Random Thoughts #18

February 1, 2024

1. The Biden Administration is lecturing the Israelis on how to conduct their war with Hamas. Surely, the Israelis are too smart to pay attention and will ignore their suggestions.
2. The theft and subsequent destruction of the Jackie Robinson statute in Wichita is destressing. The statue was bronze and cut off at the ankles. Its remains were found incinerated. Major League baseball has said it will replace the statue but over $140,000 in private donations have been made. I can make no sense of the act. I welcome any suggestions. Stating that this is a “hate” crime is too simplistic.
3. When Russian natural gas stopped flowing to Europe, Joe Biden pledged that the shortage would be made up with American liquid natural gas. The business boomed with billions of dollars invested in ships and terminals. Now Biden has betrayed our allies and investors by stopping all new LNG licenses in order to appease the climate doomsday crowd. Of course the Europeans were stupid to shutter their coal and nuclear plants in favor of “renewable” energy. But what should be a boon for American business has been stopped by another Biden folly.
4. French farmers are once again up in arms about their government’s actions. Remember the yellow vest movement that sprang up from rising fuel prices? The same is happening now. Again they are protesting high fuel prices but also the rising costs stemming from environmental “protection” regulations. But the French are not alone. There are farmer protests in Romania, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Belgium. It’ll be interesting to see if the overzealous drive toward climate change will be derailed by the farmers.
5. I am not one to be jealous or envious. The one exception was the late great Wayman Tisdale. He was best known as an all-star basketball player. He won a gold medal at the Olympics and is in the basketball Hall of Fame. But also, he was a great jazz bassist with one album being number one on Billboard’s contemporary jazz chart. I really like his music and marveled at his talent on the basketball court and in jazz. He developed bone cancer, had his right leg amputated and because of his size was subjected to massive doses of radiation treatments. He lost his battle but had been always cheerful and optimistic. His attitude reminded me of my father’s. When Dad was told he had terminal stomach cancer that was inoperable, he responded “why not me?” rather than “why me?” He, like Tisdale, never indulged in self-pity or felt sorry for himself. He had lived a good life and was grateful for that.
6. I along with several others have written essays for the Liberty Fund on whether systemic racism exists (“Systemic racism in education and healthcare,” Liberty Matters, October 2022. https://oll.libertyfund.org/liberty-matters/systemic-racism-in-education-and-health-care). Those essays seriously question whether systemic racism continues to exist despite all those who contend that it does. One thing I have found in my research is that black bankers and white bankers make similar decisions on accepting applications from blacks. Both sets of bankers also price accepted applications from blacks similarly. Likewise, the research on the actions of car salesmen is similar for black and white salesmen. Detailed multivariate analysis on the use of force by police shows that blacks are not more harshly treated than whites – contrary to the popular narrative, Moreover, when blacks took over control of elected offices, the economic wellbeing of black citizens did not improve from when whites ran the cities. Lastly, disparities in educational proficiency widened when blacks took control of boards of education, school administrations and teachers. So the question is whether systemic racism is so embedded that it does not change when blacks are in power.
7. Lastly, systemic racism appears to always stem from a legal foundation. But it is not just the Jim Crow laws of the old south. Franklin Roosevelt’s Federal Housing Administration denied housing loan guarantees to black applicants (including my father) and was largely responsible for widening racial home ownership differentials. Several banking regulations seeking to protect consumers have resulted in less credit being available for minorities forcing them to borrow from higher interest rate lenders. Minimum wage legislation and restrictions on business licenses have also contributed to increased unemployment and more welfare dependency among blacks. As one writer put it “please don’t help us anymore.”