Labor Day Thoughts

The Daily Escape:

Hatch Chili festival, Hatch, NM – September 2023 photo by Eddie Gomez

“If we weren’t all crazy, we’d all
go
insane
” – RIP Jimmy Buffett

Wrongo was sad to learn that singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett died on Labor Day weekend. Wrongo isn’t a Parrothead, yet like most people, he will sing along whenever “Come Monday”, “Margaritaville”, or “Son of a Son of a Sailor” pops up on the car radio.

Labor Day kind of means the end of summer, and back to school for kids and their parents. Having Monday off is great. But what exactly are we celebrating? One answer is that knowledge workers have won the tug-of-war over work from home (WFH).

The NYT’s Sunday Business section has an article “All That Empty Office Space Belongs to Someone”. They ask the question: “What happens if the nearly 100 million square feet of workplace real estate stays empty”? They’re only talking about NYC real estate. The article quotes a real estate executive Eric Gural, whose family company, GFP Real Estate, owns and manages more than 55 properties and 13 million square feet, or about 2% of the city’s office real estate, about what happens next:

“Rents will be lower. Occupancy will be lower. We won’t be as profitable. The worst part about that is that it might affect some of the philanthropy we do.”

That’s kinda tone deaf. Why would a worker want to rush back to the office so Gural’s family can keep up with their philanthropy?

Among Wrongo’s six kids, most spend at least a few days in the office each week. Some are in the office every day. The problem generally isn’t that everyone hates the office. Mostly they hate how office work has changed during the past 20 years: Open floor plans, with people squeezed together into pods.

Then there’s the commute. Few office workers can afford to live in NYC or even a subway ride away. The average one-way commute in New York takes 40.8 minutes. That’s far longer than the US average of 26.4 minutes. That average time means that many, many commuters to NYC are in a car, train or bus for much longer than 41 minutes each way.

This means that people had a major lifestyle change when they started to WFH. No more getting up with the birds to sit on a train for an hour or more, and then stand on a 90° subway platform BEFORE they even get to their desk!

WFH also was family positive since most kids had remote schooling, which the WFH parents could supervise. At the same time, childcare also cratered. So the pinch on parents to be in attendance 24/7 for their young kids was clearly helped by WFH.

Nothing will solve the commute problems for those who live outside of Manhattan, not even giving everyone a private office. Maybe if companies offered to pay for commuting costs and childcare, people would come back. How about it, corporate America?

Another big labor issue is how long it has taken for women to return to the workforce. In the years leading up to the pandemic, women’s labor force participation rates were rising faster than that of men. Several factors were driving it, in particular the female-dominated industries, such as health care and caregiving were among the fastest-growing industries. Also, women’s educational attainment has risen substantially.

That ended during the pandemic. But CNN has reported that the labor force participation rate for women in their prime working age hit an all-time high in June of 77.8%. Prime working age is defined as 25-54. It was the third consecutive month that women between the ages of 25 and 54 have set a record high for labor force participation.

Women are doing much better in the labor market, and clearly, the pandemic’s “she-cession” is over. Yet, barriers remain: Notably, they’re still making far less than men. In 2022, women in the US earned about 82 cents for every dollar a man earned, according to a Pew Research Center report released in March. That’s a big leap from the 65 cents that women earned in 1982. But it’s barely moved from the 80 cents they were earning in 2002, and certainly hasn’t kept up with inflation.

The WFH movement helped women as well: Home-based work allowed for more flexibility in hours, and that helped improve access to childcare with schedules that allowed for easier drop-offs and pick-ups.

We should remember what else Labor Day is about. If you enjoy not having to work weekends, or having a 40-hour work week, or having sick days and paid time off, you can thank labor leaders. Thousands of Americans have marched, protested and participated in strikes in order to create fairer, more equitable labor laws and workplaces — and many are still doing that today.

So have a cookout. Go to the big box stores and spend because it helps the economy.

Here’s your Monday Wake Up Call, America! The challenge during the next year is whether the currently hot jobs market will cool off sooner than inflation. It seems likely that the Fed will be able to cool inflation without plunging the economy into a recession. If so, the jobs market will continue to offer average Americans a shot at a better life.

To help you wake up, let’s celebrate Jimmy Buffett’s life. From the Rolling Stone in 2018:

“WHILE PRESIDENT TRUMP took shots at Democrats in conservative Pensacola, Florida on Saturday, Jimmy Buffett hurled musical insults at Republicans in West Palm Beach during a Democratic campaign rally for US Sen. Bill Nelson and gubernatorial candidate and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum.

While singing his hit ‘Come Monday’ at the ‘Get Out the Vote’ rally, Buffett tweaked its lyrics to make a dig at Trump changing ‘Come Monday’ to ‘Come Tuesday, things will change. Come Tuesday, we’re making a change. It’s been two insane years and it’s time to switch gears.’”

Buffett long supported Democrats. So have a margarita, and toast ol’ Jimmy. Here’s his laid-back cover of CSN&Y’s “Southern Cross”, performed live at the Newport Folk Festival in 2018:

Note the Parrothead regalia in the audience. Anyone else think he looks like Biden?

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Saturday Soother – February 17, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Where desert meets mountains, near CA/NV border –  February 2023 photo by Austin James Jackson

Liz Hoffman at Semafor has a short analysis of the value of credit card loyalty programs to airlines. Many of us have them and we use them to purchase our everyday goods in order to earn air miles or points that we later use to get a seat upgrade, or to fly for free.

Everyone knows about this “perk” from the airlines, but few of us know just how profitable these programs are to the carriers. It turns out that they are the most lucrative assets on airlines’ balance sheets. The uncertain profitability of the airline business makes them very important since the airlines often lose money.

The airlines used to be secretive about just how profitable their frequent-flier programs were. But, when they were in deep financial trouble during the pandemic, several US carriers pledged their loyalty programs as collateral for new loans when other financing failed.

That required the airlines to open the books on their loyalty programs. And now we’ve learned that their credit card businesses are more valuable to shareholders than their basic business of flying planes. From Hoffman:

“It turns out that United’s rewards card program with JPMorgan Chase is valued today at $22 billion. But United’s market capitalization is $16 billion, meaning investors are assigning negative value to the part of its business that flies airplanes. The same goes for American and Delta.”

From a market valuation perspective, the basic businesses of the big three US airlines are under water. Hoffman provides an eye-opening chart showing that the airlines’ huge investment in aircraft and ground operations doesn’t produce a dime of market value for their shareholders:

As you can see, none of the big three US carriers get any incremental market value from flying planes. So should they either sell off all of that hardware, or spin off their credit card businesses?

They can’t. They need the flights to create demand for the points/miles. The secret sauce behind the success of their loyalty programs is that the actual value of an air mile isn’t clear. Customers think they’re getting a $3,000 upgrade to first class for a few thousand points, while the airlines know that the upgraded seat is unlikely to sell at all, and if it does, it won’t be for anything like that amount.

Foreign carriers have less reliance on their rewards programs. Many operate with government subsidies, so their flights are more profitable. And they serve consumers who are less comfortable with plastic. So their market valuation is less dependent on loyalty programs:

We have to assume that the board members of the airlines have always known about the value of their loyalty programs. But now everyone is seeing the potential value, and the airlines might be thinking that they can wring even more value from them.

What’s distressing about this is that the airlines needed bailouts only two years ago during Covid. The US airlines received $54 billion in federal aid to pay workers during the Covid pandemic. That agreement prohibited them from share buybacks.

That’s because they had continuously bought back shares in the years prior to the bailout. The four biggest US carriers — Delta, United, American, and Southwest — spent about $40 billion buying back their companies’ stock between 2015 and 2020. That effort to improve their market valuation failed spectacularly, since their loyalty programs are now worth more than the companies themselves.

America added a 1% tax on buybacks excise tax for buybacks this year, passed as a part of the Inflation Reduction Act. This will help reduce the deficit and might dampen American corporations’ appetite for stock buybacks. The largest US airlines are making money again, and labor unions don’t want them to spend it on more stock buybacks. In a public petition, some of the largest airline labor unions — representing more than 170,000 pilots, flight attendants, customer service agents — are urging carriers to stabilize operations and invest in workers before spending on buying back more of their stock. We’ll see if that ever happens.

Enough high finance, it’s time for our Saturday Soother. Here on the Fields of Wrong, we’ve had a few warm days that led to the beginning of our spring cleanup. To settle into your soother, grab a mug of coffee and a seat by the window. Start by forgetting about Nikki Haley’s campaign or what to do now that football is over.

Now listen and watch RenĂ©e Fleming sing “Nacht und TrĂ€ume” (Night and Dreams) written in 1825 by Franz Schubert conducted by Claudio Abbado with The Lucerne Festival Orchestra in 2005:

 

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Monday Wake Up Call, Abortion Editon – July 18, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Barn with cotton candy clouds, Allegre, KY – July 2022 photo by Fuller Perspective Photography

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe has opened a Pandora’s Box of ethical and legal issues. The infamous story about the pregnant 10 year-old Ohio rape victim who was forced to travel to Indiana to receive an abortion is the best example. It was reported in the Indianapolis Star on July 1.

After the Dobbs decision, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) had issued an executive order putting in force a 2019 law that had banned nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The 10-year-old was reportedly six weeks and three days pregnant.

Then we saw a Right-wing smear campaign:

  • A WSJ editorial called the Indianapolis Star’s report a “fanciful tale“, and claimed that there is “no evidence the girl exists.”
  • Tucker Carlson said that the story of the 10-year-old girl who had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion was “not true.”
  • Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in an interview with USA Today, that the story was likely a “fabrication.”
  • The New York Post, which, like Fox News and the WSJ, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, published an opinion piece by law professor Jonathan Turley under the headline “Activist tale of 10-year-old rape victim’s abortion looks like a lie.”

All of those shouts and murmurs soon disappeared when a 27-year-old man from Columbus, Ohio, Gershon Fuentes, was arrested and charged with impregnating the 10-year-old Ohio girl. Apparently, Fuentes “confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions.”

Subsequently,  the WSJ recanted and published a different editorial correcting the record. Why would they accuse the Star of fabricating a story? From Judd Legum: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“There is a reason why so many people, particularly on the right, were eager to push the idea that Bernard’s story was a lie. If they acknowledged the story was true they would have to answer this question: Do you believe that a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to give birth?”

By the way, Covid appears to have increased early-onset puberty around the world. Getting your period “early” now means when you’re younger than 8. People who think a pregnant 10-year-old strains credulity should bear this in mind.

The Nieman Lab, a Harvard-based group focused on journalism on the Internet, took the WaPo’s Glenn Kessler, author of their “Fact Checker” column to task for not checking his facts about the Star’s reporting. One of Kessler’s so-called “facts” was: (brackets by Wrongo)

“An abortion by a 10-year-old is pretty rare,” Kessler notes…..[but] The Columbus Dispatch reported that in 2020, 52 people under the age of 15 received an abortion in Ohio.”

Your mileage may vary, but if one under-15-year-old gets an abortion every week in Ohio, it can’t be thought of as “pretty rare”. The press needs to wise up and get the data before diving headfirst to a conclusion.

There are other ways the Dobbs decision will impact lives. Unsure doctors in Texas are already turning away ectopic pregnancies, fearing legal liability. According to The Lily (a WaPo newsletter):

“…a South Texas woman diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy was refused an abortion by her doctor…..she was advised to seek help out of state.”

Under the unclear Texas law, a doctor who removes an ectopic pregnancy that is not actively causing the patient to bleed to death may face legal consequences.

It doesn’t end there. The laws surrounding in vitro fertilization (IVF) could also be facing threats of lawsuits even though these women aren’t seeking abortions. Slate reports:

“Fertilizing eggs in a Petri dish often results in extra embryos, which are usually frozen….Leftover embryos are frequently discarded or donated to research….In some abortion-restrictive states, this may no longer be possible. Louisiana defines “a viable in vitro fertilized human ovum” as a “juridical person which shall not be intentionally destroyed,” and at least five states have introduced bills establishing fetal personhood.”

States probably won’t ban IVF outright, but as some countries have done, they may limit the number of embryos that can be created in an effort to prevent embryo destruction. All of this would make IVF far more difficult and expensive than it is, and it could possibly reduce the number of IVF clinics in those states.

This is the tip of the iceberg of the issues women will have post-Dobbs. Technology will always be ahead of our laws and ethics. Just as will some men’s (and religions’) need to control women.

Time to wake up America! Elect a filibuster-proof Senate this fall. To help you wake up listen to Willie Nile, perform his ode to Covid, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”:

Sample lyric (that could be about the end of Roe instead of Covid)

So if you feel some heartache
And if you feel some pain
And if you see some lonely soul
Standing in the pouring rain
Offer up some kindness
Compassion if you will
And remember well the way it was
The day the earth stood still

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Lowering Gas Prices Isn’t Easy

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, tide pools, La Jolla, CA – June 2022 photo by Paul Folk

Fed Reserve Chair Powell appeared before the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday and the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday to talk about inflation and the Fed’s role in bringing it under control. Both Democrats and Republicans agreed with Powell’s desire to bring inflation down as quickly as possible. But they had vastly different views on how the Fed and Congress should do the job.

When pressed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Powell said higher interest rates could not boost the production of oil or end other supply shocks that are driving prices higher:

Basically, Powell agreed that the forces causing inflation were largely beyond the Fed’s control.

The Fed is raising interest rates to dampen demand, but consumers are in relatively decent shape and still have money in their bank accounts to spend. If spending declines, companies are often forced to keep prices stable or cut them, which throws some cold water on inflation. But that also can cause job losses and wages to stagnate.

Committee Republicans blamed the Fed for not listening to their calls to raise rates as inflation began to rise last year. Several GOP Senators questioned whether the Fed has the will to induce a recession if that becomes necessary.

Politically, it’s clear that a sharp recession that cost jobs would be ruinous for millions of Americans. But, it has the advantage of giving Republicans a clear path to winning back control of Congress in 2022 and possibly the White House in 2024.

That’s how politics works: The Party out of power blames the Party in power for whatever isn’t working.

However, inflation has multiple causes, most of which Powell admitted were outside the control of the Fed or the White House. Let’s focus on gas prices, an area where neither Biden nor Powell can do much to bring prices down.

The key to gas prices right now is the global lack of refinery capacity. Seeking Alpha reports that excess refining capacity doesn’t exist outside of India, China, and Russia. As a result, US and European refineries are making huge profit margins. From the Economist:

“In normal times, the refining business is a low-margin, low-drama adjunct to the…business of oil production….Refiners typically make profit margins of $5-10 a barrel….This time….Margins for many refiners have rocketed, and bottlenecks in the sector are propelling global petrol prices upwards.”

Here’s a chart:

A government report shows that US refining capacity has fallen in the last two years. In fact, it’s where it was in 2014, meaning that gas supplies would still be tight if refineries were running at 100%, and they’re running at close to that. Industry capacity utilization is at roughly 94%, the highest since 2018.

US oil refining capacity has decreased by more than one million barrels/day (5% of the total) since the start of the pandemic. Some old facilities were closed permanently after Covid stopped people from driving, which crushed fuel demand. Other refineries are being modified to produce renewable diesel instead of gas. Those conversions may be too far along to reverse course.

Since there’s little chance of bringing new US sources of gasoline refining online anytime soon, Biden’s best chance to lower prices will likely come from jawboning the refiners to accept smaller profit margins.

We shouldn’t count on America’s corporations to do the right thing.

Over the longer term, Mr. Market might help save the day. The price spikes will cool demand for gas, which should lower prices. A shift in trade flows could also help. The Economist says that India’s refiners see an opportunity to become, as RBC Capital Markets says, “the de facto refining hub for Europe”.

New refineries are scheduled to come online in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which should help ease the shortages too.

The hard reality is that there’s no easy solution for gas prices, or for food prices. If they existed, Biden would’ve flipped that switch months ago. Earlier this week, Wrongo said:

“Will people vote this Fall based on the price of gas? Or the threat of a recession? Or, will they understand that there’s a real possibility that democracy as we know it in the US could vanish?….Inflation comes and goes. Recessions come and go. If we lose our democracy, it won’t be returning any time soon.”

The GOP keeps slamming Biden over inflation, but it has zero solutions to offer, because this shit is complicated. Rep. Elise Stefanik, (R-NY), the third-ranking member of the House GOP, isn’t even pretending the GOP has a plan. She recently said of inflation:

“House Republicans will address these crises when we earn back control of the House this November.”

Sure. You can trust the Party of tax cuts for the wealthy to prevent a recession that will harm the rest of us.

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Saturday Soother – March 19, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Cherry blossoms, Tanque Verde Ridge, AZ – February 2022 photo by Bel Meader

Wrongo and Ms. Right started our return trip from Florida yesterday. We said goodbye to being able to sit on the patio with our coffee at 8 am and to walk without wearing a jacket. Two observations from our visit: First, it’s clear that all older people there are members of a “club”. On our morning walks, everyone said hello, something that doesn’t routinely happen in the north. Second, virtually everyone is maskless in public spaces.

That’s largely due to the public health policies of Florida’s governor and legislature. This time around, it didn’t work out badly for them. But we all should be at least somewhat concerned about what’s visible on the Covid horizon.

We’re talking about the arrival of the Coronavirus BA.2 subvariant. The Omicron we know is BA.1. CNN reports that the BA.2 variant is 80% more transmissible than trusty old Omicron, and about as serious an illness. They also say that BA.2 has been growing steadily in the US. The CDC estimates it is causing about 12% of new Covid-19 cases in America.

Hong Kong is in the throes of a severe wave caused by BA.2. It currently has the highest Covid-19 death rate in the world. The WaPo reports this from China:

“China’s worst coronavirus outbreak in two years has reached almost all parts of the country, stretching medical resources, shuttering businesses, and manufacturing outfits, and raising questions about the government’s staunch commitment to its “zero covid” policy.”

Meanwhile, BA.2 now accounts for more than 50% of cases in the UK and in several European countries.

Here’s an interesting chart from Charles Gaba, showing the point at which Covid deaths in Red states overtook Covid deaths in Blue states:

They crossed when Biden was inaugurated. The graph includes all variants of Covid. It shows the cumulative Covid death rates in the reddest and bluest tenths of the US at the county level. The total population of the 50 US states, plus DC, is right around 331.4 million people. That puts each tenth of the population at around 33.1 million each.

The date may be a coincidence, but the data aren’t. You know why this happened.

We look like we’re about to have another surge. That’s depressing since we are barely past the Omicron surge. If the data coming in from places where Omicron BA.2 is surging hold up, it means that our vaccinations should mitigate the worst of it.

But if you are over 60 or are unvaccinated, or unboosted, or have any medical vulnerabilities, you’d better wear your mask when out and about, even in Florida.

A whole lot of people won’t do you the favor of wearing one, so you should be extra careful.

Time for our Saturday Soother, where we try to forget about what’s happening in Ukraine, or whether Jessie Smollett deserves to be out of jail on appeal. Let’s unplug and relax and think about how Spring is just around the corner. Of course that means yard work on the Fields of Wrong, but it also means enjoying weather like we were having in Florida.

To help you relax, grab a seat by a window and listen to Mozart’s Rondo from the Horn Concerto Number 4 KV 495. This is a trio arrangement played by Sarah Willis (horn), TamĂĄs Velenczei (trumpet) and Jesper Busk Sorensen (euphonium). It was performed live in a virtual concert in the Berlin Chamber Music Hall for the Pacific Music Festival 2021:

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Monday Wake Up Call – March 7, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Watson Lake, near Prescott, AZ –  February 2022 photo by Steve Matten

Last week, the Labor Department released its monthly Nonfarm payroll report. It showed strong hiring, and a substantial decrease in unemployment. Employment rose by 678,000 in February, the unemployment rate fell to 3.8%, wages rose by just 1 cent to $31.58 per hour, although wages have risen 5.1% over the past 12 months.

We still have 2.1 million fewer jobs (1.4%) than we had in February 2020 just before the start of the pandemic. At the average rate of jobs growth for the past 6 months, it’s about 4 more months before we get back to where we were. From Krugman:

“…what people are actually experiencing in their daily lives is a very strong job market. For example, according to the latest survey from the Conference Board, 53.8% of consumers said that jobs were “plentiful,” a near-record, while only 11.8% said that jobs were hard to get.”

More from Krugman:

“Yet the public doesn’t believe it. According to a new survey by Navigator Research, only 19% of Americans believe that the US economy is experiencing more job growth than usual, while 35% say that it is experiencing more job losses than usual.”

Pandemic unemployment peaked in April 2020 at 14.7%. Back then, Congress was afraid of the country entering another depression, or at best a recession similar to 2008. Congress decided to prop up the economy through a fiscal stimulus called the first CARES Act. Many politicians have talked about how the CARES Act was the financial jolt that has caused inflation to spike.

You probably didn’t realize just how large that unemployment aid was. When unemployment benefits were at their peak in June 2020, the government pushed $1.395 trillion dollars out to the unemployed. Here’s a chart from the St. Louis Fed that shows how fast and how high that cash injection into the economy moved:

Today, these unemployment payments have shrunk by 98% to $26.7 billion. So where in our economy did that $1.4 trillion go? It went primarily to goods purchased locally at Mom & Pop stores and supermarkets. It also went to the big box stores like Walmart, Costco, and Target. It went to Amazon and hundreds of online retailers. At the Mansion of Wrong, it also went to Peloton.  And it went to online services, like Netflix and online education.

Americans spent less than usual on services, so we saw huge job losses in the services sector. Statista reports that we are still short 3.75 million jobs in the services sector and less than .5 million in manufacturing. Leisure and hospitality account for 1.38 million of the total, while losses in education, health services and government also remain high.

Much of today’s inflation is the result of this trillion-dollar unemployment stimulus. Barry Ritholtz interviewed Rebecca Patterson, Director of Investment Research at Bridgewater Associates. She described how the one-two punch of monetary and fiscal stimulus led to a “Demand Shock” where demand for durable goods overwhelmed what manufacturers could supply. She says that while global manufacturers ramped up production by 5% above pre-pandemic levels, demand for those same goods rose by 20%. This is a large part of the inflation spike we’re experiencing, and why the Fed has called it a “transitory” problem.

America’s response to the pandemic reminds us that the way our government responds to crises brings different impacts to different parts of our society.

The Federal Reserve’s expansionary monetary stimulus since 2008 has primarily benefited corporations and the well-off who could buy ever more expensive assets with very cheap money. Fiscal stimulus like the CARES Act and like the new infrastructure bill mostly benefit the bottom 50% of the country: low-wage labor, the unemployed, and the middle class.

So the economy is doing just fine for the top 10% and the upper middle class. But people who make minimum wage aren’t flying to Barcelona this year. They’re not eating at high-end restaurants. When they shop, it isn’t at boutiques. They continue to split financial hairs trying to figure out how to feed their kids and keep a roof over their heads, because rents are rising everywhere in the US and the price of food is going out of sight.

Add to this the interest rate hikes we know are coming, and things aren’t getting better for the lower middle class or people in poverty.

The discussion of the impact that fiscal stimulus had on our labor market isn’t finished. No one really knows why so many people haven’t returned to work, despite the roaring economy.

Time to wake up America! Some Americans are going through hard times. Clearly, people in Ukraine are facing terror that is much worse than here at home. Maybe this cover of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” by The Brothers Comatose with AJ Lee can bring a momentary comfort in this age of discomfort:

Watch it, you won’t be disappointed.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – March 6, 2022

A federal district court judge in Florida issued an order preventing disciplinary action against a Navy officer who refused to take the Covid vaccine on religious grounds. In the military, this is called insubordination, and is subject to many different forms of punishment. But not according to Florida District Court Judge Steven Merryday:

“The military is well aware of the frailty of their arguments in defense of their practices….The record creates a strong inference that the services are discriminatorily and systematically denying religious exemptions without a meaningful and fair hearing.”

The officer is in charge of a guided missile destroyer that is about to deploy. The warship carries 320 officers and sailors, along with missiles and torpedoes. The Navy isn’t saying where it’s headed. But now, the Navy can’t deploy its warship, even though it says it has lost trust in its commanding officer, an anti-vaxxer who has repeatedly disobeyed lawful orders.

Perhaps the craziest aspect of the judge’s ruling is that the Navy is prohibited from reassigning the insubordinate commander to a position at the same rank, pay grade etc. while the case is litigated. That’s something that the military normally has absolute discretion to do.

But the judge has overruled the Navy, along with the many senior officers who have said under oath that deploying the ship with the anti-Vaxx commander could imperil national security. Instead, the judge has ordered the Navy to keep the disobedient officer in charge of its $1.8 billion warship.

Now, the Navy and the judiciary are at a standoff. The Navy won’t deploy its warship until the commander is stripped of command. The judge will not allow it to do so. As a result, the judge has effectively commandeered a Navy guided-missile destroyer.

The issue seems to be about the limits of individual religious freedom. Military courts don’t usually decide these issues. The controlling law is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that requires “reasonable accommodation” for religious requirements, like for service members who must have beards or wear religious headgear.  They are permitted to do so, even if regulations would otherwise prohibit them. The question is should it apply to vaccinations for commanders when the Navy says they must be vaccinated.

Another problem is jurisdiction. A US district judge shouldn’t have any jurisdiction when the dispute is between the US Military and an officer or enlisted person. Soldiers do surrender some of their Constitutional or legislatively guaranteed rights while in the military, but not all. So some actions must be resolved by civilian courts.

This is a clear example of how the band of authoritarian theocrats with lifetime judicial appointments are trashing decisions taken by both our political and military institutions. In the coming years, the center and left must decide if they’re OK with right-wing judges carrying out a slow motion religious coup under the color of law. On to cartoons.

Strongman has a new meaning:

Does love between two authoritarians amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world?

March Madness used to mean basketball on TV, not war:

Can nuclear war bring Red and Blue together for a one night stand? Nope:

Trans kids being who they are is bringing out the true nature of Republicans:

After last week’s revelations, is the tide turning for Trump? Let’s root for the undertow:

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Biden’s Key Domestic Problems

The Daily Escape:

Aerial view of sunset at Cathedral Rock just after snowstorm, Sedona, AZ – February 2022 photo by mattymeis

Wrongo will leave it to others to deeply analyze Biden’s State of the Union speech. Biden clearly doesn’t have the oratory skills of Obama, or a Reagan. He’s more like Carter, or GHW Bush. He is, however, a better public speaker than Mitch McConnell.

Biden’s performance was pretty solid for a guy facing down fascism, both here at home as well as abroad. He didn’t attack his predecessor. He didn’t mention Jan. 6. That means he knows that what really matters isn’t shouting at his political adversaries, but talking over the heads of Congress to the nation.

But let’s take a prospective look at a few of the issues that may make or break Biden’s second year and likewise, cost the Democrats their majorities in both Houses of Congress in November. He’s facing one global crisis (the pandemic) that’s fading, and another (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) that’s escalating.

In his first year, Biden presided over a robust economic recovery. It did create inflation, bringing higher prices for everything from housing and food to cars and gasoline. Here are a few of the challenges and opportunities for Biden in 2022:

Inflation. Biden adopted an aggressive, populist approach to beating inflation in his speech. In particular, saying that “Capitalism without competition is exploitation—and it drives up profits” was a great way to speak to the average American. The Fed’s interest rate hikes in 2022 will help.

Gas prices. The cost of fuel, electricity and power was 3.8% of average disposable income in January 2022. This is about where it was in late 2018, when Trump was president. Vehicle fuel efficiency means $3.50/gal. gasoline isn’t the scourge it once was. But, with the oil markets at above $100 a barrel because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden may have a difficult time convincing voters they’re better off.

The supply chain. The shipping logjam is still with us. The Port of Los Angeles processed 7 million 20-foot equivalent shipping containers last year, surpassing the previous record set in 2018 by 13%. But that system isn’t built to handle the spike in demand caused by people buying more goods than services in 2021. Our supply chain is controlled by private companies including port operators, labor unions, the rail and trucking industries, and the large shippers that rely on their services. It’s unclear what Biden can do to reduce shipping costs.

Homicides. Americans are killing each other at rates not seen in decades. The sense that crime is out of control is and will continue to be a drag on Biden’s approval ratings, especially among Republicans and Hispanics. The current wave of killings began before Biden took office in 2021, and other measures of crime haven’t shown increases. There’s little Biden can do to turn this around.

Illegal border crossings. The 1.66 million migrants seeking to cross the US-Mexico border illegally in the 12 months through September, are the highest number since 2000. But Biden isn’t doing as bad a job as Republicans say. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that the actual number of successful unlawful entries in 2021 was less than one-fourth the total in 2000. Customs and Border Patrol has greatly reduced the number of migrants who manage to sneak in. Biden says he will address the multiple year backlog in asylum cases by hiring more immigration judges.

Tax refunds will be late this year. Americans hate doing their taxes but love getting refunds. A Bankrate survey found that 67% of those expecting a refund said it was important to their finances and planned to either save it, or use it to pay down debt or for daily expenses. The IRS says they’re overwhelmed following pandemic-related challenges, years of underfunding, and additional duties such as administering stimulus payments. The IRS has added a “surge team” to help whittle the big backlog and speed refunds. But if long delays materialize, voters will only remember they had to wait for too long to get their money back.

Biden’s approval rating. Pundits think that unless Biden’s approval rating improves into the high 40%s in the next few months, Democrats risk a 2010-style bloodbath in November. We won’t know for a few weeks if Biden received a bump in his approval ratings post-speech. CNN’s post-speech poll shows that 67% of those who watched the speech say that Biden’s policy proposals would move the country in the right direction, with 33% saying we would go in the wrong direction. That’s in contrast with a survey conducted before the speech with the same people. They were closer to evenly split (52% right direction, 48% wrong direction).

Many of the challenges confronting Biden are not fully in his control. In addition to what are enumerated above, Biden can get a boost based on his handling of Putin’s War and the sanctions regime. That may offset the negative image of our Afghanistan withdrawal.

There are just 8 months until the mid-terms. Biden needs to move fast.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – February 13, 2022

Have you given any thought to the inconsistency between how Whoopi Goldberg was treated for her comment about the holocaust, and how Joe Rogan has been treated for his um, body of work? Whoopi was condemned by the left and right. She was appropriately suspended from her position as a host of ABC’s The View. She later apologized for the hurtful inference in her remarks.

With Rogan, after the flap over his COVID misinformation, it came to light that dozens of his episodes were quietly removed from Spotify because they featured Rogan using the N-word. To date, Spotify has yanked more than 100 of his episodes. But Rogan wasn’t suspended or “cancelled” by Spotify. Still, he’s held up on the Right as another victim of leftist cancel culture.

The artists who left Spotify weren’t trying to “cancel” Rogan. They just wouldn’t continue being associated with a platform that promoted him. Both the artists and Spotify are making free-market business decisions that they have every right to make.

That’s an idea that you’d think would be vigorously supported by Conservatives.

The outcry on the Right about “cancel culture” comes at a time when they are working to outlaw Critical Race Theory, overturn elections, enact legislation to deny the vote to millions of Americans, and ban books. It’s clear who’s doing the cancelling in America.

Those who defend Rogan say he’s simply providing a forum. Sure, he interviews kooks and sleazes, but he also interviews some reasonable folks. So he’s presenting “both sides“. The other side of a fact is a lie. And if you put a lie on an equal footing with the truth, you give the lie credibility. This is a cardinal sin that the media have been committing for decades. On to cartoons.

The massive self-deception the Right Wing practices while copying Nazi tactics:

Trump’s monument on the Mall:

RNC censures two of its own, says many of its own are totally fine:

Mitch the turtle takes RNC to task for its censure, also says Trump is wrong:

Russia’s about to bite off more than it can chew:

The end of mask mandates is political signaling. We’ll soon know if this calculated risk works:

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Are Freedom and Democracy Still Compatible in America?

The Daily Escape:

Henniker Covered Bridge, Henniker, NH – February 2022 photo by Jurgen Roth Photography. It is a footbridge across the Contoocook River.

Trucker anger is coming to America. From Politico:

“Canada’s truckers have paralyzed Ottawa and unsettled the country’s politics over vaccine and mask mandates. Now Americans want in on the action. A nationwide convoy — starting in California before heading toward Washington, D.C. — is expected to get underway on March 4 amid a growing clamor from those who believe their freedoms are under threat from government Covid-19 restrictions.”

The trucker protests in Canada seem to have become a rallying point for those who are irate about what they view as Covid-inspired overreach by their governments. Momentum seems to be building for a similar convoy in the US. The NYT reports that:

“…several right-wing figures, including Dan Bongino, Michael Flynn and Ben Shapiro, have promoted the protest and shared links to fund-raising sites that have collected millions of dollars. American anti-vaccine groups have also begun forming local wings of the movement and have urged truckers in the United States to adopt the tactics in Canada.”

The US organizers are now calling it “the People’s Convoy“. They have formed Telegram encrypted channels to use for building support in multiple states. The group says it’s working with two other groups: Freedom Fighter Nation and Restore Liberty, whose founders are closely tied to right wing politics. They include Leigh Dundas, founder of the Freedom Fighter Nation. She gave a speech in DC on the eve of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill insurrection, claiming it would be “within our rights” to murder “alleged American turncoats” who interfered with the 2020 election.

She seems nice.

Trucker protest convoys have become a rallying cry for far-right and anti-vaccine groups around the world. They seem to be gathering strength from growing Covid fatigue, something that is nearly universal in the developed world.

Their message is that “government has been overreaching for too long, and we’re not going to take it anymore”. They’re expressing an old, bad idea: That individual freedom cannot be limited by government.

Let’s spend a minute on whether freedom and democracy are compatible. “Freedom” normally means freedom of the individual while democracy is a communitarian concept. Democracy is a system of government while freedom is about either not being governed or being governed as lightly as possible.

But a society without democracy would be autocracy or worse. With no government, it would be anarchy. And a society without freedom couldn’t possibly be a democracy. So maybe the question isn’t whether they are compatible, but whether each is a co-requisite for the other to exist.

Elizabeth Anker in the NYT opined on the changing nature of the language of freedom, saying that many political actors are using the concept of freedom to justify anti-democratic politics. She calls them the “ugly freedoms”. In American politics they increasingly justify minority rule, prejudice, and anti-democratic governance. And their popularity is growing.

This is highly relevant to the impending trucker convoys and how we think about “free speech” and the rights of non-experts to try and force their opinions on the majority. Perhaps the alternative to the ugly freedoms should be our beautiful freedoms, like the Bill of Rights, or the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

A third of Americans make up their own facts, so we’re bound to hear a few lies expresed as truth. These same people believe they don’t have to consider what’s happening in their communities. They think opinions are equal to facts. They get angry enough to threaten violence or to commit violence.

Many of them, despite outward tough guy appearances, are simply too soft mentally and emotionally. Life can often be harder than we want it to be. Sometimes, you’ve got to do what’s good for society, not just what’s good for you.

OTOH, these trucker rallies could conceivably draw support from others who are angry at governments at all levels. Think about restaurant workers, first responders and all of the “essential’ employees who have been unevenly impacted by Covid.

Think of it as the laptop workers vs. those who have to leave the house to earn a living. They each have experienced Covid and the jobs crash in far different ways. If the trucker protest casts a wide net, it will rope in small business owners and parents who are angry that their children have lost so much when schools were closed.

There’s plenty of anger fermenting out there.

Going back to Wrongo’s US Army days, you weren’t required to like everyone in your platoon, but duty demanded you bear the responsibility of fighting beside and for them. That was considered patriotic. Once we had the ability to pull together and sacrifice in the midst of national crisis. Now it’s everyone for themselves.

On Jan. 6, the right of free speech produced lies that led people to commit federal crimes. That’s the downside of the Bill of Rights: An individual has a protected right to lie to the public. We see many career politicians and social media entrepreneurs lie every day.

Assuming that there are protests in the US in coming weeks, Biden will face the same dilemma as Canada’s Prime Minster Trudeau faces now. Will Biden demonize the truckers? Will he listen to their grievances?

The shift of emphasis in America from an expanding democracy with protected individual rights/freedoms to an ad hoc (and sometimes illogical) version of freedom is what may create a failed American state.

It’s a movement that’s long on energy, and short on facts and judgment.

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