1,700 miles away from the nearest coast of South Africa smack dab in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean.

It should be perfect for the Donald. According to Wikipedia, the island has 251 permanent residents. The only way of travelling to and from Tristan is via an occasional seven-day boat trip from South Africa. Tristan boasts of having a population of rockhopper penguins. It’s starkly volcanic origins may take a while for Mr. Trump to get used to; he’ll have the time. A total solar eclipse will pass directly over the island on Dec. 5, 2048. Wow.

I expect that despite initial resistance, Britain will gladly agree to host Mr. Trump exclusively on Tristan for his remaining earthly days. Why? Because in return for hosting him, the US will unilaterally commit to negotiating with Britain on an expedited basis a comprehensive US-UK trade agreement. What with Brexit, they’ll need this trade agreement big time. The icing on this agreement’s cake will be our financing the construction and maintenance of a small 5-hole pitch-and-put golf course on Tristan to be enjoyed by all its residents, include the most recent one.

Ah, I love this opportunity to take advantage of a rare upside of Britain’s Brexit challenges, because the downsides will stretch for a good long time beyond even Oct. 31, 2019, the current magical (and extended) deadline for Brexit. It could take a year and a half or so to negotiate such a comprehensive trade agreement which coincides nicely with our next presidential election. The House Dems should soon start initial discussions with whomever may be in charge in the British Parliament, be it Theresa, Boris, Jeremy, Nigel or someone else. Onward towards freer trade and deficit reduction…

WHERE’S THE HURST SHIFTER WHEN WE NEED IT?

We drive into the future using only our rearview mirror. ~ Marshall McLuhan 

Distracted drivers kill all too many folks every day. Fortunately, there’s a solution in our automotive rearview mirror.

Motor vehicle crashes is the second largest type of fatal unintentional injury for adults in the US, following poisoning. Unintentional injuries are the third-leading cause of adult deaths, after heart disease and cancer. According to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 37,133 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2017. Of these fatalities, 3,166 people died due to drivers’ distracted driving, representing 8.5% of total traffic fatalities. Distracted driving each year also causes over 300,000 accidents that result in moderate or severe injuries. Distractions such as using a cell phone, a navigation app, tuning your SiriusXM radio to your fav channel or operating SoundCloud and Spotify have collectively contributed to a lot of pain, grief and heartbreak.

More prosaic distractions while driving include eating an In-N-Out burger or sipping your Peets double latté, conversing with passengers and looking at the passing scenery. I mentioned in a previous blog that “driverless” Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) have caused fatalities. Last year when driving in “automatic mode,” an Uber AV in Tempe, AZ hit and killed a pedestrian. What was the car’s human “standby driver” doing? He was totally distracted by viewing Hulu rather than the road ahead.

There is a direct relationship between increased automotive automation and mounting deaths and injuries due to distracted driving.

One of the first significant advancements in vehicle automation was the automatic transmission that replaced the standard 3-speed manual (stick-shift) transmissions. The first reliable, fully automatic “hydra-matic” transmission appeared in the 1940 Oldsmobile. It was a popular $50 option, which converts to $893 in 2018 dollars. The 1940 Olds 4-door touring sedan’s MSRP was $963. By 1950 almost every General Motors’ nameplate car offered an automatic transmission.

A myriad of other devices have been introduced after the 1940 hydra-matic transmission to advance the car-driving experience, including backup cameras. These cameras became mandatory on new cars in 2018, and like many other driving improvements are intended to increase safety and prevent accidents. The percentage of new cars sold with backup cameras doubled to 68% between 2008 and 2011. However, during those three years the backup fatality rate declined by just 31% and backup injuries dropped only 8%. Many drivers have apparently become so reliant on their backup screens that they experienced a collision or near miss while driving other vehicles. Have diminishing returns come to the introduction of evermore added car safety systems? It seems so, but not to worry.

There is one automotive feature available today that can increase a driver’s attentiveness instead of shrinking it — the manual transmission. By its design, a stick-shift transmission successfully mandates increased driver attention and action. You have to shift with your right hand while using your left foot to depress the clutch pedal to increase the car’s speed. When manually shifting gears it’s practically impossible to safely hold a cellphone or a Peets cup; although unfortunately I’m sure it’s been attempted many times.

The vast majority of new cars now have automatic transmissions; only 2% of all vehicles sold in 2018 had manual transmissions. They have been left on America’s dusty roadsides. This is true even in the last bastion of manual vehicle-dom, sports and performance cars. Only 20% of Porsche 911 and Boxster purchasers, cars that I’ve greatly enjoyed driving, now buy one with a manual 6-speed transmission. The BMW 3-series has a manual take rate of less than ten percent. You can no longer buy a manual-shift for a new Ferrari or Lamborghini, allegedly for performance reasons. Mamma Mia!

“Who would have thought automating simple things like shifting gears would have made it so much easier to pick up the smartphone?” declares Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at MIT. He asserts when new technology eliminates a driving task (like manual shifting); drivers tend to look for other activities and distractions to fill the time.

As a confirmed, long-time gear-head[1], I believe returning to more manual shifting would be a fine means of reducing the nasty consequences of distracted driving. I have been happily and manually shifting cars’ transmissions for a bit over 50 years.

The first manual transmission car I drove was a maroon 1966 Pontiac GTO Tri-Power coupe, as shown below. It had a floor-mounted Hurst close-ratio 4-speed transmission with a 3.89 limited slip rear differential. Shifting gears was a central part of this car’s delight, laying rubber was a second.

  

The 1966 GTO inaugurated the trend soon followed by each of the three other domestic car manufacturers of successfully selling “muscle cars,” high-horsepower coupes. The GTO’s fuel consumption was exorbitant; the price of gas thankfully was a diminutive $0.32/gallon. [You can’t even count that low, can you?] Those were the days. The GTO’s 6.4L (389 cubic inch) V-8 engine produced 360hp at 5200 rpm. It reached 60 MPH in 5.8 seconds and weighed 3,600 lb. The 1966 GTO was so emblematic of “the times” that it was featured on a 2013 US postage stamp.

The Hurst shifter that my GTO benefited from was the best manual transmission made in the US during the 1960s and early 1970s. It also had great caché. Automotive historian Mike Mueller has noted, "If you didn't have a Hurst shifter in your supercar, you were a mild-mannered loser.” No matter what gear it was in, my GTO was far more adept at going straight and fast than quickly following twisty roads. I fully realized this shortcoming after ending up in a farmer’s soon-to-be planted corn field having misjudged the car’s higher-speed stability on curvy rural roads. So it goes.

After some time, I traded in the GTO and bought my first, far better handling sports car. I have manually shifted Fiats, Alfas, a Jeep, a Land Rover and Porsches. The current, far more curve-compliant car that I manually shift is a Boxster S, shown above. Its 3.2L (193.9 cu-in) flat 6 cylinder engine produces 280hp at 6200 rpm. It has a short-throw 6 speed manual transmission. My Boxster S reaches 62MPH in 5.5 seconds and weighs 2,966lb. I’ve never ended up in a corn field with this mid-engine coupe. It displays renowned handling on virtually all roads. Driving this stick-shift car is not a distracted experience.

 Perhaps if today’s car drivers would look closer in their rearview mirrors and return to the advantages of manual shifting, we’d start shrinking the perils of distracted driving.

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[1] My mother told the story many times about how she taught me the alphabet at a young age. Because even as a toddler I was fascinated by cars, she would walk me over to a car, show me its nameplate, say a Studebaker, and have me say the individual letters. After lots of such car-finding excursions I knew many of the alphabet’s letters (and the cars themselves). Thanks Mom.