A BUG AT THE BANK? SAY IT ISN’T SO

We don’t have the gold standard. It’s not because we don’t know about the gold standard, it’s because we do. ~ Allan Meltzer    

Gold has been used by humans as a symbol of value and prestige since antiquity. Its purest 24 carat form is a bright, reddish-yellow dense, soft metal. Gold occurs as nuggets in rocks, in underground veins and alluvial (loose sediment) deposits. So-called “gold bugs” – people who reverently believe gold is the ultimate standard of value – have occupied positions of societal power and influence for a very long time, but not recently. Gold bugs haven’t sat at the citadels of US public authority for almost 90 years; that may soon change if #45 gets his way. Oh my.

Consider first some golden history.

The seemingly eternal allure of gold obliged our ancestors to find it. People have mined gold for at least 7000 years in what’s now eastern Europe and the Caucasus, as well as China, India, Mesoamerica, Spain, Ireland and Wales. Because gold served as the primary medium of exchange within the Roman Empire, they developed and used ground-sluicing methods on a large scale to extract gold. Historians believe the Roman invasion of Britain in the first century AD was principally motivated to expand their supplies of this prized metal.

The first precious-metal coins were used as money in several places about the same time, around 600-500 BC; in the Yellow River valley in northern China, in the Ganges River valley of N.E. India and by the king of Lydia in western Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Lydian coins, shown below, were made from electrum – an alloy of gold and silver. Officials stamped images on bean-sized lumps of electrum that helped guarantee the value of each coin, and discourage counterfeiting. If only.

Lydian coin

Following the lead of Lydia, most nations have employed gold specie to conduct commerce for centuries. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine gold coins were used throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. Twenty-two carat Spanish Doubloons were widely used in Europe and the Americas from the early 16th to mid-19th centuries. During its primacy, the Doubloon served as a multi-nation de facto gold standard, a monetary system in which the standard unit of currency is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The US formally adopted the gold standard in 1873, using its $10 gold eagle coin as the nation’s primary currency unit. The US mint produced gold coins of various denominations from 1872 through 1933. Like many other nations, our country effectively abandoned the gold standard in 1933 during the depths of the Great Depression. It finally and officially severed the link between the dollar and gold in 1971. The image below shows our “lady liberty” gold dollar coin first issued in 1849.

US Lady Liberty gold dollar coin

The late 1840s ring a very special chime in the golden history of the US.

The California Gold Rush began in January 1848 when James Marshall found a placer nugget in a river at Sutter’s Mill in the Sierra Nevada foothills almost 50 miles northeast of present-day Sacramento. Proclamations of his discovery created such a popular incentive for people also wanting to “strike it rich” that over 300,000 people soon headed for California from nearby and far-away places. They came from each of our then-30 states and every territory. They also arrived with the gleam of gold in their eyes from around the world, including the Sandwich Islands (aka Hawaii), China, Latin America and Europe. Because of gold’s draw, California rapidly became a state in 1850 without first being a territory, unlike any other western US region.

There turned out to be a lot of gold in the Sierra Nevada. By the end of 1848, the first year of the Gold Rush, $10 million in gold had been produced. The biggest nugget ever found was a bit larger than a shoebox and weighed nearly 200 pounds. By 1865, $785 million worth of gold had come out of the ground in California, probably making the difference in which side won our Civil War. This multi-million dollar mountain of gold represented 60% of the total US budget in 1865. It significantly contributed to keeping Union soldiers clothed, fed and paid, and bought much-needed guns, bullets and armaments. This massif of gold would be worth $12.9 billion in today’s dollars. Very, very little of this gargantuan sum stayed in miners’ pockets; merchants like Leland Stanford and Mark Hopkins became far richer. Notwithstanding putting California on the US map, the Gold Rush also decimated numerous indigenous Native American communities. Untold environmental damage accompanied the mining, especially the hydraulic variety that used 30,000 gallons of water each minute.

Where did all this lustrous California gold come from? Not from fairy dust. According to John McFee’s superb Assembling California that intertwines the state’s geological and human history, the Sierra’s deposits of gold were precipitated 150 million years ago when the third and last giant (10,000 square mile) island-arc fragment of the Pacific plate – the Smartville Block – accreted into the westernmost North American plate near where Auburn, California is now. The Smartville Block not only doubled the width of what is now California, but created its bountiful Mother Lode as well. California’s Mother Lode has produced more gold than any other state – more than 106 million ounces since 1848. In modern times about 38% of gold is used for jewelry; coins and official government uses, 22%; electrical and electronics, 34%; and other uses, 6%.

Now that we’ve scratched the surface of the history and source of most of the nation’s gold, let’s return to the present time and Judy Shelton, who adores gold.

Dr. Shelton has recently been nominated by #45 to fill a vacancy on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Although her nomination may not be as far-fetched as the president’s previous attempt to install the totally unqualified Herman Cain on the Board, she is quite controversial. She belongs to the justifiably much-endangered, very conservative tribe of modern-day gold bugs. Like her fellow bugs, she wants to reverse President Nixon’s decision to drop the gold standard and re-adopt it now. She has publicly praised #45’s tax cuts and deregulation policies. She approves of the president’s misguided trade war with China as a means of forcing it to “play by the rules.” As I’ve mentioned before, no one's won this war. So far the president’s tariffs have cost us taxpayers $28 billion. That’s what the Trump admiration has paid the farmers they wounded, with no end in sight. Nice call, Judy. 

Virtually all knowledgeable monetary economists believe returning to the gold standard would harm the economy and its citizens. The Federal Reserve’s principal means of influencing the macroeconomy is by increasing or decreasing the nation’s money supply depending on expected economic conditions. It increases the money supply if a recession is expected, thus reducing interest rates to spur loans and investment. The Fed decreases the money supply causing interest rates to rise, towards the end an expansion, if higher inflation is expected.

Monetary policy is hardly an exact science, but it would be significantly constrained under a gold standard. Why; because our money supply would essentially be determined by how much gold is produced.

Dr. Shelton has stated, “we make America great again by making America’s money great again” through returning to the gold standard. That’s patently absurd. Dean Baker, a macroeconomist who was one of the first to identify the 2007–2008 US housing bubble that lead to the Great Recession, likened returning to the gold standard as prescribing chemotherapy for someone who doesn't have cancer. An apt diagnosis Dr. Baker.

Turning the economic clock back and re-adopting the gold standard, as Dr. Shelton and Mr. Trump have fantasized, would link the money supply to gold production. If they actually thought through this fundamental relationship imposed by the gold standard, they would not at all be pleased. I don’t believe they’ve thought about it at all; it’s simply a sporadic gesture memorializing the unfamiliar “golden days” of the past. It would not please #45 one single golden leaf to learn that China is the world’s largest gold producer. 

Since the end of the last recession, US gold production has increased a meager 0.87% per year. This is why many economists believe that a re-imposed gold standard would act as a limit on economic growth. As an economy's productive capacity grows, then so should its money supply. But because a gold standard requires that money be backed by the metal, the scarcity of gold constrains the ability of the economy to produce more capital and grow. Thus a gold-standard based monetary policy could no longer be used to stabilize or grow the economy.

It’s likely that the Senate, under the imprudent leadership of Mitch McConnell, will confirm Judy Shelton. A single gold bug will then sit on the seven-member Federal Reserve Board. Her practical and institutional influence will be limited. But that’s one too many bugs at our central bank for anyone who wants an independent Fed to be a viable economic counterforce to #45’s feckless thrusts. Where’s the political Terminix when we need it?

IS #45 RELATED TO CTENOPHORES OR PORIFERANS?

Never look back unless you are planning to go there. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I’ve returned from another delightful, multi-state road-trip adventure through the Pacific Northwest seeing family and friends. It was downright refreshing to take many steps away from the on-going tribulations connected with all things political, especially our vulgarian-in-chief and our upcoming presidential election. I recommend hiking through forests and slopes and viewing gorgeous countryside gurgling with snow-melt fed, rushing brooks.

The myopic media-industrial complex makes it seem like we’ll be voting the day after tomorrow, thus every candidate’s quotidian words are vitally important; even though election day is a colossal 453 days away. Equally obscuring is the media’s 24/7 obsession with each uttered and Twittered syllable of #45. This only magnifies his coarseness, crudeness and deceit – and strokes his already over-colossal ego. Please stop, right now.

At the same time, obdurate progressive Dems keep acting as puritanical, self-righteous bluenoses and continue posing as the sole purveyors of certain Democratic victory, while trashing President Obama’s significant accomplishments. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

But I digress.  

Instead, I offer here a much longer perspective about life on this fine, though endangered planet that transcends far beyond the mere 243 years since the USofA was founded.

It seems naturalists have narrowed down the source of the very beginnings of our hoary Tree of Life. They have been wrestling – thankfully not at all in the WWE tradition– with identifying what living creatures are the closest, current counterparts to the first-ever multicellular animal that developed in Earth’s oceans well over half a billion years ago. Naturally, evolutionary biologists haven’t all agreed about which creature deserves this accolade; and represents every human’s (perhaps especially #45) very oldest ancestor. There are two (2) quite distinct animals fighting it out, as it were, in the biologists’ ring.

First, are the beautiful and seemingly fragile Ctenophores, also called comb jellies. As pictured below, they are usually soft, iridescent blobs wreathed by feathery cilia that are sometimes arranged in groups (“combs”). They inhabit many marine habitats around the world. Despite their seeming simplicity, they have central nervous systems, cilia/tentacles to capture prey, and mouths, throats and stomachs to digest their food. Virtually all ctenophores are predators. They can capture and eat krill, shrimp-like crustaceans and even each other. Adult ctenophores range from an inch to almost 5ft in size. Watching comb jellies swim around in the tanks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is a delightful almost magical experience.

Comb jellies in action.

Second, the other existing animal-type that’s in the running for being most similar to the founder of Earth’s animal kingdom are Poriferans, aka sponges. Sponges come in all sizes, shapes and colors. They are stunning aquatic animals that mostly attach themselves to an underwater surface, often coral reefs, and remain fixed in place, as shown below. The great majority of sponges are marine salt-water species, living in all the oceans. Their habitat ranges from tidal zones to depths exceeding five (5) miles. Their bodies are full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through them. Virtually all types of sponges are only able to passively eat tiny particles, like bacteria and other microscopic food from the water that passes through their skeletons. They have no nervous system but do have cells in their outer layers can move inwards and change functions. From afar, sort of like stem cells.

Sponges in inaction.

Over several decades evolutionary biologists and morphologists have sort of drawn a line in the sand (on an ocean beach) with regard to the founder of our animal Tree of Life. Some believe comb jellies should hold the crown; other scientists consider sponges to be the closest modern analogue to the first multicellular animal.

For many years, the common scientific wisdom was that sponges were the foundational animal. Then about a decade ago a study using genetic methods argued that comb jellies were the sister group (the closest relatives of another evolutionary branch) of Earth’s first animals. The comb jelly proponents were overjoyed. If they had them, their cilia were wildly fluttering; but it wasn’t to persist. Last week a new study was published that turns the tide and provides “very strong support” for the sponges-first hypothesis. 

It was a tough choice, but my vote goes for #45 having a spongier forbearer. Like them, he’s immovable despite factual reality and has no nervous system. In any case, we must make sure to send him back to the depths from whence he came in 453 days.

DRESSING DOGS ON THE 4TH

Some people want champagne and caviar when they should be having hot dogs and beer. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower 

No one – really, no one – can possibly eat a hot dog without dressing it. And I don’t mean adding a tutu or tights. Naked hot dogs aren’t natural. You should add mustard for certain, along w other tasty toppings. It turns out Emily Dreyfuss tastefully wrote a much-needed 4^th of July article in Wired, “Put down that ketchup and step away from the hot dog slowly.” Her story echoes my hot dog dressing protocol to a “D” (for dog, d’accord). She begins.

In my family, I grew up knowing that my parents would support me no matter the mistakes I made. Bad grades, underage drinking, becoming an English major? All could be forgiven. Unless, of course, I put ketchup on a hot dog. Then I’d be out on my ass.

In advance of the Fourth of July holiday, I emailed my dad to see if his opinions on hot dogs and ketchup had changed at all. "It is not that ketchup on hot dogs is inherently disgusting (although even the thought picture was enough for me to lose my appetite for breakfast)," he wrote back, before going into an intricate theory about why mustard is just better. My personal favorite way to eat a (preferably spicy) hot dog is with sweet relish, mustard, and pickled jalapenos, but that’s not for everybody. [This is, nevertheless, at my summit of hot dog dressings, as well. In a partial peace offering, I’ve been known to put ketchup on a dog when it’s mixed with tabasco or siriracha.]

Chicagoans famously like to put a pickle spear in the bun and top the whole thing with celery salt like some seriously fancy patriots. The sugary red substance known as ketchup is OK, too, if it accompanies mustard. But on its own, ketchup on a hot dog is considered by my clan to be a sign of childishness and disrespect. Pretentious foodies agree. But does science? My dad's theory, though clearly right, is a mix of science, gut feeling, and mysticism. So I figured I should double check with the hard scientists [Is there any other kind?]

"There is no basis to this," wrote Richard Mattes, distinguished professor of nutrition science at Purdue University, when I emailed him for his thoughts. "Note the popularity of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Their appeal is sweet-salty combination."

So no, science is not on my side in the argument that mustard is objectively best. This time.

I agree with Emily, but just for today. After all, the Fourth of July is about celebrating this country’s common heritage and coming together for its 243rd birthday. I’m doing my best to rise to this [Francis Scott] key ecumenical occasion and dismiss any errant thoughts connected to tankification. Onward with stellar fireworks tonight…

Here’s to your having a wondrous Fourth of July – even with ketchup.

HARD HATS AND MORTARBOARDS: Forecasting the 2020 Presidential Election

The only function of forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith  

First Prediction: 500 days before the election.

Here it is just four days before the enigmatically -implemented first Dem candidates’ debate in Miami. I’ll bet you can hardly wait to hear all 23 of them struggling for airtime. Oops, it’s just 20 of our favs over 2 nights.[1] Finally, something (hopefully) real-ish will be happening election-wise. It’s round #1 of 81? After all, the election is practically right upon us. In this spirit, I’ve scurried way out on a thin bended limb of the electoral tree (a relative of the college) to offer my inaugural 2020 presidential election prediction. I’ll be updating my predictions periodically over the next 500 days.

My prediction today is that dystopia will continue after Nov. 3, 2020 when #45 was re-elected for another term. This ghastly result again demonstrates the alarming power of incumbency. How could this happen?

Trump was enthusiastically supported by the same solid slice of core voters – principally less-educated, less urban, more white, more religious, more conservative “working middle-class” men and women – with all too few defections from their MAGA voting in 2016. This unyielding core, who voted to KAG (Keep America Great), was preserved despite the Dems’ considerable efforts to peal some away from #45 and actually vote for their own economic self-interests with a Dem in the White House. It didn’t happen.

The Dems’ 2020 progressive ticket ultimately was determined behind a closed door session at their July 13-16 convention in Milwaukee. The initial voting rounds were deadlocked, and described as a nasty cat-and-dog fight between competing species of Dem progressives unwilling to negotiate. The expected complete transparency was suddenly clouded, to the dismay of many. Rumors were that the winning presidential nominee, Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), promised to faithfully become a modern-day FDR by adhering to an updated, democratic socialist agenda he would have favored. “Franklin Delano Roosevelt is my spirit totem,” Ms. Gabbard proclaimed in victory. She benefited from being both the first Samoan-American and the first Hindu member of the US Congress.

Unfortunately, as in the previous national election, neither Ms. Gabbard nor Andrew Yang (her VP candidate) could stitch together strongly enough their broad, multi-faceted quilt of adherents to actually vote sufficiently in all 50 states and produce an Electoral College victory. The Repubs’ brazen voter-suppression efforts certainly didn’t help. The Trump/Pence machine’s unsubstantiated characterization of the Dems’ policies as costly “extreme socialism” convinced enough anti-Trump voters in key precincts to cast their ballots for the Green Party ticket of Pete Buttigieg/Marianne Williamson.

After election-day there were no rainbows in Honolulu or any other blue locale; instead bleakness reigns. I need my support alligator, where could she have gone? The Dems also did not end up winning control the Senate and their plurality in the House was reduced to 29 from 37. The Repubs’ hard hats carried the day over the Dems’ mortarboards. L

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[1] These 20 Dem debate participants also do not include the other 141 minor Dem candidates running for president. Yup, that proverbial galaxy of folks has each duly filed their candidacy with the Federal Election Commission.

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE: MT. EVEREST AND COLLEGE

It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. ~ Sir Edmund Hillary 

There’s a straightforward relationship that explains both the horrendous end of Mt. Everest’s spring climbing season this year and the added challenges increasing numbers of students face of graduating from US colleges. These two trends in one sense display a victory for the marketing of these arduous “projects” to a larger, broader public that’s not completely ready for them. In cold economic terms, it’s consumer demand exceeding available supply. But at what cost? Deaths and drop-outs.

The recent deaths on Mt. Everest have once again peaked the media’s interest. The adventure media while berating the agonies of defeats and deaths fawns over the thrills of the quest each and every season.

Why has this season seen 11 climbers die on the mountain, the most since 2015 when at least 22 people perished due to avalanches? There were 5 deaths last year. For a change, it wasn’t this year’s weather or earthquakes or avalanches. It was because climbing Everest has for some time been commercialized and sold as something folks beyond just the hardest of hard-core, capable alpinists can successfully attempt. Nepal’s tourism ministry, seeking hard currency, issued permits to summit Mt. Everest to a record 381 climbers this season, at a cost of about $11,000 each. Beyond the permit, the trip itself can cost $45,000 or more.

That’s a very long way from Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s initial ascent 65 years ago. According to veteran mountaineers, this year there have been too many inexperienced climbers who have bought their way into attempting Mt. Everest who haven’t been adequately trained or supported. Dreadful results have precipitated. These results were created in no small part because of the sheer numbers of climbers attempting to simultaneously reach the peak, shown in the picture below. This is what it looked like last week when too many people (probably over 200) were waiting to capture their moment of glory on the narrow, cold (-13^oF) confines of the summit at 29,029ft. Fascinatingly, Mt. Everest continues to grow about 0.25” each year. With the extended wait, often two hours or more, unprepared climbers can run out of oxygen among other life-threatening challenges.

The summit jam at the top of Mt. Everest, May 2019.

Source: Getty Images via The Washington Post.

Meanwhile back in the lowlands, more than 16.8 million undergraduates traversed the academic slopes at colleges and universities last fall, representing a 27.8% increase since 2000. The number of US adults that have a B.A. or higher degree has increased 36.7% since 2000.

For decades, post-high school academic education has been proclaimed by many authorities, including educators and politicians, as the very best way of ensuring career success. Students and their families have listened and acted on this advice. In 2018, 35% of US adults have received a B.A. or higher degree. This proportion of college-educated adults has never been higher, as shown in the chart below. College enrollment has been increasing for young adults for over a century. This is a very good thing because a more educated, skilled workforce is more productive and more engaged. This achievement reflects not just individual successes but collective ones that have benefited society.

Percent of US adults with a B.A. or higher degree

 Source: NCES.ed.gov 

This chart illustrates that the growth of adults having at least a B.A. degree follows a logistic curve during the nearly 90 years shown. From the 1970s through 2000, the percentage of adults with college degrees rapidly increased; it more than doubled. After 2010 the incremental increases in adults with a college degree are smaller than before. This is expected to continue. The total number of undergraduates enrolled in US colleges peaked in 2010, at 18.1 million.

There are certainly sound reasons why growing numbers of young adults have elected to follow the college pathway to hopeful success. One reason, beyond possessing increased knowledge, is being able to receive higher compensation at work. In his superb Kenyon College commencement speech, This is Water, David Foster Wallace offers a much different and appropriately broader perspective when he stated, "It is about the real value of a real education has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: ‘This is water.’”

The median annual earnings of young adults with a B.A. were $50,000 in 2016. The college income premium is often used as a justification for those of us who are fiscally-focused. It offers a rationale for devoting the considerable time, effort and expense required to receive a B.A. Several studies that have examined the size of the college income premium have found that it has ranged from about 70% to 100% more than income earned by people without a college degree. This premium has neither grown nor fallen very much over the last two decades; it’s plateaued. Other studies imply that the premium may have started to decline for specific cohorts of college students.

What has grown are college tuition and fees, which have greatly climbed for two reasons. First, states have provided a much smaller proportion of public university budgets; and second, the demand for an A.A. or B.A. degree has increased significantly. It’s been a sellers’ market for a long time, especially at “selective” schools. Since 1978, college tuition and fees have increased more than three times as fast as consumer goods and services’ prices have. Student debt has consequently risen; 69% of all college students have taken out at least one loan; the average loan owed is $29,800; the median monthly payment is $222.

I don’t think this necessarily comports as a general, capital “C” Crisis that’s often mentioned in the media. Student debt has increased because a lot more students have chosen to go to college. It’s principally demand-driven. Student debt that enables earning a college degree eventually provides added value to each and every student who graduates, as mentioned above. But defaults on student debt are the highest by a large margin of any type of private debt, especially for students who don’t graduate.

Entering and thriving in college, like climbing Everest, is not for the unprepared. As more and more students are going college, more have found it difficult to summit the academic mountain facing them. According to one report, anywhere from 40% to 60% of first-year college students now require remediation in English and/or math. These remedial courses cost students crucial money – about $1.3 billion each year. Also, these courses don’t count towards graduation requirements. On-time graduation rates of students who take remedial classes are consistently less than 10%. Basically, remedial education in college represents a deep crevasse into which all too many students are unlikely to emerge. The “who’s responsible for this” fingers are pointed in many directions regarding why this increased level of needed remediation has occurred and, of course, who should pay for it. More remediation is needed.

Today’s first-year entrants into college are more broadly representative of all our young adults, rather than a much narrower slice of them in decades gone by. This breadth is requiring more support services on the part of colleges and secondary schools, and more determination on the part of these students. Students who have the required determination and available resources graduate. But a lot don’t.

The travails of our ever-increasing number of college attendees have also risen, with only 40.7% graduating within four years across all US post-secondary educational institutions. For-profit schools’ graduation rate is contemptibly much lower, only 17.6% which is less than one-third the rate for non-profits.

Interestingly, there were several for-profit colleges named after the Earth’s highest peak. Unfortunately, none of the Everest Colleges ever reached high-altitude academics. Their owner/operator, Corinthian Colleges Inc., was successfully sued by the State of California in 2016 for defrauding their students. Everest College graduates have legitimately expressed concerns that their Everest degrees are effectively worthless. If colleges like Everest have been offering worthless degrees, perhaps they should be removed from the education business.

Higher education in the US now is far different than it was even 20 years ago, let alone in the more distant past. When I graduated from college, just after the Iron Age, having a B.A. was quite extraordinary, just one-in-ten adults received a B.A. or higher degree.

Neither the industrial-education complex, nor politicians, nor young people will allow a return to even the 2000s, when just one in four young adults graduated with a B.A. Now it’s one-in-three, which sounds like a small change, but it most assuredly isn’t. Getting a college degree has never been so culturally and socially hard-wired into our successful futures. Some folks even believe it’s a right, rather than an option. Go figure. For now and forever-more, returning to the recent past isn’t going to happen in terms of college access, and shouldn’t. And there are consequences when college degree holders become ever more widespread and less extraordinary.

Student loans have always been subsidized, reflecting the positive externalities associated with being a college graduate. Recently, several Dem presidential hopefuls have proposed increasing these subsidies in several ways. I do not think we should adopt policies like free public university that consequently will incent even more high-school grads and others to enter colleges. Visually think of such programs’ aftereffects as similar to the above picture of the overly long queue of cramped climbers waiting for the momentary grandeur of summiting Mt. Everest. Instead, multitudes of additional college students will be waiting and waiting not only to get into already-filled classes, but also to find a place to sleep and eat. Will these additional collegians, who would not have otherwise applied if it weren’t “free,” be adequately prepared academically? I have my doubts.

Policies like those Bernie and Elizabeth have been pushing for “tuition-free” and “debt-free” college are a doomed fantasy without also dramatically increasing public colleges/universities’ federal funding for expanded faculty, facilities and especially for remediative programs. If such free college programs were to see the light of day, listen for the anguished cries of progressives who whine that such policies will end up subsidizing un-poor people, mon dieu how inequitable! Such expensive, expansionary programs are likely to devalue the worth of attaining a college degree and increase drop-out rates. An A.A. or B.A. would become less exceptional and more normal. More eateries, and other businesses, would begin requiring wait-person jobs to have a post-high school degree. At best, smaller wage premiums would be willingly paid for such normality, just like when high-school degrees became ordinary starting in the 1970s; 55.2% of US adults had a high-school diploma in 1970. So, regarding “free college;” be careful what you wish for.

As Sir Edmund stated, it’s not a real adventure when you have to pay for it. Nevertheless, here’s to prepared adventuring in high places and higher education.

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…