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Happy Memorial Day

I personally hate that traditional holidays have been made into Monday holidays in order to give government employees an additional vacation day. Memorial Day is May 30^th and I will celebrate it on that day rather than on May 26 this year. I admit that I thought that Abraham Lincoln originated Memorial Day at his speech at Gettysburg in November 1863 saying “we cannot dedicate – we cannot consecrate – we cannot hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.” Yet it was not Lincoln but Union General John Logan who imitated the holiday to commemorate Union dead. He proclaimed May 30,1868 as Decoration Day – a day at which the graves of the Union soldiers would be decorated with flowers.

Why May 30^th? Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox on April 9,1865 but the war was not officially ended until August 20, 1866. Logan broached the idea of a Decoration Day on May 3,1868 and said that it should be observed on May 30^th. All of the Union states soon adopted May 30^th as the date to honor the fallen soldiers that wore blue. Logan said “Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance.” So obviously, he was excluding southern dead. 

But what about the southern states? They did not observe Memorial Day as a holiday. Rather growing up in the segregated south, in Georgia we “celebrated” Confederate Memorial Day on April 26 and did not recognize the Union one. Imagine that. In our all-black schools we were supposed to celebrate southern dead. Rather we celebrated the south’s losing the war. I remember our outrage when Georgia changed its state flag to incorporate the rebel banner after the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Georgia was saying “Segregation now. Segregation forever.” In Atlanta, I don’t recall the new state flag ever flying at our schools.

I have somewhat mixed feelings. Although I hated segregation and despised the confederate battle flag, both of my mother’s great grandfathers were white and one served in the 6^th Georgia militia. He is buried in a confederate cemetery in Atlanta one mile from my home house. My mother told me he never was a slave holder and was an honorable man who visited his black son every other Sunday for Sunday dinner and took his black grandchildren into town the following Monday to buy them stuff. Although he had a white family he never disowned his black son and grandchildren. That is to be admired especially in rural Georgia in the 1800s. So a part of me doesn’t mind when the celebration of Memorial Day started to include all American dead, not just Union Dead.

Yet, returning to Lincoln, no finer words have been said to commemorate those who have served and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

Happy Memorial Day

More tariffs and rational markets?

Ho hum. Trump threatened the EU with a new 50% tariff and Apple’s Tim Cook with a 25% tariff on iphones. Trump wants iphone production to be moved to the US while Cook has talked about moving it from China to India. Trump said that the new tariff would apply to all smartphones. It seems to me that if he wanted Apple to move its iphones to the US then he would only impose the new tariff on iphones. Wouldn’t that put more pressure on Cook who said that a US manufactured iphone would cost $3,500? This is disturbing to me and is against basic conservative principles. Has a president ever before threatened one company and one particular product before? Is this even constitutional?

Trump obviously wants the EU to do his bidding and is not open to negotiating. He has said “I’m not looking for a deal – we’ve set the deal.” Ironically, one of the main sticking points is that the EU wants tariffs cut to zero while Trump insists on preserving his 10 percent universal tariff. Trump also wants the EU to raise tariffs on China, which the EU refused to do. The EU’s trade “negotiator” responded “The EU’s fully engaged, committed to securing a deal that works for both. EU-US trade is unmatched & must be guided by mutual respect, not threats. We stand ready to defend our interests.” Lots of luck with that. There are 27 countries in the EU and Trump has different tariffs on each one of them. So how are they going to divide up who buys what and how much from the US? Lastly, at its core trade is between private parties and not governments. Trump rails about trade deficits but in the absence of demand from citizens how are those deficits to be addressed? Maybe he wants governments rather than their citizens to buy more US manufactured goods? Boeing jets anyone?

Pardon me if I find all of this tiresome. Apple is not going to move its iphone production to the US. It will cost over $30 billion over three years just to shift 10 percent of its production to the US. Apple will wait out Trump. It would be foolish to do otherwise and Tim Cook is no fool. The EU is not going to bend to meet all of Trump’s demands either. It is going to somehow have to manage its 27 members. It is not going to back down on its ban of GMO produce and hormone infused poultry and beef. It is not giving up its value added taxes either. A less strident Trump would settle on lowering tariff barriers rather than trying to impose demands on sovereign countries. But the real reveal is that Trump does not want free trade. Trump does not want fair trade. Trump really wants no trade – or at least sharply restricted imports.

Rational Markets?

To all finance professors, I have some good news and some bad news. All this tariff chaos is great fodder. It is an exciting time to be in the classroom relating what is being taught to what is happening in the “real” world. It fills the news and if the students are remotely interested in learning – and a few of them are – it presents the opportunity to talk about Adam Smith and mercantilism and Trump and his tariffs. However the bad news is the stock market. Finance teaches that markets are rational. It is hard to ascribe rationality to all of the gyrations in the market. Trump is the exogenous force roiling markets. The markets may be rational but the president is clearly not. If Trump imposes new tariffs, the market goes down. Then when he changes his mind and pauses the exact same tariffs, the markets rebound. Clearly there are times when the markets seem rational but this is one of the times when it seems that they are not. 

So what is a professor to profess? I tell students that there are various investment strategies at play and at times one may dominate the others. Consider a Warren Buffett strategy in which one purchases a firm’s stock based on its underlying value. This will result in a mostly buy and hold strategy. Another method is one of a day trader who will try to buy low and sell high as stock prices move during the day. This is pure speculation. Then there is the circumstance where markets are rational but some investors are not. These may be the individual investors who are playing the market and seemingly buy at the wrong time and sell at the wrong time creating market volatility. Thus, one could argue that the market is rational but at times investors may not be. As such it is interesting to parse what is happening with the gyrations in stock markets and in the market for bitcoin. 

Foreign students pay nothing?

President Trump said that students from foreign countries are paying nothing for attending college at Harvard and other U.S. institutions. Huh? That’s news to me and news to every school in the US. Quite the contrary, foreign students are the cash cow at our universities. They pay full tuition and are not eligible to receive US federal aid. Yet Trump tweeted “Why isn’t Harvard saying that almost 31% of their students are from FOREIGN LANDS, and yet those countries, some not at all friendly to the United States, pay NOTHING toward their student’s education, nor do they ever intend to.” Then who pays? Certainly Harvard is not gifting 7,000 international students free tuition.

Of course, this comes amid the fight between the Trump administration and Harvard. Trump wants to revoke the university’s ability to enroll foreign students as part of his campaign to bend the university to his demands. Despite what Trump says, the foreigners are a major source of revenue for the university. The Boston area receives about $385 million annually from the foreigners and around $4 billion for the state as a whole. In addition 24 billion dollar US companies were founded by foreign students who studied at Harvard.

Who pays their tuition and fees? If not the students, then perhaps it is their governments. The average total cost to attend Harvard is $90,000 annually. International students being ineligible for US federal financial aid are more likely to pay full freight. They are universities’ cash cows. Harvard’s international students make up 27 percent of its enrollment. They make up 39 percent at Columbia and an even higher share at 43 other universities with at least 1,000 students. It is not clear that universities favor foreign students to American ones, But it is clear that without foreign graduate students, our science departments would be in severe trouble. 

There are currently more that 1.1 million international students enrolled at US colleges and universities, half of whom are graduate students. India is first with China second. Then come South Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Viet Nam and Nigeria. The number of international students in graduate STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programs far outweighs domestic ones. In computer science, 72% of grad students are international. Fields like petroleum engineering have international student enrollment rates as high as 81%. Fifty percent of engineering students are international. Over 60 percent of all STEM doctorates are awarded to international students. Again, imagine the fate of these disciplines were it not for the international students. BTW, this past semester the most common name in my undergraduate finance class was Patel. There were five Indian surnamed students but no other international students in the class. Only one attended on an irregular basis the rest just showed up to take the exams. Their grades were one A, one B, two C+ and one C.

I would be shocked if Trump prevailed in court over his banning foreign students from Harvard or any other university. Recall that all this started out with the revocation of visas for foreign students participating in anti-Israel demonstrations. But it has morphed into something much more global – the banning of foreign students period. Again, that a federal government would have this kind of power to ban foreign students should be frightening to any conservative.

Justice Jackson and the Knuckleheads 

Justice Jackson and the Knuckleheads. Sounds like a rock and roll band. Well the newest justice made a knucklehead remark worthy of Sotomayor.

Justice Jackson said what? I had great hopes for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She had some decisions that strayed from those of Justice Sotomayor, who may be the least capable justice in memory. But not so in her decision in the case of the Maine legislator whose voting privileges were taken away due to her stance on males competing against females. Jackson and Sotomayor – but not Kagan – voted against the legislator. Since the legislator was barred from voting, her constituents were denied representation in the state legislature. Jackson said in her dissent that the legislator had “not asserted that there are any significant votes scheduled in the coming weeks or that there are any upcoming votes in which Libby’s participation would impact the outcome.” What! Huh? You mean that if you know your vote won’t win then it is ok to be barred from voting at all? If that were the case, then why did Jackson even vote on this case – and any other in which she were in the minority – no pun intended? Would Jackson also contend that any representatives representing say blacks could be denied voting on issues where there would be outvoted? This reasoning is bizarre to say the least and certainly does not bode well for future decisions made by this justice.

Do all the knuckleheads protesting the Israeli invasion of Palestine who are shouting “globalize the intifada” realize that they have just endorsed the murder of Jews, including the couple killed in from of the Jewish museum in Washington? 

Speaking of knuckleheads, the Senate just struck down California’s EV mandate, following the lead of the House. President Trump will sign it. I was amused by the news reports that the Senate vote was “bipartisan” in that a sole democrat – the new senator from Michigan – voted for it while all the rest voted against it. Bipartisan indeed. California was trying to ban gas powered vehicles by 2035. A foolish and impractical goal to be sure. But even more foolish were the eleven states that had adopted the California mandate. Every democrat representative and senator from those states should be defeated in their next election – although some of them have seats so safe that an AOC would be reelected. Mostly overlooked in the media coverage were two other votes, one revoking the waiver on heavy duty trucks and the one waiving the emissions standards for diesel trucks. 

In the beginning, Ford and General Motors were all for making the California mandate nationwide. Electric vehicles require fewer moving parts and less labor. Although the companies are losing billions on trying to produce both electric and internal combustion vehicles, if they only produced electric ones, the automobile manufactures could see increased profitability in the future. But the market reared its head and after the initial sales to the greenies and rejected the electric vehicles in volumes necessary for profitability. Sales even dipped in California. Now Ford and GM all of a sudden have religion. GM seemed to forget its earlier support of the mandate now saying “GM believes in customer choice, and we continue to focus on offering the best and broadest portfolio of vehicles on the market. GM has long supported one national standard and consistency in emissions regulations that are aligned with market realities.” Bull. The market reality is that GM projected that it would sell 400,000 EVs in 2024 and ended up selling only 111,432. Now the company is saying that “Emissions standards that are not aligned with market realities pose a serious threat to our business by undermining consumer choice and vehicle affordability.”

Ford which had been a leading cheerleader for the mandate also changed its tune. The company’s lobbyists sent Congress a letter partly stating “Allowing these gas vehicle bans (something never attempted before in the United States) to proceed will increase automobile prices and reduce vehicle choices for consumers across the country at precisely the same time they are adjusting to the marketplace shock of 25% tariffs on imported vehicles and auto parts.” Yet Ford was once all in. During Trump’s first term it denounced his relaxed EPA regulations. It partnered with the California Air Resources Board to come up with a plan to reduce greenhouse emissions. Ford was also the only automaker to commit to the requirements of the framework for the mandate on light-duty vehicles. So give me a break. I had posted earlier about a Ford not being in my future to their backing of the mandates and the Ford Foundation’s funding of causes that are totally completely woke.

Antisemitism is racism by another name

Don’t ask me why but the murder of the two young Israelis outside the Jewish Museum in DC has left me as shaken as the killing of George Floyd. The killings are the latest manifestation of the antisemitism so prevalent in today’s leftwing radicalism. Why I never thought I would see this killing in this country speaks to my naivete. The irony of course is that the radical left are attacking Jews who are among the most loyal democrat voters. The far left which is fond of labelling virtually anything that moves as being racist are themselves practicing racism toward the Jews. 

Yet I have heard no high ranking Jewish politician express support for what the Trump administration is doing to confront antisemitism on our college campuses. Chuck Schumer’s silence is deafening as is that of every Jew in the Congress. Despite Harvard’s long history of antisemitism, over 100 Jewish students at Harvard signed a letter opposing the cutting of over $9 billion in Federal funding at Harvard. The letter said in part “We are compelled to speak out because these actions are being taken in the name of protecting us — Harvard Jewish students — from antisemitism. But this crackdown will not protect us. On the contrary, we know that funding cuts will harm the campus community we are part of and care about deeply.” The students acknowledge that antisemitism is real and a serious problem at Havard but that the cutting of funding hurts those Jews actively engaged in research and internships on campus. Some of the students said that the Trump administration’s charge of antisemitism is just a cover for its war on DEI and the corresponding “litany of absurd demands.”

Harvard’s president, who is Jewish has said that fighting antisemitism on campus “will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard and to dictate how we operate. The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community.”

A coalition of Jewish groups has also chimed in by stating “In recent weeks, escalating federal actions have used the guise of fighting antisemitism to justify stripping students of due process rights when they face arrest and/or deportation, as well as to threaten billions in academic research and education funding.” They state further “Universities have an obligation to protect Jewish students, and the federal government has an important role to play in that effort; however, sweeping draconian funding cuts will weaken the free academic inquiry that strengthens democracy and society, rather than productively counter antisemitism on campus. These actions do not make Jews — or any community — safer. Rather, they only make us less safe.”

Harvard’s president and its students have a valid point. However, what was Harvard doing to confront antisemitism prior to Trump? What were the Jewish students doing? Harvard is an example of academic freedom run amuck. There are parts of the curricula and members of the faculty that are openly antisemitic. There is an intolerance on campus toward conservative speakers and anything that questions the orthodoxy of the left. Harvard as well as other universities have tacitly endorsed all this under the guise of academic freedom. Yet it has failed to fulfill the basic academic mission of demanding excellence and encouraging exchange of diverse ideas and viewpoints.

It may well be that the Trump people are using federal funding as the sword of Damocles to advance its own agenda of eradicating DEI and CRT at our universities. I, though troubled by the antisemitism on campus am equally troubled by the federal government dictating what is taught and who teaches it. If that is the price of federal funding, then perhaps we should emulate Hillsdale College and reject all federal funding. I have read nothing that would contend that Hillsdale is antisemitic. Quite to the contrary, in its student paper it condemned the campus protests, college administrators and faculty who supported it and coddled unruly students. Consider the following statement:

“The only proper response to this month’s attack on Israel was a condemnation of terrorism and antisemitism. But that was too much to ask of students and faculty at what used to be our finest academic institutions. That the West’s elite colleges and universities have become morally and intellectually corrupt is old news to Hillsdale folk. A lack of trust in our country’s esteemed universities is what drove many of us to this college. But some Americans have tried to carry on as if these institutions were not rotting but were instead still solid, still trustworthy. For years, they brushed off the rising focus on equity over merit, the sometimes violent student opposition to conservative speakers, and the administrative attempts to shut down non-progressive speech on campus.”

The fact that this statement did not come from the students at Harvard bespeaks of their tacitly acceptance of the antisemitism on campus and their not aggressively fighting it. I can’t imagine any other minority group putting up with such nonsense. Again, where were the Jewish voices opposing Harvard’s antisemitism before Trump and where are they now?

Joe Biden’s Prostate Cancer

My doctors are obviously better than Joe Biden’s. The former president’s diagnosis of stage 4 prostate cancer that has metastasized to the bone strikes to the very souls of most of us men. Black men are advised to start screening for prostate cancer at age 45 while it is age 50 for whites, unless there is a family history of the cancer. The traditional test was a digital rectal inspection of the prostate which was the reason many men were reluctant to be tested. Those exams were replaced by PSA tests around 2019 and recommended every two or three years. However, the PSA tests become optional after the age of 70 due to increased false positives. The last publicized PSA test for Biden was in 2014 when he was 72 years old. But surely being president, his doctors must have tested him again and again for prostate cancer. Didn’t they? The irony is that in 2023, Biden asked the congress to fund $2.8 billion for cancer initiatives called “Cancer Moonshot” which included cancer screenings. Recall that Biden’s son Beau died from brain cancer – although Biden kept saying he died in Iraq – and that Biden and his wife Jill both had lesions removed that were basil cell carcinoma. So why didn’t his doctors detect it? Prostate cancer is slow growing so it is likely that Biden had the cancer throughout his term. Had he been reelected he would have had to resign leaving Kamala Harris as president. But the question remains, how did his cancer go undetected? In my case,

During my annual physical in January 2012, my PSA levels had ticked up. My doctor said that it was still within the normal range and probably not a concern but he wanted me to come back for a retest in a month. A month later, it had increased a bit more but still not in the danger range. Yet my doctor said that I should go to a urologist just to be certain. I went in March 2012. My urologist was a renowned former president of his national association. He performed a biopsy which revealed cancer in one region of the prostate. He told me that it was slow growing and that we would monitor it with periodic PSA tests and another biopsy when the prostate healed. I had that biopsy scheduled one year later in March 2013. Meanwhile, my PSA levels had decreased prompting me to wonder if the additional biopsy was necessary. My urologist said that PSA results were not always reliable. The new biopsy revealed that the cancer had spread but was still within the prostate. The doctor said that we had to now become more aggressive in my treatment. He offered me the alternatives: regular surgery, seed therapy, proton treatment or robotic surgery. After considerable research I opted for the robotic surgery performed by another surgeon. 

When I was introduced to the new doctor I said “You cannot be my surgeon.” He said “Why not? I have the most experience, the highest certification and training!” I said, “How old are you?” “When I came to UT as a tenured full professor, you were in middle school. I don’t have anyone operate on me who can’t name the Supremes.” He said “Diana Ross?” and I said “Okay, you can be my surgeon.” The operation was in May 2013, more that one year from the original diagnosis. Afterwards, when he went to tell my other half that the surgery was a success and no other cancer was detected, she said “Do you know the other Supremes?” and he said “Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson.” I then had follow up exams and tests until 2017 and finally declared cancer free.

Surely if I had this level of care, then something is amiss with the treatment of Joe Biden. The president of the United States has first rate doctors – so we are told – and we are given reports of his physical condition on a regular basis. Biden’s cancer reveal throws into question the veracity of the doctor’s reports of the president’s condition. To my knowledge every presidential doctor’s report has been almost effusive in their statements of the president’s health. Was this a cover up? Are they lying to us? Apparently so.

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It’s about time!

In the past I have posted a comment that said that on one issue I agreed with Maxine Waters. It was wondering why there were no “black” hurricane names. There were Hispanic names, Asian names, Hebrew names but no uniquely black names. I suggested that all the Hurricane Center had to do was to put “La” in front of the existing names to transition them. Well someone must be reading my blog. First here are the 2025 names. Note that one of the names is “Wendy”. Someone must have a sense of humor. But “Chantal” qualifies as “black”.

There is actually a supplemental list. On it are Makayla, Deshawn and Tayshaun! No LaShon but these will do.

BTW, Let’s hope that we don’t get to the supplemental list.

What’s with, Part I.

What’s with all the women arrested in the storming of the library at Columbia? Of the 80 arrests, 61 are women. Fifty are students at Columbia. Many of them rich and entitled. The masked keffiyeh-wearing protestors disrupted students who were studying for finals and injured two university security guards. The university’s reaction was in contrast to its earlier nonresponse. This time the university handed down at least 65 interim suspensions and another 33 were barred from campus. My hopes are that the university will expel all the students and bar them from ever graduating from Columbia. 

These are supposedly intelligent women. Isn’t it a bit strange that they support Hamas which enforces strict sharia law which regards women as second class citizens and treats LGTQs even worse? Have they ever been to Palestine? Have they ever lived under sharia law? Do they hate Jews so much that they endorse the killings and rapes of October 7? Don’t misunderstand, I believe that the Israeli response was in many instances an over the top act of revenge against anything and anyone Palestinian. Yet this does not excuse the shameful behavior or the radicals on our campuses. Did they see the appalling video of the five female Israeli soldiers taken captive on October 7? “Fearful and bloody, the women begged for their lives while Hamas fighters milled around and alternately threatened to rape and kill them. The State Department is reviewing the cases to see if any of the protestors were noncitizens. It so, they will be deported hopefully to Palestine into Hamas’ loving arms.

In my last lecture, I talked about Fintech. One of the innovations is crowdfunding. I told the difference between crowdfunding a protest on a northern campus versus one on a southern campus was that in the north the students would be chanting “Free Palestine!” while in the south the students would be chanting “Free beer!”

What’s with, Part II.

What’s with all these black politicians supporting illegals? Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark and three minority congressmen stormed the ICE detention center in Newark. Baraka was arrested for trying to force his way into the center. Charges against Baraka were dropped but congresswoman LaMonica McIver will face charges in her involvement at the detention center. She was charged with “assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement.” ICE had said that the center contained illegals who were criminals and rapists. Baraka said that they were there to conduct “oversight” to ensure the facility was not violating any building safety ordinances. Sure they were. The US attorney for New Jersey who charged Baraka is Alina Habba who said that Baraka “committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center”. The Department of Homeland security said that the group of protesters, which included the Democrats, “stormed the gate and broke into the detention facility” as a bus containing illegal migrants was being brought inside the fenced perimeter. Why isn’t this an impeachable offense? Surely at a minimum, the three from congress should be censured.

Mayors such as New York City’s Eric Adams, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson served as cheerleaders for President Biden’s border crisis, even as resources are diverted from their black constituents. All members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted against the Secure the Border Act. What’s with this? The government pie is limited and black Americans have competed with illegal aliens for resources ranging from housing to medical care. But nowhere has the competition been more intense than in the jobs market. Recent research shows that illegal immigration accounted for a significant relative decline in black wage and employment rates. Employment rates for black males in low-skill job categories dropped by as much as 7 percent while wages dropped by up to 9 percent. Also illegal immigration has aggravated the competition between blacks and illegal aliens for government and social services. So why do their politicians act against their interests?

Vocal supporters of illegal immigrants include Maxine Waters, Lauren Underwood, Jasmine Crockett and Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York who said “New York City is welcoming and compassionate. As a right to shelter city, we have a moral and legal obligation to provide asylum seekers the right to seek refuge—and we will never turn anyone away, whether they are fleeing authoritarian regimes like that of Maduro or violence in Ukraine, our city and this nation will and must welcome refugee families,” Espaillat along with Rep. Deborah Ramirez co-authored legislation to try to shelter illegals at locations like schools, churches, and hospitals “amid the rise of vicious targeting and attacks by ICE”.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett defended the illegals by claiming the United States needs them to pick cotton. Seriously. “So I had to go around the country and educate people about what immigrants do for this country, or the fact that we are a country of immigrants. The fact is ain’t none of y’all trying to go and farm right now. OK, so I’m lying? We’re done picking cotton. We are. You can’t pay us enough to find a plantation.”

Crockett also said this about the deportation of illegals “As far as I’m concerned, you randomly kidnapping folk and you throwing them out of the country against their civil rights, against their constitutional rights. And, frankly, how would they feel if some other country decided that they were gonna just start throwing people randomly in our country? Like that is absolutely insane.”

Her fellow black representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois also chimed in that “Since America’s founding, immigrants have been vital to our cultural vibrancy and economic success. Our immigration system must honor and recognize the value and dignity of all of our immigrant communities.” Underwood then said that the deaths of five immigrant children in a detention facility was “intentional”. She refused to apologize.

It was only when their cities became overrun with illegals that some politicians like Eric Adams changed their tune. Adams called for changes to the city’s sanctuary policies by endorsing that illegals who are accused of a crime in New York should be released Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. In Chicago, black residents expressed frustration with the mayor’s policies especially his allocating $51 million for migrant care. However, their mayor is steadfastly unrepentant. What we now have is the pro-immigration views of the black elite clashing with those of the black dissenters who have to deal with the illegals deposited in their neighborhoods and competing for resources.

But a century ago, overwhelming majorities blacks supported voting for the Immigration Act of 1924, which dramatically cut immigration. The editors of black newspapers and magazines across the country backed these reductions. Some even advocated for deeper cuts.  W.E.B. DuBois said that the “stopping of the importing of cheap white labor on any terms has been the economic salvation of American black labor.” Times have changed.

Speaking of changing times this is from the 1996 Democrat party platform: 

“Today’s Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws.  We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again.”

These democrats supported border security. Today’s democrats not so much. It is obvious that black politicians are democrats first and blacks second. It remains to be seen if black voters will keep returning these politicians to office despite their views on illegal immigration.

Who? Frank Glassner is a corporate board consultant of considerable note. He is also a friend. I met Frank while on the board of New Century Financial Corporation. Prior to Frank I thought board consultants were a waste of time and money. My previous experience on other boards was that consultants offered little of value and were only hired to parrot whatever the CEO wanted to hear. Boy was I wrong. Frank was bold and brash and seemingly didn’t care whose toes he trod on.

His blog speaks of his boldness and opinions. His views on DEI must have come as a shock to many boards. I recommend his blog to all and encourage all to subscribe to it. When I told him of my experiences in today’s classroom he said that he had a forthcoming blog that seemed like I wrote it. I told him that every student printed and had abandoned script. I said that when I announced that my exams were essay, short answer and problems that 6 students immediately dropped. One student told me that she had never had an exam other than multiple choice/true false in her four years at the university. I told him that of the 53 students than only at most 30 showed up for the lectures. The others looked at the recorded lecture online. It was the virtual generation. Twenty seven never picked up an exam. Eleven never took a quiz. I put five words on the syllabus that students could not misspell or else I would take off points (capital, principal, receive, yield and guarantee). Students continued to misspell them throughout the course and complained that “this is not a spelling bee.” When I received the evaluations, only 24 of the 53 deigned to fill out the form – and the forms were sent online. When I was on the faculty, we had to hand out the forms during class, get a student to volunteer to take them to the office and then leave the room. Now it is done online but yet less than half bothered to respond. Of the 24, six hated my guts. That was to be expected. What was not expected was that only 10 said that I responded in a timely manner to emails while six said that my response was nonexistent. Yet going back through my files, I noted that I responsed to each email almost immediately and during the term only 8 students had even emailed me once. So WTF? There were some very smart students in the class but I was apalled by the lack of intellectual curiousity. What hath we wrought?

But here are some of Frank’s musings. His are a lot more wordy than mine and may be a bit more worthy as well.

https://compensation-in-context.ghost.io/?ref=compensation-in-context-newsletter

https://compensation-in-context.ghost.io/dumb-and-dumber-how-america-graduated-with-honors-in-the-death-of-excellence-and-became-a-nation-of-participation-trophies-scantrons-and-unparallel-parking/

https://compensation-in-context.ghost.io/dei-unraveled-the-rise-fall-and-reinvention-of-inclusion-the-veritas-view/

https://compensation-in-context.ghost.io/the-flying-homeless-how-prestige-disappeared-from-the-skies-and-so-did-everything-else/

A Big, Beautiful Bill?

I must be easily confused. If Trump unleashed Elon Musk and DOGE to ferret out waste and fraud, didn’t the ferreting also supposed to save us money? Reports are that their efforts have resulting in a savings of a paltry $160 million. All that upheaval for a few million less than what Michael Jordan paid for his yacht? I thought Trump was about decreasing spending and reducing the deficit? But his  so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill” increases the deficit by $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years (that’s how they do things in Washington). Aren’t you disappointed that in a year when the media says that Trump is slashing and burning, that we end up with a bill that increases the deficit? 

That bill is over 1,000 pages long. It is plagued like all budget bills with an enormous amount of minutiae. Yes there are the tax cuts which are not really tax cuts but the extension of Trump’s earlier tax cuts. But there is an increase in the SALT deduction to $40,000 as a bone to the one or two remaining republican congressmen from high tax democrat run fiefdoms in the northeast. But the teeny weeny little bits and pieces that populate the bill are mind numbing from clean energy tax credits, to changes in standard deduction, to child care credits, to estate tax exemptions. The list goes on and on – for 1,000 pages. How many folks actually have read this thing that they are voting on – Nancy Pilosi anyone? They really did include the no tax on tips and overtime but continue to ignore my suggestion about no tax on active duty military. Hey guys, that would add less than one paragraph to your 1,000 page big beautiful bill.

The bill squeaked by 215-214 after having been derailed temporarily in committee. Of course every democrat voted against the bill. I guess it did not spend enough for them while two republicans also voted against it because it spent too much. Thomas Massie was no surprise but he was joined by Warren Davidson who said that he could not vote for a bill that increased the deficit. So pardon me if I am disappointed. If this bunch cannot produce anything but the rounding error in cuts from DOGE and clawbacks, then the words of G.K. Chesterton ring true: “The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.” Who was it that said that the republicans were just like democrats but “a little bit less?? And yet we are told of all this hatred between the parties but in the end, they are both drunken sailors – and we are worse off for it.

A big, beautiful bill? Yes, one that we will be burdened with for decades.

A big beautiful bill? Only in the eye of the beholder.