Author Archives: jsh54

Emergency.

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Faced with a Republican Congress created by a majority of Republican voters, President Obama resorted to executive orders and administrative regulations to act on climate, immigration, and wages.  None of these initiatives have fared well with the courts.

For example, in February 2016, the Supreme Court issued a stay on President Obama’s regulations on the coal industry as part of his effort to respond to climate change.[1]  For example, in June 2016 the Supreme Court (4-4) upheld a lower court’s rejection of President Obama’s 2014 executive order that would have allowed almost half (5 million) illegal immigrants to escape deportation.[2]

For example, in May 2016, the Obama Administration’s Labor Department issued a regulation on over-time.  Previously, only workers making less than $23,660 a year were eligible for time-and-a-half over 40 hours/week.  Under the Labor Department regulation, anyone making less than $47,500 a week would qualify for overtime.  Businesses assumed that the new regulation would be sustained by the courts, so they began raising pay to the new minimum and by turning full-time workers into hourly workers.  Then, just before Thanksgiving, a federal judge in Texas (of course) blocked a Labor Department regulation on overtime pay.[3]  The Trump Administration is likely to withdraw the regulation.

So, who is in the right here?  Hard to say because a lot of jobs pay very little and require an awful lot.  Anyone who has worked in a restaurant knows that long hours involve constant toil and bullying by idiot supervisors for lousy money.  For that matter, the idiot supervisors themselves put in 60 hours a week or more trying to get to the next level.

On the other hand, one can easily get the feeling that Democrats believe that every business is Microsoft: immense profits from immense profit margins.  In fact, retailers, restaurants, and grocery stores all run in thin profit-margins.  Thus, when Washington, DC, mandated a raise in the minimum wage, Walmart cancelled plans to build two new stores in the district, and Washington restaurants cut employment by 1,400 workers in the first half of 2016.[4]

It seems likely that one part of President Obama’s “legacy” will be a judicial restriction of executive authority.  That isn’t necessarily a bad thing from a non-partisan perspective.  American voters often have chosen a divided government.  This is annoying for politicians (Republican as much as Democrats) with agendas they want to push.  The resort to executive orders and regulatory changes does offer a way around this dead-lock.  However, it establishes a pattern of circumventing the Constitution’s division of powers.  Any president can portray anything s/he wants to do as the solution to some “emergency.”

[1] See: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/us/politics/supreme-court-blocks-obama-epa-coal-emissions-regulations.html?_r=0

[2] See: http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/politics/immigration-supreme-court/

[3] “Issue of the week: Judge halts new overtime rule,” The Week, 9 December 2016, p. 38.

[4] “Proof that wage laws backfire,” The Week, 11 November 2016, p. 12.

I wish I had posted this.

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Back in summer and early Fall 2016, I began assembling reading notes for a piece on the election.  Then work-blind-sided me.  See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpNzlh5ALRA  So, here’s what the evidence showed then.  Could have made me look like a prophet.

 

“Well behaved women seldom make history.”—Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.  Does the same thing go for men?  Perhaps this is one way on understanding Donald Trump’s candidacy.

While fellow Republican primary candidates and Democrats are gleefully beating the stuffing out of “the Donald” for his comments on the “Department of Environmental,” it’s worth reflecting on a comment by Albert Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

 

While, in the 2008 Democratic primary, the white working class generally supported Hillary Clinton, in late July 2016, this group overwhelmingly favored Donald Trump.[1]  Six different public opinion polls in July 2016 showed Trump holding a 58 to 30 percent lead over Clinton among whites without a BA.  This average is on the low end of some polls.  It’s difficult to tell which polls are the most accurate.

For at least the last decade, the general line among Democratic strategists has been that the country is changing in ways that mean the white working class can be disregarded.  It should be possible to build a majority coalition from highly-educated whites, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Hispanic-Mexicans.[2]  However, whatever America may be in the future, the American future doesn’t get to vote in November 2016.  Today gets to vote and today, almost half of voters are whites without a college BA.

President Obama and Democratic leaders opted not to seek an adequate stimulus bill in the first two years of his administration.  Those were years when the Democrats controlled the House and Senate as well as the White House.  They pushed through Congress both the Affordable Care Act and a modest stimulus bill.  They could have fought for more stimulus than they did.  All of the president’s subsequent “job-creation” proposals were “revenue neutral.”  That is, he rejected Keynesian deficit spending in favor of trying to favor Democratic constituencies.  Democratic indifference to the interests of the white working class isn’t new.  Democrats lost both the South and the working class to Republicans over cultural issues (rather than race).  Gun control, government administrative regulation of the economy, secular sharia’s opposition to public religion, and—most recently—gay rights have all estranged many traditionally Democratic voters from the Democratic Party.

 

Of people who are known to have committed journalism and who also have donated to presidential campaigns this year, 96 percent donated to the campaign of Hillary Clinton.[3]  As a result, the sustained and bitter campaign by mainstream newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (my chief sources of information in addition to the British Broadcasting Corporation) against Trump can heat up hostility to him among people who already have decided to vote against him.  However, the people most inclined to vote for Trump probably don’t read either the NYT or the WSJ.  Editorial lightning bolts launched against the Orange-American candidate aren’t likely to make much of a dent.  Similarly, between June and late October 2016, about 80 percent of the television ads in support of a presidential candidate supported Hilary Clinton.  A mere 18 percent supported Trump.[4]

 

The American middle class is much reduced in recent years.[5]  Today (2016) the middle class accounts for almost a third (32 percent) of the population and just over a quarter (25.8 percent) of the national income.  Why is that?  Partly because a lot of Americans climbed out of the “middle” middle class into the “upper middle class.”  What is “upper middle class”?  Today, the middle class accounts for almost one-third (32 percent) of the population and 25.8 percent of the nation’s income.  Well, part of it got richer over the last 40 years.  In 1979, 13 percent of the population earned between $100K and $350K; in 2014, 30 percent of the population earned between $100K and $350K.[6]

What about those who did not climb?  According to a now-popular narrative, the white elite—Republican and Democrat alike–have abandoned the white working class.[7]  They have done so by embracing free trade abroad and tariffs (affirmative action) at home.  Five million American manufacturing jobs have gone down the drain in the last fifteen years, and the growth of GDP has averaged 3 percent for the last ten years.[8]  Republican leaders, says NobelPrize-winning economist Krugman, just don’t want to admit that their simplified view of free-market capitalism doesn’t match with reality.  So, the white working class isn’t the only one engaged in self-destructive behavior.  The resentment of the white working class is what is driving the rise of Donald Trump.  (One might almost see “Trumpism” as AA barging into politics.)  This is an interpretation that is widely accepted.

However, commentators weren’t willing to leave well enough alone.  Substance abuse (what used to be called boozing and baking your head) and suicide have contributed to a falling life expectancy for the white working class.  What has happened to black Americans for decades is now happening to the white working class, according to Paul Krugman in the New York Times.  Moreover, these voters have provided much of the electoral support for the Republican Party in recent decades.  Kevin Williamson wrote a scalding “pull up your socks” piece in The National Review.  Economic change is normal; you need to adapt to it; when the white working class got tossed on the scrap heap of the “Rust Belt,” they should have both moved and re-tooled; but they settled for self-destruction through drugs and self-pity.  There’s something to be said for this view.  It’s not like we’ve been watching scenes from “The Grapes of Wrath” (dir. John Ford, 1939) on the devil-box for the last few decades.

 

Then there’s immigration.  Better than one in eight (13 percent) of the people living in the United States is an immigrant.  Almost one in six (16 percent) of the people in the work force is an immigrant.  That should be good for the /democrats, right?  However, more than one in four (28 percent) of the small business owners are immigrants.[9]  Immigrants started over half of the U.S. “start-ups” that are now valued at a billion dollars or more.  The top 44 immigrant “start-ups” created more than 750 jobs per company.[10]  Lots of those immigrants are not Hispanic-Mexicans.  That’s probably bad news for the Democratic Party, with its anti-business, pro-regulation stance.  Back in 2013, almost two-thirds (63 percent) of Americans favored giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.  Only 15 percent favored deporting all illegal immigrants.[11]  Something changed.

[1] So, does that mean that HRC was the Donald Trump of 2008?

[2] If only the approximately 12 million of the latter can be provided with a way to vote.  Aye, there’s the rub.

[3] “Noted,” The Week, 28 October 2016, p. 18.

[4] “Noted,” The Week, 4 November 2016, p. 16.

[5] “The bottom line,” The Week, 1-8 July 2016, p.36.

[6] “The bottom line,” The Week, 1-8 July 2016, p. 36.

[7] “The white working class: who’s to blame for its misery?” The Week, 1 April 2016, p. 16.

[8] One definition for a recession is growth of 3 percent.

[9] “The bottom line,” The Week, 30 January 2015, p. 34.

[10] “Noted,” The Week, 1 April 2016, p. 16.

[11] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 6 December 2013, 17.

Pomme Duterte.

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The Philippines were plagued by problems under Spanish rule; those problems didn’t go away under American rule; and they continued to plague the archipelago after independence.  Most eye-catching for Americans was a Muslim insurgency in the southern islands: the Moro Rebellion.  (Purportedly, this led to the adoption of the Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol.)  Since 9/11, American Special Forces have been supporting operations against Islamists (Abu Sayaf) in the southern islands of the archipelago.

A second problem, much ignored by Americans, is that the Philippines are ruled by a corrupt oligarchy.[1] In the 1980s and 1990s, after the end of the Vietnam War and the Cold War in Asia, those leaders (and perhaps ordinary Filipinos as well) decided that they would prefer that the American military left its naval and air bases in the Philippines.  By 1992 this hope came true.

A third problem, more recent in appearance, is drugs and drug-dealers.  Methamphetamines, usually associated with rural America, appeared as a major problem for the Philippines.  Poor neighborhoods in Filipino cities showed all sorts of “disfunction.”  Moreover, evidence appeared that the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel had invaded the Philippines.

Americans often talk about a “war on drugs,” without reaching the logical conclusion that a “war” is a war.[2]  Not so with Rodrigo Duterte (1945- ).  Duterte first came to public notice as the mayor of Davao, a city on the southern island of Mindanao.  He ran the city for better than 20 years.  Here, too, drugs and drug-dealers were a grave problem.  Filipino drug dealers, like those elsewhere, have flipped-off the law.  “Fine,” said Duterte.  During his tenure as mayor, “death squads” massacred drug dealers in Davao.  Curiously, the local police failed to solve most of the homicides.  All the same, the crime rate plummeted, what with there being fewer and fewer criminals still up and walking around.

Then Duterte and three other candidates then ran for president against Manuel Roxas, the pet candidate of oligarch Benigno Aquino.  In a five-way race, Dutere pulled 40 percent of the vote; Roxas pulled 23 percent of the vote, and the three other candidates pulled 37 percent of the vote between them.  Duterte became president.  Also, according to the displaced ruling elites in the Philippines, Duterte has shown “tyrannical” qualities by firing several thousand government employees.  He has replaced their clients with his own followers.

What happened in Davao is now happening elsewhere in the Philippines. Since Duterte’s election, 1,900 drug-dealers or “suspected” drug-dealers have been killed.  Some were killed by the police, some by vigilantes.  Half a million drug-users have surrendered to the police.  The massacres of meth dealers and users have been hard to swallow for humanitarians abroad.

Moreover, Duterte is anti-American at a moment when the United States is trying to shore up its position against a self-confident China.  The United States had hoped to patch up relations with the Philippines to help contain China and the Philippines had hoped to patch up relations with the United States to help contain China.  The United States has a defense agreement with the Philippines that is clearly directed against China.  As in the Middle East, the “client states” have their own agendas.  Hence, Duterte’s anti-Americanism has been even harder for American diplomats to swallow.  Duterte has brushed aside all American criticism by pointing out some of the many flaws in America society.  He has pursued contact with China.  Now the security relationship is endangered.   You can smell the coup coming.

[1] “The Philippines’ populist strongman,” The Week, 16 September 2016, p. 11.

[2] But see: Tom Clancy, Clear and Present Danger (1989 ).

Guns Again.

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Americans buy a bunch of firearms.[1]  In 1994, 25 percent of American households owned at least one firearm; and 44 million people owned 192 million firearms.  That is an average of 4.36 firearms per firearm-owning household.  In 2015, 22 percent of households owned at least one firearm; and 55 million people owned 265 million firearms.  That is an average of 4.81 firearms per firearm-owning household.  However, this apparent increase in firearms per owner may be deceptive.  About half of all firearms are in the hands—well the extensive gun-safes—of only 3 percent of owners.  That means—I think that 19 percent of the population owns the other 50 percent.  Roughly—watch my math, never my best thing—3/22 of Americans own 50 percent of 262 million guns.  So, 3 percent own 131 million firearms.  On the other hand, 19/22 own 50 percent of the firearms.  So, 19 percent own 131 million guns.  So, of 55 million owners, 1/7 or 7.8 million owned 131 million firearms for an average of about 16 weapons each.  Therefore, of 55 million owners, 6/7 or 46.8 million, owned 131 million firearms, for an average of about 2.8 weapons each.  If, 42 percent of these are hand-guns, 33 percent are rifles, and 20 percent are shot guns, then that suggests that the typical forearm-owner has a rifle, and either a couple of hand-guns or a hand-gun and a shot gun.

Americans started buying guns in increasing numbers during the 1960s, with the numbers rising from about 75 million total firearms in private hands in 1965 to almost 200 million by 1995.  Soaring rates of violent crime and civil disorder appear to have driven the boom in firearms sales.  Violent crime and homicide rates have been dropping for almost a quarter century.  All the same, some Americans felt safer in 1994 than they do today.  In 1994, 46 percent of gun-owners who responded to a national survey cited self-defense as a major reason for owning a firearm; in 2015 63 percent cited self-defense.  While total homicides are down, highly-publicized mass shootings are up.  The expansive definition of mass shootings used by the EffaBeeEye and gun control groups have helped overstate the danger to ordinary citizens.[2]

This shift in motivation is reflected in the composition of the stock of firearms in private hands.  In 1994, 34 percent of firearms were hand-guns (revolvers and semi-automatic pistols); in 2015 42 percent of firearms are hand-guns.

The composition of ownership also is interesting.  Women firearms owners are almost twice (42 percent) as likely as men (22 percent) to own a hand-gun.  African-American firearms owners are almost three times as likely (57 percent) to own a hand-gun as are white firearms owners (20 percent).

Media coverage adds more heat than light.  While the New York Times article cited above conjectured that a “24-hour news cycle has made the world feel more dangerous,” the only human being in their article is a woman who bought her first pistol after a man with a gun invaded her daughter’s middle school and took five girls hostage.  Recently, some members of the media reported the discovery of a previously unsuspected “gun culture” of people who like shooting, know something about it, and talk about target shooting and hunting the way golfers talk about golf.  Now their attention has shifted to a “concealed carry culture.”

These numbers suggest that the contentious debate over firearms and gun-control is likely to continue for some time.  Worse, Americans are talking past one another on this issue.

[1] Julie Turkewitz and Troy Griggs, “Looking for Security, More in U.S. Pick Up a Handgun,” NYT, 15 October 2016.

[2] As best I recall, the current standard has become four or more people shot in a single event.  However, this allows many crime-related gang shootings to be assimilated to events like Newtown and Orlando.

“It Must Be a Peach of a Hand.”

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In spite of the confident assertions on the right and the left, violence in America is full of puzzles and contradictions.  First, murder rates have fluctuated.  In 1980, America had a murder rate of 10.2 per 100,000 people.  The rate drifted downward for the next ten years, then began to fall sharply from about 1990.  By 2014 it had fallen to 4.5 murders per 100,000 people.[1]  Then, in 2015, the national murder rate increased to 10.8 percent.  However, the sharp increase can be attributed to selected cities (Baltimore, Houston, and especially Chicago).  There murder rates jumped to highs not seen in half a decade.  For example, by about 22 November 2015, Baltimore’s homicide tally hit 300 deaths.  This is 42 percent higher than the total for 2014 and we still had the holidays to go.  Most of the rise seems to have come since the rioting that followed the arresting-to-death of Freddy Gray.[2]  That’s scary because the last time the US had an increase like this came in 1971, at the dawn of several violent decades.[3]

One question to ask is if these changes reflected government action or some other influences.  A second question to ask is, if it did reflect government action, then did it reflect federal, state, or local action?  A third question to ask is, if it reflected some other influences, what were those influences?

Second, superficially at least, declining murder rates were tracked by declining support for the death penalty.  In 1994, fully 80 percent of Americans supported the death penalty for murder, while 16 percent opposed it and 4 percent were unsure.  By March 2015, 56 percent supported it.  By October 2016, 49 percent supported the death penalty.[4]  Similarly, the use of capital punishment continues to decline in the United States.  It fell from 98 in 1999 to 35 in 2014 to 20 in the first two-thirds of 2015.  Extrapolating from that latter figure, there would be 30 in all of 2015.  Even in Texas, the state most prone to impose the death sentence, no one has been sentenced to death so far in 2015.[5]

Third, just over half (55 percent) of Americans think that gun ownership can be restricted without violating the constitution (and the Second Amendment be Damned!) and slightly more (57 percent) want a ban on assault weapons.  Conversely, 43 percent of Americans believe that gun ownership cannot be restricted without violating the constitution and 25 percent oppose banning even assault weapons.  All the same, almost three-quarters (73 percent) of Americans support universal background checks.[6]

Fourth gun control is bad for gun control.  After the liberal characterization of the San Bernardino terrorist attack as a “mass shooting,” gun sales zoomed upward.  In December 2015, Americans bought 3.3 million guns.  All of these sales have been from licensed gun-dealers because the government background check system has been swamped.  Attorney General Loretta Lynch has asked for the hiring of 430 additional people just to process the background checks of Americans complying with the existing gun laws.[7]

In spite of the obvious violation of individual civil rights, most (80 percent) of Americans favor banning people on terrorist watch-lists from buying guns.  A small minority (17 percent) suspect that the ban would not be very effective.[8]  There are 25,000 to 40,000 Americans on terror watch-lists.  Of these people, 244 of them tried to buy firearms in 2015.[9]  That is, about one tenth of one percent sought to buy weapons.  People on terrorist watch lists buy guns at lower rates than do “ordinary” Americans.

Fifth, what is a “mass shooting?”  Orlando or Newtown, right?  Actually, the EffaBeeEye’s definition is a little more expansive: a single event in which four or more people get shot.[10]  So, criminals probably commit the bulk of the mass-shootings as a by-product of their business or personal lives.  By the EffaBeeEye’s standard, there have been 133 mass shootings in 2016.  Florida has suffered 15 (or 11.2 percent) of them.

Americans are sharply divided over how to interpret Omar Mateen’s massacre in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL.  Most (60 percent) Democrats see it as an example of “domestic gun violence,” while most (79 percent) Republicans see it as an example of “Islamic terrorism.”[11]  The trouble is that the partisan filter on the vision of observers inhibits both understanding and civil discourse.  The further trouble is that both are right.

America is becoming a less violent place in comparison to the past, if not in comparison to Denmark.  Murder rates are generally trending downward; support for the death penalty is trending downward; and support for gun-control seems to be rising.  However, the politics of gun-control may well be hampering further progress.  It is common to blame the National Rifle Association for this problem.  It is common to use “terrorism” and “mass shootings” as labels that justify pushing ahead rapidly with strict gun-controls.  All that this does is to put the backs up on gun-owners.

Instead of shaming campaigns (satisfying though they are to many liberals), perhaps the best answer to a violent America is education campaigns.  Between 1964 and 2004, the number of Americans who smoked fell every year.  But in 2004, the decline bottomed out at 20.8 percent.  It stayed there through the end of 2007.[12]

Still, in these regards, America is a better, safer place to live than when I was a child.  Unless, of course, you are living in one of the broken cities where the War on Drugs spawns the “war for corners”; and where the “war for corners” spawns a confrontational style among young men with no better future.

This doesn’t end up exactly where I wanted to go when I began writing.  It just ends up where some random facts led me.

[1] “Noted,” The Week, 29 July 2016, p. 16.

[2] “Noted,” The Week, 27 November 2015, p. 16.

[3] “Noted,” The Week, 7 October 2016, p. 16.

[4] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 14 October 2016, p. 17.

[5] “Noted,” The Week, 25 September 2015, p. 16.

[6] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 5 August 2016, p. 17.

[7] “Noted,” The Week, 5 February 2016, p.8.

[8] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 1 July 2016, p.7

[9] “Noted,” The Week, 1 July 2016, p. 16.

[10] “Noted,” The Week, 24 June 2016, p. 20.  By this standard, the “Gunfight at the OK Corral” was a mass-shooting.  Especially if you were one of the Earp brothers.  If you were a Clanton or a McLaury, then it was a mass getting-shot.

[11] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 1 July 2016, p.7.

[12] “Noted,” The Week, 23 November 2007, p. 16.  Why did the decline stop?  What has it done since then?  Who are the remaining smokers?    I don’t know.  Perhaps they constitute a libertarian revolt against the intrusive nanny-state of liberal fascism.  Perhaps the people who rush to buy guns and ammo (as opposed to buying Guns and Ammo) are operating under the same star.

Peace Negotiations.

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Except for a lot of killing, the civil war in western Syria is over.[1]  Backed by Russia, the Assad regime has defeated the rebel forces in the western part of the country.[2]  The siege of the eastern third of the city of Aleppo will grind on.  Horror stories will continue to turn the stomachs of readers of the New York Times.  Still, the die is cast.  Some of the states which have used Syria as a battlefield in larger struggles have now turned to settling the peace terms in this conflict while preparing for the next conflict.

Religion-based alliances have been the common basis of coalitions in the Middle East for a long time now.  During the Syrian civil war, Iran, the majority Shi’a government of Iraq, the minority Alawite government of Syria, and Shi’ite Hezbollah in Lebanon all joined forces to fight the Sunni insurgency.  Conversely, Sunni Turkey and Sunni Saudi Arabia long co-operated against the Assad regime.  Russia gained influence in the region by choosing the Shi’ite side.  The United States may have lost some influence by its unwillingness to choose sides.

However, it appears that identities other than religion offer the basis for alignment.  The Saudis seem to have taken Turkish support as a given in the continuing struggle against Iran.  Iran and Turkey have been backing opposing sides in the civil war, so they should be at daggers drawn for years to come.  In practice, this is not so.  Iran and Turkey both are non-Arab states.  During the 20th Century, both did a better job at fending off direct Western domination than did any of the Arab states.  Beyond this “usable past” (if they care to invoke it for practical reasons of state) the two countries have a problem with the Kurds.

Iran and Turkey (and the soon-to-be-victorious Assad regime) all fear the next problem on the horizon, Kurdish nationalism.   First came the protected zone for Iraqi Kurds created by the US after the First Gulf War.  Then came the near-autonomous region created after the 2003 invasion which gave birth to a proto-Kurdistan in northern Iraq.  Over the last several years, Kurdish militias from Iraq and Syria have done much of the heavy lifting in the fight against ISIS.  Along the way, Syrian Kurds have carved out an enclave along Syria’s border with Turkey.  Kurdish nationalism is burning in Turkey.

Saudi Arabia fears its neighbor across the Persian Gulf, but Turkey feels no real danger from Iran.  Erdogan’s allegations of U.S. involvement in the recent attempt to overthrow him might be taken as window-dressing meant to justify his shift toward reconciliation with Iran.

All this is speculation, not prophecy.  Yet one speculation leads to other speculations.  If the Syrian civil war is winding down and the Kurdish issue is winding up, will all the major players take a moment to concentrate on destroying ISIS?  If the Assad regime and its patrons have won the civil war, then will Turkey close the border to both the inflow of aid to the rebels and any flight by anti-Assad refugees?  If Turkey, Syria, and Iran are about to turn on the Kurds, will Saudi Arabia shift its support to the Kurds as a way of pressuring Iraq, Iran, and Turkey?  If the Kurds see the coalition gathering against them, will they shorten their reach in an effort to hold onto the core of what they have already obtained?  Having been so continually frustrated of late by developments in the Middle East, will American diplomacy profit from the experience and seek new means to achieve American goals?

[1] Yaroslav Trofimov, “Turkey, Iran Get Friendly, Despite War,” WSJ, 7 October 2016.

[2] Whether it will now turn to defeating the Islamic State in the eastern part of the country remains an open question.

Clinton versus Putin.

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While a majority of Republicans once believed that fair-play meant that the Republican convention should nominate the candidate who had won the most votes in the primaries, a majority (54 percent) of Republicans now wish that the party had not chosen Donald Trump as the candidate.  About a third (35 percent) believes that Trump was the best choice available.  Obviously, the latter figure doesn’t mean Trump alone.  It may be more of a statement about the Republican candidates who ran against Trump.  The Democrats aren’t in much better shape about Hillary Clinton.  Almost half (47 percent) of those who plan to vote for her will do so chiefly to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.  Scarcely a third (32 percent) are actually pro-Clinton.  More broadly, two thirds (66 percent) of all voters believe that HRC is dishonest, while less than a third (29 percent) believe that she is not dishonest.  Again obviously, the “Hillary is dishonest” camp includes every single Republican and a bunch of Independents.  Amidst the Viking funeral of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, people should attend to the recent poll reporting that 74 percent of Trump’s supporters think that Hillary Clinton should be in prison.[1]  How deeply that view has penetrated the minds of ordinary Democrats is unknown.[2]

This could have consequences for the 2016 presidential election.  A lot of people will vote for Hillary Clinton in order to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.

Unless, perhaps, they think that she is crooked.  “Crooked Hillary” has become a standard phrase in the speeches of Donald Trump.  This charge arises from Trump’s abrasive discourse and datcourse.  However, it gains traction from the perception that Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation engaged in unseemly practices during her time as Secretary of State.  The release of several documents from the investigation of Clinton by the EffaBeeEye has poured gasoline on this particular fire.

Earlier reports indicated that HRC’s e-mail had probably been compromised.  Trump invited the Russians to reveal what they had learned from the 30,000-plus “personal” e-mails that Clinton had ordered deleted from her private server.  Some people misconstrued this as an invitation to “hack” her private server.  The server seems to have been shut-down long ago, so it cannot now be hacked.  Trump’s hope seems to be that the Russians will reveal damaging information about Clinton’s private dealings with donors to the Clinton Foundation while she served as Secretary of State.

It seems reasonable to expect such “revelations.”  There is a lot of bad blood between Clinton and the Russian soon-to-be-tsar Vladimir Putin.  While serving as Secretary of State, Clinton challenged Putin’s authority in a country where being on the wrong side of the government can get you killed.  In early 2011, she, among others, deceived the Russians about American intentions in Libya.[3]  In December 2011, she described Russian elections as plagued by “electoral fraud.”[4]    If the Russkies have incriminating evidence, they may dump it.

Now the New York Times seems to be lighting “back-fires” in preparation for an “October surprise.”[5]

[1] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 12 August 2016, p. 18.

[2] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 9 September 2016, p.17.

[3] See: https://waroftheworldblog.com/2014/09/28/obama-versus-putin/

[4] See: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/25/dec-2011-hillary-clinton-angers-putin-demands-investigation-into-russian-electoral-fraud/

[5] Neil MacFarquhar, “A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories,” NYT, 28 August 2016; Jo Becker, Steven Erlanger, and Eric Schmitt, “How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West’s Secrets,” NYT, 31 August 2016.

The ACA in September 2016.

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There seem to be several major challenges facing the Affordable Care Act (ACA).[1]

First of all, the ACA sought to provide health insurance to low-income people.  On the one hand, the problem the Obama administration did not want to address directly is that American doctors make about 50 percent more than European or Japanese doctors with comparable skills.  The same goes for hospitals.  Cutting the incomes of doctors and of hospitals to reduce health care costs to manageable levels would set off a storm of opposition from the American Medical Association and whoever fronts for the hospitals.  On the other hand, there are a bunch of insurance companies—notably Blue Cross plans–that are used to dealing with low-income populations.  However, these insurers keep prices down by offering a narrow range of service providers who agree to accept low payments in return for a steady stream of customers.  Most doctors would refuse to participate in such arrangements.  Assuming that poor consumers were like richer consumers, the authors of the ACA sought to provide a greater range of choice.  The government mandate on the health services provided cuts across the desires of some consumers.  Then, the government lured a bunch of major insurers into the market in the belief that that competition would hold down costs for a broader range of services.  However, the major insurers lost a lot of money and they have begun to bail.  Basically, markets are often more rational than any government “ukase.”  Perhaps 17 percent of people who use the insurance “marketplace” will find that there is only one seller.

Second, the ACA rests on the belief that healthy, young, poor people can be compelled to buy insurance to subsidize sick, old, richer people.  In fact, less than half the 24 million people who were expected to buy insurance through the marketplace have signed up.  A lot of younger people just don’t want to join.  A lot of sick people do want to join only for  long enough to get their illnesses treated,  As a result, the insurance premiums are already so much higher than the government subsides that many people are opting out.  One solution would be to follow the path of the low cost insurers by narrowing networks and forcing down remuneration to doctors and hospitals.  Democrats favor either raising taxes on Republicans to pay for more generous subsidies to health care providers or coercing the un-insured to get insurance.

Third, apparently believing that much of the high cost of American health care came from profiteering by the insurance companies, the ACA included limits on profits and inadequate guarantees against losses.  Faced with large and mounting losses, the major insurance companies have begun to abandon the market place.

So, what are the policy options?  First, President Obama and President-in-Waiting Clinton have floated the idea of going back to the “public option” that Obama once cavalierly abandoned.  The public option would—undoubtedly with the aid of subsidies from the tax payers—“compete” with the private companies in order to drive down prices.  (See: TVA.)  Second, Blue Cross plans—low cost insurers with a lot of experience—argue for further reforms like blocking customers from signing up for short-term coverage in order to deal with accumulated health problems, the drooping coverage; higher premiums for older patients who cost more; and enhancing government subsidies for th care of very sick patients.  “Experts” and “advocates” are in some disagreement about what course to pursue.  Apparently, the Obama Administration is reluctant to consult or listen to business people.

[1] Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz, “ObamaCare Obstacles, and Some Possible Solutions,” NYT, 30 August 2016.

The Syrian Civil War.

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How long do civil wars last?[1]  The Spanish Civil War lasted 2 years, 8 months, 2 weeks and 1 day; the American Civil War lasted 4 years, 3 weeks and 6 days.  However, the average duration for modern civil wars is about ten years.[2]  Lots of these civil wars end in a peace deal because both sides already have shot their bolt.  The Syrian civil war has lasted about half that long.  So far.

Why have modern civil wars dragged on for so long?  Historically, foreign intervention plays a large role in prolonging civil wars.  That is one reason that the Americans welcomed French support in the War for Independence and Abraham Lincoln sought to avoid British or French intervention in the American Civil War. Spain became a battle ground for Fascism (Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy) and Communism (the Soviet Union and the International Brigades raised by the Comintern).  Syria has become the battle ground for radical Islam (ISIS and the Al Nusra Front); the Shi’ite side of the larger Muslim civil war (Iran, Iraq, and Syria); the Sunni side of the larger Muslim civil war (Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states); Kurdish nationalists and Turkey (which has its own issues with the Kurds); and Western powers (the USA and Russia).  The multiple powers engaged only complicate a peace settlement.[3]

Why has the Syrian civil war been so gory?  Normally, say the scholars of these things, both sides in a civil war have a strong incentive to win the loyalty of the civilians who provide the “sea” in which the insurgents “swim.”  This puts a check on the atrocities.[4]  It doesn’t prevent them, but it does limit them.  However, the Syrian civil war is different.  First, the Alawite and Christian minorities fear genocide at the hands of the Sunni majority.  If you look at the broader pattern in the Middle East, this isn’t an unreasonable fear.  Outside support/intervention reduces the importance of the local population in the eyes of the fighters.  Thus, ISIS is OK with atrocities committed against Unbelievers, or Insufficient Believers.  The government is backed by a minority of Syrians, so there is little to be gained from humane conduct toward the rebellious Sunni majority.  The foreign Sunni supporters of the rebels only stand to profit from the massacre of Shi’ites.  This intensifies the “normal” atrocities of war.  The popular image of men with guns run amuck may not be accurate.  Syria could be suffering multiple “ethnic cleansings.”  The government is the “Mr. Clean” in this business, but it has competitors.  Thus, many Christians and Alawite Muslims have fled to sanctuary in western Aleppo.

Is the Syrian Civil War un-winnable?  This is unclear, in spite of the prognostication of the New York Times and the Obama administration.

What is the basis of a peace deal?  All sides are coalitions of things that they are against, rather than things they are for.  (This is much like the Russo-British-Americans alliance during the Second World War.( The Russkies want President Assad to get off the stage at some point, but aren’t—yet–willing to force him or kill him.   Neither Turkey nor Iraq wants the Kurds to gain much territory or prestige.  The various parties will try to hold what they have already won.  (Except, perhaps, ISIS.)  ISIS will be defeated, but what will become of the Sunni rebel territories?  Perhaps, the country will have to be partitioned between an Assad-ruled-for-now West and an ISIS-ruled “free fire zone” in the East.  Then what?

[1] Max Fisher, “Why Syria’s War, After 400,000 Deaths, Is Only Getting Worse,” NYT, 27 August 2016.

[2] This may reflect weak governments out against weak insurgencies, with lots of ordinary people caught in the middle.

[3] See: The Thirty Years War; see: The Treaty of Westphalia.

[4] More specifically, it puts a check on the actions of the psychopaths who fill the ranks of opposing armies.

The technology of revenue enhancement.

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In Summer 2007, the New York Times published a story detailing one effect of modern scanning or signaling technology.  In places where the EZPass system had been introduced, tolls went up thirty percent more than they did in places where the old-fashioned wait-in-line-to-pay-cash system still existed.  The explanation for this was that policymakers knew that people were much less aware of the real costs they were paying when using EZPass.  So they wouldn’t get bent out of shape.[1]  At the same time, the use of EZPass systems allows State Departments of Transportation to steadily cut down on the number of toll-takers they employ.  Is there any evidence that the number of toll-takers has fallen with the introduction of EZPass?  Or were they re-directed to other work for the department?  Or do departments just keep as many toll-takers on duty, while raising everyone’s pay out of the additional revenue?

Between 2010 and 2015, the State of Maryland issued 2.35 million citations for speeding in highway construction work zones.  The citations were based on traffic cameras.[2]

The use of the traffic cameras seems to have had some effect on work zone safety.  Work zone collisions and worker deaths are both down compared to the pre-camera period.  Although state officials argue that the cameras are meant to serve an educational purposes as much as an enforcement purpose, there are some curiosities about the law that feed the belief that it is really just a revenue enhancer.  For one thing, the car must be traveling at least 12 miles per hour over the posted limit to be ticketed.  The fine is set at a standard $40, regardless of how fast the vehicle was traveling or how many prior citations have been issued to the vehicle.  Repeat violators can’t lose their license.  Apparently some drivers see the fines as buying a personal license to speed.

With a standard fine of $40 per citation, the state should have accrued $94 million in gross revenue.  Out-of-state violators pay up at a rate of 85 percent.  Maryland violators pay up at a rate of 94 percent.  All in all, the net revenue amounted to $45 million.  This has gone to the Maryland State Police to pay for salaries, vehicles, and equipment.

Is there any pattern in the citations issued?  Scarcely any are issued between 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM, or between 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM.  In the former case, there just aren’t many people on the road.  In the latter case, there are too many people on the road, traffic jams keep anyone from speeding.  The numbers rise sharply from 6:00 to 9:00 AM and from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.  So, the morning rush hour as people try to get to work, and the aftermath of the evening ruish hour as the traffic jams start to break up and drivers attempt to make up lost time.  The numbers stay high from 8:00 PM to mid-night, then they drop off sharply.  The really high numbers of tickets issued, however, come between 9:00 AM and 2:00 PM.  Who are these people?  Why are they speeding through work zones?  Maybe they’re driving on business, trying to cram in as many appointments as possible.  Maybe they’re travelers trying to get as far as possible in the day by passing through the next city on their route before the traffic jams starts.  Maybe they’ve been driving this speed long before they got to the work zone, the road looks manageable, and they don’t see any reason to slow down.

[1] “Noted,” The Week, 20 July, 2007, p. 18.

[2] Scott Calvert, “Traffic Cameras: Safety Tools or Cash Grabs?” WSJ, 11-12 June 2016.