Disheartening News

The news on either side of the aisle is not very encouraging. Between the banking crisis bandaids and denial that a problem even exists, to the probing of our responses to crises on the world stage, from Chinese balloons to missile tests by the North Koreans, and now Iranian rockets lobbed into our coalition bases, the wholesale parceling out of our ocean real estate to foreign green energy companies destroying fishing grounds, wildlife and vistas for a technology that will have no effect on climate change, the reversal of Trump era “right to work laws” reinstating costly union control over industry, the push to electrification without a grid to support it, the banning of fossil fueled stoves and furnaces in new construction, preposterous squatter laws that punish land owners and threaten real estate value, and the never-ending tax, spend, and now print monetary policies that continue to fuel inflation and cripple middle-class retirement plans  ……this administration seems intent on allowing us to be “Alinskied”, torn down on all fronts, social, political, economically, and militarily so that we can be rebuilt to a leftist utopian standard. When Biden campaigned on the slogan “Build Back Better,” who knew he meant to tear it all down first? 

New Puritans

I am knee deep into the CRT section of the New Puritans and my conclusion is that we, as a nation, are toast. How can we reconcile, or at the minimum seek common ground, when the narrative that not only portrays “whiteness” as being inherently evil, but seeks as an alternative the tearing down of all things deemed white?  It is a punitive plan designed to supplant not to conjoin. And in the final analysis, isn’t this a form of identity politics that seeks to use blackness as the new yardstick for cultural and social dominance?  And what will that solve? Replacing one theory, that white supremacy is the foundation of our culture, and it is a theory mind you, with actual racism. Gone will be meritocracy because the very concept of merit is a white construct and that too is racist. It is circular reasoning at its finest. Anything that does not ascribe to the theory that institutional and social racism is the backbone of our culture, anything that is contrary to the narrative is racist. Why is it racist?  Because it is contrary to the narrative. Once again, control the language, even if you have to redefine it, and you control the conversation. It’s insidious and counterproductive to a functioning republic. 

‘Tis The Season

It’s tax season, and most of us are up to our ears in alligators. Is there any reason why our tax code has to be this complex? And not just complex but punitive. If you try to climb the ladder to success, the government greases the rungs. And now President Biden is suggesting he wants more out of our hide. Apparently, according to his appraisal, I’m rich. It could have fooled me. But satisfying that definition is no longer a very high bar, as it increasingly can be defined as simply being employed!  It’s really the perfect storm for my particular peer group. We nearing retirement, trying to maximize our end-of-career savings, max out our pension plan contributions and pay off debt. We are just on the threshold of high income, the bottom tier of the one percent, subjected to punishing taxation but unable to afford the hoards of attorneys and accountants to protect us. The only thing worse than being wealthy in this country is being almost wealthy. We are business owners, beaten down by regulation, permitting, inspections, and the constant drip, drip, drip of fees and fines that suck the profit out of your margins. Using New York as an example, it has instituted a fire inspection and a furnace inspection for businesses, both requiring fees. If you’re in the medical or dental field, you’re required to have your x-ray units inspected, a procedure that was once performed by a state inspector with a registration fee. Now, practitioners have to pay for both the registration and the inspector. New York’s regulatory apparatus even requires a license for braiding hair. Inflation has taken a huge bite out of the bottom line as overhead costs soar. Small business the country over has been hit the hardest, with employee salaries skyrocketing as employers have to compete with Walmart and Mcdonald's, offering upwards of $19 an hour for unskilled labor, with benefits and signing bonuses. And it’s slim pickings for them at that. Despite the government’s insistence that we are at full employment, the figures have been skewed by a change in definition. You’re now counted as unemployed only if you are actively looking for work. And few are. Again, using New York as an example, 36% of able-bodied citizens of working age are enrolled in Medicaid. In this labor market, with a help wanted sign in every window, how can that be? With generous public assistance and rubber-stamped unemployment benefits, that’s how. Many choose to play the system, alternating between brief stints of employment and long stretches of government benefits. Covid has shown us the way. A plant manager in Kentucky told me that his factory workforce was constantly in a state of flux, so attuned they were to working the system, they knew just how long they could remain employed before returning to the dole so they could maintain the highest level of government payments. That plant, incidentally, has since closed its doors. No longer is the employer protected from these employee scams. At one time, if an employee quit, they could not receive unemployment benefits as their job was available to them. It was their choice to give up the position. Those days are over. The unskilled worker is actually highly skilled in their ability to work the system. A small business owner had a worker who consistently called in “sick” the day before long holiday weekends and vacations. When reprimanded, she bristled and immediately quit. She promptly filed for unemployment benefits, claiming she wasn’t actually sick but was needed at home to “care for her sick children, and the employer was asking her to choose between her job and the health of her kids.” Cue the tears. Bingo, the state granted her request, and the small business was stuck paying her unemployment benefits. An obvious scam, if there ever was one. Blue state, of course. And with yet another hit to the bottom line, what recourse does a small business have? Let’s see: they can raise their prices for goods and services and risk alienating their customer base. That’s not good for business.  They can decrease salaries and employee benefits and risk losing employees. That’s not an option. As I mentioned, Walmart and McDonald's above and others like Home Depot they can reduce the number of employees, forcing the remaining employees to pick up the slack. That results in reduced efficiency but leaves them the prerogative to carry on. Not so for the small business owner caught between employees and government-imposed overhead; they’re the only ones whose salary is going down year after year. Those small businesses that are our largest employers! Their fate close the business. That’s when local politicians whine about the community “losing its character” and Main Street shuttering its storefronts. And consumers lament the loss of convenience despite having chosen to buy cheap Chinese manufactured goods at the big box stores all these years. But alas, Florida is booming. Nashville remains one of the hottest markets in the country. Texas has a thriving economy, and the Dakotas are battling to see who can lower their taxes the furthest while state coffers are overflowing with revenue. How can those red states remain prosperous while states like New York and California suffer economic and cultural decline and impose punitive taxes and regulations, worship at the altar of climate change, stifle business and drive out the entrepreneurs and innovators?  I think I just answered my own question.

Fess Up Peggy

Congratulations are in order. Peggy Noonan has finally come to the conclusion in her Sunday WSJ editorial that “common sense points to a lab leak.”  Well, in a word: duh. Ms. Noonan, formerly a staunch, if not antiquated version of a conservative, has spent the last three years suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. She has used her platform to criticize, debase, demagogue, and harangue us about all things Trump. She has even taken to offering the democrats strategy suggestions, as she did in this recent entry, calling for Mr. Biden to “forge ahead, be honest” and “as things turn your way, as they will, it will get out there that you can be trusted.”  Really, Peggy?  She inexplicably seems to have soft spot for Biden, perhaps because when she was in the Reagan administration in 1984-1986, Mr. Biden was in his political prime. And she, at age 72, seems to long for those good old days. Do you remember when politicians treated us like mushrooms and when we expected transparency and honesty? All sorts of shenanigans went on behind closed doors. The kind of shenanigans Trump exposed to the light of day. Let’s call them the pre-plugs days of Biden. Did she ever offer Trump such soft-peddled advice?  Of course not, because Trump is an outsider, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that old Peggy is part of the swamp. For example, in last Sunday’s editorial, she gushed over Jimmy Carter. The previous week she offered glowing critique on Biden’s SOTU address, despite calling it “Trumpian” in what amounts to a backhanded compliment of sorts, closing the piece with praise, calling him “in charge and formidable” and “showing real mastery” when he lied about Social Security and elicited a jeering response from Republicans. So lying is now called mastery, is it? Trump was never given such praise when he provoked the opposition party. She even enlisted a former Reagan campaign manager who “opposed Mr. Trump from the beginning,” claiming “he’s not unbeatable now.”  Is Peggy now a democrat operative?  The previous week she offered criticism of both parties. Still, she dinged the Democrats for being “unable to accept a gift from history and become a normal party again,” In contrast, the Republicans took a more cynical beating, accused of “an inability to agree on what they stand for in this century and an inability to talk about the meaning of things.”  Brutally one-sided. She then went on to spend roughly a third of her piece criticizing George Santos. He’s a disgrace, to be sure, but for a center-right conservative, Peggy seems more adept at attacking our side of the aisle as opposed to pointing a finger at swarmy ideologues on the left. Swalwell, Schiff, Nadler, Pelosi, Schumer, and AOC immediately come to mind.  But most telling, in a half-page editorial detailing the mounting evidence that the pandemic was indeed caused by a Wuhan lab leak and subsequently covered up by the Chinese, never did she once utter the words: Trump was right all along”. Go ahead, Peggy, just say it.

Oath of Office

Enough of this divisive, Woke, Socialist, Counter Culture crap! It's time to return to our governing doctrine’s premise that promoted life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. I have no idea how these dissidents managed to gain such a loud voice in our democracy in our society, but it’s time to put a stop to it. Our representatives in State and Federal offices have performed a disservice to their electorate, and to their country, in flaunting their solemn oath of office as stated in the constitution when they solemnly swore they would support and defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that they will bear true faith and allegiance to the same—time to hold their feet to the fire for their lack of compliance. 

Schumer Twist

Chuck Schumer’s editorial in the WSJ recently attests to how the left is trying to spin the Republican's criticism of investment managers' ability to use ESG (environmental, social, and governance standards) as somehow “tying investors' hands.” Seriously, when did implementing more regulations ever result in more investment options?  “Let the market work,” says Schumer suggesting that a hands-off policy will lead “naturally” to the “consideration of ESG factors.”  Rubbish. Infecting markets with woke ideology will not pave the way to more investor options. “Eliminating ESG would do the opposite,” he says, “forcing their views down the throats of every company and investor.” By their, he means Republicans. But isn’t the imposition of ESG standards forcing woke ideology down those same throats?  Of course not, because it’s the left’s ideology.  The point that everyone is missing is that the Republican proposal is essentially a regulation to prevent more regulation. 

Retirees Beware

None of the blue states are exactly kind to retirees, some more so than others. Yet, it continues to amaze me when our elected officials keep using Social Security as a political football, knowing the program is headed toward insolvency as early as 2035. But never do they address Medicaid funding. Instead, we keep importing more low-skilled immigrants who will require public assistance. Between SNAP, the new catchy non-stigmatizing acronym for food stamps, home heating assistance, rent subsidy, WIC, a women, infants, and children supplemental food assistance program, and a myriad of other programs to benefit the poor, the average Medicaid recipient receives upwards of $60000 a year in benefits. And in Blue states like New York, 36% of the population is enrolled in the program. That’s 7.3 million people bellied up to the public trough. Granted, that number includes the truly needy and the disabled. But how many of those are non-disabled?  It’s not like the state social services will keep track of fraud; that system is understaffed and overwhelmed, particularly with New York State requiring social workers to have a master's degree. And is there an incentive to get off the program?  Or to have fewer children? Of course not. Instead, our government chooses to ignore the elderly, those who worked hard and paid into the system, choosing to heap more benefits on the non-productive segment of the population. In a word: Unsustainable.  And another: unethical.