San Juan river cuts through monocline ridge, UT – November 2023 drone photo by Hilary Bralove. It is believed by many that the Navajo people based their rug and basket weaving patterns on what they saw in these geologic formations.
The temporary truce in the Israel/Hamas war is over. Reprobate Congresscritter George Santos (R-NY) was ousted from the House, and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OâConnor died. She was the swing vote in the Bush v. Gore case that stopped the Florida recount and handed the 2000 presidential election to GW Bush. This was the first time that Republicans realized that if they controlled the Court, they could fix elections.
But on a pretty Saturday in southern New England, letâs turn our attention to a news article that hasnât gotten much interest. From the issue, we learn that:
âMore people died from suicide in the United States last year than any other year on record, dating to at least 1941, according to provisional data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.â
They quote the Kaiser Family Foundation who measure the suicide deaths per 100,000 of population: (brackets by Wrongo)
âSuicide deaths are increasing fastest among people of color, younger individuals, and people who live in rural areas. Between 2011 and 2021, suicide death rates increased substantially among people of color, with the highest increase among AIAN people [American Indian and Alaska Native people]Â (70% increase, from 16.5 to 28.1 per 100,000), followed by Black (58% increase, from 5.5 to 8.7 per 100,000), and Hispanic (39% increase, 5.7 to 7.9 per 100,000) people….The suicide death rate also increased in adolescents (48% increase, from 4.4 to 6.5 per 100,000) and young adults (39% increase, from 13.0 to 18.1 per 100,000) between 2011 and 2021….â
Suicide rates are up by nearly 50% in adolescents over the last decade, while suicides among Black people are up by almost 60%. These arenât trends, theyâre explosive changes. What weâre seeing in the data is our world in chaos.
Wrongo often says that American life has fallen apart over the past 30 years. People struggle to pay their bills; many do that by accumulating debt. For some, that struggle turns them to embrace demagogues, people who scapegoat innocents, or promise to take their rights away, robbing them of  their personhood.
When we see suicide rising particularly among groups who struggle the most for their existence, it says that something has gone terribly wrong with the American model. And in the suicide statistics, there is confirmation that our nearly Darwinian model is whatâs wrong. Adolescents and minorities aren’t committing suicide at these rates because they can’t get therapy, but because they feel as if thereâs little or no future for them. Sadly, they are told by many pundits and politicians that everythingâs fine.
Perhaps this partially explains why Biden seems to be doing so badly in polls of young voters.
As one of the commenters at the issue says:
âIt shouldn’t be âThe pursuit of happinessâ it should be âThe amelioration of miseryâ. Being free to pursue happiness when there isn’t enough…left to go around doesn’t do âWe the peopleâ any good.â
So, itâs time to forget about Santos, Kissinger and Hamas for a few minutes. Tune in to your Saturday Soother, where we try to get distance from the news for long enough to be able to handle whateverâs coming next.
Here on the Fields of Wrong, weâve completed our fall clean-up and now itâs on to putting up the deer fencing that protects the bushes around the Mansion. The tree is up and illuminated, and the first members of our family are coming to see it today.
While itâs a beautiful day in the northeast, it makes sense for you to stay indoors for now. Start by brewing up a mug of âThe Antidoteâ coffee ($19.50/12oz.) from Apocalypse Coffee in Melbourne, FL. Now grab a comfy chair by a south facing window and watch and listen to Schubertâs âSerenadeâ. Written two years before his death, itâs a perfect example of the melancholic music Schubert was so well known for:
 Camden, ME – November 2023 photo by Daniel F. Dishner. Note the star: It’s on top of nearby Mt.Battie.
Kissinger may have changed the world, but that isnât always a good thing. The media are calling his legacy âcomplicatedâ. For Wrongo, it isnât complicated. He may have gotten Nixon to China and negotiated (?) the end of the war in Vietnam, but his time on our foreign policy stage is strewn with death and destruction. Think about the carpet bombing of Cambodia that led to the demonstrations against the war in May 1970 and to the murders at Kent State and Jackson State University. Think about the coup in Chile that overthrew Salvador Allende.
Now, Nixonâs entire Cabinet is dead.
Kissingerâs philosophy was to look at âthe big pictureâ. He was gladdened by how his China diplomacy rattled the Soviets. Most of Wrongoâs current thinking about Kissinger comes from reading Christopher Hitchensâ 2001 book, âThe Trial of Henry Kissingerâ. Hitchens talks about Kissinger’s role in the destruction of Chilean democracy in favor of the Pinochet dictatorship. And when Pinochet ordered the assassination of dissenter and former U.S. ambassador Orlando Letelier on US soil by blowing up his car in Washington, Kissinger was fine with that.
He was responsible for the prolongation of the Vietnam War through the sabotage of Lyndon Johnson’s 1968 Vietnam peace talks along with the civilian deaths from the US’ bombing in Laos and Cambodia, helping to usher in the Khmer Rouge, while also not doing anything positive to win the Vietnam war. Kissinger then became supportive of the Khmer Rouge. He saw its leader, Pol Pot as a counterweight against North Vietnam. He asked Thailandâs foreign minister to tell the Khmer Rouge: âWe will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we wonât let that stand in our way. We are prepared to improve relations with them.â
That was Kissingerâs moral philosophy.
Kissinger was behind the Greek military junta’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and the Pakistani army’s crimes against humanity in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). And we shouldnât forget the Indonesian invasion and subsequent destruction of East Timor.
Quite the record for a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
Late in life. Kissinger continued supporting authoritarians including Putin. Kissinger intervened in Putinâs imperialist war in Ukraine in 2022 to support the idea that the West should bully Zelensky into giving up territory to the Russians. He was also on the board of Theranos helping to facilitate the fraud while lining his pockets.
Wrongo wrote earlier this year about how he started out as a Kissinger fanboy, having read his 1957 book âNuclear Weapons and Foreign Policyâ while in high school. It criticized the Eisenhower Administrationâs âmassive retaliationâ nuclear doctrine. It proposed the use of tactical nuclear weapons on a regular basis to help win wars. By the time that Wrongo was running a tactical nuclear missile base in the mid-1960s, he was no longer a fan. From Wrongo:
âWrongo met Kissinger in the mid-1980s at an event hosted by David Rockefeller at his Pocantico Hills estate. HK was walking his dog, a particularly obstreperous Golden Retriever. Wrongo asked âWhatâs the dogâs name?â Kissinger replied: âMadmanâ. Could there be a more perfect name for a Kissinger family pet?â
Here are a few headlines announcing Kissingerâs death:
Kissingerâs legacy is defined by his role in the USâs resumption of ties with China. He did the groundwork for Nixonâs 1972 visit to China and made more than 100 trips to the country over the years. The WaPo noted that the China state broadcaster labeled Kissinger an âold friend of the Chinese people.â
Letâs close with another possibly apocryphal story about Kissinger by Corey Robin:
Letâs hope that Henry the K is having a really hot time in his new condo.
Cholla Cactus at sunrise, Joshua Tree NP – November 2023 photo by Michelle Strong
Yesterdayâs column described how confusing current polling data is with less than a year to go before the 2024 presidential election. We can easily overdose on polls, but in general, they seem to be pointing toward a very difficult re-election for Biden.
At the risk of contributing to the OD, hereâs another example of terrible poll for Biden. It comes from Democratic stalwarts Democracy Corps, run by James Carville and Stanley Greenberg:
âPresident Biden trails Donald Trump by 5 points in the battleground states and loses at least another point when we include the independent candidates who get 17% of the vote. Biden is trying to win these states where three quarters believe the country is on the wrong track and 48% say, âI will never vote for Biden.â
What to make of all this? Wrongo thinks itâs time to take a different approach to the Democratâs messaging. Letâs start with a quick look at the NYTâs David Leonhardtâs new book, âOurs Was the Shining Futureâ. Leonhardtâs most striking contention is based on a study of census and income tax data by the Harvard economist Raj Chetty: Where once the great majority of Americans could hope to earn more than their parents, now only half are likely to. From The Atlantic:
âOf Americans born in 1940, 92% went on to earn more than their parents; among those born in 1980, just 50% did. Over the course of a few decades, the chances of achieving the American dream went from a near-guarantee to a coin flip.â
As we said yesterday, the American Dream is fading. Leonhardt says that the Democrats have largely abandoned fighting for basic economic improvements for the working class. Some of the defining progressive triumphs of the 20th century, from labor victories by unions and Social Security under FDR to the Great Society programs of LBJ, were milestones in securing a voting majority. More from The Atlantic:
âRonald Reagan took office promising to restore growth by paring back government, slashing taxes on the rich and corporations…gutting business regulations and antitrust enforcement. The idea…was that a rising tide would lift all boats. Instead, inequality soared while living standards stagnated and life expectancy fell behind…peer countries.â
Today, a child born in Norway or the UK has a far better chance of out-earning their parents than one born in the US. More context from The Atlantic: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âFrom the 1930s until the late â60s, Democrats dominated national politics. They used their power to pass…progressive legislation that transformed the American economy. But their coalition, which included southern Dixiecrats as well as northern liberals, fractured after…Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Richard Nixonâs âsouthern strategyâ exploited that rift and changed the electoral map. Since then, no Democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of the white vote.â
The Atlantic makes another great point: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âThe civil-rights revolution also changed white Americansâ economic attitudes. In 1956, 65% of white people said they believed the government ought to guarantee a job to anyone who wanted one and to provide a minimum standard of living. By 1964, that number had sunk to 35%.â
Americaâs mid-century economy could have created growth and equality, but racial suppression and racial progress led to where we remain today.
Leonhardt argues that what Thomas Piketty called the âBrahmin leftâ must stop demonizing working-class people who do not share its views on cultural issues such as abortion, immigration, affirmative action and patriotism. From Leonhardt:
âA less self-righteous and more tolerant left could build what successfully increased access to the American Dream in the past: a broad grass-roots movement focused on core economic issues such as strengthening unions, improving wages and working conditions, raising corporate taxes, and decreasing corporate concentration.â
Can the Dems adapt both their priorities and messaging to meet people where they are today?
The priorities must change first. What would it take to establish the right priorities for the future? Stripping away the wedge issues that confuse and divide us, Americaâs priorities should be Health, Education, Retirement and Environment (âHEREâ). Itâs an acronym that sells itself: âVote Hereâ.
(hat tip to friend of the blog, Rene S. for the HERE concept.)
Wrongo hears from young family members and others that all of the HERE elements are causing very real concerns. Affordable health care coverage still falls short. Regarding education, college costs barely seem to be worth shouldering the huge debt burdens that come with it.
Most young people think that they have no real way to save for retirement early in their careers when thereâs the most bang for the buck. They also feel that Social Security wonât be there for them. From the NYT:
âIn a Nationwide Retirement Institute survey, 45% of adults younger than 27 said they didnât believe they would receive any money from the program.â
Today, only about 10% of Americans working in the private sector participate in a defined-benefit pension plan, while roughly 50% contribute to 401(k)-type, defined-contribution plans.
Finally, people today feel that their elders have created an existential environmental threat that will be tossed into their laps. A problem for which there may not be a solution.
As Leonhardt argues, these HERE problems should have always been priorities for Democrats. But for decades, the Party hasnât been willing to pay todayâs political price for a long term gain in voter loyalty. That is, until Biden started working on them in 2020.
But every media outlet continues to harp on inflation and the national debt. Much of what would be helpful in creating a HERE focus as a priority for Democrats depends at least somewhat on government spending. No one can argue that our national debt is high. It is arguable whether it can safely go higher or if it must be reigned in at current levels.
To help you think about that, we collected $4.5 trillion in taxes in 2022, down half a $trillion vs. what we collected in 2021. Estimates are that the Trump tax cuts cost about $350 billion in lost revenue/year.
Looking at tax collections as a percentage of GDP, itâs less than 17% in the US, well below our historical average of 19.5%. There are arguments to keep taxes low, but if you compare the US percentage to other nations, Germany has a ratio of 24%, while the UKâs is 27% and Australiaâs is 30%.
If we raised our tax revenue to 24% of GDP, which is where Germany is now, we would eliminate the US deficit.
Thereâs a great deal of tension in the electorate between perception and reality. And itâs not caused by partisanship: Democrats and independents are also exhibiting a disconnect, too.
Democrats have to return to being the party of FDR and LBJ. They need to adopt the HERE priorities and build programs around them.
Oak Creek, Sedona AZ – November 2023 photo by Jim Lupton
Over single malt and martinis, our Thanksgiving guests talked about what a confusing time weâre living in. Americans are angry and anxious, and the polls continue to show problems for Biden across the board, despite that overall, the economy is fine.
Inflation has slowed significantly. Wages are increasing. Unemployment is near a half-century low. Job satisfaction is up. Yet Americans donât necessarily see it that way From the NYT:
âIn the recent New York Times/Siena College poll of voters in six swing states, eight in 10 said the economy was fair or poor. Just 2% said it was excellent. Majorities of every group of Americans â across gender, race, age, education, geography, income and party â had an unfavorable view.
To make the disconnect even more confusing, people are not acting the way they do when they believe the economy is bad. They are spending, vacationing and job-switching the way they do when they believe itâs good.â
Continuing with the confusion, the new WSJ/NORC survey of the American dreamâthe proposition that anyone who works hard can get ahead regardless of their background, has moved out of reach for many Americans. Only 36% of voters in the survey (conducted between Oct. 19-23 with a margin of error of ± 4%) says that the American dream still holds true: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âThe American dream seemed most remote to young adults and women in the survey…..46% of men but only 28% of women said the ideal of advancement for hard work still holds true, as did 48% of voters aged 65 or older but only about 28% of those under age 50 agreed.â
And people think the dream is growing more remote. When last yearâs WSJ poll asked whether people who work hard were likely to get ahead, 68% said yesânearly twice as many as in this yearâs poll (36%). More from the NYT:
âEconomic difficulties are greater for those without a college degree, who are the majority of Americans. They earn less, receive fewer benefits from employers and have more physically demanding jobs.â
Voters without a college degree are Trumpâs strongest cohort.
Overall, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the way things are going in your life today? Satisfied 64%, Dissatisfied 35%
How happy would you say you are with your current job? Great deal/somewhat 80%, A little/not at all 19%.
Do you consider yourself paid fairly or underpaid in your job? Paid fairly 56%, Underpaid 38%.
Do you think your family income will increase or decrease in 2024? Increase 45%, stay the same 41%, decrease 15%.
But the same Economist/YouGov poll gives a different impression when you ask about the American economy more broadly:
Do you think the economy is shrinking or growing? Growing 22%, staying the same 25%, shrinking 37%. That’s 47% thinking its growing or staying the same. (The reality: The economy has grown at 3% on average under Biden, the highest for any President since Clinton.)
Are the number of jobs in the US increasing (42%),staying the same (36%) or decreasing (22%)? (The reality: 14 million new jobs have been created under Biden.)
How would you describe the current state of the American economy? Excellent/good 30%, fair/poor 64%. (The reality: Weâve had the fastest job growth perhaps ever, very strong GDP growth, inflation is way down, wage growth is very strong, and the annual deficit is way down from Trumpâs presidency.)
Whatâs going on here? These data suggest something tragic – either the American people have no idea what is happening in the country, or what they do know is deeply wrong.
A final nail in this conundrum. Ed Kilgore in NY Magazine says that the youth vote is swinging against Biden:
âUntil recently, Democratsâ biggest concern about the 2024 youth vote was that millennial and Gen-Z voters …might not turn out in great enough numbers to reelect Joe Biden. Young voters were…the largest and most rapidly growing segment of the Democratic base in the last election. But now public-opinion surveys are beginning to unveil a far more terrifying possibility: Trump could carry the youth vote next year.â
The latest national NBC News poll finds President Joe Biden trailing Trump among young voters ages 18 to 34 â with Trump getting support from 46% of these young voters and Biden getting 42%, while:
Hard to know what to believe from those surveys. More from Kilgore:
âAccording to Pewâs validated voters analysis (which is a lot more precise than exit polls), Biden won under-30 voters by a 59% to 35% margin in 2020. Biden actually won the next age cohort, voters 30 to 49 years old, by a 55% to 43% margin.â
So, whatâs wrong? Itâs important to note that yesterdayâs younger voters arenât todayâs. From Nate Silver:
âFully a third of voters in the age 18-29 bracket in the 2020 election (everyone aged 26 or older) will have aged out of it by 2024, as will two-thirds of the age 18-to-29 voters from the 2016 election and all of them from 2012.â
Silver says, So if youâre thinking âdid all those young voters who backed Obama in 2012 really just turn on Biden?â Those voters have aged into the 30-to-41 age bracket.
We need to remember that todayâs young voters share the national unhappiness with the performance of the economy, and many are particularly affected by high cost of living and higher interest rates that make buying a home or a car difficult. Some are angry at Biden for his inability (thanks to the Supreme Court) to cancel student-loan debts. And most notoriously, young voters donât share Bidenâs strong identification with Israel in its ongoing war with Hamas (a new NBC poll shows 70% of 18-to-34-year-old voters disapprove of Bidenâs handling of the war).
And thereâs this tidbit from the NYT:
“Younger people…had concerns specific to their phase of life. In the poll, 93% of them rated the economy unfavorably, more than any other age group.”
What exactly are kids in their 20âs supposed to be feeling at this stage of life? Unless you come from money, your 20âs are a financial struggle. Wrongoâs certainly were, and thatâs decades ago when the economy was great. This isnât to dismiss todayâs very real economic uncertainties. Wrongoâs own grandchildren run the gamut of (relative) struggle financially.
The single most persuasive way to convince young people that Trump isnât the right answer is to show them what heâll do in his own words. Many of them are too young to know much about Trump. Some of todayâs college freshmen were just 14 or 15 when he was in office.
It’s Monday, and it’s time to wake up America! People need to pay attention. Once again, it will come down to effective messaging for the Dems. They must help voters understand who will serve their interests and who will literally crush their interests.
To help you wake up watch and listen to William Devaughnâs âBe Thankful For What Youâve Gotâ. It sold nearly two million copies in 1974. It takes us back to a time when there was more optimism in America. If you lived or worked in NYC in the1970s, the video will also take you back to a difficult period in the cityâs history. In its own way, itâs a great Thanksgiving song:
Snoopy, Macy’s Day Parade NYC – 1980’s photo via CNN
(This is the final column until after Thanksgiving weekend. Blog readers should keep their tray tables in the upright and locked position until Monday, November 27. Eat hearty!)
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” –  This quote has been attributed to many including Mark Twain. Quote Investigator says it  was first said in this form by Dr. Ernest T. Campbell in a sermon at NYCâs Riverside Church on November 18, 1973.
Thanksgiving is Wrongoâs favorite holiday. Itâs a secular holiday, so youâre not required to do anything. The celebration is subdued, and around here, we focus on gratitude. Wrongo always thinks that despite America’s current problems, we should be grateful that we live in this wonderful country of ours, and how grateful we are for all of our countryâs gifts.
Weâre lucky to live in a land of plenty: Most of us have employment, most have access to quality healthcare. Most of us have a warm place to sleep at night, most have hope for their kidsâ future.
But, there are many of us who do not have those things, and it is our collective responsibility to help them get to a place where they are physically and mentally secure. They need our help. They need our governmentâs help. You know what to do, and you know how to do it.
This is our 2,696th column. Wrongo started this odyssey on March 29, 2011, so perhaps thatâs the day he found out why heâs here. It has truly been the best job heâs ever had. Today, we average about 25,000 page views a week from all over the world. Seeing that report every week always amazes Wrongo, who never thought anyone would read his rants about whatâs wrong in the world.
Thanks to all who have stuck around since the beginning and thanks to all who read it now. Special thanks to long haulers Monty B, Fred VK, David P, Pat M, JES and Terry McK, among others. Wrongo is very grateful to all of you!
Wrongoâs wish for this Thanksgiving is the same as it was last year: That you allow yourself to feel gratitude today and share it with those around you. The secret of life is to affect others in a positive way.
And whatever happens at your holiday celebration, odds are that your family/guests wonât solve the problem of peace in the Middle East over dinner. So donât bother trying.
Here at the Mansion of Wrong, weâre truly grateful for the friends who are joining us today. Weâre grateful to those came before us, and to family members and friends who we canât be with today. Weâre thankful to those who are on the front lines in military service, or at home in our hospitals, schools, firehouses, and police stations.
Happy Thanksgiving!
For your viewing pleasure, here are two takes on the holiday. First, the St. Louis Children’s Choirsâ âLet There Be Peace on Earthâ, written by Jill Jackson-Miller and Sy Miller in 1955 and performed on stage at Powell Hall in St. Louis, MO:
Second, a short video that captures the need that some have to control the Thanksgiving Day dinner. It is by our film producer daughter. Any similarity to our family, or to her mother, or her foodie sister, is purely coincidental:
âAlways go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.” – Yogi Berra
Biden celebrated his 81st birthday on Monday. Although this isnât breaking news, as if on cue there were plenty of: âIs Biden Too Old?â faux concern expressed by journalists and pundits across the media landscape. As Wrongo has said before, Biden is visibly old. He looks like many older men who have remained physically fit: They seem thinner with voices that become more gravely with time.
âWhen Biden was born in 1942, the…life expectancy for American males at birth was 62.6 years. 81 years later, itâs possible to estimate within an extremely high degree of accuracy how long American men born in 1942 will end up living, on average. The answer is 71.1 years, i.e., 14% longer than their…life expectancy at birth.â
Wow! Biden is old! Campos describes the two alternative definitions of life expectancy. First, period life expectancy, which is âlife expectancy at birth,â a statistical construct. Period life expectancy isnât a prediction: itâs a statement of a statistical fact. That fact is, if age adjusted mortality rates were to remain constant over the course of a cohortâs lifetime, it would indicate the average age at which people in that cohort died.
The second is called cohort life expectancy. This is a look back at how long people actually lived. When Biden was born in 1942, the period life expectancy for American males at birth was 62.6 years. This alternative definition of life expectancy how long people actually live, is called cohort life expectancy. That is 71.4 years in Biden’s case.
The gap between period life expectancy and cohort life expectancy was at one point nearly 20%. It turns out that people born in the US in 1900 lived to be on average 56 rather than the expected 47 years. With the massive improvements in medicine and public health over the last 120 years, the difference between period and cohort life expectancy are diminishing.
Period life expectancy isnât a prediction, and itâs very inaccurate. Nevertheless it is almost always interpreted by the media as a prediction.
If Wrongo had one request for Bidenâs handlers it would be to teach him to add more color, more inflection, to his voice. Everyone knows that he will occasionally trip over a word or two when speaking. That problem is as old as the man himself. From the NYT: (brackets by Wrongo)
âWhile Mr. Biden shuffles when he walks, talks in a low tone that can be hard to hear and sometimes confuses names and details in public…[his staff]…note that he maintains a crushing schedule that would tire a younger president.â
And while it is easy to see that Biden remains in command of situations that would cause younger men to freeze, better projection of his words and ideas would go a long way to blunting the finger-wagging ageists who jump on his every appearance on the world stage.
That said, Wrongo thinks that Americans can hold two competing thoughts at the same time: Biden is older than Trump but is competent and accomplished. While Trump is younger and a menace to America. To Wrongo, it seems that the press is more concerned about Biden having a birthday than about Trump becoming Hitler.
The media who are pushing Bidenâs age choose to ignore Trump’s age. Heâs 77 and will be 78 if elected, and 82 at the end of his term. Heâs not aging well. In his recent campaign appearances, heâs mistaken Biden for Obama 7 times, claimed that Biden will start World War II and said that Jeb Bush started the Iraq War.
These are just the highlights, and there are many more alarming gaffes. Think about what a second Trump term would bring: a dictator-adjacent felon who wants to weaponize the DOJ to take revenge on his former political appointments.
Despite Bidenâs many achievements, during one of the toughest periods in our recent history, the media has planted and nurtured the idea that Biden is unfit to be president. Why? Well, because of nothing beyond how Biden seems in videos. After thousands of articles saying Bidenâs too old, many in America are willing to dump the president that ended Trump’s reign of error.
Letâs get real: Biden has rung up a fine record as president. CLEARLY, his age and experience have given him the ability to make decisions that less experienced politicians probably would not make. Biden has ably handled foreign crises and had the most productive first three years of any president since LBJ.
All the while, his opponent is rapidly decompensating. This from a man who has proven his inability to put the country first in his thinking. The contrast is stunning, and more obvious than the media seems capable of being honest about.
The sad truth is that neither Party is willing to take the risk of nominating a younger candidate who might underperform what Biden and Trump did in the 2020 presidential election.
In the meantime, happy birthday Joe Biden, who statisticians predict will be approximately one year older than he is today on election day 2024!
It probably wonât be long before we see a headline saying, âIf Biden really cared about the environment he wouldnât put so many candles on his birthday cake.â
Since we couldnât have a Saturday Soother, Wrongo wants to complain a bit today. But first, it was a bad week for cartoons. Here are the best:
Itâs clear that many Americans canât hold two thoughts simultaneously:
Biden sees through the turkey:
Complaint #1: Weâre faced with a choice between our aging president and his aging contender for the job. Biden did quite well in his meeting with Chinaâs president Xi. He seemingly met all of the American objectives for the meeting. In the press conference afterwards, he looked in command, walking across a minefield of questions, even with the gotcha question about whether Xi was a dictator, without any missteps.
But the press still talks about how old Biden looks. From Kevin Drum: (brackets by Wrongo)
â…having now listened to a number of Biden’s recent speaking gigs, there’s really no question that this [his age] is solely about his physical appearance. Cognitively, Biden is perfectly normal. The worst he ever does is the occasional verbal flub, a longtime Biden habit. Agree with him or not, he says what he means to say….He thinks Xi Jinping is a dictator and has repeated this [even] through the grimaces of his Secretary of State.â
Contrast that with Trump who doesn’t appear to be as old, but can barely remember who the president is, or how many world wars we’ve had. America will either elect a charade of an active former president with a deteriorating mind, or we can keep an active president with a strong mind but obvious physical limitations.
Which would you rather have?
Complaint #2: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. Speaking on CNBCâs Squawk Box, he told Americans on Tuesday that our time-honored concept of separation of church and state, a founding principle of the country is a âmisunderstandingâ, that what the founders really wanted was to stop government interfering with religion, not the other way around:
âThe separation of church and state is a misnomer….People misunderstand it. Of course, it comes from a phrase that was in a letter that Jefferson wrote. Itâs not in the Constitution.â
Johnson was referring to Jeffersonâs 1802 letters to the Danbury Baptists Association of Connecticut. In the letters, Jefferson makes clear that the founding fathers subscribed to a powerful separation of church and state, which they enshrined in the establishment clause of the First Amendment (even Johnson knows while the Amendments are technically ânotâ part of the Constitution, they really are).
Itâs no surprise that the same people that believe the Constitution should be strictly interpreted are also trying to force an interpretation of it that allows them to make the bible integral to it. Integration of religion into politics has historically been something that fascists and authoritarians have used to get what they wanted.
â…a flag hanging outside his office that leads into a universe of right-wing religious extremism…â
More:
âThe flag is white with a simple evergreen tree in the center and the phrase âAn Appeal to Heavenâ at the top….this flag was a Revolutionary War banner, commissioned by George Washington as a naval flag for the colony turned state of Massachusetts.â
The quote âAn Appeal to Heavenâ was taken from John Locke. In the past decade, this flag has come to symbolize a die-hard vision of a hegemonically Christian America. Still more:
â…if you look closely at the…videos and pictures of the Capitol insurrection, Appeal to Heaven flags are everywhere. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them…[in]…the crowd…â
An example from Jan. 6:
Rolling Stone has spent months researching this corner of Christianity known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). They use the same flag hanging outside Johnsonâs office, and itâs a key part of their symbology.
The NAR was formed in the 1990s around an evangelical seminary professor named C. Peter Wagner. This is a nondenominational network that believes they are the vanguard of a Christian revolution. In the mid-2000s, these NAR networks embraced a theological paradigm called the âSeven Mountain Mandate,â a prophecy that divides society into seven arenas â religion, family, government, education, arts and entertainment, media, and business.
The âMandate,â as they understand it, is for Christians to âtake dominionâ and âconquerâ all seven of these sectors and have Christian influence flow down into the rest of society.
Follow along for another minute: One of Wagnerâs key disciples is Dutch Sheets. In 2013, Sheets was given an Appeal to Heaven flag. A friend told him that, because it predated the Stars and Stripes, it was the flag that âhad flown over our nation at its birthing.â Sheets saw the flag as a symbol of the spiritual warfare-driven Christian nationalist revolution he hoped to bring about in American politics.
Sheets endorsed Trumpâs candidacy and over the course of the 2016 campaign, the Appeal to Heaven flag and the NARâs vision of a Christianity-dominated America became entwined with Trump.
Why does Johnson fly this symbol of Christian warfare at the House Speakerâs office when it is clear that the spiritual-warfare appropriation of it connotes an aggressive form of Christian nationalism. The Rolling Stone closes by saying:
âIt is simply untenable to think that Johnson is unaware of what the Appeal to Heaven flag signals today. It represents an aggressive, spiritual-warfare style of Christian nationalism, and Johnson is a legal insurrectionist who has deeply tied himself into networks of Christian extremists whose rhetoric, leadership, and warfare theology fueled a literal insurrection.â
We The People cannot let the Mike Johnsons of the world take over our country.
When theocrats and fascists tell us who they are, believe them.
The start of US Highway 6, outside of Bishop, CA â September 2023 photo by Steve Wolfe
(There will be no Saturday Soother this week. Wrongo is on the road.)
Millions of older Americans from the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers are facing a dilemma as they âage in place.â They must figure out how to pay for increasingly complex medical care. The NYT quotes Richard W. Johnson, director of the program on retirement policy at the Urban Institute:
âPeople are exposed to the possibility of depleting almost all their wealth….â
The prospect of dying broke is an imminent threat for the Boomers. About 10,000 of them turn 65 every day between now and 2030. Theyâre expecting to live into their 80s and 90s at the same time as the price tag for long-term care (LTC) is exploding. Currently LTC expense is outpacing inflation and approaching a half-trillion dollars a year, according to federal researchers.
By 2050, the population of Americans 65 and older is projected to increase by more than 50% to 86 million. The number of people 85 or older will nearly triple to 19 million. The Times has a chart of how many of those who need long-term care will die broke:
Some older Americans have prepared for this possible future by purchasing LTC insurance back when it was still affordable. Since then theyâve paid the monthly premiums, even as those premiums continued to rise. But this isnât the norm. Many adults have no plan at all or assume that Medicare, which kicks in at age 65, will cover their health costs. But Medicare doesnât cover the kind of long-term daily care, whether in the home or in a full-time nursing facility, that millions of elderly Americans require.
For that, you either pay out-of-pocket or you spend down your assets until you have less than $2,000 in assets in order to qualify for Medicaid. Remember that Medicaid provides health care, including home health care, to more than 80 million low-income Americans.
And even if you qualify, the waiting list for home care assistance for those on Medicaid tops 800,000 people and has an average wait time of more than three years.
Here is a snapshot of how long-term care is paid for in the US:
Governments provide 71.4% of the total. The largest non-government source is people who pay out-of-pocket, and private insurance is becoming increasingly expensive. More from the NYT:
âThe boomer generation is jogging and cycling into retirement, equipped with hip and knee replacements that have slowed their aging. And they are loath to enter the institutional setting of a nursing home. But they face major expenses for the in-between years: falling along a spectrum between good health and needing round-the-clock care in a nursing home.â
That has led them to enter assisted-living centers run by for-profit companies and private equity funds. The NYT says that about 850,000 people aged 65 or older now live in these facilities and when in them, they are largely ineligible for federal funds. Some facilities provide only basics like help getting dressed and taking medication while others offer luxury amenities like day trips, gourmet meals, and spas.
In either case, the bills can be staggering. More:
âHalf of the nationâs assisted-living facilities cost at least $54,000 a year, according to Genworth, a long-term care insurer. That rises substantially in many metropolitan areas with lofty real estate prices. Specialized settings, like locked memory care units for those with dementia, can cost twice as much.â
Home care is costly, too. According to Genworth, agencies charge about $27 an hour for a home health aide. Hiring someone who spends six or seven hours a day cleaning and helping an older person get out of bed or take medications can add up to $60,000 a year.
Itâs worse for people with dementia because they need more services. The number who are developing dementia has soared, as have their needs. Five million to seven million Americans over age 65 have dementia, and thatâs expected to grow to nearly 12 million by 2040.
The financial threat posed by dementia also weighs heavily on adult children who in many cases become guardians of aged parents. The Times included this chart:
The reality is that families go broke either caring for, or finding care for their loved ones. The alternative: Women in the family give up their lives and jobs to care for their family members instead, which worsens the gender wage gap.
The NYT article makes it clear that older Americans receive far less government support than their peers in other countries. The âwhyâ question is easily answered: Itâs a combination of the concerted effort for any public support to be demonized as âwelfareâ. Itâs also partly the result of our failed experiment with long term care insurance. The politiciansâ idea was that âthe marketâ would take care of it, so government help for retirees could be limited to Medicaid-paid nursing homes.
But, the LTC insurance industry has largely imploded. Insurers had little experience with the product and grossly overestimated the lapse rates. If a policyholder stops paying, the insurer gets to keep the money and use it to provide services to everyone remaining in the pool. The surprise was that very few people stopped paying. A second miscalculation was that people who held these policies were living longer than forecasted. Longer life equaled higher and larger payouts (insurers also benefit when customers die before theyâve used up all the policy benefits).
A final factor is the rising levels of dementia described above.
And since demand for support outside of family members exceeds the supply of beds, nursing homes and assisted living facilities that arenât terrible want residents to join during the independent living phase (which requires very little care, so those fees subsidize intensive nursing home care). Many of these facilities require a $400,000-$500,000 buy-in, which may not be refundable at death, even if the resident is current on their monthly fees.
Thereâs got to be a better way. Medicaid can’t be the only option to pay for LTC. Congress needs to establish a better system for middle-class Americans to finance LTC.
How we handle the growing costs of long-term care is just another reminder that we get LITTLE for our tax dollars beyond a giant military. Americans are responsible for their own medical care, childcare, college tuition, retirement and nursing home care. Some or all of which are provided in other rich countries.
This is a loudly ticking time bomb, and the demographics of the problem wonât change for decades. And yet, the Republicans seem bent on making it worse. Theyâre actively trying to bring about their dream of privatizing Social Security and Medicare.
Sunset, Thumpertown Beach, Eastham, MA – November 2023 iPhone photo by friend of the blog, KO.
We keep looking for good news that will buoy Bidenâs polling numbers, and on Tuesday we learned that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was flat in October. From Axios:
âOverall prices rose 3.2% in the 12 months through October, slowing from the 3.7% in September and well-below the peak levels reached last year. Core CPI rose 4%, compared to 4.1% the prior month.â
Among the good news was that last month, prices for gasoline and used cars and trucks fell outright, helping cool over inflation. Meanwhile, shelter costs rose at a much slower pace last month, possibly signaling that inflation could be ending in the next few months.
That gave investors reason to pile back into the stock market, since it may be a sign that the Fed wonât continue to raise interest rates.
But as always, analysis of the economic news could show why Biden polls so badly on the economy, and in particular why he hasnât consolidated support among younger voters. Letâs take a different look at how some important economic indicators have performed under Biden.
âBelow is a graph in which I compare average hourly earnings (nominal, not real) for non-supervisory workers (in red) vs. house prices (dark blue) and mortgage payments (light blue).â
It is important to note that Bonddad has set all of the values to 100 as of January 2021 so that weâre looking only at what has happened during Bidenâs Administration. Bonddad compares the changes in average hourly earnings to the rate of fixed price mortgages and the price of homes. These are nominal rates:
Average wages have increased 16% since Biden took office, but existing house prices have increased by 32%, and monthly mortgage payments for new buyers have increased 279% (!), from roughly 3% to roughly 8%. Housing is close to unaffordable for many in America.
Turning to cars, new car prices have increased by 20%, and used car prices by 23%, compared to that 16% for wages. And new car loan payments (dotted line below) have increased almost 70% (from about 5% to 8.3%):
Houses and cars are the two biggest purchases that most average people make. And sorry to say, affording them has gotten much harder since Biden took office.
Finally, letâs look at the cost of two things people see every day: groceries and gas. First, grocery prices are up 29% since Biden took office in January 2021 (again, vs. 16% for average wages):
And gas prices, although they have come back down recently, are still up 55% since January 2021:
Looking at the economic data this way, would you be more likely to vote for or against Biden? This is a big Biden problem with voters who live paycheck to paycheck.
Itâs hard to overstate the importance of viewing the Biden economic performance like Bonddad does above. Much of the blame for these specific price increases belongs to corporations who took advantage of the breakdown in the global supply chain to raise their prices. Some belongs to the Biden administration’s pumping money into the economy.
Bonddad provides a ton of perspective regarding how the Democrats shouldnât be talking to voters about how fantastic the economy has become under Biden. Dems canât simply talk about the aggregate economic numbers, since many will not fully believe them.
At the risk of piling on, Wrongo recently saw this October Experian survey which asked:
âI suffer or have suffered from financial traumaâ
A staggering 68% of US adults replied that they had. You can view the survey here. The stress was felt more strongly by younger generations, namely Gen Z adults and millennials, with 73% of Gen Z’ers and 77% of millennials experiencing negative thoughts and/or anxiety about money.
The idea of âfinancial traumaâ goes beyond mere stress. Americaâs seeing multiple social crises afflict it. Friendships are cratering, loneliness is soaring, deaths of despair are skyrocketing. Half of American young people say they feel âpersistently hopeless.â
Now tie this to how the majority of voters are saying that America is on the wrong track. The prevailing attitude in America is that our systems are rigged against working people. If you work hard, play by the rules, try to be an honest, decent and productive person, but the reward is that you get financially, socially, emotionally traumatized, well, maybe youâd be pessimistic, too.
The result is that most Americans feel they are living precarious lives. When asked, they say they need north of $230K to feel âcomfortableâ while the average yearly income for a full-time worker is about $75,000 today. That means feeling stable and secure is completely out of reach for the vast majority of Americans.
Most of this happened over time and surely wasnât caused by Biden, or the Democrats. And little of it can be fixed by him.
Thereâs some good news in the fact that history shows us that voters generally focus on how the economy has performed during the last 6 to 9 months before the election. In 2012, the economy improved a lot, and when the unemployment rate finally fell below 8% one month before the election, it helped Obama to get reelected.
On the flip side, the economy was weakening as we closed in on the presidential election in 2016. GDP growth and wage and job gains were weak. Strong stock market gains were a positive. Adding the pluses and minuses suggested that the economy was weak, and the insurgent Trump won the election.
Better news on inflation in 2024, particularly for groceries and gas, will mean Bidenâs polling on the economy will be much better.
Sometimes a friend, a family member or a neighbor asks you to help them solve a problem. You go along, thinking that youâll be able to help out, only to suddenly find youâre deeply involved in something that could easily become either a reputation killer, or possibly even life-threatening to you.
And after five weeks of intense bombing, this is where America sits with the Israel/Hamas war. Our friend has caused us to get badly stuck in something and itâs become very difficult to see how to get out of it.
First, all right-minded people should agree that what Hamas did on Oct. 7 was a war crime. And the taking of non-combatant Israeli hostages is also a violation of international law, as is Hamas using Palestinians as human shields.
Second, it is possible to be committed to Israel and to its right to defend itself while at the same time being critical of its response in Gaza and sympathetic to the Palestinianâs plight.
Third, (and what is the focus of this column), is how Israelâs war against Hamas in Gaza has become close to violating the rules of war. Israel has launched near-continuous airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. According to Barronâs since the onset of the war, Israeli attacks on targets within Gaza have destroyed or damaged 45% of all housing units in the Palestinian territory.
In addition, the Times of Israelacknowledges that a lot of Gazans have died since the October 7 terrorist attacks. It cites the âHamas-run health ministry in Gaza,â while arguing that the numbers cannot be confirmed and likely include Hamas fighters and victims of misfired Hamas rockets. They still put the number of dead north of 11,000. But thereâs also allegedly 26,000 who have been injured and more than 3,000 that are missing. That adds up to 40,000.
The CIA estimates that Gaza began 2023 with a population of 2,098,389, so the total casualties (including the missing) in Gaza are about 2% of the population. And nearly a million people have had their homes damaged or destroyed so far. And the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) estimates that 70% have been displaced from their homes.
The systematic bombardment of housing and infrastructure is prohibited under international law. You canât destroy 45% of the housing units of a population of 2 million people in five weeks and argue that you are doing all you can to avoid harming civilians.
Indiscriminate bombing of cities became an issue before WWII. Concern about âruthless bombing of civiliansâ began with the Japanese bombing of Shanghai in 1932, and the bombing of Barcelona and Guernica in Spain by Italian and German fascists in 1937-38.
An important review of the historical background to the law against bombing cities is in the late Daniel Ellsworthâs excellent 2017 book, âThe Doomsday Machineâ (TDM). Ellsworth says that the need for rule-making became clear after the German Blitz of London in 1940. That led to the US and Britain secretly adopting Hitlerâs tactics. The actions of the three belligerents obliterated the distinction between bombing combatants and civilians for the rest of WWII.
Citizens in the opponentâs country were considered legitimate targets because they were contributing in some way to their countryâs war effort. This led to the moral justification that it was better to kill civilians in order to get the war over quickly. After that, bomber attacks exclusively aimed at exterminating German population centers was accepted by Churchill: (TDM, p.239)
âThis is the way to pay them back; itâs legitimate for us to do so, and in fact itâs virtually obligatory for us to do so….â
The near-exact words were spoken by Biden, Blinken and Netanyahu after Oct. 7. But even in WWII, there wasnât true proportionality. From TDM: (pg. 245)
âFor every ton of bombs dropped on England in the nine months of the Blitz, England and the US…dropped a hundred tons of bombs on German cities…â
And more than 500,000 Germans were killed.
In 1949, a series of treaties governing the laws of war were adopted. The Geneva Conventions and specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention attempted to create legal defenses for civilians in war, but it wasnât explicit about bombardment.
In 1977, Protocol I was adopted as an amendment to the Geneva Conventions, prohibiting the deliberate or indiscriminate attack on civilians, even if the area contained military targets. But Protocol I also says that locating military objectives near civilians “shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians“.
This has always been honored in the breach.
Aerial operations are supposed to comply with the principles of: military necessity, distinction, and proportionality. Â An attack or action must be intended to aid the military defeat of the enemy. It must be an attack on a military objective, and the harm caused to civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. But proportionality doesnât hinge only on absolute casualty counts but on how harm to civilian lives and infrastructure is weighed against expected military gains.
That means theoretically, a lot of suffering is permissible.
Under the law of war, Israelâs proportionality calculation must take account of the civilian casualties its air strikes and ground invasion are causing. But Israel has in the past interpreted the rules to exclude damage to apartment buildings if terrorists occupy them.
Israel and America also believe that civilians who voluntarily serve as human shields are participants, not bystanders. But, how to tell the difference? Israeli officials say they have no choice: Hamas fighters are embedded within Gazaâs population and store weapons in and under civilian sites. They also say itâs impossible to defeat its enemy without killing innocents â a lesson that Americans learned at Hiroshima, Falluja and Mosul.
The NYT reports that during Blinkenâs visits to Israel after Oct. 7, Israeli officials privately invoked the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They quoted Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman:
âIn any combat situation, like when the US was leading a coalition to get ISIS out of Mosul, there were civilian casualties….[and] that Israelâs âratioâ of Hamas fighters to civilians killed âcompares very well to NATO and other Western forcesâ in past military campaignsâ.
When all you have for an argument is that your friend has done worse, youâre in serious trouble. Regevâs statement is also impossible to verify. US military officials have discussed the lessons learned from the battles in Iraq and in Raqqa, (the ISIS headquarters in Syria) with Israel.
Israel isnât exempt from learning from the past and applying the lessons to their current urban warfare. And this is coming from an ally that receives $ billions in US aid every year. Israel is obviously willing to use any justification to continue its destruction in Gaza.
Itâs clear that Israel is following a deliberate policy of wrecking Gazaâs infrastructure and buildings. Netanyahu said on October 7 that the IDF would turn parts of Gazaâs densely populated urban centers âinto rubble.â On October 10, Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, the Israeli Armyâs coordinator of government activities in the territories, stated  âThere will be no electricity and no water. There will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.â
That gives context to the fact that almost half of the housing in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed since October 7.
Gaza is now well beyond a long and expensive reconstruction process. Itâs approaching the point where Gaza is becoming a place where human beings will find it difficult to exist. Itâs true that Hamas is also culpable; theyâve brought this upon their own people. They continue to hold the hostages, and that provides Israel with justification for fighting in the heart of Gaza, including near its hospitals.
If Hamas cared about their own people, they would do something to stop it.
The point is that these disproportionate attacks should make it clear that the US needs to find a way to stop blindly taking Israelâs side. We should not be making excuses for Israelâs targeting of civilian populations. Figuring out what we should be doing is urgent, since our current posture isnât benefiting the US, while it is benefiting our many adversaries in the ME.
The world thinks that the US has leverage over Israel, but as this war shows, we do not. Weâre joined at the hip, and no other two countries have had a closer relationship. And when the war broke out on October 7, Biden made it very clear we would give Israel whatever aid it needed, that we would support Israel to the hilt. And weâve done that.
But, Israel rebuffed Bidenâs efforts to talk Israel into arranging âhumanitarian pausesâ until world opinion started to turn against Netanyahu. CNN and others reported that Israel has finally agreed to move forward with four-hour pauses of military operations in Northern Gaza. Weâll see how that goes.
But should America sacrifice any more of what shreds remain of our moral standing in the world to cooperate with Israel in what seems about to become massive civilian slaughter? Even if Israelâs war efforts are justifiable, their actions are making Gaza uninhabitable.
And when the smoke clears, and much of Gazaâs population has moved south, will Israel allow them return to sit amongst the rubble that remains?
Finally, Israel may be doing exactly what Hamas hoped. It is radicalizing many Palestinians. It isnât difficult to imagine that if you lived in Gaza and saw Israelâs bombs kill most of your family, you might be willing to walk a bomb into a pizza parlor in Tel Aviv after a ceasefire. If youâre going to live like a dog for the rest of your life, at least you could gain a modicum of revenge by taking a few Israelis along with you.
Time to wake up America! Israel is telling the world that it will stop at nothing to re-establish the security of its borders, even down to the last Palestinian. While the IDF tells us it is following the laws of war, Netanyahu is showing us that his strategy is to make his Middle East adversaries think that no one can out crazy Israel. Israelâs willing to do this even if it has to defy the rest of the world and even if it doesnât have a plan for returning Gaza to the Palestinians on the morning after the war.
To help you wake up, watch and listen to U2âs 2001 hit âStuck In A Moment That You Canât Get Out Ofâ. Bono wrote the lyrics about the suicide of his close friend Michael Hutchence, lead singer of the band INXS. The song is an argument against suicide in which Bono tries to convince Hutchence of the act’s foolishness.
We also should see the foolishness of total war even against a terrible enemy. It could turn out to be suicide:
(This is Wrongoâs longest column ever. If youâve read this far, thank you for your interest!)
Biden sees through the turkey:
