WHY MOST OF THE REPUBLICANS, AND OF THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT, REFLEXIVELY OPPOSE THE RUSSIANS…AND A PREDICTION FOR 2017

12/31/16

As we all know, the Obama Administration has sanctioned Russian entities and expelled Russian diplomats over the suspected hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the resultant claimed interference with our election process.   Most the political establishment, and, most saliently, most of the Republican Party, always eager to go toe to toe with them Russkis, has jumped on the bandwagon.   And, as predictably as yet another miserable Bears season, John McCain and his South Carolina mini-me, Lindsey Graham, are the most prominent figures on that overloaded bandwagon.  

Yours truly, like the President-elect, has long questioned the wisdom of this reflexive anti-Russian foreign policy that is seemingly engrained in the DNA of the likes of Messrs. Graham and McCain and of most of the political establishment, especially those of its elements with an “R” after their names.   Yes, the Russians and we have a lot of bad blood in our history and we have points of conflict in the current geopolitical scheme of things.   However, we have managed to get over much worse blood with the Japanese and Germans.  Further, we and the Russians have several very important common interests in today’s world landscape, the most salient of which is the fight against terrorism, which is as big a problem for the Russians as it is for us.  

Despite the presence of so many common interests, or at least of so many common enemies, most of the Republican establishment, and nearly all the Republican Party, excepting its leader, nearly automatically reject whatever the Russians try to do in a seemingly mindless “Russians bad, we good” view of the world.   Why?

As I have had time to think over things these last few days, I have come to the conclusion that nearly all GOPers and “conservatives” are reflexively anti-Russian for the same reason that most Democrats reflexively see everything in terms of race.   Most of the Republican leadership cut its political teeth when the conservative movement, and much of the Republican Party, was defined by its staunch anti-Communism.   Similarly, most of the Democratic leadership cut its political teeth when the Democratic Party was defined by its staunch support for civil rights.   It’s hard to extricate one’s self from the type of thinking that becomes engrained in one’s formative years, and this becomes more difficult as we age.   So if one grew up, literally or figuratively, defining one’s self as anti-Communist and anti-Soviet, it becomes natural to engage in thinking and behaviors that one construes, rightly or wrongly, as anti-Communist and anti-Soviet, even long after the disappearance of the Soviet Union.    Similarly, if one grew up defining one’s self as pro-civil rights, it becomes natural to engage in in thinking and behaviors that one construes, rightly or wrongly, as pro-civil rights.   When one combines this natural tendency to revert to the ideas of one’s youth with the relative ease of feeling vs. thinking, it becomes obvious why Republicans, who incessantly declare their interest in doing what’s good for America, tend to see everything the Russians do as inherently evil and why Democrats, who piously proclaim their opposition to racism, tend to see the world in terms of race.

While some (okay, many) of my readers tend to not believe it, I don’t like to make predictions, especially those that can’t be made through simple analysis of numbers, like my presidential election prediction.   (And, no, I’m not about to stop talking about that yet.)   However, I will make an exception and make one prediction for 2017, to wit…

As a result of the presidential election, things will not change as much as many of us would like or as much as many of fear.    The system is built to stop elected officials of any branch of the government from making wholesale changes to the way our nation, or even our government, works.   Given the largely miserable parade of presidents we have had to endure for most yours truly’s lifetime, this deliberate inherent inefficiency of government is a priceless gift left us by our founding fathers…even when we would wish otherwise.    Funny how things work that way, but this post is not designed to get into the spiritual realm.

God bless you all as the new year dawns; much peace, prosperity, and blessing to you and your entire family.

UNFETTERED FREE TRADE: DO WE REALLY WANT TO GO WHERE IT WILL LEAD US?

12/23/16

I sent the below letter to the Wall Street Journal early this month.  The Journal published it, in condensed form, about a week later.   I thought my readers might like to read the original, longer version of my musings on the consequences of the slavish devotion to the dogma of free trade that permeates the economics profession and much of the thinking of federal trade officials.

In my opinion, this is one of my best pieces; I hope you enjoy it.

Blessed Christmas and Hanukkah, and a happy and prosperous new year, to all of you.

12/2/16

The Journal makes some very cogent arguments against the Trump administration’s interference with the decisions that a private sector company must make in the interests of its shareholders.  (“Trump’s Carrier Shakedown,” Review & Outlook, 12/2/16)   The Journal’s arguments, however, ignore the most fundamental of economic laws, that of supply and demand, in this case, for labor.

The $30/hour jobs Messrs. Trump and Pence saved were to be replaced with $11/day jobs in Mexico.  Why?   Because labor is cheap and abundant in Mexico.   Indeed, labor is cheap and abundant throughout the world due to a number of titanic developments that have taken place on the international stage over the last 30 or so years:  the emergence of China and much of the “Third World,” the fall of the Soviet Union, the population explosion in developing countries, etc.    Given the relatively newfound abundance of cheap and abundant labor internationally, Americans will be forced to work for a world wage dictated by that abundance of labor if the United States does nothing to protect the wages of its workers. While that world wage would be a boon for workers in the developing world, it would be a tragedy for American workers, forcing them to accept a standard of living far lower than the one they have experienced for generations.

That world wage, by the way, is not limited to unskilled workers, whom free trade dogmatists seem to write off as mere casualties of globalization.   Without some form of protection, that same abundance of labor will drive down earnings throughout the entire pay scale, unless one assumes that Americans are somehow endowed with superhuman powers that make them far more productive and capable than workers elsewhere.   The evidence for such superpowers is scarce.  The productivity edge that free trade zealots assume will save us is largely the result of the application of capital and technology to the manufacturing process, but that capital and that technology, even if developed in the United States, is easily exportable.  Improving the skills of our labor force is also a laudable idea, but one at which, so far, we have not been very successful; look at the typical American student’s math and science scores against those of his overseas counterparts.   And even if we did manage to reinvigorate and reorient our educational system, the Chinese, Indians, Germans, etc. can do the same thing and either catch up to, or remain a step ahead of, us.   Again, the supply of labor has suddenly become more abundant throughout the pay continuum; not only is there a surfeit of unskilled labor throughout the world, there is also an abundance of skilled, and potentially skilled, labor throughout the world.

Free trade is a wonderful principle that has brought much prosperity to the world and to our country; hence, it is a laudable idea and a tenet of practical and effective economics and economic policy.   But when free trade goes from being a principle to being unchallengeable dogma, as it seems to have become throughout much of the economics profession, we become faced with consequences, such as much lower wages and permanently lower returns to labor, that most practical minded people are unwilling to accept.

I TOLD YOU TRUMP WOULD WIN; NOW I’LL TELL YOU WHY HE WON

12/23/16

A few days before the election, yours truly told you that Donald Trump would win the presidency.  (See TRUMP WILL WIN, AND WINBIG, ON TUESDAY, 11/4/16)   Now I’m going to tell you why he won the presidency.

Mr. Trump has asked Boeing to price out an F/A-18 Super Hornet competitor to the Lockheed Martin F-35, a new generation fighter plane whose costs have ballooned into a grotesque caricature of all that is wrong with modern defense procurement.   Leaving aside the merits of the F/A-18 vs. F-35 in terms of capability, one would think it would make sense to introduce some genuine competition into the process before we spend $250 billion or so on a weapons system or, of course, on any government program.   And one would think that Mr. Trump, who has made a few dollars negotiating deals, might be the right man to put some competitive pressure on Lockheed or, if Lockheed can’t bring its bid back into the realm of reality, on Boeing.   However, in the brave new world that his hopefully being shown the door, one would be wrong.

Daniel Gordon, who, as President Obama’s administrator for federal procurement policy, has the type of experience in defense procurement that the Dems, and many Republicans, are tittering that Mr. Trump and his team lack, “argues”

“The government would be violating the law to award a contract to Boeing without a competition unless they go through exceptions to the normal legal requirements for competition.”

Hmm…

So the government cannot introduce competition into one of its largest procurement deals because doing so would violate the “normal legal requirements for competition.”

To decry such an argument as an exercise in pretzel logic gives the argument too much credit; it is not pretzel logic, it is anti-logic.   This is just the latest example of the type of thinking that has permeated government policy for at least the last generation.   The people are being told that everything that was once logical and rational is now dated, even archaic, thinking because a new generation, a governing class, has declared it so.   The sound thinking that built this country is scoffed at and laughed at in favor of procedures and “normal legal requirements” that reflect the twisted, faculty lounge thinking of a generation of lifelong feasters at the public trough who have suddenly figured it all out.  

People are tired of being told that they are idiots, that they ought to just sit back and let their betters, who come up with “normal legal requirements” that, among other things, forbid competition in the interest of fostering competition, govern them.   And who is the poster child for the condescending attitude that so rightly irks, irritates, even infuriates, the average citizen?   The 2016 Democratic candidate for president.   The public’s revulsion at the anti-logic that reflects the elitist thinking that permeates government was so strong that they chose Donald Trump, a manifestly imperfect man, as the vehicle to deliver a solid, and hopefully permanent, kick in the hindquarters to the governing class that has gotten it all so very, very wrong for at least the last twenty years.    

WHO IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S NEW LEADER? THE ANSWER IS OBVIOUS.

12/2/16

A few days after the election (See TRUMP WILL WIN, ANDWIN BIG, ON TUESDAY, 11/4/16), a lifelong friend asked me who the new leader of the Democratic Party was in the wake of the electoral disaster the Dems had just suffered.   I thought about it for a very short while and answered that, as far as I could tell, Senator Chuck Schumer (D., NY) was the new Democratic leader.    After all, Hillary Clinton is toast.   Nancy Pelosi, who has presided over the loss of something like 43 House seats during her tenure and who has become a caricature of the out-of-touch elitism that is the hallmark of the new Democratic Party, is definitely not the party’s standard-bearer, unless the Dems are even more clueless than yours truly thinks.  (See CLUELESSNESS, THY NAME ISDEMOCRAT!, 11/29/16).    Notable governors are few, and governors rarely become national party leaders anyway.    So my guess was that Chuck Schumer, as the last man standing, is now the senior man in his party.

My ideas on this issue, however, quickly changed.  It’s not because of Nancy Pelosi’s re-election as House leader; that was pretty much in the cards and it looks like the Dems were only willing to put up with a continuation of her failed leadership because they need the money and there isn’t much at stake; the House Democrats’ role will be limited over the next few years to standing in front of the Trump steamroller and flailing away with their usual incessant babbling of “principles” about which no one but their true believers care.   Mr. Schumer’s utter cluelessness (See, again CLUELESSNESS, THY NAME IS DEMOCRAT!, 11/29/16) is not the reason I no longer think he is the head of his party; indeed, his manifest inability to interpret the 2016 election, if anything, makes him even more qualified to represent a party whose most salient characteristic is being utterly out of touch with the population it aspires to manage, er, sorry, govern.

The answer to who will lead the Democratic Party is rather obvious and I am somewhat embarrassed that I wasn’t thinking broadly enough to see it when my friend asked:  it will be Barack Obama who will lead the Democratic Party forward.   Mr. Obama is only 55 years old.  He is articulate, intelligent, and charming and, by and large, well-liked by the American people.  His young and attractive family, which has captured the hearts of the public, has helped immensely in his building of this goodwill.   The media absolutely adore this guy.   (Remember back in 2008, when the media preferred him even to Hillary Clinton, the object of their unrelenting and shameless tank diving in 2016 and, indeed, in every year since 1992, with the exception of 2008?)   Mr. Obama has beaten the Republicans twice, thus displaying an ability that is increasingly rare among Democratic politicians.  Despite surface arguments to the contrary, he is utterly conventional in his thinking.   He is a true believer in Democratic dogma regarding the efficacy, indeed, the superiority, of decision making by those whose life experience has been confined to the public sector.   This combination of traits makes him popular among all wings of the Democratic Party.

No, I don’t anticipate that President Obama will pull a John Quincy Adams and return to elective office, though I wouldn’t completely discount the possibility.   And for at least the next four years, going the William Howard Taft route and taking a seat on the Supreme Court is not an option open to the President.    But that is not to say that this young, vigorous, intelligent, thoughtful, popular true believer cannot lead his party for a long, long time.

After all, who else do the Democrats have?