RESTORING RESPECT FOR AMERICA ON THE WORLD STAGE: It Sure Looks Like the Saudis Are Playing Keep Away with Joe Biden. “Our friends, the Saudis, appear to be playing geopolitical Keep Away with Presidentish Joe Biden and America’s energy security — with an assist from Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
August 4, 2023
SPACE: ESA still seems shy about sharing news on Ariane 6 rocket testing. “The space agency’s spokesperson said ESA is not planning to provide live video of the long-duration Ariane 6 test-firing in French Guiana. That’s disappointing and would be a missed opportunity for ESA to engage with the taxpayers footing the bill for this new rocket.”
That’s hardly encouraging.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Idiot Dems Want to Make the Economy an Issue, Republicans Should Let Them. “It’s safe to say that none of the people involved in the telling of the Bidenomics tale have been to a grocery store in the last year.”
NOTHING GOOD: What Do Federal Tax Receipts and Total Receipts Suggest About Recession?
Total receipts have fallen three consecutive quarters. Tax receipts have fallen two straight quarters.
When tax receipts and total receipts both plunge, the economy is typically in recession. There were false signals in 1985 and 2003. There have also been recessions unconfirmed by plunging receipts so this is admittedly not the greatest of signals. But the tax data and the GDI data align.
Plus: “Of the 894,000 rise in employment in January, 810,000 was due to annual benchmark revisions. And the BLS does not say what months were revised, just poof, here you go. Again, we cannot, with strong confidence, suggest these reports portray an accurate picture of either jobs or employment.”
Washington can temporarily paper over a bad economy by printing money and spending it on do-nothing “infrastructure” and Green Nude Eel projects, but eventually the truth will out.
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: In Oakland, the NAACP decries the harm caused by progressive crime policies.
Now, two years later, amid shocking levels of mayhem and murder, the local NAACP president and the city’s foremost Black pastor are pleading with city officials to open their eyes.
“African Americans are disproportionately hit the hardest by crime in East Oakland and other parts of the city,” they write. They are under no illusions about where the blame lies. It isn’t systemic racism or white privilege or out-of-control cops that have made Oakland so unsafe. It is the political assault on common-sense policing — the replacement of tried-and-true law enforcement practices with an ideology from which even lifelong liberals like former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis have recoiled.
“Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life-threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals,” the NAACP letter declares. “If there are no consequences for committing crime in Oakland, crime will continue to soar.”
The district attorney they referred to is Pamela Price, who ran for office on a progressive platform of ending “mass incarceration,” rooting out “racial, socioeconomic, and gender disparities,” and downplaying the conviction of criminals when evaluating prosecutors’ job performance. Her response to the open letter was to accuse its authors of promoting “a false narrative on such an important matter.” She had thought, she said peevishly, that she could “expect more from Bishop Bob Jackson and the Oakland Chapter of the NAACP.”
Maybe the people of Oakland will listen to the NAACP and ditch Price. If not, they’ll keep getting it gooder and harder.
August 3, 2023
BREAKING: Trump Pleads Not Guilty to J6 Charges.
WHO YOU GONNA BELIEVE, JOE OR YOUR OWN LYIN’ WALLET? The Miracle of Bidenomics Is Not Impressing Anyone.
ENDORSED: The best predictor of happiness in America? Marriage.
Americans who are married with children are now leading happier and more prosperous lives, on average, than men and women who are single and childless.
Is that statement surprising? In an age that prizes individualism, workism, and a host of other self-centric “isms” above marriage and family, it may well be. But the reality is that nothing currently predicts happiness in life better than a good marriage.
This truth is borne out yet again in new research from the University of Chicago, which found that marriage is the “the most important differentiator” of who is happy in America, and that falling marriage rates are a chief reason why happiness has declined nationally. The research, surveying thousands of respondents, revealed a startling 30-percentage-point happiness divide between married and unmarried Americans. This happiness boost held true for both men and women.
I’m forwarding this non-shocker of a story to my wife — mostly because today is our 21st anniversary.
YES. NEXT QUESTION? Is Lizzo’s Woke Facade Crumbling in Real Time? “Two days. Two blistering accounts of Lizzo’s work demeanor. Will more follow? Allison suggests the answer is a resounding, ‘Yes.'”
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Religious Persecution: Youth Pastor Arrested for Peaceful Protest at Drag Queen Family Event.
PROTEST: Black fraternity moves convention from Florida, citing ‘racist’ DeSantis policies.
Missing from Alpha Pi Alpha’s announcement? Any specific “harmful, racist, and insensitive policies.”
IT’S ON BETWEEN NEWSOM AND… DESANTIS? Gavin Newsom Just Took Another Huge Step in His Non-Campaign to Topple Joe Biden. “As amusing as it is to refer to Newsom as the ‘candidate-not-a-candidate-but-really-a-candidate,’ at some point soon, he’s going to have to do something more substantial than cosplay as Schrödinger’s Cat.”
NOW THEY’VE GONE TOO FAR: California Law Threatens to Help Drive Up Bacon Prices.
Wholesale prices for pork belly—the cut of meat used to make bacon—have surged this summer, nearly tripling since the start of June after hitting a multiyear low in May. Pork-belly prices were at $2.15 a pound on Wednesday, just shy of their highest level since last August. The run-up could soon pressure restaurants and supermarkets that had been stepping up bacon promotions.
“They’re probably thinking twice about featuring a new bacon cheeseburger, bacon chicken sandwich or Baconator, or whatever,” said Brian Earnest, lead economist for animal protein with agricultural lender CoBank.
Helping drive the price surge is an animal-welfare law in California requiring pigs to be given at least 24 square feet of pen space for their meat to be sold in the state, which accounts for roughly 15% of U.S. pork consumption. After facing years of legal challenges, Proposition 12 was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in May and went into effect July 1.
But there’s some potential good news: “How bacon prices change in coming months as a result of Prop 12 is still to be determined. Most of the pork produced in the U.S. isn’t currently compliant with the law, and some suppliers might opt to stop selling in California rather than change their practices. That could drive up retail prices in the state, while pushing them down in the rest of the country where supply would increase, analysts say.”
Good. Let Californians pay for their own laws.
THE TRANSCRIPT IS OUT: Here’s What Devon Archer Told Congress About Joe Biden… and It’s Damning.
KEEP THE SKEER ON EM: Anheuser-Busch lost a staggering $390 MILLION in second quarter after Bud Light’s sales to retailers plunged 14% after brand’s partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. “Figures show that their total US revenue declined by 10.5 percent in the April-to-June period from a year earlier.”
FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO CHARGE TRUMP WITH, STAT: New Revelations From DeVon Archer Make Things Even Worse for the Bidens.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Donald Trump indicted: Presiding Judge Tanya Chutkan donated thousands to Obama.
I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: ‘How Do I Do That?’ The New Hires of 2023 Are Unprepared for Work.
Roman Devengenzo was consulting for a robotics company in Silicon Valley last fall when he asked a newly minted mechanical engineer to design a small aluminum part that could be fabricated on a lathe—a skill normally mastered in the first or second year of college.
“How do I do that?” asked the young man.
So Devengenzo, an engineer who has built technology for NASA and Google, and who charges consulting clients a minimum of $300 an hour, spent the next three hours teaching Lathework 101. “You learn by doing,” he said. “These kids in school during the pandemic, all they’ve done is work on computers.”
The knock-on effect of years of remote learning during the pandemic is gumming up workplaces around the country. It is one reason professional service jobs are going unfilled and goods aren’t making it to market. It also helps explain why national productivity has fallen for the past five quarters, the longest contraction since at least 1948, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
Missing skills can be taught, but productivity won’t recover until we’re rid of Biden’s massive re-regulation and malinvestments.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Somebody Might Finally Lie About DeSantis to His Face. “DeSantis seems to be at his best when naysayers are in the same room with him. He routinely dismantles reporters who have asked idiotic questions and/or misrepresented what he’s done. I think part of the problem with his campaign so far is that he hasn’t had many in-person foes to help spark some enthusiasm.”
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: College-going is down, and that could be a good thing.