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NIH research funding: vital, wasteful or both?

Over $120 billion research grants at universities are federally funded. Of course the federal government funds all sorts of things at our colleges like research grants, financial aid and student loans. Here are the top ten recipients of federal funds for 2023.

1. Harvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

$9 billion.

2. Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Maryland

$2.9 billion 

3. University of California, San Diego

San Diego, California

$1.54 billion 

4. University of Washington

Seattle, Washington

$1.52 billion. 

5. University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Michigan

$1.35 billion 

6. Columbia University

New York City, New York

$1.3 billion

7. Stanford University

Stanford, California

$1 billion

8. Yale University

New Haven, Connecticut

$899 million.

9. Duke University

Durham, North Carolina

$863 million

10. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

$800 million

Harvard looks like a misprint. In 2023 NIH awarded $35 billion in grants to more than 300,000 researchers at 2,500 universities. With advent of Donald Trump, NIH has been terminating grants for LGBTQ, public health equity and DEI related research. For example, NIH had awarded grants to “transform culture at NIH-funded extramural institutions” by “building a self-reinforcing community of scientists committed to diversity and inclusive excellence.” A grant proposal from Vanderbilt which received funding explicitly stated the intent to “focus on the cluster hiring of faculty from minoritized racial and ethnic groups, specifically Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Pacific Islander scientists.” Personally, I would reject any proposal that contained the recently invented word “Latinx.”

Naturally, the recipients and their universities are crying foul saying things like “These cuts ignore the needs of our communities and hinder medical advancements that benefit everyone” and “We’re halting lifesaving science.” Others have said that “The discoveries treating cancer and diabetes originated from basic research conducted decades ago.  A sudden funding freeze would force us to halt the recruitment and training of brilliant scientists, abandon purchasing cutting-edge equipment and dramatically curtail our experiments at the threshold of treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and aging. The effect would be to harm millions of Americans awaiting these medical advances.”

Some of this is true and also totally beside the point. Researchers would contend that every penny received is vital to their mission and is spent wisely. But is it? We all have seen examples of funding that is just plain weird. Consider the following

•  NIH provided $533,000 to study the “effects of meditation…from reading Buddhist texts,” $1.5 million to develop a smartphone game to help parents of children with picky-eating habits, $387,000 to provide Swedish massages to rabbits, and $371,000 to study whether moms love dogs or their own children more.
• The National Science Foundation awarded an $856,000 grant to train three mountain lions to use treadmills to study mountain lions’ use of energy while hunting. This follows NSF’s earlier grant to study shrimps’ ability to walk on treadmills.
•  Researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, released a 2018 report that honey bees dance more, a move that signals food location—when they’re given cocaine. 

Also in addition to these types of grants, as I have reported before, the integrity of the research has been called into question. A noted researcher has said that “The NIH is fundamentally broken and morally corrupted. Corruption, waste, and fraud are not occasional lapses but systemic failures. The agency must be gutted and reformed if we are to salvage scientific integrity.

One of the most damning indictments against the NIH is the reproducibility crisis. Science is supposed to be built on verifiable, repeatable results, yet the vast majority of research funded by the NIH fails cannot be duplicated. Dr. Isaiah Hankel notes that much of the research produced via NIH grants cannot be reproduced and that only 11 percent of the oncology studies can be replicated. I have noted similar findings throughout much of academic research calling into question recommendations and policies that flow from findings that cannot be corroborated.

However, this is ending with the appointment of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to head NIH. Dr Bhattacharya testified at his confirmation hearing that NIH funded fraudulent Alzheimer’s research that misled the entire field for years. It seems to me that NIH should mandate that all research proposals have results that can be replicated and that funded research can only be published if results can be duplicated. We know that to say that all the federally funded research is essential and vital is a lie. What we must make certain is that bogus results generated from research are not incorporated into public policy.

BTW I searched for how much in Federal grants was going to UT-Knoxville but found only $12 million while Vanderbilt’s was $77 million. Most of the funding is for medical research rather than in the academic areas.

Mea Culpa. When I wrote that the firing of the two democrat board members at the National Credit Union Administration was a toe in the water by the president to firing Jerome Powell I may have been half right. NCUA board members are on the same regulatory plane as the governors of the Federal Reserve. Therefore, the president firing members of the NCUA board is akin to firing a member of the Fed’s board of governors. However, since NCUA regulates credit unions and not banks, the firings have gone mostly unnoticed outside the credit union industry. Markets were not roiled.  Elizabeth Warren who is the ranking minority on the Senate Banking Committee issued a rather mild and tepid statement, “President Trump just fired two Board Members at the National Credit Union Administration in his continued attack on American consumers. This is the latest attempt by Trump to skirt the rule of law, undermine independent agencies, and illegally purge the government of those who work for the American people.” Ho hum. Contrast this with her statement on the president’s attempt to eliminated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “President Trump just gutted almost all CFPB staff, so the agency can’t do its job of helping Americans who get scammed by big banks and giant corporations. Dismantling the CFPB in the face of a court order blocking an illegal shutdown is yet another assault on consumers and our democracy by this lawless Administration, and we will fight back with everything we’ve got.” Apparently, the NCUA firings did not merit “fighting back with everything we’ve got.”

President Trump’s actions may have been a test run to firing the governors of the Fed but it still remains a puzzle as to why he was so loudly indicating that he would fire Jay Powell. Yes if he did it would crash markets worldwide, admittedly a bad thing. It would have prompted an immediate test in the courts. But a more simple action would be to fire Powell from his chairmanship of the Fed while leaving him in place as a governor. That way the president could get ride of Powell as chairman and replace him with Fed governor Michelle Bowman. I think it is weird that there is nothing on this in the media. Surely Trump’s people must have thought of this. Right?

But in addition to testing whether a governor can be fired, Trump’s actions may actually be a prelude to merging the banking agencies. Let us assume that he does not replace the NCUA board members. Then the board cannot function for lack of a quorum. Then he could announce his intention to consolidate NCUA and the banking agencies. For instance, all regulatory functions could be merged into the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – another one of my old agencies. NCUA is the Fed, FDIC and OCC rolled into one. It regulates, insures and charters credit unions. So why do we need three banking agencies to do the same things only one at a time? Strip away all the Fed’s regulatory functions and let it do only monetary policy. Merge those functions and the FDIC into the OCC, which now regulates and charters national banks. However leave NCUA as a standalone agency. Credit unions are fundamentally different from banks. The assets of all the credit unions in the country are less than that of each of the three largest US banks. Yes there are some relatively large credit unions, but in the main credit unions are too small to be regulated as banks. 

What about savings banks? Once they were called savings and loan associations and were regulated by the Office of Thrift Supervision. After the OTS was dissolved in 2010, the responsibilities of regulating the S&Ls were divided among the Fed (S&L holding companies, the OCC (federal savings associations) and the FDIC (state-chartered savings associations). BTW, I was appointed to be one of the four public interest members of the committee mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act to oversee the merger of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) into the FDIC. There are some that will argue that the same can be done with credit unions and although I disagree, that remains a real possibility.

It just seems reasonable to think that if the president is so intent on eliminating duplication within the Federal government, then merger of the bank regulators should be on the table.

Ukraine, Froot Loops, Pete Hegseth, the WHO and Tammy Duckworth

Did Trump’s people seriously think that Zelenskyy would agree to cede Crimea to Russia in order to end the war? If he had, he would have been ousted as Ukrainian president. The proposal did not even call for a withdrawal of the Russian troops occupying Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – probably because Trump’s chief negotiator Steve Witkoff didn’t know their names. I have no idea how this war will end with any outcome other than a stalemate. Kiev is not strong enough to oust Russia from its southern provinces and Russia will only subdue Ukraine with an agonizingly slow bloody slough. Maybe Kiev is hoping that the Russian public will get tired of seeing body bags coming home and legions of wounded and maimed young men in the streets of Moscow (a la Vietnam). Recall that Russia invaded Georgia (no not that Georgia) and Chechnya. The result of the war with Georgia was that the Russians agreed to remove their troops back to where they were before the invasion. The Ukrainians want the same to happen. They want the Russians out of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. They know that they will not be able to oust the Russians from the Crimea but would probably settle for the status quo before the invasion. 

Trump now says he has “no intention” of firing Jerome Powell. Again, I think the markets are now providing the checks and balances to his actions – until the Supreme Court defines the limits of the executive. The markets have rejected the notion of firing the Fed chair. Now if the president only gets the message that they don’t like the tariffs either. To that point the president actually indicated that the 145% tariffs on China will come down saying “It won’t be that high. It will come down substantially. But it won’t be zero.” Did I once say that the president was erratic?

Remember my posting on Fruit Loops? Well the FDA is moving to ban artificial colorings from our food by the end of next year. RFK, Jr has been pushing this for years and his FDA commissioner Dr Marty Makary – who I really like – is Kennedy’s point person and will get it done.

Trump has expressed his displeasure with Commerce Secretary Lutnick over his handling of the tariffs. I have not heard him say anything about the mess at Defense. Secretary Hegseth has fired three of his top aides over leaks. He is still embroiled in the Signal controversy. Now it seems that he is including his wife in confidential meetings. One of his ex-aides has pointed to career staff at Defense as the source of the leaks saying that those people are still in contact with Obama/Biden officials like Susan Rice. Also, Hegseth has replaced field commanders that have in one way or another resisted his leadership, mostly regarding DEI. He has also lost the confidence of some republican leaders. Rep Don Bacon says that he would fire him and that “He should know better than to share operational details of imminent combat strikes on an unclassified application. A second lieutenant would have his career ended over this.” Appointing Hegseth was a headscratcher. He might have to go back to his weekend gig at Fox.

Did you know that the US is withdrawing from the World Health Organization” Here is the notice from the White House:

The United States noticed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2020 due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.  In addition, the WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.  China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO.  

Although the benefit of the WHO to developing countries is obvious, it was not so obvious what the benefits to the US were. A withdrawal from the World Trade Organization is more obvious given Trump’s embrace of trade restrictions. Anyway, he says that the WTO benefits everyone but the US.

Dick Durbin has announced he is not going to seek re-election. Since he is from Illinois, it is doubtful that his replacement will be any better. Yet Durbin is marginally better than his Illinois colleague, Tammy Duckworth, having actually voted for the confirmation of 5 of Trump’s nominees while Duckworth voted for only one. However, I will cut her some slack. She was born in Thailand and was a Black Hawk helicopter pilot during the Iraq War. She was shot down and lost both her legs. She, however, continued to serve in the Illinois National Guard for another 10 years retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel. She has been a staunch critic of Trump and Hegseth’s firing of top military officers saying that the administration is replacing competent veteran leadership with yes-men who declare fealty to the president. She is especially upset that the vast majority of those replaced are women and people of color. Of course, those that were replaced by Trump were cited for implementing Biden’s policies regarding DEI. But weren’t they just carrying out orders? Couldn’t Hegseth simply have ordered them to dismantle all the DEI stuff and replaced them if they didn’t? BTW, Duckworth should know that currently Xi is purging some of his top generals as well. I bet our generals will suffer a much milder fate. Incidentally, Duckworth has two daughters, the second of which was born while she was serving in the senate.

On Donald Trump: I have some good news and some bad news

First the bad news. Stop tweeting! His comments are jarring, immature and those of an egotistical bully. I said the same during his first term and I feel even more strongly now. Of course there are those who will defend whatever the president does, much like those that defended and keep defending Joe Biden. Mind you, I am not anti-Trump. I am anti-Trump, the tweeter. He continues to insult Fed chair, Jerome Powell.

“With Energy Costs way down, food prices (including Biden’s egg disaster!) substantially lower, and most other ‘things’ trending down, there is virtually No Inflation. With these costs trending down so nicely, just what I predicted they would do, there can almost be no inflation, but there can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW,”

“Powell has always been ‘To Late,’ except when it came to the Election period when he lowered in order to help Sleepy Joe Biden, later Kamala, get elected. How did that work out?”

“If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me,” “I’m not happy with him.”

“Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

These tweets are a bad look and makes one wonder if Trump is losing it. Is he feeling the pressure from the market tanking, the dollar falling and the Treasury bond rates rising as reactions to his tariffs? The last round of insults caused the Dow Jones to fall by 972 points and the dollar hit new lows against the major currencies. Trump is trying to set up Powell as the fall guy if his policies fail. However, he isn’t fooling anyone. He needs to end the threats against Powell and the uncertainty about tariffs. Although Trump favors weakening the dollar, maybe the sharp rise in Treasury yields will cause him to back off his childish tweets. But Powell is not the only one. Remember all the ones about (Crooked) Hillary Clinton and (Sleepy) Joe Biden? In fact the New York Times has compiled a list of 281 people that Trump has insulted so far on social media. Maybe the president thinks that insulting a person enough times will result in a change in behavior. I don’t think he can intimidate Powell. I don’t even know if he has even sat down and had a conversation with him. What he needs to do is have a weekly scheduled meeting with the Fed chair and discuss matters privately rather than loudly on social media.

Now the good news.

This administration has done more in its first one hundred days than most administrations do in eight years. Of course, it was left a mess by the Biden Administration. DEI had infested corporations, universities, the federal government and the US military. Critical race theory is a Marxist doctrine that was teaching our kids to hate each other. I remember what a black high school physics teacher once told me that CRT was being used to cover up the failure of teachers to teach black kids and to blame it on racism. He said “What am I to tell my white students who are struggling?” The Green New Deal which seemed to be a bad joke when it was first introduced by Bernie Sanders and AOC turned out to be Biden’s industrial policy. Bad regulations were enacted and trillions thrown to their green buddies on wasteful, inefficient projects. Natural gas terminals were ordered shuttered. Millions of acres of resource rich lands were closed to exploration. Coal plants were driven out of business. Al Gore got rich. Biden opened the border and let over 10 million illegals flood into the country, many of them totally undesirable. Biden turned a deaf ear to the fentanyl, child trafficking and sexual assaults occurring among the illegals. The government was bloated – is overbloated a word? Government spending was out of control rife with waste and fraud. All of this led to powerful and entrenched special interests in government, academia, and corporate America that was not going to go away quietly. Resist might be the mantra of the leftists on campus but it is the mantra of all those whose wallets and interests are adversely impacted by Trump.

Biden’s foreign policy was a disaster. Trump came in and immediately started negotiating to end the war in Ukraine. He pledged more support to Israel and backed their stated desire to completely wipe away Hamas. He threatened Iran. He bombed the Houthis. He kicked out the South African ambassador and offered the Afrikaner farmers entry and an easy path to American citizenship. However, it seemed that he only picked on the little guys, leaving Russia and China basically threat free despite Russian aggression in Ukraine and Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and towards Taiwan. It appears that he is jettisoning all of sub-Sahara Africa and leaving it to the Chinese. But he has threatened to force Canada to become the 51^st state, invade Panama, Mexico and Greenland. He has even vowed aggressive action if Venezuela invades Guyana. I am surprised he hasn’t brought back the Monroe Doctrine. He has even threatened the foundations of NATO.

Yes there was a lot to do. More, perhaps, than any administration had attempted in the past. I am for most for it. It needed to be done. Of course, the only problem is that Trump’s efforts and those of Elon Musk and DOGE are only temporary. They can and will be overturned by the next democrat administration. The only way to make them permanent is to keep the majority in the House and elect 60 republican senators – of which there is no chance of happening. As a matter of fact, the opposite is more likely if Trump doesn’t stop doing the one thing that will severely damage his administration – tariffs.

Trump is obsessed with tariffs and somehow thinks that our trillion dollar deficit in goods (omitting the surplus in services) constitutes a “national emergency.” His instincts are backed by his economic yes-men, Peter Navarro and Stephen Miran, both of whom have Harvard PhDs – which should give one caution. So Trump announces his tariffs on Mexico and Canada in violation of his own trade agreement from his first term. He then imposes tariffs on aluminum and steel and announces his “reciprocal” tariffs which place tariffs on all countries even those that we have trade surpluses not deficits. The market tanks so he announces a slight reprieve for 90 days. However, the tariffs stay on Mexico and Canada and go to 145% on China. BTW, the tariffs on solar panels made in Southeast Asia are over 3,521 percent (that’s not a misprint).

Now some more bad news.

I am convinced that Trump is anti-small business. Trump discriminated against small firms during covid and now he is doing it with tariffs. His tariffs will drive many small business out of business. It will cause a significant decrease in employment as small businesses fail. A company that imports fake eyelashes has stopped shipments because with the high tariffs, its cost of importing is greater than the price at which it can sell the eyelashes. Maybe they should call Kristi Noem and get her to give them an exemption from Trump much like he gave Apple and the big electronics firms. If there should be an exemption from these tariffs it should be with small firms not the big ones.

Pope Francis has died. Isn’t it time for a black pope? Even though three early popes—Saints Victor I, Miltiades, and Gelasius I—were of North African origin, no pope of sub-Saharan African descent has been pope. The papacy has been dominated by Europeans and relatively few Africans have held high positions in the Vatican. The European missionaries to Africa seldom elevated black Africans to positions of leadership. All that has now changed. But the Church has gotten more liberal in its views. Catholic scholars have questioned doctrines like papal infallibility, the miracle accounts of the Bible, and even the deity of Christ. Polls say that more than two-thirds of U.S. Catholics have support gay marriage, three -fourth of U.S. Catholics favor government action to address climate change and 88% of U.S. Catholics do not oppose the ordination of women.

Contrast this with the views of the African clergy which has remained staunchly conservative.  The unspoken reason why an African cardinal won’t be the next pope is that even though Africa has the fastest growing centers of Catholicism, the African clergy are the most conservative in the church. How would the more liberal west respond to an African pope? The liberal views of Americans are more often the same or even less liberal than those of the Europeans. One would think that the modern west would rebel against the conservative leadership of an African pope.

The College of Cardinals choose the next pope from its members under the age of 80. Three cardinals are African: Cardinal Robert Sarah (Guinea, age 79), Cardinal Peter Turkson (Ghana, age 76) and Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu (DR Congo, age 65). Sarah served as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and is known for his traditional views. Turkson served as President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace andis head of the Docastery from Promoting Integral Human Development. Although a traditionalist, he is considered the most liberal of the three. Ambongo is a strong voice for the moral authority of the church. If there were to be a black pope from among this group, it would be Cardinal Turkson.

Ironically, the smoke emanating from the Sistine Chapel can be either black or white. Black indicates that the voting by the College of Cardinals is inconclusive while white indicates that a new pope has been chosen. My guess is that when we see the smoke from the Sistine Chapel, the color of the pope will be the same as the color of the smoke.

The Abrego Garcia saga

Have the democrats truly lost their minds? Why this line in the sand over a deported wife beating, illegal alien member of M-13? Yes the media depicted him as a loving Maryland father, but the facts say otherwise. He is El Salvadoran and was deported to his homeland. There was an administrative error. It seems that his deportation to El Salvador was nixed because his life was threatened by a rival gang Barrio 18 (which must be made up of some really bad hombres).

Do the democrats know how foolish they look? One Maryland senator has gone to El Salvador while the other has cheered him on. James Carville has been unearthed and says that the party’s top agenda should be to bring Abrego Garcia back to the States. Huh? Does Carville think that the public wants this guy back in the States? BTW, I did not miss seeing Carville. He is his old mean self. Carville increduously cited the famous Holocaust poem “First they came for the Jews” saying “There’s real wisdom in that and history has taught us that. First, they came for him, and then we’re going to say no right there. We got to keep fighting this. I think this is worthy of being at the top agenda of things that we’re going to fight over is get this guy back home.”

I thought he was back home in El Salvador. The media also dredged up Hillary Clinton who is simpatico with Carville and also paraphrased the Holocaust poem, “Before the election, I warned that there is no safe haven under authoritarianism. If they can ship Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a foreign prison—accused of no crime, with no trial—they can do it to anyone.” Of course this is BS. Then Massachusetts rep Seth Moulton (the gutless one) read from the same playbook and said “So this could happen to you next. I’m reminded of that that poem that I guess came out of the Holocaust. They could be coming for you next. This administration will not stop.” Can’t these guys think for themselves?

So why is this M13 guy the dems cause célèbres? The evidence seems overwhelming that Garcia should not be in the country. Again consider that this is an illegal alien not an American citizen that the democrats are defending. Yet Clinton, Carville and Moulton are warning that the Trump Administration could deport Americans without trial. This is sheer sophistry. Americans are not being deported without trial. Do people really believe this nonsense? First, the dems want you to think that Trump will arrest and deport anyone who disagrees with him, which of course is impossible to lock up 70 million people. Second, if Garcia is returned “back home” to Maryland he will still be deported. The democrats are out of their minds or they think the rest of us are fools or both.

The real issue is one of due process. Can an individual be deported without a hearing? That is the question. Biden and the democrats let over 10 million illegals into the country. Now they are saying to deport them, each one should have a hearing? If that is the law, it needs to be changed. These gang members are being deported under the Aliens Enemy Act of 1798. The Supreme Court has just ruled – with Alito vehemently dessenting -on a case in Texas, that this is legal so long as a hearing is held. This means that Trump should order hearings immediately for those in Texas and then deport them which reminds me of cases where the authorities say that the individual will have a fair trial and then be hanged. 

So instead of acting as if its manhood has been challenged, why doesn’t Trump just acquiesce to the court’s wishes and bring Garcia back, give him a hearing and then send him to prison in another country like Guatemala? What will Carville, Clinton, Moulton et al say then?

NCUA a trial run to fire Jay Powell?

President Trump has been itching to fire fed chair Jerome (Jay) Powell. Although he appointed Powell to the post in 2018, Trump has found that he cannot publicly shame Powell into bending to his will. Right now Trump wants Powell to lower the Fed funds rate much like the European Central Bank lowered rates in response to Trump’s tariffs. Trump tweeted “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” He also tweeted Powell “should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now!” Mind you the ECB lowered rates because Trump imposed high tariffs on them. Presumably, Trump wants Powell to lower rates because the response of the Europeans is to raise tariffs on US goods in response. However, some surmise that Trump wants lower rates to reduce the cost to the government of financing its maturing $9 trillion debt.

Regardless, Powell is resisting Trump, saying that it had to guard against Trump’s tariffs not triggering inflation. Lowering rates in an increasingly inflationary environment could lead to the dreaded stagflation. Here Trump’s tariffs would lead to decreased demand, increased unemployment along with the increased prices. Lowering rates in that case would be like adding kindling to a fire. To quote the Bank of Canada, “Monetary policy cannot resolve trade uncertainty or offset the impacts of a trade war.” But Trump is unrepentant and is not pleased.

The question is whether the president can fire the chairman of the Fed. That issue is only going to be resolved by the Supreme Court. Powell is insistent that he cannot be fired. The law says that persons appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve fixed terms can only be removed for cause (and the cause isn’t “I don’t like him”). Powell reasserts the Fed’s independence and says “We’re never going to be influenced by any political pressure. People can say whatever they want. That’s fine. That’s not a problem. But we will do what we do strictly without consideration of political or any other extraneous factors.” I wonder how Trump feels being called an “extraneous factor”?

However, Trump is testing the waters. He has fired several appointees who were confirmed by the senate to fixed terms. Several are suing. The latest firings  just occurred at my old agency, the National Credit Union Administration, where President Carter appointed me to its first board in 1978. Trump fired the two democrat board members leaving only the republican in place. NCUA has three board members and must be bipartisan. Traditionally, two of the three board members are of the same party as the president in power. When Trump was inaugurated, the NCUA chair, Todd Harper a democrat resigned as chair but not as a board member. Trump fired him although ironically it was Trump who had nominated him to the NCUA board in 2018. Trump also fired the other democrat, Tanya Otsuka. Harper’s term expires in 2027 while Otsuka’s expires in 2029. Harper said “This ill-conceived and politically motivated decision to fire me before the end of my term upsets that important regulatory balance and will harm consumers.” Otsuka said “yet another attempt to undermine the rule of law and blatantly ignore Congress and our democratic values.” Both were notified of their firing via email. Neither has indicated if they will contest the firings. I guess if they had resisted, the Feds would have showed up and forcefully removed them from their offices.

Naturally White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said “President Trump is the chief executive of the executive branch and reserves the right to fire anyone he wants.” But the question remains, does he? The Supreme Court case in point is Humphrey’s Executor v United States. Briefly it deals with the Supreme Court barring Franklin Roosevelt from firing a republican member of the Federal Trade Commission without cause. The vote was unanimous. However Trump and his supporters disagree. The Roberts court has supported Trump’s firing of an appointee who is the single administrator of an agency rather than one in an agency administered by a multiperson board. However, Justices Thomas and Gorsuch appear to support the president’s authority to fire those in a multiperson board. A Justice department attorney in a letter to Dick Durbin (D-IL) said that the department  believes that federal laws that protect members of multimember commissions are unconstitutional. Since the case now before the Supreme Court was brought by a person fired from the National Labor Relations Board, we will soon see if the firings of Harper and Otsuka along with all the others are deemed legal. 

If the court so rules then Trump can indeed fire Jay Powell, whose firing will cause ramifications in financial markets worldwide. What would the reaction be to a new Fed chairman whose every move would be interpreted as being dictated by the White House? What happens to the other Fed governors? Will Trump fire them too and replace them with his own people? Would any dare assert their independence if they can be fired? Scott Bessent is one of the few in Trump’s inner circle trying to get him to temper his comments on firing Powell. But the question is if Trump can fire Powell, will he?

Kristi Noem and Donald Trump the new president of Harvard?

Trump’s secretary for homeland security, Kristi Noem seems to want to focus attention on herself. She has showed up at Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in full makeup for obvious pho-ops leading some to call her ICE Barbie. She has tweeted out sensitive information. “Live this AM from NYC. I’m on it,” she posted on X on January 28 at 4:43 a.m. She visited the prison in El Salvador for a photo op wearing tight provocative clothing in front of gang members behind bars. She is also accompanied everywhere in the company of Corey Lewandowski (Trump’s ex campaign manager) amid rumors of a romantic affair (both are married to other people). The rumors have been around since 2021 and have rekindled when Lewandowski emerged as a nonpaid staff volunteer to Noem. What is interesting is that Trump nixed Noem’s desire to have Lewandowski as her chief of staff because of bad optics. One wonders what he thinks of the current “volunteer” arrangement. Regardless, Noem should know better.

Trump is also trying to make himself president of Harvard – I guess chairman of the Kennedy Center is not enough. His administration has sent Harvard a series of letters demanding certain actions to supposedly address their antisemitic behavior. He has terminated over $2 billion in grants and threatened to end $9 billion more. He has demanded that they discipline students who engage in antisemitic actions and wants Harvard to “shutter all diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, under “whatever name,” that violate federal law. I am not a lawyer but I presume that the administration has this authority under federal civil rights laws. But then the administration demands that Harvard reduce “governance bloat, duplication, or decentralization” seem over the top. Moreover, it wants Harvard to “ensure viewpoint diversity” in “each department, field, or teaching unit” and to search for plagiarism among its faculty. Huh?

Also the university must hire “a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide” that diversity and admit “a critical mass of students” to provide the same. These are akin to the demands made of Columbia which included the banning of masks and the appointing of a “senior vice provost with broad authority to oversee the department of Middle East, South Asian, African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies. Now don’t you think this is a bit of an overreach?

Unlike Columbia which caved to the administration’s demands, Harvard resisted telling the administration to pound sand. Harvard rightly contends that the administration’s demands exceed its authority, impinges on academic freedom and basic rights guaranteed by the constitution. Indeed, The Supreme Court has ruled that the government may not use federal benefits or funds to coerce parties to surrender their constitutional rights. Isn’t this what Trump’s people are trying to do?

Speaking of Kristi Noem, she sent Harvard a “scathing” letter demanding that Harvard turn over records of foreign students who have been involved in illegal or violent activities. This is from the Harvard Crimson:

“The Department of Homeland Security sent Harvard a letter on Wednesday threatening to revoke its eligibility to enroll international students unless it submits information on international students’ disciplinary records and protest participation.

In a Wednesday press release, the DHS wrote that it had also canceled two grants worth $2.7 million to Harvard.

The letter threatening Harvard’s authorization to host international students, which was signed by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, accused Harvard of creating a “hostile learning environment” for Jewish students.”

(American universities may host international students on student visas only if they have certification under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.)

Noem’s press release also said “Harvard bending the knee to antisemitism — driven by its spineless leadership — fuels a cesspool of extremist riots and threatens our national security.” Wow! Sic em Kristi!

Trump has also asked the IRS to look into revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

Harvard is resisting. Its new president Alan Garber has stated that the administration’s demands violate “Harvard’s First Amendment rights and [exceed] the statutory limits of the government’s authority. No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” Garber also said that “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.” Moreover, Garber said The University’s objectives in fighting antisemitism 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,” Garber said. “The work of addressing our shortcomings, fulfilling our commitments, and embodying our values is ours to define and undertake as a community.”

Again, Trump is seeking to define the limits of the power of the executive in all that he does. The Supreme Court is going to have a docket full of Trump related lawsuits. But in the meanwhile, all hail the new president of Harvard University, Donald J Trump.

Creamed corn and tomato sandwiches

I saw an article about growing up Southern and grandmother’s creamed corn. Well I grew up southern – in Georgia – but neither one of my grandmothers made creamed corn. Dad’s mother lived in the south Georgia town of Americus while Mom’s lived on a farm near Gray. Both took a knife, scraped the corn off the cob and fried the kernels in bacon fat. I think the only creamed corn we ever ate came out of a can and I thought it was a terrible waste of good corn. Maybe they only put the bad corn in the creamed stuff to mask the taste. Good corn should be fried, preferably in a cast iron black skillet.

The article also mentioned tomato sandwiches. That is something completely alien to me. Tomato sandwiches are a summer southern staple? News to me. I can’t imagine a sandwich of nothing but white bread (which we used to call light bread), tomatoes and mayonnaise. Was this poor folk’s food? Didn’t the bread get soggy? Were they too poor to have meat?

My mother was an awful cook so I did not have a favorite meal growing up. My mother’s best dish was potato salad. But Dad liked her cooking. They often joked about the first meal my mother made when they got married. It was chitterlings. Dad loved chitterlings but said that Mom’s slid around the plate and were so tough that he could not cut them with a knife. He said mom was crying and he was trying to console her. He then picked up a morsel and swallowed it whole. Turns out that Mom did not know to boil them for the requisite number of hours – or pressure cook them. Afterwards, when she had leaned to cook them she boiled them, rolled them in flour and fried them. Dad loved them but my brother and I refused to eat them. 

My Dad’s mother’s cooking was also less than memorable. However, my mother’s mother used to cook fried rabbit (that my grandfather had shot), gravy, biscuits and grits to die for. I also liked her “dog bread” which was corn meal mixed with buttermilk, fried in bacon fat. It was called dog bread because it was served to the dogs mixed with table scraps and pot likker (that’s the southern spelling of liquor). She would give me a piece of the bread and let me sop it in the pot likker – leaving out the table scraps. Those were lucky dogs. But my mother was appalled. Occasionally I now make myself dog bread using turkey bacon. I even use a black cast iron skillet. Its good but not as good as I remember my grandmother’s who insisted on being called “Mary” much to the chagrin of my parents.

My brother was clearly my family’s favorite. I didn’t mind. He was my best friend. But when we visited the farm Mary would put her arms around me and say “this is my boy.” I loved her. We were outside one day and she was helping me ride my bike when she suffered a massive stroke and died. It was April 12, 1951. In those days, the funeral home sent her back to the farm to lie in state in the parlor. I insisted on sleeping in the parlor with her so they put a cot in the room. I was five years old. I never left her side until they took her to the church and buried her in the family cemetery. I always pay her a visit when I go back to Gray. I sure miss her and her fried rabbit and dog bread.

Deer Steaks and the Right Sock

I am a deer hunter or given last year it may be more appropriate to call me a deer observer. I can process the deer myself. In the basement at the farm I have a set of butcher’s knives, a meat saw, a metal table and a refrigerator with meat hooks. Despite all of this, each time I decide to process a deer, I end up saying that its worth paying the processor. He charges me $80 and I pay him. That means I have a trade deficit with my butcher. It is highly unlikely that my account will ever be zeroed out or even in surplus, since to date he has not needed a bank consultant on director duties a fair lending analysis. Yet my trade deficit has not made me worse off. Quite the contrary, it has made be better off. Rather than having unsightly chunks of meat I have neatly packaged steaks, roasts and ground and he has $80 for his labors. BTW, my uncle used to process his own deer. He labeled them “dear stakes.”

I could also not call a plumber when I my septic system backed up. I could not have called an electrician when my circuit breakers kept triggering. I could have gone up on my roof to fix the leak last summer. However, I call folks who are specialized in each one of those areas and paid them. That meant I did not flood the driveway. I did not set the house on fire and I did not have call 911 after falling off the roof. Rather I expanded my trade deficits and again I became better off rather than worse off. In economics, we call this comparative advantage. Trump thinks comparative advantage is a bad thing if the advantage lies with foreigners. I guess the patriotic thing to do is ignore foreign comparative advantage, pay more for goods and be worse off. Again, Wharton should rescind Trump’s degree. 

I have a hole in my sock, darn it! I am reasonably confident that I could also get the material and make my own socks. But why do this when it would be cheaper to just go buy the finished product? The Chinese city of Zhuju is the sock capital of the world. It has 300,000 workers producing over 25 billion pair of socks per year. The socks are about 25 cents a pair. Thirty percent of them are shipped to the US or should I say, were shipped to the US. With the 145% tariff on all Chinese goods – except those sold by Tim Cook – the socks bound for the US would be sold at a loss by the importer. So the sock makers have to find other markets. I may be forced to start darning my socks, wearing mismatched ones or even trying to make my own. But under no circumstance will I resort to wearing no socks like some of my white friends did in college. Do they still make Bass Weejuns?

I don’t think that the sock makers of Zhuji are going to move their factories and 300,000 workers to the US – do you? Sure we can get our socks from Honduras and El Salvador.  We may have to pay a bit more. We may have less to choose from and we may even see empty racks in our stores. I don’t think that Premier Xi is going to bow to Trump to keep some sock producers from going out of business. More likely, the Chinese government will subsidize the affected companies – just like Trump says he will subsidize American farmers who will lose their Chinese soybean markets.

Do you know that if you first put on your socks on the left foot, the other sock will always be on the right foot?