Author: haroldblackphd

Prior to my retirement I had an active consulting practice dealing primarily with actions brought against banks by the government or by class action tort attorneys. In one of the cases, the lead attorney told me that in his classes at Harvard law, his favorite instructor was Elizabeth Warren. For those who do not know, many say that Warren got her appointment to the Harvard law faculty by deception. She claimed to be a native American (which is why Trump calls her “Pocahontas”). I know from experience that Harvard’s hiring reflects what I call “degree snobs.” Harvard’s faculty is composed of faculty with degrees from only “elite” universities. However, none of Warren’s degrees are from “elite” institutions. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Houston and her JD is from Rutgers. I bet she was the only faulty member with degrees from such common-folk universities.

Some allege that she was a DEI hire (hence claiming to be native American) but she came to Harvard only after a distinguished academic career with appointments at Rutgers, Houston, Texas where she was a tenured full professor. She then was a chaired professor at Penn before going to Harvard as Leo Gottlieb professor of law. At Harvard she specialized in bankruptcy and commercial law and was one of the three most citied scholars in those fields. In the senate she has concentrated on trying to reform banking, antitrust issues and consumer protection.

This was the person known to that attorney that I was working with on a class action case. He said that the senator Elizabeth Warren was totally different from the professor Elizabeth Warren. The senator Elizabeth Warren has almost reached “kook” status in the senate. In an earlier post, I mentioned her letter (with Klobuchar) that was derided by Treasury secretary Bessent. Then she accused Donald Trump of being responsible for the YouTubeTv Disney kerfuffle. She said “You might not be able to watch Monday Night Football tonight. Why? When companies get too big, they have the power to cut off your favorite channels. That’s what’s happening here. And what’s Trump done about it? He’s let them get away with it.” Was she saying that Trump was responsible for the blackout?

I guess since Trump has poked his nose into a bunch of other non-presidential affairs like Taylor Swift, Sydney Sweeney, reopening Alcatraz and his penchant for making outlandish remarks, Warren thinks that he should be making comments about the loss of ESPN to YouTubeTV viewers too and doing something about it. But what does Warren want Trump to do? Wouldn’t interfering in this dispute be contrary to her claim that Trump wants to be a king?

But what is interesting is that Warren who seemingly has taken Disney’s side in the dispute is being inconsistent. In September, Warren in a letter (she sure likes writing letters) with Bernie Sanders and Texas’ Joaquin Castro sent to Disney question its proposed media deals between ESPN and the NFL and major league baseball. The letter raised antitrust concerns that would harm consumers and competitors. Here, in part is what it says

The agreements between ESPN, the NFL, and Major League Baseball (MLB) that have recently become public raise serious concerns and could entrench ESPN’s dominance over competitors in sports distribution,” the letter reads. “As prices rise across the board, including for cable and satellite TV and streaming services, sports fans should not be forced to pay more or jump through more hoops to watch their favorite team.

“We are concerned that these new deals could hurt consumers by disadvantaging competitors, limiting choices, raising prices for viewers, and creating potential conflicts of interest.”

So here, Warren is questioning Disney and saying that the arrangement would cause streaming services like YouTubeTV to pay more. Yet she then one month later seems to be critical of YouTubeTV of having to pay more if Disney raises the price of carrying ESPN. Apparently, being in politics has caused what was one a top legal mind to turn to mush. And this is just the latest example of nonsense coming from Senator Warren. Bessent called her a “failure” and the senate’s “resident American Peronist.” Maybe he was given to understatement.

But one thing is clear, Warren hates Trump. The most recent evidence is over Trump’s pardon of Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder. Warren asserted that Zhao who had pleaded guilty to a money laundering charge had financed Trump’s stablecoin project and lobbied for a pardon and got it. She then added “If Congress does not stop this kind of corruption. It owns it.” Where is the brilliant legal mind that was on the Penn and Harvard faculties?Senator Warren is a caricature of the professor Warren. That legal mind has turned into mush but such is the transformative power of spending too many years in the legislature surrounded by the folk who only want more power than seek optimal solutions to the problems that many of them have created

Free the air traffic controllers

I have previously written that the education of our children is too important to be left to the government. The same can be said of many things especially the air traffic controllers. Why are they government employees? The specter of 10% of flights being cancelled due to this silly government shutdown gives us the opportunity to take a long hard look at this arrangement. First, how is the system funded in the first place? Are the controllers’ salaries being paid via appropriations out of the general fund or are they being paid like at some federal regulatory agencies in which the regulated firms pay a fee to the specific regulator? The AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) website says “Federal aviation programs related to aviation, comprised of air traffic control and navigation systems, regulation and certification, and capital improvement grants to airports, are all administered by the Federal Aviation Administration and financed with annual appropriations by Congress.” Further “Air traffic controllers in the U.S. are primarily funded through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which receives most of its budget from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF). This fund collects revenue from aviation-related taxes, including those on airline tickets and fuel, but is subject to congressional appropriations and can be affected by government shutdowns.”

Ok the funding does not come from the general tax fund but from monies related to air stuff (a technical term). Why can’t this funding be from assessments just like the Federal Reserve’s funding? In almost 100 other countries air traffic control is treated like a public utility. The fees go directly into what is essentially an ATC utility and is independent of the government’s purse strings. As one of my friends observed, the government being the employer of the air traffic controllers is analogous to the government paying doctors’ salaries where in countries like England, the doctors collectively can go on strike. Can you imagine our doctors going on strike?

Today’s modest proposal is to file for a divorce. ATC should be taken out of the hands of the congress and accorded independent agency status. The Trump Administration is all about shaking things up so do this. Doing Trump’s first term one attempt was made to do this. It was modelled after the Canadian system of a self funded corporation independent from the federal government with the government maintaining oversight. It had the support of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the Business Roundtable and the major airlines. It made it out of committee but for never got a floor vote. There was a campaign against the bill led by the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), a lobbying group for private business aviation which said that the big airlines would take over the ATC to the detriment of private planes and rural states. If I were the president, I would get this group on board and pass the legislation.

Are we as smart as the Canadians, the New Zealanders and all the other countries that somehow manage to depoliticize their air traffic control systems? Apparently not.

British stabbing, Africa genocide, Senator Crockett?

Britain has a Muslim problem but won’t admit it. There were the rape gangs that were glossed over. There is the awful antisemitism that is politely tolerated. One Brit actually implored Trump to admit British Jews under the refugee program that he is reserving for the Afrikaners. Then there is banning of Israeli soccer fans at a match in Birmingham following the deadly attack on a synagogue in Manchester. Thirty percent of Birmingham’s population is Muslim who held perhaps England’s largest pro Hamas demonstrations. It’s a miracle that the Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv would travel in the face of such hostility but apparently they will. The member of parliament from Birmingham is a Muslim who won election on a pro-Palestinian platform and launched a petition to ban the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from coming to the game. He praised the decision to ban them.

British Muslims have been responsible for much of the attacks on the Jews and it is interesting that when eleven people were stabbed on a London bound train that we were never told if the attackers were Muslim. Two men were initially arrested but only one was charged. In no coverage that I read does it state whether the stabber was Muslim. The news reports that he was born in Britain. British Transport Police Superintendent John Loveless said “There is nothing to suggest this is a terrorist incident.” Pardon me John but you are full of it. This is a terrorist act regardless of what we are being told. The stabber is named Antony Williams and his photo looks as if he is black but no word as to whether he is (or isn’t) Muslim. Seems like the knife is the weapon of choice in England. Is there a call for knife control? The banning of blades over a certain length?

Trump says that we are not going to invade Venezuela but we may invade Nigeria. There the Muslim majority is killing the Christian minority. Here is what the president tweeted “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ tocompletely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities. I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!” To date over 52,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed with 17 being killed just after Trump announced possible intervention. The extremist groups Boko Haram and ISWAP are primarily responsible.

But If Trump wants to intervene in Africa he should look no farther than Darfur where Sudan’s Arab led militia is systematically hunting down and killing the region’s black population using Chinese state of the art drones and execution squads. The Wall Street Journal reports that unarmed people are being shot in the streets and that at one hospital 450 people were shot and killed including patients, caregivers and health workers. The militia has been conducting door-to-door searches, and executing non-Arab men and boys. The women are raped and then killed. The deaths are over 200,000 and may exceed the million killed in the Rwandan genocide.

https://www.wsj.com/world/africa/sudan-militia-armed-with-drones-hunts-down-black-population-of-darfur-08469935?mod=Searchresults&pos=1&page=1

Staying in Africa, the South African government has fired back at Trump for contending that the black government is committing genocide against the white farmers. Recalled when the president met with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House and displayed pictures showing the genocide of the white farmers? Well it turns out that the photos were from a thousand miles taken by Reuters in war torn Congo (home of some of my ancestors). The video that Trump showed that was supposed to be of burial sites of murdered white farmers recently killed but were actually from a 2000 protest by Afrikaners in which crosses represented farmers killed over multiple years. The South African government says “The claim of a ‘white genocide’ in South Africa is widely discredited and unsupported by reliable evidence.” The government also released a letter from a leading Afrikaner group rejecting the narrative of genocide and murder. To date no word from the White House. Also seemingly forgotten in all this is what about the treatment of the English speaking whites who tend toward commerce and banking rather than farming? Have they been threatened like the Afrikaners? BTW, the English speaking whites look down their noses at the Afrikaners. Recall that they fought a bloody war from 1899 to 1902 for control of South Africa and they still don’t particularly like each other.

I have always said that when it seemed like we were intervening in disputes all around the world but not in Africa and I wondered if the reason was war brides.

Speaking of invading, there are news reports that Trump is planning ground action in Mexico – hopefully with the blessing of the Mexican government. The reports are that ground troops, CIA and drones will target the cartels. A senior White House official said in response to the news that “The Trump administration is committed to utilizing an all-of-government approach to address the threats cartels pose to American citizens.” The plan calls for drone strikes against drug labs in Mexico as well as top cartel leaders. To say that this is an escalation of our efforts against drug trafficking is an understatement.

The Texas gerrymander intended to oust Jasmine Crockett and Al (Full of Fire) Green has prompted Crockett to threaten to run for the senate. The race on the republican side is heated with Attorney General Ken Paxson and Representative Wesley Hunt running against incumbent John Cornyn who has been accused as not being sufficiently MAGA. Paxson is controversial having once been impeached by the Texas House which is controlled by the republicans but then not convicted by the republican controlled senate. Hunt was late into the race and the other candidates have refused to include him in the debates. The democrat contenders are Collin Allred who ran and lost against Ted Cruz and James Tallarico. Crockett has said that she will run if Cornyn loses his primary. Democrat polling has her well ahead of other candidates including also ran Beta O’Rourke and Joaquin Castro. So although republicans have painted her as “not too bright”, “low IQ’, among others, it seems like the democrat voters in Texas think otherwise. So if the republicans continue to beat themselves up and those who backed the losers are sore losers and stay away in the general election, is it possible that we will have a Senator Jasmine Crockett?

Daylight savings time, “risky” mortgages and more bickering

I hate this time change. My entire live I have always awakened around 5:30 and go to bed between 10-10:30. With this time change I now wake up at 4:30 and cannot go back to sleep. So I just try to lay in bed for another hour. But the dog won’t let me since she is still on the old time. Why can’t we just leave the time alone? Who likes changing their clocks anyway? Tennessee along with Maine, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Delaware, Colorado, Texas, and Wyoming have voted to permanently observe daylight savings time. For some reason the congress has not approved that change. Federal regulations say that if you lock your clocks then it can only be standard time not daylight savings time. I haven’t a clue why. Currently only Arizona and Hawaii are locked on standard time and don’t have to “spring forward” and “fall back.” So tell me, do you prefer being locked on standard time, locked on daylight savings time or doing the change the time thing?

There have recently been articles talking about the return of “risky” mortgages. At first I thought they were talking about subprime mortgages but no, the articles are about adjustable rate mortgages! Risky? I guess they could be. Adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) allow borrowing at a lower rate that can become higher in the future. The question is whether the maximum higher rate will imperil the homeowner. Well it is not supposed to. There are regulations in place that set the maximum rate adjustment and how often the rate can be changed. Usually the mortgages reset every five or seven years. The lender is supposed to grant the loan on the calculation that the borrower would still qualify for the loan under the maximum adjustment. Of course, the borrower’s condition might change such as being laid off. But that would risk repayment regardless of whether the mortgages were fixed or adjustable. 

The adjustable rate mortgage may be becoming more attractive now to some borrowers. Currently a 30 year fixed is at 6.15% while a five year adjustable is at 5.45%. Historically, adjustables make up around 3% of total mortgages. Today it is around 10 percent. Also consider that when rates fall that the adjustable mortgage can be refinanced into a fixed rate mortgage. One personal admission: it is widely reported that ARMs originated in 1980 with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board authorizing their use by savings and loan institutions. That is not actually correct. A couple of weeks earlier at the National Credit Union Administration, I suggested we change our lending regulations by removing two words. The regulation stated that loans had to be repaid in roughly equal payments. We removed the words “roughly equal” creating what we called the “variable rate loan.” The Home Loan Bank Board then adopted our rule but applied it to mortgages. So I take the blame for these “risky” mortgages. Maybe I should be blamed for subprime mortgages as well since I was on the board of the nation’s second largest subprime lender, New Century Financial, when that market imploded.

I have written about how Pam (Blondie) Bondi and Karoline Levitt have thrown away the veneer of decorum and have traded insult for insult and invective for invective with democrats and reporters (democrats too). Now we have Treasury secretary Bessent losing it with democrat senators Warren and Klobuchar. The democrats sent a letter saying that Trump was putting Argentina over American farmers. The letter said in part “Instead of prioritizing U.S. farmers and rural communities, the administration has doubled down on aiding Argentina when family farmers are running out of time and cannot continue to endure short-sighted international actions instead of long-term trade stability. We urge you to immediately reconsider further aid to Argentina and to instead focus on restoring and expanding long-term export market access for American farmers.”

Bessent was beside himself and called Warren and Klobuchar “failures” and told them to stop their staffs from writing “incoherent” letters and focus on restarting the government. Here is what he posted on X. “@SenWarren and @SenAmyKlobuchar: you are failures. You failed to derail the electoral success of one of our great allies in Latin America, President @JMilei. He won in a landslide with the poorest members of society voting for economic freedom—a notion anathema in particular to the Senate’s resident American Peronist, Senator Warren.” Resident American Peronist? Wow. I don’t think I have ever seen before this level of derision between a cabinet member and a senator. At least Klobuchar responded with a bit of humor when she tweeted that she and the secretary “have had no public or private personal ‘BEEFS’ (Argentinian or otherwise).”

Things are getting testy. I am beginning to think that the democrats are playing rope-a-dope and are holding out to force the republicans to vote to end the filibuster. That will in essence usher in one party rule when one party controls both the senate and the house and the presidency. Then with the expansion of presidential powers under Trump, a democrat president along with democrat senate and house would have no constraints – other than the courts – to really transform the country into their image. Bye bye electoral college. Pack the Supreme Court. No voter ID. Open borders. Expand Trump’s intrusion into the private sector. Expansion of Obamacare, voter “rights”, climate change, reduce military spending, and increase nondiscretionary spending. I probably left something out. But caveat emptor.

Trump’s tariffs, the Supreme Court and the New York Marathon

Trump’s lawyers are arguing his case for tariffs before the Supreme Court. There is one little contradiction in the papers filed with the court. On the one hand they argue that foreigners buying up American “assets” is a serious threat national security to require emergency executive powers over trade. Here is what they say “By the end of 2024, foreigners owned approximately $24 trillion more of U.S. assets than Americans owned of foreign assets. That imbalance has “weakened” the United States and “created an ongoing economic emergency of historic proportions.”

On the other hand, they argue that undoing Trump’s tariffs would jeopardize “trillions of dollars” in foreign investment that the president has negotiated in his shakedowns of our trading partners. They point to $600 billion in investments pledged by the European Union and another $1 trillion promised by the governments of Japan and South Korea. Those investments, the administration argues, will “rectify past imbalances.” (Note: this is from Reason https://reason.com/2025/11/03/in-tariff-case-trumps-attorneys-cant-decide-if-foreign-investment-is-good-or-bad-for-america/)

Now let me get this straight: foreign investment is a threat to national security except when it comes from the shakedowns by the president in his tariff negotiations with our trading partners. I am sure that the justices will question the logic of this argument. It will be interesting to see the government’s response. Regardless, I fully expect the president to lose this one. The question is whether the ruling will be unanimous.

The New York marathon was again a showcase for the Kenyans. They took the first three places in both the men’s and the women’s divisions. Benson Kipruto won the men’s in a time of 2:08:09. Hellen Obiri won the women’s with a time of 2:19:51 – a new course record. The top three women all broke the old record. Kipruto’s time translates to 4:57 minutes per mile over the 26.2 mile course. I am old enough to remember when that time could win a one mile race. The women’s time translates to 5:19 per mile. As an ex-marathoner, these times do not compute.

I have run 13 marathons and have the t-shirts to prove it. My goal was to run under four hours which would qualify me to run the Boston Marathon. I was on the faculty of UNC-Chapel Hill and started training with a professor in the law school who was a 3:33:00 marathoner. Every weekend we would do a 20 mile run and ran splits during the week. My previous best time was 4:09:00 and we were confident that running on a flat course I would break four hours. So I ran a marathon in Norfolk. When I went through the 20 mile mark I was on a 3:50:00 pace. The next memory was waking up in a tent with an IV in my arm. I had collapsed – even though I had kept hydrated. I never ran another. My body had redlined and was telling me to stick with the half marathons or run the full marathon at a more leisurely pace. So I ran a half every year and a 10 k every month. I was never fast. In fact, during my first marathon – DC’s Cherry Blossum marathon – I got passed by a race walker. But I did get better and ran the first three Marine Corps marathons. Again I have the t-shirts to prove it.

One of my neighbor’s daughters ran this year’s New York and finished a bit over 5 hours. My congratulations to her and to all the finishers. New York is a tough race with all the hills. In fact the world’s greatest marathoner Ellliud Kipchoge’s kryptonite are hills. He is the only human to run a marathon under two hours. All of his victories have been on flat courses. He finished 17^th in New York running a 2:14:16. By running New York, Kipchoge has finished all seven major world marathons. He is the only person to have won four of them (Chicago, London, Berlin, and Tokyo) and to set course records at three (London, Berlin, and Tokyo). He is now 40 years old and may retire as the greatest marathoner of all time.

This year an amazing 59,226 runners finished the New York Marathon. I wish that I had been one of them.

Are the democrats really in disarray?

I don’t know why anyone pays political prognosticators. Those folk are just stealing money. It has been all the rage to say tha the democrat party is in total disarray and disintegrating before our very eyes. In March, the Hill had an article entitled “Disarry doesn’t come close to the describing it – Democrats are disintegrating.” PJ Media had the headline “Democratic party disarray far worse that you can imagine.” It said “The democratic party is struggling. In every way a political party can be dysfunctional, the democrats are careening toward an implosion. Riven by poisonous factionalism, running out of cash and devoid of purpose and plan, the oldest political party inn te Western World is falling apart right before our eyes.” 

There are countless others with the same theme. Don’t believe this nonsense. These elections were a rout. New York City just elected a mayor on the far left fringe of the democrat party. No republican of any stature ran for the office, probably deeming it beyond salvaging. A million Jews live in New York City. Having Mamdani as mayor is like having Lester Maddox as governor of Georgia – except that Maddox had had a job when he was elected. Anyway Lee Zeldin is EPA director and is worrying about nationwide pollution rather than that located within New York City. New Jersey and Virginia have elected two perfectly awful democrats over two outstanding republicans. Virginia even elected as attorney general the democrat who had fantasized about killing republicans and their children. California voted to basically evict the few republicans from its congressional delegation. Pennsylvania voted to keep the three democrat supreme court “justices” who tend to make up the law as they see fit. Is this a party in disarray, a party imploding and falling apart? Only in your dreams. 

Do you think that this is the anti-Trump backlash? Well if it is, it has proven to be a winner for the democrats. I had once characterized the republicans as celebrating a touchdown while spiking the ball before crossing the goal line. I know that the narrative is that the democrat party is now being run by wild eyed left wing communists. But is it? Yes the party has moved more to the left just as the republicans have moved more to the right. But although those on the left will yell that all republicans are now a bunch of Nazis (I hate that word) and those on the right will yell all democrats are now a bunch of Commies, neither is even close to being correct. Yes Mamdani (like Bernie and AOC) are card carrying socialists who want more government control private enterprise. But Virginia’s Spanberger and New Jersey’s Sherrill are no communists. The relevant question is whether the bulk of the elected democrats and their supporters want the means of production in government hands? Not the democrats that I know. Ironically, Trump has actually done it more than any democrat with his government having equity stakes in private companies. He has actually vetoed decisions made by CEOs. Trump has tried to dictate price setting by the pharmaceuticals. So is Trump a socialist? Does this mean that the majority of elected republicans and their voters want a government takeover of private enterprise? Not hardly.

The democrats have held together their caucus in both the House and the Senate. If they were imploding then don’t you think that you would see schisms there? Instead, in a bill to pay the military, they presented an almost united front in the House and Senate. Of course, John Fetterman voted to fund the military and he was joined by the two democrats from my home state of Georgia, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Why? Because Georgia is home to around 100,000 active duty and retired military personnel and their families. Ossoff is up for reelection and is considered vulnerable despite having accumulated an impressive war chest. There was no way that he was going to vote against that bill. The Senate democrats have hung united (with the exception of Fetterman) behind Chuck Schumer in the silly government shutdown and showing no signs of unraveling.

This is hardly a party imploding and disintegrating. I still think that there is a greater than 50-50 chance that the democrats will take back the House in the midterms. Call it Trump fatigue. The tariffs are not a political winner. Millions voted for Trump because of the Biden inflation and now that has become the Trump inflation. Isn’t it ironic that the main theme running through every one of the democrat campaigns is affordability? Wasn’t that one of the reasons that Trump was elected. 

Trump dominates the news with his immigration policies, tariff threats, military threats, blowing up narco boats, foreign policy moves, government shutdown, coffee and beef prices, firing of federal workers, expanding the scope of executive power and even the White House ballroom and the demolition of the East Wing. His approval rating is around 39% and his disapproval rating is around 58 percent. The shutdown is not helping him – but its not helping the democrats either. A pox on both of their houses!

Will Trump’s dismal ratings redound to republicans running in the midterms? We will have to see. Historically the party in power loses around 20 seats in the House in the midterms. Given Trump’s ratings, every democrat is going to tie their republican opponent to Trump. Of course, in some districts Trump will be an asset rather than a liability but those districts are solidly republican and are not likely to flip regardless of who is in the White House. Consider that Trump carried 230 congressional districts while Harris carried 205. Let’s assume that the 205 carried by Harris are “safe” democrat seats. In the 230 carried by Trump, 55 were by margins of 55 percent or more. Let’s call these “safe” republican seats. That would leave at most 185 seats that are up for grabs. The question then is whether these seats are currently being occupied by incumbents who will likely hold those seats regardless. But don’t you think that of that 185, there is a positive probability that 20 of them might flip? I do.

To quote the Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.

Buc-ee’s, James Brown and other thoughts

The democrats seem to be thinking that the cessation of SNAP payments will pressure the republicans into caving and okaying the Obamacare subsidies. So let me get this straight, the caring sensitive party on the left is hoping that the cold hearted, “let them eat cake” party on the right is going to be pressured by its base to extending benefits that they have never supported in the first place? Does this make sense to anyone except the congressional democrats?

Tariffs, socialism, rent controls, minimum wages, industrial policy all bad ideas that never die. Schumpeter said that capitalism generates enough abundance to support a large class of intellectuals lacking in practical skills who feel underappreciated in a market economy. Bernie Sanders, AOC, The Squad, and Mamdani are the poster children for Schumpeter’s observation. They can only exist and have appeal in a world of affluence and then seek its destruction. Mamdani wants everyone to have “free” stuff. But who pays for it? The usual shallow press is somehow saying that Mamdani is now the face of the democrat party. Only in their eyes. He could only be elected in places like New York, Boston, Chicago, Portland and maybe San Francisco. But he would be elected for only one term because his policies are destined to fail. Mamdani is not the face of the democrat party, writ large, no matter how much those on the far left and republicans would like him to be. The quickest way to kill the socialist movement is for Trump to declare that he is one.

Will Mamdani be worse than Bill deBlasio?

Have you noticed that no matter how poorly led are the big cities that they keep electing leftists? Explain Chicago to me. Do they really want their cities overrun with illegals? Or are they “sanctuaries” because they hate Trump?

Over 50,000 fans have already signed a petition demanding Bad Bunny be replaced by George Strait. George Strait? Good grief. Someone asked who would I want to see at the half time of the Super Bowl. I really don’t know since all my favorites are dead.

Finally went into a Buc-ee’s. It was 8AM on a Sunday morning driving back to Knoxville from the Georgia farm and stopped at the one at Union Grove. I got diesel for 20 cents a gallon less and I don’t think that I have ever seen so many gas pumps. Then I went inside and was stunned by the sheer size of the place. I wanted a biscuit. Their’s were being assembled by the hundreds on a production line that only lacked a conveyor belt. All were for meat eaters. I asked for one without sausage and was looked at as if I were speaking Induit. So I bought two and threw away the sausage. Really tasty biscuits and eggs. Even at 8 in the morning the place was a zoo. The sausage links, the fudge, hot sauces, tacos, burritos, the brisket, jellies and beaver chips! All the bric a brac was overwhelming. Beef jerky? I now know why there is a beef shortage. I can see why Buc-ee’s has a cult following but it’s probably not a vegan cult. I will probably start stopping there for diesel but not when the line of cars at the exit backs up into the interstate.

One of the benefits of Sirius XM radio is that you hear songs that somehow you missed way back when. Here is a James (the Hardest Working Man in Show Business) Brown song that was new to me. BTW my favorite James Brown LP is Live at the Apollo. My favorite single is “You got the power (with Bea Ford). It was the perfect blue light in the basement slow drag song when I was in high school. What is amazing is that the album “Star Time” is full of hits like Try Me, Bewildered, Night Train, It’s a Man’s World, Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag, Say it Loud (I’m Black and Proud) and Please, Please, Please. But this song is new to me. Amazing lyrics.

James Brown

From the LP “Star Time”

I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I’ll Get It Myself)

I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, huh, I’ll get it myself
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, I’ll get it myself
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, huh, I’ll get it myself
Do you hear me?
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, I’ll get it myself

[Verse 1]
Don’t give me integration
Give me true communication
I don’t give me sorrow
I want equal opportunity to live tomorrow
Give me schools
And give me better books
So I can read about myself
And gain my true looks

[Hook]
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, huh, I’ll get it myself
Do you hear me now now
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, huh, I’ll get it myself

[Verse 2]
Some of us try
As hard as we can
We don’t want no sympathy
We just want to be a man

[Hook]
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, huh, I’ll get it myself
Do you hear me?
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, I’ll get it myself

[Verse 3]
We got talents we can use
On our side of town
Let’s get our heads together
And build it up from the ground
When some of us make money
We forget about our people, huh, ha
Gonna forget about our honey

Forget about our honey
Do you know, look at here, hey

Come on, I got to have it
Come on, I need it
I got to have it
Come on, I got to have it

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy
Play with your bad self
Come on, baby, come here come here
Got to get myself together
So many things I got to do
So many things I got to see
I don’t need no help from you
Tell everybody, mighty hell
All of these things, baby, ha
I got to do it myself, come on
Hey!

I gotta have it
I, said I, said I, said I, said I, I

[Verse 4]
We’ve used our sweat and blood
Put out every fire, and block up every flood

I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, I’ll get it myself
Do you hear me?
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, I’ll get it myself
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, huh, I’ll get it myself

[Verse 5]
I’m not gonna tell you what to do
I’m not gonna raise a fuss
But before you make another rule
Let’s start by taking care of us

[Hook]
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, huh, I’ll get it myself
Do you hear me?
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, huh, I’ll get it myself

[Verse 6]
Kids, get that education
And don’t you take no bar
Cause we’re gonna get this thing together
And you got to get them all

[Hook]
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing
Open up the door, open up the door
Open up the door, open up the door
Open up the door, hey hey hey hey hey hey hey
I don’t want nobody to give me nothing

Open up the door, huh, I’ll get it myself
Ha!

[Outro]
Can you dig the groove?
Can you make the move?
Can you dig the same?
Can you make me play?
Can you dig the groove?

Wow! Can we get an Amen?

YouTubeTV, the World Series and the Oklahoma Sooners

I hate YouTubeTV. As a matter of fact I hate all paid TV. I have tried Directtv, Dish, cable and YouTubeTV. All have disappointed. I have had YouTubeTv for a while but their disputes and threatening to take off your favorite channels are wearing thin. They were going to take off Fox. I thought my other half was going to have a heart attack. They took off the MLB Network but I didn’t care since I was already subscribing to the MLB package – whose blackout policy is ridiculous. Now YouTubeTV has taken off the Disney channels meaning no ABC and no ESPN. The mega giants are fighting amongst themselves and reminds me of the old African saying about what happens to the grass when elephants fight. I don’t care about ABC since I can get it without YouTubeTV. I do care about ESPN – but only during college football season. I watch college football and their College Football Final is my go to show during my Sunday morning workout. If this dispute is not settled before next Saturday’s games, I will discontinue my service and go old school, listening to the games on SiriusXM radio.

It is Google vs Disney. Someone said that Google (which owns YouTubeTV) dictates what we want to see on the web and now they are trying to dictate what we see on TV. I don’t think either cares about the consumer. I really think that what is going on is that Disney wants ESPN to on its own monthly charge app. Disney would probably rather to have an ESPN pay for view package than to have their networks part of the smorgasbord offered by cable or internet TV. I think this is the rationale for their pricing policy to the providers. Disney has shelled out a lot of money to get sports content. 

But I am not a pro football fan. I am a baseball fan. I know I am in the minority. I watched game three of the World Series between Toronto and the Dodgers rather than the Monday night football game between Kansas City and Washington. I was somewhat amazed that the meaningless football game absolutely crushed the World Series game 17.6 million viewers to 11.4 million. Last year when the Dodgers played the Yankees, their World Series game just edged the Monday Night football game 13.6 million to 13.4 million. Obviously the Yankees would draw more viewers than Toronto, although I suspect that the Canadian and Japanese ratings are off the charts.

It’s a shame because this was the most entertaining World Series in memory. Much has been written about the Dodger’s payroll resulting in their having to pay a $500 million luxury tax. But consider that the $100 million that they paid to bolster their bullpen was irrelevant in the series because none of those pitchers actually pitched. All were hurt. They paid a boatload of money to sign Blake Snell who was injured much of the year but did pitch one – and only one – great game in the series. Shohei Ohtani was great in the 18 inning marathon but was mostly ineffective the rest of the series and on the mound in game 7. He did have a couple of hits but the home runs were not by their superstars. Max Muncy, Miguel Rojas (a total shock) and the game winner by Will Smith – none of whom are accorded superstar status – and a game saving incredible catch by Andy Pages were crucial to the victory. Also Clayton Kershaw, perhaps the greatest pitcher of his generation was a mere spectator. This was the best, most suspenseful game seven in memory.

The biggest surprise was the performance of Yoshinobu Yamamoto (who?), the Japanese pitcher who was signed to a stunning 12 year $325 million fully guaranteed contract. I was stunned because those contracts invariably turn into albatrosses. Yet in the short run the Dodgers and their fans will say it was worth it. Yamamoto was unworldly pitching two complete games and coming back with zero rest to get the final eight outs in game 7. A most deserving MVP. So the World Series champ has the greatest player (Ohtani) who is Japanese, the MVP (Yamamoto) who is Japanese, their closer (Roki Sasaki) who is Japanese and a manager (Dave Roberts) who is Japanese-American.

These games were on Fox but not broadcast simultaneously over the MLB network. Again I don’t really care since we have a Fox affiliate here in Knoxville. But for those loyal baseball fans that would have been forced to find the nearest sports bar had there been a dispute, it would have been a pain.

Finally, I may have been the only one in Knoxville watching baseball rather than the Tennessee Volunteers and the Oklahoma Sooners. After the baseball game I went to bed and only found out the next morning that the Sooners had won. Speaking of which, do you know where the name “Sooner” came from? Legend has it that when the first white settlers got to Oklahoma that they said “I’d sooner be in Texas.”

The Fed lowers the Fed funds rate – big whoop.

The Fed just lowered its Fed funds target rate by another 25 basis points. I was actually surprised. Although the market had anticipated the fall – and two more before year’s end – I thought the Fed would hold the rate steady. First, the inflation numbers are not looking good and keep edging up. Second, several members of the Open Market Committee had indicated that they favored a hold. It was no surprise that Stephen Miran, the president’s lackey on the Board voted for a 50 basis point drop. But none one pays any attention to him. Only one other member voted to hold. The rest voted for the 25 basis point drop. Actually, I don’t think that the move will have any measurable impact on the economy. In fact the markets actually fell after the announcements. I guess the drop in the rate shows Trump’s influence. After all the threats and bellicose tweets, Powell voted to lower. I was surprised that Lisa Cook did as well. Had I been Cook I would have voted for a 50 basis point rise. Of course the two other Trump appointees, Waller and Bowman, who have been listed as among the finalists for Fed chairman voted for a decrease. Actually I am somewhat surprised that they did not vote along with Miran for a 50 basis point fall. Now there is considerable doubt if the Fed will continue to lower the rate even in the face of rising layoffs and increases in unemployment. No matter Stephen Miran will still vote for a 50 basis point fall– else he might not get his job back at the Council of Economic Advisors.

Another thing to watch is that the Fed has stopped running off its gigantic portfolio of securities. Currently the portfolio sits at $6.6 trillion down from a high of $9 trillion. Recall during the 2007 recession the bolstering of the market by purchasing commercial paper and mortgage backed securities was to keep the market from collapsing. The Fed did the same during Covid. Then the Fed began a gradual runoff of its portfolio – and I do mean gradual. When the Fed purchased the securities it did so by supplying the banking system with reserves and when those reserves are excess reserves they influence the Fed funds rate. Indeed, prior to the fed lowering the rate, the fed funds rate had actually been moving up within the Fed’s target range. 

The Fed shrinks the portfolio by letting the maturing securities run off which in essence decreases bank reserves which raises the Fed funds rate. Oops. So it is of little surprise that the Fed is pausing the runoff of the securities portfolio. Also consider that the Trump administration is working at cross purposes by continuing to increase the deficit. When the Treasury issues new debt it drains bank reserves which once again raises the Fed funds rate. Thus, the Fed had little choice but to stop the run off of its portfolio.

The Fed had been allowing up to $35 billion in mortgage securities and $5 billion in Treasurys to roll off the portfolio every month. Now that has slowed to only $20 billion a month. In the end the Fed would like to get back to only holding Treasurys. I gave my students last semester a basic problem. If the Fed had a portfolio of $8 trillion and reduced it by $20 billion a month, how long would it take for the portfolio to reach zero – assuming no interest accumulation of the remaining bonds? Only one person could do the math. What is interesting is that Trump appointees Waller and Bowman are in opposite camps. Bowman wants the runoff to continue but to lengthen the period while Waller voted against the decision to slow the runoff.

I wonder how much of this Miran understands. When one looks at the finalists for the Fed chair, if it is not Waller or Bowman, the person appointed to fill the vacancy coming in January will also be nominated to be chairman once Powell’s term expires. In addition to Waller and Bowman, those are Kevin Hassett of the president’s National Economic Council, Kevin Warsh former Fed governor and Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of Black Rock. I know absolutely nothing of Rieder but I think Black Rock’s CEO may well be the most dangerous person on the planet. I believe that Warsh is too independent to be appointed by Trump and Waller and Bowman are there as mere courtesies. I think Hassett would be the most pliable to Trump and would toe the line at least for a while. Then if Powell decides to resign from the board when he leaves as chairman, that will give Trump another opportunity to appoint another lackey. He would then have four of the seven governors. They, in turn can determine the composition of the reserve bank presidents. Times could get even more interesting with the question being how long does a lackey stay a lackey?

Beef, Furniture and American Workers

The president and his surrogates have repeatedly said that the purpose of the tariffs was to protect American manufacturers and replace the foreign workers with Americans. Is it working? Well the 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian beef have aided in reducing the supply of beef and raising its prices. Mission accomplished? Not quite. It seems that prices are rising due to the diminished supply. The beef eaters are unhappy. 

The beef industry is ecstatic but the consumers are not. The president seeks to then have it both ways by suggesting the importation of Argentine beef to beef up the supply much to the chagrin of US ranchers. A consumer wailing of almost equal proportions is the impact of the 50 percent tariff on coffee prices. Some have even raised the question as to whether Trump’s tariffs should be selective rather than global. But imposing tariffs on products not even grown or made in America makes even less sense than the tariffs in the first place. The senate has just voted to rescind the Brazilian tariffs with 5 republicans (you can guess who they were) joining all the democrats. I guess the Kona coffee lobby is not very powerful. The president of course will veto the bill. Isn’t it interesting that in the short run the president has turned the protectionist democrats into free traders?

The president also raised the tariffs on imported furniture to “help” the North Carolina furniture industry where employment in furniture manufacture has fallen from 90,000 in 1990 to less than 30,000 today. In 1990 only about 4 percent of US furniture was imported. Now it is more than half with the imports coming mainly from China, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Are the North Carolina manufacturers jumping with joy? Not quite. The remaining firms are dependent upon imported components. Bassett furniture imports most of its fabrics from China. The company also imports fabrics and plywood from Vietnam. This has caused the firm to raise its prices even though 80 percent of its total components are manufactured in the US and the furniture is assembled in North Carolina. The same is true with the other manufacturers who find that the tariffs are causing them to raise prices as well. What about manufacturing coming back into North Carolina? It is not happening for two reasons. First is the cost of US labor and second there is a shortage of skilled workers. One manufacturer said that labor skilled in sewing and woodworking is far between. Those skills basically vanished when the industry contracted over the years. Some companies are offering classes and apprenticeships but there is not enough interest among young people to learn those skills. One employer said “No 23-year-old is like ‘I want to be an upholsterer when I get out of school.” That company and others provide apprenticeships to young people work with the local community college system to help train up students to work on a factory floor. Meanwhile the new tariffs are forcing all to have to raise their prices to cover the higher costs of materials and components. The furniture makers have seen some price resistance among their customers. Cabinet manufacturers sales have fallen year to date as prices have gone up.

Of course this is a repeat of what happened with raising the costs of inputs like aluminum and steel. Research has shown that there was no increase in domestic employment. Rather the opposite happened as workers were laid off in those industries that used the metals as components. The president did not learn this lesson in the first term and has doubled down on it in the second term.

My old employer, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the tariffs and immigration policies will create a labor shortage and slow the rate of economic growth going forward. This of course assumes that these policies will continue post-Trump (which I doubt). There will be labor shortages and a negative impact on food production, construction and industries dependent upon foreign labor. The Labor Department has said in the Federal Register that the reduction in immigration will create a “labor shortage exacerbated by the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens.” The new $100,000 fee for H1-B visas will cause the loss of hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers in sectors like information and educational and health services. But what me worry? The White House said Trump will continue “growing our economy, creating opportunity for American workers, and ensuring all sectors have the workforce they need to be successful.”

Yet it doesn’t look as though U.S.-born workers are entering the workforce en masse as foreign-born workers exit. Instead, the labor force participation rate for U.S.-born workers aged 16 and older has ticked lower over the past year. The White House said “There is no shortage of American minds and hands to grow our labor force, and President Trump’s agenda to create jobs for American workers represents this Administration’s commitment to capitalizing on that untapped potential while delivering on our mandate to enforce our immigration laws.”

Au contraire, one labor economist says that the White House is mistaken to assume a decline in immigration helps U.S. workers when job growth slows. “Immigrants both create demand for the goods and services produced by U.S.-born workers and work alongside them in ways that increase productivity for both groups,” he said. “While it is just one factor, we shouldn’t be surprised that opportunities for U.S.-born workers are falling at the same time an estimated one million fewer immigrants may be in the labor force.”

But not to worry. One of the president’s first actions was to sign an executive order suspending all refugee admissions. The Biden administration was allowing 125,000 per year to enter the country. Well the president has decided to reinstate the program with a cap of 7,500 – the lowest in history. Priority will be given to white South Africans. Apparently he has made up with Elon Musk. With the restrictions on the H1-B program, the shutting down of travel from 19 non-white countries and explicitly stating that “The admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa” the president is blatantly seeming to shut down entry by people of color and creating an easier pathway for white immigration. And it isn’t subtle. I wonder what Kash Patel, Vivek Ramaswamy, Harmeet Dhillon, Jay Bhattacharya and Usha Vance have to say about this?

But will the additional workers be need? With the growth in AI. Firms like Ford, GM, Amazon and Meta are laying off workers. Walmart says it can grow without hiring more workers. Michigan State has even developed an AI apple picker. 

So what will happen? Will the president be right? Will we have to wait until next year to see the benefits of his policies? What will happen to the tariffs. Will AI cause fewer native workers to be hired even as immigrant numbers fall? All those are empirical questions.