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Random Thoughts #44

The Chinese economy is a mess. Recently their overlords have started allowing mortgages to be refinanced due to cuts in the central bank’s lending rates. Mind you, this is in the face of a four year contraction in the real estate market. The question is what took so long? The government also announced that the minimum downpayment has been reduced from 25% to 15%. No word if they are also going to adopt Harris’ plan to give first time homebuyers $25,000.

The Chinese are faced with a declining population that will shrink by 240 million by the end of the century. They have hundreds of thousands of empty housing units as a result of state planning, leading to their real estate bust. Their national debt is probably unsustainable eventually leading to a severe economic contraction. China is becoming the poster child on the effects of a planned economy and the folly of heavy subsidization of industry.

As part of its stimulus package, the Chinese government is also lending money to companies for share repurchase in an effort to stimulate its stock market. In this country the left hates stock repurchases and proposed a 2% stock buyback tax. In fact the so-called Inflation Reduction Act contains a 1% excise tax on buybacks. I guess Biden, Schumer and Sanders forgot to consult with Xi on this one.

Showing that they can throw dirt like the leftist media, some conservative outlets are filling their pages with talk about Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’ husband. They are reporting that he impregnated his first wife’s nanny and physically assaulted an ex-girlfriend by “slapping her so hard she spun around.” I wonder if this is fair game given all the press on Trump’s peccadillos.

Did you watch the vice presidential debate? I didn’t. I watched a baseball game instead. One, I hate political speech. Two, I like baseball. Even though the Braves have been eliminated, I will still watch. I am one of the few people that if a baseball game and a pro football game are on, I will watch baseball regardless of what team is playing. 

Isn’t it interesting that the best player in baseball is Japanese?

Isn’t it also interesting that since there are so few American blacks playing baseball that the baseball teams at HBCUs are often predominately white?

Why are there so many Australian punters in college football?

As is the case with college baseball, it seems that most of the place kickers at HBCUs are also white.

There are so many things I miss about not having my parents alive. One of them is the annual rivalry between Fort Valley State (Mother’s alma mater) and Savannah State (Dad’s alma mater). This year Fort Valley won 30-0. I can just see Dad having to wear Fort Valley’s colors to church after the loss. Mother would be relentless in her critique of the game highlighting every Savannah State misstep. Poor Dad.

Have you noticed that in the reporting of the war in Gaza that many of the news outlets have stopped saying the phrase after they report that “tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed” that “most of whom are women and children”?

School is back in. I have not seen any reports of student encampments on college campuses and anti-Semitic rallies or attacks on Jewish students. Have you?

I have always read that vice presidents don’t matter. I guess they don’t matter so long as the president is living. But do you think that Tim (Little Bernie) Walz is causing Harris to lose some voters?

I am in the camp of those who are voting against a candidate, rather than voting for one. I do know some ardent Trump supporters. I appear monthly on a local talk show and there is one regular caller who idolizes Trump. I have two close friends who hate Trump and would vote for my German Shorthaired Pointer first. But both really like Harris. Both are progressives and are excited about getting the first progressive president. Ilhan Omar is excited too saying that once Harris is in office, it won’t take much to push her even further to the left. Bernie Sanders has said much the same.

Has Biden fired anyone? Trump had a steady stream of cabinet members but to my knowledge Biden’s cabinet is still intact.

Alan Dershowitz left the democrat party due to its anti-Semitism. He is now an independent who if he were a politician, I would presume would still caucus with the democrats as do Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema. The other “independents” in the senate, Bernie Sanders and Angus King also caucus with the democrats. I wonder if the takeover of the republican party by the anti-trade protectionist Trump wing will cause some republicans to become “independents” yet continue to caucus with the republicans. I would be in that camp.

Trump’s tariffs: A Primer

Trump who calls himself the Tariff Man loves tariffs. He wants a 60% tariff on Chinese goods, an across the board 20% tariff on imports, a 100% tariff on Mexican goods produced by US firms and in some cases 200% tariffs on other goods. Trump calls tariffs “the greatest thing ever invented.” He has asserted that tariffs will save factory jobs, force companies to produce domestically, shrink the federal deficit, lower food prices and promote world peace. For some reason he did not include cure cancer and the common cold. He has also suggested replacing the income tax with the revenue from tariffs. Penn should rescind Trump’s economics degree.

Trump is making a common political mistake. He is assuming that behavior will not change when there is a change in prices. If imported goods are subjected to a tariff then the price of those goods will increase, decreasing the quantity of goods demanded domestically. Trump is assuming that the decrease in the goods imported will be replaced by domestically produced goods. He ignores two things. First, the decreased imports mean less money flows to the government from foreign goods. Second, he forgets the reason why the goods are manufactured in foreign countries in the first place, comparative advantage. For those goods to be produced domestically would mean a significant increase in the cost of production, meaning higher prices to consumers. In either case, the real income of consumers fall. Notably, the poor and working class families will suffer the greatest fall in real incomes since they consume greater proportions of imported goods than do higher income households.

Can tariffs replace the income tax? In a word, no. Given the predilection of the press to scrutinize every utterance of Trump, I am surprised, shocked, that they have failed to do the math. In 2023, the federal government collected $2 trillion in personal income taxes. The amount of imported goods was around $4 trillion. If Trump enacted a tariff of 20% it would raise “only” $800 million assuming perfectly inelastic demand for all imported goods (no change in demand when prices change). In order to completely replace the income tax, a tariff of 50% would have to be enacted. However, since the demand for imported goods would fall as prices increased by 50%, much less would be collected, necessitating an even larger increase in tariffs. I wonder if Trump learned about the Smoot-Hawley Act at Penn? It was enacted in 1930, signed by President Hoover and placed tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods. Our trading partners retaliated resulting in a 70% reduction in imports and exports. Mind you, this was during the Great Depression which shows that stupidity amongst politicians is endemic regardless of era. Let us assume that a similar reaction would take place today and there would be a 70 percent reduction in US imports and exports. Imagine the impact on those domestic manufacturers who rely on imported raw materials. Imagine the impact on consumers – especially low income households. Imagine the impact on prices and on jobs. And Trump thinks tariffs are “the greatest thing ever invented”?

Clarence Thomas is 76 and is the longest serving member of the Supreme Court having been on the court since 1991. When will he retire? I doubt if he will retire if there is a democrat president and would as soon die on the bench. However, if Trump gets reelected I would not be surprised if he decided to retire. The question would then arise whether Trump would appoint another black to the court. Recall that Thomas succeeded Thurgood Marshall and some – especially on the left – consider it as the blacks’ seat. How about Condoleeza Rice or Tim Scott? If Trump wanted to appoint a sitting judge then there are 11 black federal judges he appointed during his first term. If Trump were to appoint a Latina there is Barbara Logoa who is on the court of appeals of the eleventh circuit and was a justice on the Florida Supreme Court.

Did you see the Georgia Alabama game? It has been called an instant classic. It aged me at least 10 years. Georgia’s overtouted quarterback conspired to keep both teams in the game and at the end managed to underthrow a ball in the end zone to an Alabama defender which ensured an Alabama victory. They may play two more times (SEC championship game – beware of Texas – and in the playoffs). Although I admit I am biased, I think Georgia would win those two games.

A friend pointed out the EV fires caused by Helene. I once wondered if it were safe to drive an EV through a carwash. It seems that salt water and lithium batteries do not get along. There were 20 EV fires reported due to Hurricane Ian. In advance of Helene, Florida owners were told to get their EVs and golf carts to high ground. Tampa with 40,000 EVs reported at least several EV fires with one destroying an upscale home. A fire department spokesman said that they had received many reports of e-bikes exploding. Although a fire may not immediately result, salt water causes corrosion and the chemical reaction that causes the fire could occur weeks later. I would not want that time bomb sitting in my garage.

How do panhandlers get to their corners? The only time I give one money is if they have a dog with them. Have you noticed that regardless of how the beggar looks, the dog is always healthy and happy? I knew a guy who always carried cans of dog food in his vehicle. He would give the beggar a can for his dog. If the beggar didn’t accept the dog food graciously, he would drive off. If the beggar was genuinely appreciative, he would give him $5. 

Do you believe the polls? I don’t. Statistical analysis shows that most polls overestimate the performance of democrat candidates. There are all sorts of lame excuses such as “They undercount voters who did not go to college” or “Republican voters tend to hang up”. Never do they same that their sampling is lousy or that they are biased for the democrat. The polls oversample democrats. I wonder why? Is it that they are trying to discourage republicans from voting by indicating that the democrat is going to win? There is evidence that polls do discourage people from voting. One pollster when asked why his polls were so lousy said, I presume with a straight face, that they were accurate “if you doubled the margin of error”! 

But let’s assume that the composite of all polls is correct. If all the states that are thought to be in the republican and democrat columns are correct, then there are only four “tossup” states, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona. How do either Trump or Harris get to 270 Electoral College votes? If Harris wins all the states in which she is a statistical favorite plus Pennsylvania, she wins. If Trump wins all the states in which he is a statistical favorite plus Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, he wins. So Pennsylvania is the key. I wonder if Harris now regrets not picking Josh Shapiro instead of the statistically useless albatross Tim Walz?

Pack the Court!

Harris now says she doesn’t support the administration’s EV mandate. Apparently she forgot that she endorsed it as a failed candidate in 2019 and was one of the co-sponsors of the Green New Deal. I guess she has forgotten her obsession with the electric school buses and her failed signature $5 billion plan? Of course she also now favors building the wall, which she once said was “unAmerican”.  She has also changed her position on Medicare for All and fracking. Again, “how can you tell if a politician is lying?”

Do you remember “It’s the economy stupid?” Apparently, Trump doesn’t. Remember “Are you better off now than four years ago?” Apparently Trump doesn’t remember that either. Instead of honing his message to highlight the failures of this administration (Afghanistan, illegal immigration, crime, inflation, lower real incomes, obsession with climate change, Title IX and all the rest) he has resorted to pandering to whatever audience is before him. I am not going to bemoan that he cannot stay on message since I am not sure I know – or he knows – what his message is. Trump is undisciplined. He is also a narcissistic bully. But hey, nobody is perfect. Better a narcissistic bully than a vacuous empty suit incapable of cogently articulating policy initiatives. I doubt if Trump can be dominated by pressure groups or certain individuals but I don’t have that doubt when it comes to Harris. She will be worse than Biden who at least had a veneer of being moderate. Harris has no veneer. She will double down on the past four years much to the delight of AOC and the Bernie bros.

It is obvious to me and likely also obvious to the voting public that the ills plaguing the economy are the result of actions of the government. Trump needs to point that out and hammer home that message. Thus far he has not talked about the adverse effect of heavy handed regulation. He has not talked about the administrative state or out of control government spending. He has avoided talking about the federal debt. These are issues that would redound to the voters who cringe at “I’m from the government and am here to help you.” The reason, of course, is that Trump is at heart a big spender. The mere fact that the race is so close speaks volumes about Trump being a lousy candidate. In any other race, the sitting vice president in such a disastrous administration would be polling in the low 30s.

Ron Wyden (D, OR) who chairs the Senate Finance Committee has introduced legislation to add six new justices to the Supreme Court increasing its number from nine to 15 over a 12 year period. I think it is a brilliant idea. Just like when Harry Reid got rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court justices and gave us the three Trump appointees, Wyden suffers from the same stupidity thinking that the democrats will always control the Senate. If Trump gets elected despite all his efforts to the contrary and somehow the republicans take control of the Senate, I want them to pass Wyden’s bill. The only difference is that I want Trump to appoint 6 new justices during the first month of his term rather than have the size increased over 12 years. That will ensure that the Supreme Court will continue to be a firewall into the foreseeable future against the democrats’ efforts to destroy the republic.

What are the chances that the republicans can take the Senate? All signs point to republicans being elected in Montana and West Virginia. The only reason why Ohio is not in the republican column is that its candidate, Bernie Moreno is solidly anti-abortion. Otherwise, that Ohio keeps electing the far left Sherrod Brown is a real puzzler. Arizona republicans keep nominating the toxic Kari Lake, a proven loser and so the scandal ridden Ruben Gallego will likely win. Recall that Trump almost single handedly is responsible for turning Arizona from reliably  republican to democrat with his callous attack on John McCain. In Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Maryland democrats all enjoy comfortable margins over the republicans. The only close race for a republican incumbent is Texas where Ted Cruz is only 3 points up over Rep. Colin Allred. But let us say that on election day, the republicans somehow end up with 52 seats in the senate and Trump wins, they should take the cue from the democrats and ram though their agenda. Of course, this assumes that they will temporarily cease being the Stupid Party.

More random thoughts

The University of Pennsylvania has censured Amy Wax a tenured law professor over her comments that some deemed to be racist. She said that because of affirmative action less qualified blacks were admitted to law school. She invited a white nationalist to speak to her class. She was taken to task for saying “All cultures are not equal. Or at least they are not equal in preparing people to be productive in an advanced economy.” I guess Penn has statistics contradicting Wax’s comments on black law students. But they don’t. What they assert is that Wax’s statements violate school policy regarding the confidentiality of the student. I am sure that Penn will now take steps to censure all those professors who have invited anti-Semitic speakers into their classes and censure those who made hateful anti-Semitic comments during the recent proHamas demonstrations.

How about all that media outrage over Nancy Pelosi’s husband selling $500k of Visa stock right before the DOJ announced a major lawsuit against the credit card issuer? Wait. You mean there was no outrage? Imagine the reaction if it had been the spouse of a republican leader.

Kamala Harris said that she would support a suspension of the filibuster to enact a nationwide abortion law. The media nods its approval. Again imagine what the reaction would be if Trump said that he favored a suspension of the filibuster to enact a nationwide ban on abortion. The media would be crying that this would be tyrannical and dictatorial. Media bias on full display.

If the democrats were in the majority in the senate don’t think that a suspension of the filibuster for abortion would be their only act. There would follow giving statehood to DC and to Puerto Rico to insure a democrat majority in the senate forever.

Right now the senate, the Electoral College, some of the courts and the Constitution are what standing between the democrats’ attempts to making the country a one party state. Of course some are questioning why South Dakota has the same number of senators as California. Most want to get rid of the Electoral College so that a republican will hardly ever be elected president. Some want to trash the Constitution to get rid of gun rights, allowing non citizens to vote in federal elections and other pesky restrictions.

Is Biden still president? He did make an appearance with the president of India and of course forgot his name.

I hate the hideous City Connect baseball uniforms. Have you seen Toronto’s? The only ones that are passable are Atlanta’s which look like those worn during a period when Hank Aaron was playing.

Did you see where the House voted against EPA’s tailpipe mandate? Of course it will not pass the Senate and if it did Biden would veto it. What is notable is that the democrats running for the Senate in Michigan and Texas voted against it. Both of those states would be adversely affected if the EPA mandate were enacted. Michigan would lose workers in the automotive industry while Texas would lose workers in the oil fields. Note too that both of these candidates also favor getting rid of the filibuster. 

Congress finally passed a continuing resolution. It expires in December and was stripped if the SAVE act. The only ones who voted against were those who scuttled Johnson’s initial CR (6 months plus the SAVE act) and those who insisted on the inclusion of the bill. I would be shocked if Johnson retained his speakership. But who in his/her right mind would want to lead this bunch?

Trump is now going after John Deere for moving production to Mexico (Deere in the headlights?). He is threatening 200% tariffs on any product produced by an American country outside the US. Trump loves tariffs.

Any comprehensive analysis of the economic plans of both Trump and Harris will find that both will be harmful to the economy. Harris’ $5 trillion tax increase and its unrealized capital gains tax would cripple the economy. It has more handouts which coupled with the increased taxes provide disincentives to both the productive and nonproductive workers. Trump’s tariffs would also devastate the economy raising prices to consumers, reducing real incomes and lowering GDP. 

The jury is out on which set of policies will ultimately be the most harmful. However, one thing is clear. If the democrats can somehow obtain majorities in the House, Senate and win the presidency the American republic will be replaced by the tyranny of the majority, something feared by the Founders. I strongly suspect that those states with republican leadership and legislatures will resist and opt not to bow to the whims of the democrat majority. They will just say no to the EPA mandates and the banning of internal combustion engines. They will say no to the repeal of their state laws on abortion. They will just say no to illegal immigration. The question then would be the reaction of the national democrats and how they would go about getting the republican states to kow tow to their dictates. It should be interesting theatre.

“Politically beyond stupid”

Well the stupid party did it again. Instead of uniting to pass a continuing resolution that the democrats would have never let become law, fourteen republicans voted with all the democrats but three to oppose Speaker Johnson’s CR. His CR was for six months and contained the SAVE legislation which would have required documentation to vote in federal elections. Again the republicans should have united around any CR knowing that it would not pass the Senate and if it did Biden would veto it. Then the onus of a federal shutdown would have been on the democrats. Instead the stupid republicans doomed their own CR meaning that any shutdown would fall on them. Mitch McConnell called the actions of the republicans in the House “politically beyond stupid.” Indeed. And who were these recalcitrant republicans? They are Jim Banks, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Elijah Crane, Matt Gaetz, Wesley Hunt, Doug Lamborn, Nancy Mace, Cory Mills, Mike Rogers, Matt Rosendale, Gregory Steube, Beth Van Duyne and of course our own Tim Burchett. Note that all other members of the Tennessee delegation voted with the speaker as did firebrands Majorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan. I really don’t understand how that fourteen, especially Burchett can be comfortable voting with AOC and the rest of the Squad. 

Speaking of which, have you noticed that the democrats do a much better job of herding cats than the republicans? Case in point is the presidential campaign where the media has transformed the least liked national politician into a beacon of hope and joy who is leading in the national polls. A word of caution here. Harris is leading in the national polls because she is a democrat and will win the majority of votes regardless of her positions. The key is whether she is leading in enough states to give her 270 electoral votes. Currently she isn’t but part of the media campaign is to discourage republican turnout by giving Harris the victory in October rather than in November. Note the discipline of the democrats as contrasted to the republicans. In the campaign nothing has been heard from the left wing of the party. As a good friend of mine has noted, the democrats have hit the Squad and the far left with the “mute” button. What have you heard from AOC who must be having withdrawal pains by not being in front of microphones? Even Omar has shut up whining about the Administration’s quasi-support of Israel. They are letting Harris lie her way to the presidency while the republicans are undermining their own candidate. Some have called the democrats the evil party, Well on this score, the democrats are the smart evil party.

I had lunch with another dear friend. This one hates Trump with a passion and was wearing a cap that said “Prosecutor versus Felon.” We literally have virtually everything in common – life experiences, tastes in clothes, drive the same car with the same color – except politics. He is convinced that Trump will do all he can to be a dictator and do all he can to further enrich his billionaire buddies as opposed to Harris continuing to enrich the democrat’s billionaire bros. We don’t talk about politics. But I found his cap amusing. He somehow has convinced himself that Trump got a “fair” trail in New York, despite having a partisan judge, a partisan jury and convicted on “trumped” up charges that stretched a misdemeanor with expired statute of limitations into a felony. He should realize that when he was growing up in the deep south, that blacks were routinely subjected to the same “justice” imposed by all white judges, all white juries, all white law enforcement and an all white legal system. I guess he doesn’t realize that this mockery of justice makes Trump another black president.

Pander Wars

No I don’t mean battles between those black and white bears from China. I mean the escalating battle between Trump and Harris on who can promise what to what group. You would never guess that both Trump and Harris have degrees in economics. Trump from Pennsylvania and Harris from Howard (one of my academic stops). If both learned anything, it is not evident. Or perhaps politics trumps economics. 

My economics tutor at the University of Georgia was a graduate student, Phil Gramm. Yes that Phil Gramm who told me when we were both in Washington, that as a politician sometimes economics had to yield to political reality. Perhaps that is why Trump first advocated no taxes on tips pandering to Nevada voters. Harris quickly followed advocating the same. Then Trump said no taxes on social security pandering to us old folk. Not to be outdone Harris followed by wanting to give new homebuyers $25,000 in downpayment aid to lower housing costs pandering to young people. I hope her economics didn’t teach that a demand subsidy leads to lower prices. Harris also attacked “price gouging” on food pandering to all those who eat. This would bring back Richard Nixon’s failed price controls. Trump then proposed his own price control scheme by announcing he would back a 10% interest rate cap on credit cards pandering to everyone paying 20% on credit card balances. Well those consumers without the best credit could then kiss their credit cards goodbye. 

Trump, of course, loves tariffs and proposed replacing the income tax with a 20% across the board tariff on imported goods, thus pandering to two groups. The first group is all of us who hate paying taxes. The second group is all those who think that somehow tariffs will make us better off when the truth is the opposite. Harris has also been pandering to different groups by affecting a fake accent. Her “Girl, I’m out here on these streets” was truly cringe worthy. I wonder it that lost her some black votes? Then in Georgia she faked a southern accent saying “Y’all helped us win in 2020 and we gonna do it again in 2024”. Hillary Clinton did the same in a speech to a black audience and was mocked. The media has been mostly silent on Harris’ affectation but can you imagine the uproar if Trump tried to sound like a rapper? What about “White dudes for Harris”? Is that pandering? I am waiting for a “Black dudes for Trump” ad. Harris also claims to have flipped hamburgers at McDonald’s while in college. That’s pandering to the working class. She continues to assert that she is the product of a middle class home and that Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth – or was it a silver foot? This is despite having two Phds as parents both in highly paid positions at two of the nation’s best universities (Berkeley and Stanford). Again she is pandering to the middle class. She claims to have had to ride school buses. At least she had buses. When I was growing up in Atlanta in the 1950s, there were no school buses for black kids. We walked to school while the white kids rode. 

We all know that Harris is lying. Bernie Sanders himself admitted that Harris remains a progressive while feigning a shift to the center. That is the ultimate pander. Not be outdone on the pandering front, Trump voiced his support for a Florida bill to legalize marijuana, appealing to all those potheads and those who only smoke for medicinal purposes. He also tried to mitigate the abortion issue by pledging to not support a nationwide ban on abortion and to veto it if it ever came across his desk. Trump also panders by advocating to restore SALT which was part of his tax cutting legislation. That was the limitation on the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes. That is pandering for voters in high tax – mainly democrat run – states.

So who is winning the pander war? I don’t know but I do know that the loser is the American voter because both campaigns have been silent on most of the policy issues that are important to voters. 

I am a deer hunter – and hunter is the appropriate term. I hunt for only mature deer. The bucks must be at least 6 points and the adult does cannot have fawns with them. It is now bow season in Georgia and I am at the farm for a week. Thus far I have turned down shots because I have only seen fawns or does with fawns. There are bucks out there. My trail camera showed a very nice thick 8 pointer at 3:08AM. I have always said that trail cameras tell you where to hunt at 3 in the morning. In all of my years bow hunting I have only seen two shootable bucks so if one wanders by before the rut in November I will be pleasantly surprised. 

In 2018, Georgia allowed hunting for deer over bait. Tennessee still doesn’t allow it. This has been a game changer for me. Deer bed down on only one part of my farm. It is a 20 acre section of pine forest in the very back of the property where I do not tread. I want the deer to feel safe. About 40 years ago I discovered deer bedding down in a thicket within 200 yards of the house. No more. That area was timbered and the deer disappeared. Although I put in food plots without baiting I would never see a deer during bow season. They were either on the adjacent property or in their sanctuary. My food plots were a miserable failure proving that farming is not genetic. My grandfather grew beautiful crops. My mother could walk through the proverbial desert with it blooming behind her. Me? I can’t grow weeds. I tell people it’s because I have a brown thumb. 

I would take deer only after the acorns started to fall on my ridgeline during gun season. Nevertheless, I would take my bow and go look for deer on the trails leading in and out of their bedding areas. Usually to no avail. My sainted mother would ridicule me mercilessly saying that I could kill the same number of deer if I stayed home. I would tell her she was right in that the probability of seeing a deer was only slightly greater in the woods than in the living room, but I loved being outside.

Being able to bait has changed all that. I now see deer on a regular basis. This year will likely determine whether I continue to bow hunt. Three years ago I had total shoulder replacement to repair a ruptured bicep tendon and a torn rotator cuff. I had to depart with my Mathews solocam switchback compound bow – my favorite weapon of all time and replace it with a crossbow. I shoot a Wicked Ridge RDX 400 which is super fast with the new reverse draw technology. Its main attraction is you use an integrated crank to cock it rather than the traditional rope. It is perfect for people like me with shoulder issues. However, as I have aged I no longer can hold still on a target. There is some movement left and right and up and down. This not critical with a gun but is with a bow forcing me to use a gun rest to minimize the movement. If I cannot hold steady, then I will not take the shot. Like most hunters I abhor wounding an animal. If it is not a kill shot I will not take it. I lost a deer during bow season last year and although I searched three hours for it, I could not find it. I followed first a blood trail which petered out and then scuffed leaves until the deer ran into the creek. I walked up and down the bank to no avail. I can’t bear to lose another. 

If I get to where I am no longer comfortable hunting with a crossbow, I will still go into the woods during bow season. I will still put out bait. I will still till food plots. I will still use trail cameras. I will be scouting for gun season. Bow season gets you into the woods a month before gun season and is invaluable to learning deer movements. Every day I hope to see that barren doe or 8 pointer but I enjoy watching the deer and hoping that in a couple of years, they will be in my freezer.

During this week I have seen and passed on at least 30 deer. All were does and fawns and I let them walk. There was one very large doe but she had two fawns with her. I finally saw an adult doe by herself. I was tempted to take a shot but she went shock still and was looking at something out of my vision. Then she bolted. I never saw what she was looking at. It is over 90 degrees and I am hunting in short sleeves. I’m done and hopefully in two weeks it will be cooler.  I can just hear my mother now. Yes I need to take deer. I am almost out of venison from last year’s hunts. Venison is the only red meat I eat. When I started hunting deer in 1971 I ate only fish and fowl. But I decided that if I were to hunt then I would only eat what I kill. I feed my dogs (now dog) venison with their kibble at each meal. Two years ago when I ran out prior to the season, I went and bought some very lean ground chuck for the dogs. They would not eat it and I gave 20 pounds to a neighbor who volunteers at a food bank. So no shots this time. But it is a long season and I look forward to every day hunting on my ancestors’ land. I think they would be proud of how I care for it.

September 19, 2024

Harold A Black

As widely anticipated, the Fed announced a cut in its Fed Funds target rate. Mind you this is not a cut in “interest rates” as touted by the media. Rather it is a cut in the interest rate on overnight bank borrowings. The cut was 50 basis points which lowers the target range on Fed Funds from 5.25% – 5.5% to 4.75% – 5%. Normally, the Fed moves in steps of 25 basis points so in the past a change of 50 basis points would have engendered a strong reaction in the market. However, the Dow Jones only went up by 100 points which is a rounding error in a market where the Dow Jones sits at 41,503 and is expected to fall back a 100 points a day later. So what happened? The reason there was little if any effect was that the market was anticipating a cut of 50 basis points. Any other change would have moved the market but not this one even some clueless media types called the move “historic”.

Remember the story about the two handed economist – “One the one hand.” “On the other hand”? If the market were excited that a 50 basis point cut would stimulate economic activity by making borrowing cheaper the Dow Jones would have moved significantly up. If the market had thought that the Fed had panicked over the lousy job numbers, the market would have fallen. Rather the market reaction was ho hum – a more wait and see. The Fed is signaling with the 50 bp cut that it has inflation under control and we can have employment growth without an uptick in prices. If the market felt the same way, we should have seen a stronger market reaction. Instead, the virtually stable movement shows caution and skepticism.

Consumers should not get all excited either. Credit card interest rates are notoriously slow to change. Currently sitting at 22 percent, even if the entire 50 basis points were deducted, credit card rates would be 21.5 percent – not a whopping change. Given the demand for credit, those rates will probably stay in the same place. Where some difference will be felt is in adjustable rate loans where the rates that the adjustable rates are indexed will fall causing a fall in the loan rates in the next cycle. Again the rate change will be small. The one area where the 50 basis points will be felt will be in CD rates. For the past year or so, consumers have seen fairly decent CD rates. Now those rates will fall a bit, actually hurting those savers – mainly seniors – who save using CDs. My sainted mother asked me back in 2020 when her CD rates were barely positive “Why does the Fed hate old people?”

The more important move by the Fed will be the next one. The market is actually anticipating that the Fed will continue to cut by another 50 – 75 basis points by the end of the year. Unless there is some crisis, the Open Market Committee will meet in November and December meaning another 50 basis point cut might occur at one of those meetings. However, at this meeting of the Open Market Committee, one Fed governor argued for a smaller cut this time and perhaps next, while two governors indicated that this one cut might be enough.

On the political front there are some that will argue that the rate cut will help Kamala Harris by goosing up the economy prior to the election. Lawrence Kudlow is in this camp and he should know better. He argues that the cut wasn’t necessary right now and if there were one, then only 25 basis points should occur. Yet the markets indicated that anything other than a 50 basis point cut would have been met with a much more sizable reaction. No action or a 75 basis point reduction would have sent the markets tumbling in disarray. History has shown us that when the Fed moves in a direction or magnitude not anticipated then markets behave almost irrationally. 

What about future cuts? Will they have an impact on the election? In a word, no. The election is November 5^th and the next Open Market Committee meeting is November 6-7. Although I do not want to get into the technical weeds, the market is concerned with the natural rate of interest. This is unobservable but is the real rate of interest (nominal interest rate adjusted for inflation) that occurs at full employment with a stable rate of inflation. Some estimates say this rate should be 2.5 percent. So a very crude calculation is that if the Fed Funds rate is 4.75% and the natural rate is 2.5% then the Fed will have to cut the Fed Funds rate even more going forward.

Did you watch the Harris-Trump “debate” – which was actually the Harris/Muir/Davis-Trump “debate”? I didn’t since I can’t stand hearing either Harris or Trump talk. I watched a baseball game instead. But I did read about it. What was interesting was that major media enthusiastically declared Harris the winner. However, she did not get a bump in the polls. In fact, Trump (the loser) went up a point. Interviews afterwards showed that the voters were not satisfied that Harris was asked few policy questions and that the moderators were clearly biased against Trump.

A question was asked about the failure of the Israelis and Hamas to reach a deal and that the administration has been unable to break the stalemate and “what would you do?” Harris is said to have endorsed the two state “solution” which both sides reject and Trump said that if he were president October 7 would not have happened. Trump should have said that the US has no business trying to broker a deal and that the Israelis are too smart to take seriously a State Department made up of bungling incompetents.

The op ed page of the September 13 edition of the Wall Street Journal had two interesting articles on our republican brand of democracy. Jonathan Turley has a piece detailing how leftist law professors are writing, and no doubt teaching, that the Supreme Court is a threat to democracy. The so-called threat involves Supreme Court decisions that protect the individual, minority factions and smaller states against the tyranny of the majority. A leftist professor calls this “limiting the power of the majority.” Thank goodness for that. One professor even stated that if the democrats have majorities in the House and Senate and the presidency, then they should take legislative steps to insure that the Republicans “will never win another election.” Now who exactly is the “threat to democracy?” This is frightening stuff. As any student of history will tell you, the majority is often more times than not on the wrong side of history. An America under mob rule would have total disregard for the rule of law and disintegrate as a nation. Some on the left want to trash the Constitution, abolish the Senate and remove all checks and balances on the executive. They of course are assuming that the democrats will forever win the popular vote for president. But like Harry Reid’s getting rid of the filibuster in order to get Obama judges confirmed, what goes around, resulting in the three Trump Supreme Court appointees.

The second article detailed eighteen defeats by the Biden Administration in the courts. Eighteen! These were examples of power grabs by the FCC, the Department of Education, the EPA, the FTC and the SEC. All were declared unconstitutional. Judges appointed by both republicans and democrats made the rulings illustrating how egregious were the administration’s dictates. Many of the suits were brought by the state republican AGs, who seem to be the only republicans taking the time to protect our rights. What I am curious about is whether without a constitution, how would the courts decide right and wrong and the limits of governmental power? The constitution is a rule book and without out it, do we revert to English Common Law with procedural remedies instead of substantive rights?

Again, the threat to democracy warning by the democrats is full of it. The rulings by the courts show that the Biden Administration disregard for the rule of law is itself a threat to democracy. Once more the only thing democratic that the democrats want is a popular vote for president. Nothing else. They do not want an authoritarian rule not a democratic one. If they are so keen on democracy, then let them put all of the mandates of this administration to a popular vote and see if the majority want boys in girls’ locker rooms, want all internal combustion engines to be banned, want solar farms in their communities and windmills offshore, want all fossil fuels outlawed and all the rest that this administration has tried to impose by edict.

The sign says “You cna’t fix stupid but you can vote it out” Not if the democrats have their way. Remember you may vote your way into socialism but you will have to shoot your way out.

Let them vote!