Author: haroldblackphd

Should Teachers Carry?

The recent killing of an ROTC instructor at Old Dominion University by an Islamic terrorist pointed to several interesting facts. First the shooter was a US citizen, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former national guardsman who had served a prison sentence for aiding ISIS. Jalloh was said to have become radicalized while in the US and not before he immigrated. Second, the victim was Lt. Col. Brandon Shah who was of Middle Eastern heritage. Third, Jalloh was killed by a student who stabbed him with a pocketknife. Fourth, guns are banned from the ODU campus (like the University of Tennessee). Fifth, since knives are also banned does this mean that the student who killed Jalloh is going to be prosecuted and/or expelled from ODU? Sixth, Norfolk’s Commonwealth attorney who proposed tighter gun restrictions in the wake of the shooting is named Ramin Fateh. One would think he would have instead proposed lifting the ban on guns on the ODU campus.

Whether teachers should have training in firearms and be allowed to carry in the classroom is a controversial subject that invariably arises from these incidents. Remember Uvalde? There even armed security was slow to act. This was in contrast to the security guards at the synagogue in Michigan where an Islamic terrorist named Ayman Ghazali drove his incendiaries-laden truck into a synagogue and got stuck in the hallway where he was confronted by security. There were over 100 people in the synagogue at the time and none were hurt. Two security guards engaged Ghazali in gunfire and he then killed himself. Interestingly, the guards at the synagogue had completed a gun training session with the FBI only weeks before. Prudence demands that synagogues must protect themselves because when help arrives, it will be too late to save lives. Putting armed security in all the public schools and universities is impractical and cost prohibitive. The question is then whether teachers and professors should be trained and allowed to carry.

Tennessee has responded in the affirmative. After the deadly shootings at the Covenant School in Nashville where three children and three adults were killed by a former student, the Tennessee legislature over the objections of the teachers’ unions, passed a bill in 2024 signed by Governor Bill Lee to allow teachers to carry firearms. The individual schools make the decision. Teachers and staff are permitted to carry concealed weapons provided they have the approval of law enforcement, undergo a background check and have gun training.

So the question for me is not whether there will be shoot-outs in the halls of our elementary schools, but whether they will be fewer shootings because the potential shooter knows that the teachers and staff are armed. Similarly, if shooters know that synagogues have armed security, will there be fewer attacks? That is the empirical question.

Conflict of interest? Disarray at HHS. Brics. Who needs trade. Kenyans.

Conflict of interest?

The president cannot be convicted for conflicts of interest and the president and his family are taking full advantage of that fact. The Trump family fortune increased by $3.9 billion in 2024 and $7.3 billion in 2025. In addition, they have reportedly received $1.8 billion in cash and gifts since the election. Trump’s family continues to enrich itself. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law while acting as the “peace” envoy to the Middle East is also raising billions of dollars for his private equity fund. Meanwhile Don, Jr and Eric Trump are investing the in drone industry which their father has helped turn into a growth industry. Kushner was also involved in Paramount’s successful bid to by Warner Bros. Discovery. The president himself had purchased stock in the company. Now the president and his family partially own CNN which the FCC’s Brendan Carr threatened to revoke its license over a less than flattering report on Trump’s war with Iran.

Surely there could not possibly be any conflict of interest as Kushner’s dealings have resulting in his becoming a billionaire. Could there? Kushner has denied any conflict (wink, wink) and Karoline (Lying) Leavitt calls any charges of a conflict are “frankly despicable.” 

This is from the Times of Isreal: “Kushner founded Florida-based Affinity in 2021, with much of its funding coming from foreign sources, particularly the Middle Eastern governments he’d worked with. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) gave $2 billion in 2022. The Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi-based Lunate Capital together gave around $1.5 billion in 2024, Kushner said on a podcast last year. Kushner’s firm now manages $5.4 billion.”

The Mess at HHS

Have you noticed that virtually all the chaos at HHS is in the “health” part and not the “human services.” Saying that the FDA is in disarray is an understatement. The same is true with the CDC and the NIH. Robert Kennedy is fast becoming one of the most unpopular members of the administration and the White House has finally taken notice. The Administration has apparently seen the polls saying that Kennedy’s actions, particularly regarding vaccines, are increasingly unpopular. Now the White House wants more focus on eat healthy initiatives and trying to lower drug prices – things it views as winners – and less on vaccines and approval of new drugs. Also the quitting and firing of staff members, the cutting of funding for what some consider important research have damaged the agencies public image. Kennedy remains a Trump favorite however and is in little danger of being ousted.

Brics has laid a brick

Brics, that group of eleven countries that formed an economic bloc in 2009 to counter the US and the EU has been mostly invisible. Did you know that Iran is a member? I haven’t seen any rush by any other member to come to Iran’s assistance economically. Yes, China and Russia are supposed to supply Iran some intelligence and strategic tools. But the rest of the bloc has been mostly quiet. Iran has even been firing drones at the UAE, a fellow Brics member. Meanwhile, India has not even criticized Israel much less the United States. In addition to China and Russia only South Africa has voiced criticism of the US – but that is to be expected given the simmering feud between that government and Donald Trump. As a whole, Brics has been ineffective and ineffectual. I guess it just provides another avenue for diplomats to fly around the world, stay in swanky hotels and act important while accomplishing nothing but running up expensive tabs for others to pay.

Who needs trade?

We have a trade representative who hates trade. Jamison Greer, the US Trade Representative made the following idiotic statement when he was discussing the administration’s plans to levy more tariffs on our 16 largest trading partners: “Across numerous sectors, many U.S. trading partners are producing more goods than they can consume domestically. This overproduction displaces existing U.S. domestic production and harms American manufacturing as a result.” Adam Smith just turned over in his grave. Greer obviously rejects the notion of comparative advantage. What does he think about American “overproduction?” Don’t farmers produce “more goods than they can consume?” Is this a bad thing that they ship their produce abroad? What about domestically? Are farmers supposed to grow only what they can consume? What happens to the rest of us – Mr Greer? Am I hurt because I cannot – or will not – grow my own food? Or make my own clothes, furniture, shoes and the rest? Without trade, I would be a lot thinner, more threadbare and a whole lot poorer as would be the rest of the country. Why is this evident to everyone except the president and those on his payroll?

But let’s be kind and assume that Mr Greer is only talking about foreign production hurting American companies. Over half of what we import are intermediate goods. Let us suppose that we stopped importing those goods. Maybe we could produce them, but likely at a much higher cost leading to fewer goods for American consumers. I guess we could make do without any imports of food as well. Bananas, coffee, avocados, seafood, flowers and other stuff could be grown domestically or we could simply do without. Who needs French wines when we have California anyway? This would apparently be ok by Mr Greer – who I presume doesn’t own, buy or consume anything foreign-made. It was said that the president would scribble the words “trade is bad” in the margins of speeches that he makes. So let’s completely shut down all trade and see what happens.

And who needs a trade representative who hates trade – especially one who seems to be an idiot.

No more Kenyans to the Ukraine

Lastly, the Kenyan government must read my blog. After the post about the Kenyan soldiers recruited by the Russians to fight in Ukraine, the Kenyan government and the Russians reached an agreement that Kenyans would no longer be enlisted in the Russian military after bilateral consultations between Kenya’s Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on March 16^th.

Boasberg vs Trump. Trump vs Massie

Boasberg vs Trump: Round 2

A federal judge threw out Trump’s baseless, vindictive and childish “Justice” Department’s subpoenas against Fed chairman Powell. Trump wants Powell out at the Fed and will go to any depths to make it so. The charge was laughable – that the renovation of the Fed headquarters was $2.5 billion rather than the estimated $1.9 billion. In DC, a cost overrun that small is within budget. Mind you Trump’s own renovation project – blowing up the East Wing to put in his ballroom went from $200 million to $400 million. Is Trump going to subpoena himself?

It was evident that Fox’s Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s US attorney for the District of Columbia really likes her job. Not only did she not have the guts to tell Trump that this dog won’t hunt, she actually blasted the judge for his ruling saying that the judge “has neutered the grand jury’s ability to investigate crime.” She also said “The American public is fed up with public monies that seem to go into a black hole, especially in D.C., where no one is held accountable.” She could have been referring to the president. She then called the ruling “outrageous” and “the antithesis of American justice” and said her office would appeal. Whoa there! This is nonsense and she knows it – or at least I hope she does – and is putting on a show to stay in the president’s good graces. Someone needs to remind her that if she appeals, the senate will not have hearings on Kevin Warsh as the new Fed chairman. North Carolina’s Thom Tillis has said that as long as Powell is being investigated that there will be no hearings. If Judge Jeanine isn’t embarrassed, I am embarrassed for her.

What really makes the case interesting is that the judge was Chief US District judge James Boasberg who may be Trump’s least favorite judge – if that is possible. Pirro called him an “activist judge.” Trump has called him worse. Of course an “activist” judge is now any judge that issues a ruling against Trump’s expansion of executive power. Isn’t an “activist” judge one who rules based on personal and political beliefs rather than the Constitution (re: Sotomayor or Brown Jackson)? Boasberg seems to be operating within the limits of the Constitution – but that is my view and of course I am not a Constitutional lawyer.

Boasberg did speak the truth in his ruling about the harassment of Powell which said in part “The Government has offered no evidence whatsoever that Powell committed any crime other than displeasing the President.” I had speculated that if it went to a grand jury, the charge would have been found baseless. I actually find comfort in knowing that the judge did not let it even waste the government’s money by allowing this joke of an investigation from proceeding. But what I found interesting was that the judge’s opinion was 27 pages when it could have been one paragraph.

Boasberg had incurred the wrath of Trump over the deportation of the hundreds of Venezuelans to an El Salvador maximum security prison despite the order that he had issued hours before they were deported. He ordered them returned. Boasberg ruled that the court had found “probable cause” to move on criminal contempt proceedings against the Trump administration for failing to return the migrants to U.S. soil, citing what he described as the administration’s “willful disregard” of the court. Also recall that Kristi (ex-Border Barbie) did a photo-op at the prison wearing provocative clothing in front of the prisoners photographed behind her. Again if Boasberg is an “activist” judge show me the receipts.

Trump vs Massie

Disclosure: I like Thomas Massie and wish we have more politicians like him in both parties.

Trump’s least favorite US representative is probably not Omar but Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, the sole House republican that has the guts to consistently oppose the president on principle. Massie – like Kentucky’s Rand Paul – is a libertarian and seldom strays from those basic tenets. He clashes with the president who is certainly no libertarian or economic conservative. Massie consistently opposes wasteful government spending and executive overreach. He is also against Trump’s incursion into Iran without consulting the congress. Trump wants him gone. The Trump-linked MAGA-KY PAC has spent over $3.6 million in negative ads to get him ousted. Trump even went to Massie’s district to campaign with Massie’s primary opponent Ed Gallrein. Predictably Trump did not mince his words, “Thomas Massie is a disaster for our party,” Trump said. “We got to get rid of this loser, this guy is bad. He’s disloyal to the Republican Party, he’s disloyal to the people of Kentucky, and most importantly, he is disloyal to the United States of America, and he’s got to be voted out of the office as soon as possible.” Typical Trump verbiage. 

Trump is always mad at Massie, lately for his role in forcing the “Justice” Department to release the Epstein files. Massie co-sponsored the bill with California’s Ro Khanna that passed in the House to release the files. Trump agreed to release the files after figuring out that it was likely that the bill would also pass the Senate. Massie has easily defeated challengers before, winning his district by 75% of the votes. Massie is agrarian and a farmer in his part of rural Kentucky. He doesn’t identify with his constituents because he is one of them. He always explains that he is doing and why it is right even if it goes against the president. As one of his supporters says “He’s got that trust with people. We know that he doesn’t always go with the party, but he usually has a good reason.”

On a personal note, I admire Massie for his courage of convictions. He is one of the few politicians that is refreshingly open and honest. I believe him when he says “My dream is not to be a politician. My dream, I’m living it here on my farm already and that is marrying my high school sweetheart, building our small castle with our own resources on top of a hill. This is actually the farm my wife grew up on. And to be raising a family here and teaching them values

like self-sufficiency, that’s my dream.” How can you not like this guy?

Repeal the Humphrey-Hawkins Act

The Fed’s Open Market Committee meets today and tomorrow and will not change its Fed funds target rate. Since Stephen Miran is no longer visiting the Board and has gone back to his day job at the Council of Economic Advisors, the vote to hold should be unanimous. At the meeting the dual mandate of full employment versus price stability will be front and center. Of course the president will want a rate cut as the economy is sputtering. But inflation is growing.

Job growth is turning out to be an oxymoron with jobs actually shrinking, so the Fed should lower rates, right? However, inflation is growing putting pressure on the Fed to raise rates. What to do?  It is time to have the Fed ditch its dual mandate of full employment and inflation that was dictated by the Employment Act of 1946.  That act also created the Council of Economic Advisors and the congressional Joint Economic Committee. Congress was unhappy with how the Fed was doing its job and In 1978 Congress passed the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act also known as the Humphrey-Hawkins Act to amend the Employment Act of 1946. Humphrey-Hawkins (yes that Humphrey) specified explicit unemployment and inflation goals. Within five years, unemployment should not exceed 3 percent for people 20 years or older and inflation should be reduced to 3 percent or less. By 1988, the inflation rate should be zero, provided that pursuing this goal would not interfere with the employment goal. 

Obviously, the Fed has failed to reach and maintain the goals dictated by Humphrey-Hawkins. But the Act is still on the books and essentially the suggestions regarding the employment and inflation goals are simply ignored. The Fed now simply chooses which goal is more politically expedient and seeks to implement policy changes to achieve less pressure from the congress and the president unless those pressures are deemed to lead to more economic troubles. That was the case with this first year of the Trump presidency where the lower rates demanded by the president were deemed to be too inflationary.

But isn’t it time to repeal the Act which has turned the Fed into a political animal when it should be concentrating solely on monetary affairs? I favor doing having the Fed only concern itself with inflation. That is the variable that it has some influence over but not employment where at best the Fed can try to lead the horse to water. Paul Ryan – remember him – tried to get Humphrey-Hawkins repealed to concentrate solely on inflation. Mike Pence and Tennessee’s Bob Coker were senators who were working with Ryan for repeal. 

The dual mandate has been responsible for quantitative easing and the enormous buildup in the Fed’s portfolio that has been so disruptive in financial markets. It has made the Fed an even more political animal as it is mucking around in fiscal rather than only monetary policy. Now the chairman and the Fed governors pretend they can be economic saviors able to rescue workers and business from the consequences of failed fiscal and regulatory policies thereby incurring the wrath of irresponsible politicians who blame the Fed for their own political follies. All this led Alan Greenspan to ask the congress to repeal Humphrey-Hawkins.

Nothing was done post Greenspan especially since Ryan, Coker and Pence left the congress. But the dual mandate has probably done more to damage the reputation of the Fed than any since piece of legislation. If I were Fed chair I would simply ignore the employment statistics and concentrate solely on inflation. I would cite Fed independence and that inflation is the most debilitating economic variable rather than unemployment. Seriously, Jay Powell has shown the Fed’s independence in Trump’s attempts to force the it to lower its Fed funds target rate. Isn’t it about time to really assert Fed’s independence for the benefit of the economy by ditching the dual mandate? What will Kevin Warsh do as chairman? As Bob Coker once said “Monetary policy should not be bipolar.”

Arms for Iran. ARMs for mortgages too.

Do we have an exit strategy?

Was it a surprise that the Iranians shut down the Straits of Hormuz? Shouldn’t there have been a strategy implemented on Day One to keep the straits open? Maybe the surprise was that after decapitating the Iranian leadership that the country didn’t fold like a house of cards. However, the Iranians were obviously prepared for war and are willing to wage it. Maybe Trump was convinced that a bombing campaign would quickly subdue the country. Let us assume that he simply didn’t know history. Never has a bombing campaign succeeded to win a war without boots on the ground except perhaps the nukes over Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But prior to that we murdered Japanese civilians by firebombing their cities. Given that their homes were primarily made of wood, the toll was horrific. We killed over 100,000 civilians and left over a million homeless. Curtis LeMay who commanded the US forces stated that if we had lost the war he would have been prosecuted as a war criminal. Yet the Japanese never surrendered until we nuked them and yet there is evidence that what motivated their surrender was the invasion by the Russians in Manchuria.

Although the president never spelled out his objectives, I am sure that nuking the Iranians was off the table. Maybe he thought it was going to be like the earlier raid in June where he would bomb a few sites and declare victory. But not in this instance. The Iranians are pursuing an interesting strategy in not attacking Israel in force but rather the US installations around the Gulf and strategically attacking our installations – but not civilians. Trump wanted the Iranian citizens to “take back their country.” But probably miscalculated. 

It would have been nice to have articulated an exit strategy but lacking that at least a strategy to keep the straits open. The longer the straits are closed then the more pressure on the US to reach an agreement with the Iranian new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei who is even more hardline than his late father. How can the US open the straits? It does not have the ships to escort every ship through the straits. Even if it did it would run the danger of the US ships being hit by missiles and drones. It cannot take out every missile that can hit shipping in the straits. It can’t even prevent the mining of the straits by the Iranians. Although the US navy has attacked Iranian ships and even a submarine, most of the mines are laid by frogmen operating out of small fishing vessels. BTW, The Iranians are shipping their own oil on their tankers through the straits. Why aren’t those tankers stopped by our navy? Again, unless the Iranians run out of missiles and drones (and we bomb all their production facilities) at some point Trump is going to have to declare victory. The problem is that the Iranians are going to insist that to reopen the straits that major concessions are made to them – stop the embargos and lift the sanctions. They will probably insist on restarting their nuclear program but that is a nonstarter. Life got a lot more interesting. Shutting down the Straits of Hormuz is a global economic killer. The Iranians know it. We know it too. Surely Trump knows it. The question is that this looks more and more like a miscalculation and an absence of a viable strategy of keeping the straits open.

Trump’s Karoline (Lying) Leavitt said “The Pentagon has been planning for Iran’s desperate and reckless closure of the Strait of Hormuz for decades, and it has been part of the Trump administration’s planning well before Operation Epic Fury was ever launched. The U.S. operation to wipe out Iran’s military capability “is quite literally intended to deprive them of their ability to close the Strait.” Oops! Now Trump is sending more troops to the Gulf including 2,500 marines along with the USS Tripoli amphibious battle group. Please don’t tell me he is going to put boots on the ground. I wish he would just say that the US will always seek to degrade Iran’s capability to build a nuclear weapon, declare victory and leave. Instead it looks as though he is going to dig us deeper and deeper into a hole that will be increasingly difficult to extricate ourselves. I hope not. 

At least Joe Biden is no longer president. Trump, to his credit, has stopped the green nonsense and moved to make the US energy independent. He has ended the stupid embargo on the sale of LNG, issued more drilling permits, opened up previously closed land for drilling. Alaska’s governor is touting pipelines to Japan and South Korea, two countries currently dependent on oil coming through the Straits of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia is now routing oil through its pipelines to the Red Sea. All this will mitigate to some extent the closure of the Straits on energy prices. The major concern with then be “what about fertilizer?”

The return of the adjustable rate mortgage

Mortgage rates have fallen below 6 percent but the rates on adjustable rate mortgages have fallen even faster causing an upsurge in the use of those rates by homeowners. The benefit of an ARM is that if rates fall even more, then the mortgages can be refinanced into a fixed rate mortgage. However, if rates go up then when the mortgage rates adjust, they can cause some financial stress. Theoretically, when the homeowner qualifies for an adjustable rate mortgage then they are supposed to be able to qualify even at the highest projected rate. That is what a prudent lender would do. The problem is that most mortgages are sold either to Fannie Mae or to private investors removing the default risk from the originator after a certain period of time.

One of the threats from the war in Iran is that inflation will go higher – the new data show that food prices went up 3.1 percent last month. Higher inflation means even higher mortgage rates so buyers are tempted to lock in a 7 year adjustable in hopes that the rates seven years from now will be lower. Then they would refinance into a lower fixed rate loan. 

BTW, I know this sounds like a self-promotion but I instituted the first adjustable rate loans while on the board of the National Credit Union Administration. We were faced with inflationary recession and rising interest rates. Credit union loans were all fixed rate so if loans on the books were at low rates while deposit liabilities were having to be paid higher rates, credit unions were in danger of becoming insolvent. So I proposed that we revise the language in our lending regs which read that loans had to be repaid in mostly equal installments to simply remove the words “mostly equal” thereby creating what we called a variable interest rate loan. A week later the savings and loan regulator adopted similar language calling it an adjustable rate loan. So if you get an ARM and rates go up instead of down, it’s my fault.

Ignorance on the school board and “what’s an analog clock?”

Its election time in Tennessee

Its election time and for whatever reason I get a spate of calls from local candidates seeking my support. This time a person running for the school board called me. I told him that I would not support anyone who did not aggressively advocate for Direct Instruction and phonics. He had no clue what I was talking about. I said “How can you run for the school board if you don’t know about the effectiveness of teaching methods?” He mumbled something about my being able to educate him. I said no. Educate yourself. That episode highlighted how useless is the Board of “Education” in educating our kids. Earlier when I tried to get three different board members interested in alternative instruction methods, none showed any interest in changing the status quo even though their schools had proficiency levels of under 10 percent.

I could care less how the school administration is spending my money. All I care about is educating our children to read, write and do arithmetic. Nothing else matters to me. The current method of instruction written in all the texts by professors of education who then teach it in their classrooms and is endorsed by the accreditation boards is called “balanced literacy” which ignores phonics. When I tried to get a reading curriculum put into the Knoxville schools based on phonics, the school superintendent rejected it because “it contains too much reading.” I kid you not. But phonics works. I’ve written about the Mississippi miracle where that state that was last in reading proficiency adopted phonics and has now risen up to 11^th. I was once told that by using phonics in K-3, children learn to read. Afterwards they read to learn. The reading scores in Knoxville’s elementary schools are abysmal. We all should be ashamed that in the city with the University of Tennessee that our children can’t read and the school administration and board of education refuse to do anything about it.

I’ve posted before Here the 2024 third grade reading chart for Knox County. Here it is again. The plot has proficiency on the vertical axis and economic disadvantaged on the horizontal axis. The red line is the state average which is abysmal. Knox county is worse. Only 17 of the 52 Knox County elementary schools are above the line. This should be scandalous. Direct Instruction has shown that virtually every child can read at grade level unless suffering from a serious learning deficiency. Even the best elementary school in the county is at less than 90 percent proficiency. It has less than 10 percent disadvantaged students. Note the one outlier. The second highest school has 40 percent disadvantaged. Why doesn’t the superintendent take what is working at that school and impose it throughout the system? That he doesn’t is the clearest indication that he should be fired. But of course, the school board would have to do that and they don’t have a clue – or care – about proficiency either. I think the surest way to motivate the superintendent would be to tie his salary increases to changes in proficiency.

My annual “wellness” exam

I had my annual physical – now called a “wellness” exam because I am 80. The nurse had two memory tests. The first was she wanted me to draw a clock showing 11:10. So I drew this one

She was aghast and said “I meant the clock with the numbers on it and the hands showing 11:10.” I then drew this one

She also said that I had to remember three words and that she would ask me later what they were. They were “village, kitchen and baby.” So when she asked me I said to her: “Do you remember what the three words were?” She said yes. I said that maybe I didn’t believe her and if she had forgotten them, then when I told her the right words, she would say that I was wrong remember when in fact I was right. I told her to write them down first. Of course, I was joking but for some reason she didn’t appreciate my sense of humor.

World Baseball Classic. Women’s History Month. A Gut Feeling?

Fun baseball in March!

At the World Baseball Classic, the highly favorite US team got saved from an unceremonious ouster by that juggernaut baseball country – Italy. Yes Italy, the winners of Pool B which was comprised of the US, Mexico, Brazil and Great Britain. If Italy had lost to Mexico or won by fewer than four runs, the US would have been out. But the Italians who beat the US 8-6 beat Mexico 9-1. Both stunners given the talent of those two teams. It’s my granddaughter’s fault. Her team at Major League Baseball was responsible for putting together the lists of players eligible to play for each country. So all the teams featured major league and high minor league players. Most had Americans on their squads. Philadelphia’s Aaron Nola pitched for Italy. Kansas City’s Vinnie Pasquantino was the hitting star for Team Italia. The British team only had two players from the United Kingdom on its roster. There were two from the Bahamas (including Jazz Chisholm) and all the rest were born in the US. Interestingly, there were more black American starters for the British team than for any US major league team. Still my favorite player is Lars Nootbaar who in the last WBC played for Team Japan.

March is Women’s History Month

It is women’s History Month. Isn’t it interesting that both “women” and “history” have men in them? Women and history. Regardless, this is the month in which we tell her-story. I find it particularly interesting that in Women’s History Month, the congress is finally getting around to authorizing an Office on Men’s Health. The Office on Women’s Health was established in 1991 as part of the Department of Health and Human Services. But no men’s health. That will soon be rectified. The bill has two democrat and two republican sponsors. The AMA has endorsed it and Kennedy wants it as part of his MAHA agenda. Will this be one of the few bills that will pass unanimously?

Eight Years?

The website Stat Morning Rounds reports that there is a study published in Nature Medicine stating that eight years is how long the composition of someone’s gut microbiome may be affected by a course of oral antibiotics. Eight years? I was rendered speechless. Does Kennedy know about this? Read the article for yourself and see what you think. Here is Stat’s summary:

Nature Medicine. In a study of nearly 15,000 people in Sweden, those who’d taken antibiotics within a year of testing had a major reduction in specimen diversity in the gut microbiome. But there was also significant diversity loss when antibiotics were taken 1-4 years and 4-8 years earlier. Specific antibiotics had the strongest associations: clindamycin, fluoroquinolones, and flucloxacillin. Penicillin V, common outside of Sweden, saw small and short-lasting gut changes. The researchers are collecting additional samples from almost half the participants for more longitudinal data.  

No new bills is a threat? Jones Act. Bondi in hiding.

No new bills – please!

The president has threatened not to sign another bill until the congress passes the SAVE Act. This may be the best news I have seen this year. Earlier the president threatened to implement the SAVE Act all by himself via executive order. But A federal judge in 2025 blocked that attempt that sought to require proof of citizenship for voter registration. Of course, the president actually doesn’t have to sign a bill for it to become law. If congress passes a bill and Trump takes no action for 10 days while the congress is in session, the measure becomes law without his signature. So what the president needs to do is say he will not sign a law and if congress passes one, he will veto it. I have a modest proposal: why don’t we declare the rest of the month “new law-free March?” Recall Gideon Tucker’s famous saying: “No man’s, life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” That was true when Tucker said it in 1866 and it is true now. So please, please, please (to quote James Brown) Mr President, NO NEW LAWS!

The only way to pass the SAVE Act is to dump the filibuster. The republican leadership is loath to do so even in the face of mounting pressure from the president. Senate majority leader Thune knows that once you open this door then all sorts of mischief can happen – although he probably thanks Harry Reid for lifting the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees, else no one would ever get confirmed in this fractured political environment. But the breaking news is that John Cornyn is showing his desperation to get reelected and has had a miraculous epiphany and now supports ending the filibuster in order to get Trump’s endorsement in his race against Ken Paxton.

Repeal the Jones Act

Hawaii has the second highest gas prices in the country – or should I say out of the country. Sounds reasonable given that it is an island and all their oil must be shipped in. California is first due to all the silly rules and high taxes. But Hawaii even with its own brand of leftwing politics could see lower gas prices just by getting an exemption from the Jones Act. This is an act that Trump probably loves. It mandates that anything shipped from one US port to another must be made via a US built ship that is US owned and crewed. The act – formally the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 – is pure protectionism. It was intended to protect American ships from foreign competition. It also was to protect American shipbuilders. To put it mildly, the act failed on both accounts. American shipbuilding is in the tank and the American fleet is pitifully small. There are hardly any US flagged ships. There are only 92 Jones compliant US ships and 55 are oil tankers. There are 93 other US flagged ships but they are foreign built and are therefore non-Jones Act compliant and cannot carry cargo between US ports. Isn’t this stupid? Only the 55 can transport oil between US ports but again the cost of transporting oil from a US port to Hawaii is more expensive than shipping it from a foreign source. It costs more to ship oil on US tankers from the Gulf to Hawaii than from the Middle East to Hawaii. To deliver gas from say the Gulf of Mexico or Alaska to Hawaii, it can only be done on American ships. The result is that all Hawaii gas gets shipped from foreign ports on foreign ships.

American shipping is in decline because all the costs, environmental laws and regulations make building a US ship five times more expensive that one built in China. Also U.S. ship operating costs are estimated at nearly 3 times foreign costs. So it is cheaper not to build the ships in the US despite the Jones Act. Why Hawaii isn’t exempt from the Jones Act has long been a mystery to me. BTW, the same applies to Puerto Rico. Why not just repeal the darn thing?

Bondi in hiding?

Attorney General Pam (Blondie) Bondi has move into a nondisclosed military base housing. Bondi, along with Secretary of State Rubio, Trump advisor Stephen Miller, Kristi (ex-border Barbie) Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth now live in military housing somewhere in the DC area. I don’t know where but I am certain we are not talking about barracks. All are doing so for security reasons. Apparently the administration is taking seriously threats against all of them. I am somewhat surprised that this is not true for some of the Supreme Court justices as well. When I was in DC, at least three justices lived either in or near my neighborhood. We all knew where they lived and sometimes there would be a picket or two outside their homes. Recall the threat on Justice Kavanaugh? I presume that these homes are now being protected by law enforcement. So one asks “Why can’t the same be said for Bondi and the other Trump officials? BTW, I don’t recall this happening during other administrations.

Its Spring Break

It is spring break. When I was teaching I hated spring break and lobbied unsuccessfully that instead of spring break we just shortened the semester by a week. For me spring break was a disaster and would undo all the hard work of getting the students used to my demanding style. I would force them to participate, write papers, take essay exams with no aids (no cellphones, no laptops allowed). Then they would go off to the beach, drink, party and who knows what else. They would come back to class all tanned and mellow and have no desire to think about present value, strong form efficiency or asset pricing models. Attendance was terrible and attitudes were worse. Maybe the solution was that if I couldn’t get spring break cancelled maybe I should have gone to the beach too.

A case for TPS. Who’s your congressman? 

A Case for TPS

I know that the president hates the Temporary Protected Status (except for white South African farmers) but if there were ever a need for TPS it is the Christians of Nigeria. Over the past 15 years, an astounding 56,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed. Saying that Nigeria is the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian is an understatement. Well known is the menace of Boko Haram which has killed, raped and kidnapped Nigerian Christians since 2009. But now there is persecution by radical Fulani Muslims. President Trump has sent 200 troops to the country to consult with the Nigerian military and has appointed West Virginia republican Rep. Riley Moore to investigate the situation and report back to him – which is simply flabbergasting. What does Moore know about Nigeria?

Moore has recommended the U.S. and Nigeria form a “bilateral agreement” to “protect vulnerable Christian communities from violent persecution, eliminate jihadist terror activity in the region, further economic cooperation, and counter adversaries in the region, including the Chinese Communist Party and Russian Federation.” Whoopie. Well isn’t this a perfect situation for TPS? Why don’t we offer sanctuary to a selected number of Nigerians who are most at risk?

Our intellectually challenged representatives

I feel sorry for those living in Tennessee’s sixth district. They have Andy Ogles as their representative. Ogles, who has never distinguished himself intellectually now is firing off tweets targeting Muslims. Ogles tweeted that “Muslims don’t belong in American society. “Pluralism is a lie.” So much for religious freedom. Ogles plans to propose legislation to ban entry to the U.S. from a set of Muslim-majority countries. Of course, he may be speaking for the president who has restricted entry into the country for 39 nations. Trump has been especially harsh toward Rep. Ilan Omar and her fellow Somali-Americans, calling them “garbage” and saying he wanted them sent “back to where they came from” – which is Minnesota. Not a good look for the president of this country.

Of course the republicans have been quiet. Not so the democrats. Hakeem Jeffries tweeted “Andy Ogles is a malignant clown and pathological liar who has fabricated his whole life story. Disgusting Islamophobes like you do not belong in Congress or in civilized society. And that’s why House Democrats will defeat you in November.”  But Ogles is not alone. Florida’s Randy Fine, another towering intellect posted: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., has pushed for immigration changes, posting: “No more Islamic immigration. Denaturalize, deport, repeat.” Gee thanks guys for making republicans proud.

So much for comity in the House of Representatives. Undaunted Ogles responded “To Hakeem Jeffries, Gavin Newsom, and the high-ranking Democrats flooding X to condemn me: A Muslim shot and killed three Americans in Texas. Two Muslims tried to blow up New York City…again. Meanwhile, all DHS counterterrorism programs are unfunded because you shut them down.”

Although I condemn radical Muslims who commit violent acts and seek to impose Sharia law, it is sheer bigotry to damn the Muslims writ large. It is akin to labelling every Hispanic a member of the Sinaloa cartel, or every Chinese-American a Chinese spy. It was not long ago where every violent act from a black was shouted by southern racists as being typical of the entire race. Blacks were labeled with all sorts of scandalous names and caricatures. Black men were a “menace” and a threat to white womanhood. It came as no surprise that when the University of Georgia realized that they were going to lose their case not accepting black students, that they said they would accept only the woman – Charlayne Hunter – and not the man – Hamilton Holmes (who graduated Phi Beta Kappa in chemistry. I wonder what Ogles, Fine and Clyde think about the shootings in Chicago?

These republicans are doing the same with all Muslims. This is disgraceful. They should all read Betrayal of Command: My Marine Corps Journey (Afghanistan 2001-2004) by Lt. Colonel Asad “Genghis” Khan. If they have any decency – which I doubt – they would all be ashamed of their Islamophobia when they read this story of a modern American hero. The congress has long been noted for its lack of intellectuals. I guess that Ogles, Fine and Clyde balance out AOC, Omar and Tlaib.

God is non-binary? Prasad out at FDA. Mississippi State on probation?

God is non-binary?

Somehow Jasmine Crockett lost a double digit lead and her primary to a little known state representative who opines that there are 6 genders and God is non-binary. I kid you not. James Talarico a really progressive Presbyterian seminarian, was dismissed by Crockett as “just another white man of privilege.” As expected, Crockett got 80 percent of the black vote but Talarico got 60 percent of the white vote (mostly college educated). He also got 60 percent of the Latino and Asian vote. His rather progressive interpretation of Christianity was not an issue in his campaign as he stressed in his Spanish language ads “faith and family and jobs and bringing people together.” 

But you can be certain that whoever wins the republican runoff will hammer to death that Talarico does not oppose boys playing girls sports, he says that abortion is justified in the Bible, he favors gender surgeries and therapies for children and says that God is “non-binary.” Don’t forget that Talarico is a seminary student and justifies his views based on his interpretation of the scriptures. During a debate to stop gender-altering surgeries, he commented “In committee, I listened to 15 hours of testimony about this bill. The worst part, for me, was the number of Christians who used scripture to justify hurting children. Even on this floor today, a member tried to justify a hateful amendment in the name of God’s law.” I bet there are a bunch of people all of a sudden wishing Jasmine Crockett had won.

Trump who has stayed silent is probably being pushed to endorse Cornyn in the runoff against Paxton. But Paxton has a significant lead over Cornyn in the polls (if that means anything anymore). If Paxton beats Cornyn, the democrats are sure to make this a race about character – of which Paxton is sorely lacking. Talarico will lean hard into a populist, anti-corruption message. He already argues that America’s affordability crisis is a direct result of corruption and wants billionaire money out of politics (save George Soros?). He calls Paxton “the most corrupt politician in America.” So Texas politics, like the past presidential elections will face a Hobson’s Choice. Come on, can’t we do better than this?

Prasad out at the FDA

The Wall Street Journal may have gotten Vinay Prasad, head of the FDA’s biologics division ousted (again). Prasad was fired once and then brought back. The Journal had reported that Dr Prasad had withdrawn approval of UniQure’s gene therapy treatment for Huntington’s disease for lack of a placebo control test. Huntington’s disease afflicts about 40,000 patients in the U.S. and there are no current treatments that slow its progression. But UniQure’s therapy slowed progression by 75% compared to the natural course of the disease. However, UniQure could not conduct a placebo trial as demanded by Dr Prasad because recruiting patients with a rare and debilitating disease for a placebo trial can be difficult if not unethical. Under Prasad the FDA has rejected at least 23 rare disease therapies. UniQure said Monday it aims to seek approval in Europe and the U.K., so patients may have to leave the U.S. to get treated. But maybe with Prasad forced out, the FDA will exercise some regulatory flexibility. Like over at Commerce, the advisory committees on vaccines and rare diseases were fired and replaced with folk sympathetic to the views of RFK jr. So Prasad was making decisions without the advice of experts in the field – which seems to be par for the course under Kennedy. It will be interesting to see how his ouster affects decision making at the FDA.

Mississippi State should get the death penalty!

Mississippi State (the other bulldogs) has broken the NCAA rules governing special benefits. Not once but twice! Shouldn’t it get the death penalty? One violation was that it hosted three golf recruits at a golf outing where the recruits played a round of golf. Mississippi State paid the $150 cost of the outing – a clear violation of NCAA rules. The second violation was that a recruit for the men’s track and field team brought his girlfriend on an official visit. She was not an approved guest and was provided lunch on the visit. The cost of the meal, $22.54, was a clear violation of NCAA rules and had to be paid back by the recruit. Mind you, LSU has just been reported to be paying its football team over $40 million which is just fine – so long as the school didn’t pay for the lunch of a wide receiver’s girlfriend at McDonald’s.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I ignored the 250^th anniversary of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. My favorite book of all time and one of the most influential books of all time.