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More random thoughts

February 12, 2024

Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln

Virtually every story I read on the Israeli-Hamas war contains the following statement “More than 28,000 Gazans have been killed, most of them women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities. The figures don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.” No matter the source, the statement is the same. The Wall Street Journal especially guilty. This statement is from the supporters of Hamas and the world media is taking it as gospel. While I believe that there are deaths of noncombatants I am skeptical – as should anyone – of the figures coming from Hamas which are meant to elicit sympathy for the barbaric terrorist group. Early in the conflict I wrote that the western press would turn on Israel and Israel would be wise to ignore them. The same goes for our inept president and his equally inept secretary of state whose department is solidly pro-Hamas. Biden telling the Israelis how to conduct the war is akin to Kamala Harris giving advice on how to stop the flow of illegals at the southern border.

Speaking of illegals, have you noticed that there are none that are fat. I guess all that walking is a key to losing weight. One illegal said he wanted to come to America where there were fat poor people. I had never thought about that but he is probably right that America is one of the few countries in the world with fat poor people. I bet that the other countries are western and also have illegal immigrant problems.

I watched the Super Bowl with a group of friends and was pleased that the star for the 49ers was a University of Tennessee player, Juan Jennings and that a University of Georgia player Mecole Hardman played a prominent role for the Chiefs. I am not a pro football fan. I will look at a game when I have little else to do. I wore a Kansas City Chiefs cap to the watch party and was asked why. I said that Kansas City was in middle America and I preferred their politicians to those in California (home of the 49ers). I also liked that they had not succumbed to the pressures from the cancel culture crowd to change their name (Kansas City BBQs anyone?). Some of their fans even wear Indian regalia and war paint, including that young boy who got roasted by the woke media. Hopefully, they will continue doing what they are doing and resist the shrill voices from the left.

I don’t understand the Taylor Swift thing. Yes she is cute but I tried to watch one of her videos and couldn’t get through it.

Press coverage of Biden is pitiful. It is amazing how they are making excuses for his lack of mental acuity and blasting the special counsel and his report. Remember when they would jump on every little misstep by Trump and insinuate that he was in ill health or mentally incompetent? Yet they given Biden, the mother of all incompetence, a pass.

Don’t misunderstand. I do not like Donald Trump. His recent statement regarding encouraging Putin to invade a member of NATO that was delinquent on its payments was just plain stupid and dangerous. Remember when Biden said that it would be ok if Russia annexed a small part of Ukraine? And they did. I once said that if given a choice I would vote for Trump because I was sure he would not try to destroy the country, like Biden is trying to do. Now I am not so sure. If those two run it becomes a Hobson’s Choice. However, I am still convinced Biden won’t run and the nomination will be made at their convention. Trump’s 10 percent border tariff and reciprocal tariffs will spark a worldwide recession. Trump is a big spender and will not address entitlements. His foreign policy is a disaster waiting to happen. At least he will slow down the march toward the green cliff that we are currently on.

Just like the COVID death models, I am convinced that the climate models are wrong. There is considerable evidence that the media suppresses that shows that the climate models overstate the predicted change in the earth’s temperatures. Recall that the COVID models said that over 2 million Americans were going to die? At that time I expressed skepticism. I also noted that all of the measures recommended by the CDC and our local health department had no scientific foundation and they like the politicians were just making up stuff as they went along. Now Fauci has finally admitted that the 6 foot separation rule had no scientific basis. Neither did the masks.

The Europeans are starting to back off their green policies due to the costs to the people who are finally protesting. The Brits have throttled back as well. The Canadians are also getting restless given that their government is trying to mandate heat pumps which are woefully ineffective in bitter cold. I guess it is some comfort to know that we are not the only ones governed by fools. To quote Adam Smith, “Government comprises a large part of the organized injustice in any society, ancient or modern.”

My granddaughter has started her job at Major League Baseball. I told her to go into Rob Manfred’s office and tell him that on Jackie Robinson Day only the Dodgers should wear Robinson’s number 42. All other teams should wear the number of their first black player.

One of the couples at the Super Bowl watch party had a daughter who was at the Super Bowl with her family. Turns out that she works for the NFL. Now if my granddaughter can get me complimentary tickets to the World Series.

February 9, 2024

Chris Murphy a democrat senator from Connecticut calls Illegals “undocumented Americans.” Apparently, Murphy wants illegals to be able to vote (democratic of course). However, the illegals from South America are the antithesis of what the progressive wing of the democrat party wants in America. They are religious with strong nuclear families and a strong work ethic. My bet is that they end up Republicans.

One reader has convinced me that the democrats want the illegals to replace the citizens that are leaving their states so that they won’t lose Federal funds and congressional representation. Makes sense to me. But that places the local democrat mayors in conflict with their national leaders. The local mayors have to deal with the influx of illegals which strain their resources. But it is telling that these mayors want more funding to deal with the illegals rather than advocate policies to expel them. Remember when Trump argued that the census only count citizens and the dems went ballistic? Now we know why. Tennessee’s Sen. Bill Hagerty has introduced legislation that the census count only legal citizens for purposes of congressional representation. Of course there is no chance that the bill will pass the senate.

Joe Biden appeases Tehran. Why? How much money have the Iranians paid Hunter?

Trump appeased Putin and thinks he can use his personal charm to placate Putin, Xi. Kim Jong Un and other petty dictators. He’s wrong. The question is whether he will weaken the NATO alliance and whether he will support Ukraine. If he lets Putin grab territory don’t be surprised if Trump has a Neville Chamberlain moment. Also don’t be surprised if Iran doesn’t get emboldened by Trump’s penchant for isolationism and also expect China to invade Taiwan.

There is very little to like about Donald Trump but even less to like about Joe Biden.

I wonder how many Republican AGs will indict Biden when he leaves office.

The dems strategy was first to indict Trump to make him look like a sympathetic figure to his base to get him the republican nomination thinking that Trump was the only republican that Biden could beat. But since Biden has botched the job of being president so badly, the strategy now appears to just bankrupt Trump making him defend against all the indictments.

Just imagine how the media would have treated Biden were he a republican. Hunter would be in jail. Biden would have been impeached over the border and the illigal possession of classified documents. Sepaking of which, the documents prosecutor looking into Biden’s illegally hoarding of classified documents did not recommend criminal charges – unlike Trump being indicted for the same thing. Rather the prosecutor recommended no prosecution for Biden despite his being guilty on the grounds that a jury would likely be sympathetic to an old man with a bad memory! Mind you this elderly man with a bad memory is president of the United States. 

Random thoughts 

Why are there no fat illegal immigrants? Everyone at the border looks like a marathon runner. I guess its all the exercise from all that walking.

Someone told me that one of the illegals said that he wanted to come to America because it was the only place in the world with fat poor people.

The 24/7 “news” channels often interview their own on-camera personalities. They also spend time talking about what the personalities on their competitors say. Why Fox News thinks what is said on CNN and MSNBC is news is beyond me. Of course, the folks on those networks bash what the Fox News people say too. They probably have an agreement amongst themselves to fill empty space with the empty noises coming from the other side.

Who dictated that we must all now call illegal aliens “migrants”.

A Fox News article about some leftist whose personal pronouns are (they/them) actually referred to that single delusionary individual as “they”. Give me a break.

Why did we need a new border bill? What is wrong with just enforcing the laws on the books?

The Republican effort to impeach Mayorkas as a joke and doomed from the start. Even if the vote were successful in the House, the Senate would have failed to convict. The House Republicans knew this but went ahead anyway. Those criticizing the four Republican members who did not go along with the charade apparently want show over substance. Mayorkas is simply doing the bidding of his boss, Joe Biden. If the House wants to impeach anyone over the border it must be Biden.

The Wall Street Journal was for the border bill claiming that it had provisions that the Republicans wanted but could never get before. The Journal liked the expedited asylum proposal and the tightening of rules for claiming parole. It curiously also like the part that would temporarily close the border if more than 5,000 illegals showed up in a day. The National Review opposed the bill as did Donald Trump who as is his wont is criticizing the Republican on the bill James Langford of Oklahoma who has otherwise impeccable conservative credentials. Most likely, Langford got what he could get in the bill. Still the progressives and open border crowd on the left also opposed the bill. 

Biden started catch and release, stopped the wall and stopped the remain in Mexico policy. He opened the flood gates and the illegals have been pouring in. Some estimate as many as 5 million on his watch and continuing. If this isn’t an impeachable offence then nothing is. 

Biden like Obama before him practices appeasement with Iran somehow thinking that doing so will make them less belligerent. Not likely. Iran wants to erase Israel from the map. The United States remains the great satan. Iran with it dozens of proxies will continue to harass Israel and the US troops in the region and Biden is helping to finance it. Knowing that Israel is not going to be erased Iran is hoping to isolate it by intimidating all its neighbors, especially Egypt, Jordan and the Saudis.

Biden is now seeking to play both ends by giving military aid to Israel with no strings attached plus advocating a two state solution to placate his pro-Hamas left. Only neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis want a two state solution. Both the Palestinians and the Zionists want the other eradicated. The more moderate Israelis want peace, likely with the Palestinians still in Gaza but with a DMZ separating them from Israel. But in any event the Israelis will be fools to have Gaza again run by the militants. Their only choice will be to govern Gaza. But that would present a great opportunity to turn it into a thriving, prosperous area. Singapore anyone?

February 5, 2024

Walmart shrank the size of the salsa I buy from 24 ounces to 16 ounces. The price is the same. I was wondering if shrinkage which is inflationary to the consumer is reflected in the CPI? Consider that the salsa is not the only product I buy that has shrunk. I wish that they would keep the size the same and just increase the price. By keeping the same price but reducing the contents consumers’ real incomes fall. Again if the CPI doesn’t take this isto account then inflation is higher than what is reported.

What are we going to do about the Houthis? They are endangering shipping in the Red Sea with drone and missile attacks. They have also used speed boats to hijack ships. As a result, shipping in the Red Sea has fallen increasing the costs of goods and services. If ships from Asia to Europe are forced to go around the southern tip of Africa rather than through the Red Sea and Suez Canal, it is estimated that inflation will increase by 2 percent. The US and British response has been to use airstrikes to discourage the Houthis. But Saudi Arabia employed airstrikes for seven years in their war against the Houthis and finally gave it up as being largely ineffective. Some want to instead strike Iran, the Houthis mentor, directly to get the Iranians to stop supplying weapons and logistics. Lots of luck with that.

Iran is obviously supplying the Houthis with weapons. They just fired a cruise missile at an American ship. Guess who had to supply them with a cruise missile.

It is obviously to me as an outsider that Biden is afraid of Iran. From Day 1, he has tried to appease them. He wanted to remove the sanctions, restart the negotiations on the nuclear threat and gave them $6 billion for American hostages. What we got in return was a blowing up of the Middle East.

Is it just a coincidence that when Biden came in, the Russians invaded Ukraine, the southern border got overrun with illegals and the Middle East exploded?

Say what you will but the world seemed a bit safer when Trump was president. Was it because our adversaries were afraid of him and what his reaction would be if they attacked our interests?

But Trump is a demagogue – although he likely would spell it demigod. In his first campaign, his rhetoric against Mexicans reminded me of the racist campaigns in the southern democrat politics of my youth. I even remarked that I thought George Wallace was dead. When he became president, he was clearly anti-Muslim with his sweeping travel bans.

The Biden Administration just sanctioned four Israeli citizens for attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. Its probably a coincidence that this occurred after all the pro-Hamas protests in Washington and elsewhere, the threats from the Muslim American community to sit out the election and the pressure from the pro-Hamas members of his administration. Biden is trying to have it both ways. The majority of Americans support Israel in its efforts to eradicate Hamas from Gaza despite all the negative publicity from the main stream media against Israel. Biden is not going to alienate these voters by not supporting Israel. But he can keep pushing for a cease fire and criticizing Netanyahu. That he has done.

I am almost feeling that this presidential election with be a Hobson’s choice. Again I am reminded of what a close friend of mine said “OMG don’t tell me that I will have to vote for Donald Trump again!”

Biden’s actions against liquid natural gas are a puzzlement. Yes I know it is contended that he did this to shore up his green base. That makes little sense because the greenies are not going to vote for Trump.

I still find it hard to believe that the Democrat establishment will allow Biden to run. Not with these poll numbers. I keep reading that some think that Michelle Obama should run. Why? At least Hillary Clinton was a US senator and Secretary of State. What are Obama’s credentials other than she is married to Barack?

But perish the thought: Gavin Newsom could beat Trump.

Knoxville Focus

knoxfocus.com

February 5, 2024

Harold A Black

When Roosevelt first ran for president most blacks were Republicans. This is not surprising given that the Democrats were opposed to abolishing slavery, resisted Reconstruction, instituted the Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens Council and Jim Crow laws. Roosevelt serving as Woodrow Wilson’s undersecretary of the navy help resegregate the military. He received only 20 percent of the black vote in 1932 in his first presidential election. All that changed by the time he ran for reelection in 1936 when he got 71 percent of the black vote. What happened to cause the massive shift in black votes? Note that these were mostly northern blacks because southern blacks, in the main, were denied the right to vote. In the south, if blacks were not explicitly denied by law the vote, they were denied de facto. My mother said that in Jones County, GA blacks could always register to vote. Her father would take blacks in his wagon to register (as Republicans) at the country courthouse. However, on election day blacks were not allowed to cast their ballots inside the courthouse. Rather, there was a ballot box outside guarded over by a white deputy (there were no black deputies in those days). Mother said they put their ballots in the box but had no idea if the votes were ever counted. Moreover, there was a literacy requirement. When I first registered to vote at age 18 the white clerk took my application and had me read a section of the US Constitution and then asked me to interpret it! She scarcely paid attention to what I was saying and registered me (as a Republican). However, in the same year in Augusta, GA a professor at Paine College (the local HBCU) was denied registration because the white high school educated clerk did not like his interpretation of the passage from the Constitution. But by this time, even most southern blacks were registered Democrats despite being in the same party as virulent racists.

Roosevelt had converted blacks to Democrats by paying lip service to blacks and using his wife Eleanor as an ambassador. He established a “Negro Cabinet” composed of leading blacks of the day and a few of the blacks in his administration. Eleanor Roosevelt was close friends with Mary McLeod Bethune the founder and president of Bethune-Cookman University. Bethune actively campaigned for Roosevelt in 1936 and argued that many of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs would help blacks devastated by the Great Depression. So while Roosevelt was projecting an image of caring, the Republicans did little to counter. In reality, Roosevelt resisted efforts by the Negro Cabinet for significant change in the legal status of blacks and in integration lest he alienate his racist southern base. He never invited Jesse Owens and black Olympians to the White House after their triumph in the Berlin Olympics. He kept the military segregated. But most of all, the housing policies of the agencies in his administration actively caused black home ownership to fall.

The two Federal agencies chartered in the 1930s were instrumental in promoting racism in housing. The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLCC) was established in 1933 to refinance home mortgages that were in default. The HOLC made maps of neighborhoods and color coded them according to risk. The most risky neighborhoods were colored red leading to the term redlining. However, the HOLC made loans in these areas which were in many cases black neighborhoods. This was in contrast to the actions of the FHA which as a matter of course denied Federal insurance guarantees to black borrowers. In fact, the FHA targeted black borrowers as well as black neighborhoods when denying guarantees. While the HOLC concentrated on existing housing, the FHA focused on new housing. The denial of loan guarantees therefore affected the growth in new homeownership and had an adverse impact on new black homeownership.

When my father attempted to purchase his first home in 1938 in Madison, GA, the FHA denied him a loan guarantee. Although both my parents had college degrees and were well known in the community (Mother taught second grade and Dad was the principal at the all black elementary school), they were forced to rent rather than purchase their home. As a result, Dad detested Roosevelt and would never register as a Democrat.

February 1, 2024

1. The Biden Administration is lecturing the Israelis on how to conduct their war with Hamas. Surely, the Israelis are too smart to pay attention and will ignore their suggestions.
2. The theft and subsequent destruction of the Jackie Robinson statute in Wichita is destressing. The statue was bronze and cut off at the ankles. Its remains were found incinerated. Major League baseball has said it will replace the statue but over $140,000 in private donations have been made. I can make no sense of the act. I welcome any suggestions. Stating that this is a “hate” crime is too simplistic.
3. When Russian natural gas stopped flowing to Europe, Joe Biden pledged that the shortage would be made up with American liquid natural gas. The business boomed with billions of dollars invested in ships and terminals. Now Biden has betrayed our allies and investors by stopping all new LNG licenses in order to appease the climate doomsday crowd. Of course the Europeans were stupid to shutter their coal and nuclear plants in favor of “renewable” energy. But what should be a boon for American business has been stopped by another Biden folly.
4. French farmers are once again up in arms about their government’s actions. Remember the yellow vest movement that sprang up from rising fuel prices? The same is happening now. Again they are protesting high fuel prices but also the rising costs stemming from environmental “protection” regulations. But the French are not alone. There are farmer protests in Romania, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Belgium. It’ll be interesting to see if the overzealous drive toward climate change will be derailed by the farmers.
5. I am not one to be jealous or envious. The one exception was the late great Wayman Tisdale. He was best known as an all-star basketball player. He won a gold medal at the Olympics and is in the basketball Hall of Fame. But also, he was a great jazz bassist with one album being number one on Billboard’s contemporary jazz chart. I really like his music and marveled at his talent on the basketball court and in jazz. He developed bone cancer, had his right leg amputated and because of his size was subjected to massive doses of radiation treatments. He lost his battle but had been always cheerful and optimistic. His attitude reminded me of my father’s. When Dad was told he had terminal stomach cancer that was inoperable, he responded “why not me?” rather than “why me?” He, like Tisdale, never indulged in self-pity or felt sorry for himself. He had lived a good life and was grateful for that.
6. I along with several others have written essays for the Liberty Fund on whether systemic racism exists (“Systemic racism in education and healthcare,” Liberty Matters, October 2022. https://oll.libertyfund.org/liberty-matters/systemic-racism-in-education-and-health-care). Those essays seriously question whether systemic racism continues to exist despite all those who contend that it does. One thing I have found in my research is that black bankers and white bankers make similar decisions on accepting applications from blacks. Both sets of bankers also price accepted applications from blacks similarly. Likewise, the research on the actions of car salesmen is similar for black and white salesmen. Detailed multivariate analysis on the use of force by police shows that blacks are not more harshly treated than whites – contrary to the popular narrative, Moreover, when blacks took over control of elected offices, the economic wellbeing of black citizens did not improve from when whites ran the cities. Lastly, disparities in educational proficiency widened when blacks took control of boards of education, school administrations and teachers. So the question is whether systemic racism is so embedded that it does not change when blacks are in power.
7. Lastly, systemic racism appears to always stem from a legal foundation. But it is not just the Jim Crow laws of the old south. Franklin Roosevelt’s Federal Housing Administration denied housing loan guarantees to black applicants (including my father) and was largely responsible for widening racial home ownership differentials. Several banking regulations seeking to protect consumers have resulted in less credit being available for minorities forcing them to borrow from higher interest rate lenders. Minimum wage legislation and restrictions on business licenses have also contributed to increased unemployment and more welfare dependency among blacks. As one writer put it “please don’t help us anymore.”

January 29, 2024

My youngest granddaughter is named Haley. Her mother was in Tennessee’s MBA program and went with me to visit Alex Haley – a fellow University of Tennessee faculty member – at his farm in Norris, Tennessee. She had read Roots and meeting Alex had such an impression on her that she named her daughter “Haley”.  Roots was a sensation and spawned a TV mini series in 1977. To recap, Roots told the story of Kunta Kinte an African youth sold into slavery and his descendants leading to Haley himself. The actor Levar Burton played Kinte. I loved Alex but found it hard to believe that he had found his African roots.

For several years I served on the board of the East Tennessee Historical Society. I enjoyed my being on the board despite being the only one not from Tennessee or East Tennessee in particular. I love the rich history of the region learning about the contributions of blacks to country music, the mystery of the Melungeons and in particular the strong alliance to the Union during the Civil War. One of my dearest friends is kin to the famous Carter family and told me how Lesley Riddle traveled with A.P. Carter around the region composing songs and teaching Maybelle his fingerpicking guitar style. There were other influential but soon to be forgotten blacks such as Gus Cannon and Rufus Payne. In more modern times, singers like the Carolina Chocolate Drops have carried on the tradition of black country music.

However, I still felt like an outsider especially when the Society launched its First Families of Tennessee initiative which records the descendants of the first white families that came across the mountains from North Carolina to settle in the region. Still it is a fascinating history of strength and perseverance. I recommend highly Drury and Clavin’s Blood and Treasure, a wonderful book about Daniel Boone. Members of the Society’s board of directors then traced back to their immigrant ancestor, the first in their family to step foot in America. I am not envious of other people except in this one instance. One of my best friend’s ancestors immigrated from Sweden. He and his family every so often would visit his Swedish relatives and showed me a picture of the family cemetery where is buried the great great grandfather with the same name. I knew that the likelihood of my finding my ancestral African forebearers was almost zero. Slaves did not have last names. There was no records of births and parentage. So despite my love for Alex Haley, I looked upon Roots and entertainment rather than historical fact.

In the television series “Finding Your Roots” hosted by the esteemed historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., LeVar Burton (Haley’s Kunte Kinte) is shocked when Gates reveals that Burton’s great great grandfather was a Confederate soldier. Personally, I was surprised that he was surprised. We black folk did not get this color by accident. I would guess that the majority of black Americans have white ancestors and many of them are descendants of Confederates.

The Society also has the Civil War Families of Tennessee which includes the descendants of Civil War soldiers, both north and south. Obviously, being from Georgia, I am excluded from this group but I am, like LeVar Burton, a direct descendant of a Civil War soldier – no not one of the 200,000 blacks who wore blue, but a confederate sergeant who served in the 6^th Georgia.

My maternal great grandfather Seth Towles was a sergeant in the 6th Georgia. Ironically, he never owned slaves but his sister was married to a Jarrell and lived on the Jarrell Plantation in Jones County, GA where Seth had a son Milous Towles with one of the cooks. My mother told me that Seth never disowned his black son and visited him every other Sunday for dinner at (Pop) Milous’ home. Mom said that he would load his black grandchildren in a wagon and take them to town in Macon to buy them things. All this while having a white family (he married after Milous was born). Because of this I don’t harbor any ill will toward my great great grandfather Seth. 

Seth is buried in a Confederate cemetery in Atlanta, less than a mile from my parents’ house at the site of the Battle of Ezra Church. Seth fought in that battle and wanted to be buried with his buddies who were killed and interred there. My son and nephew paid Seth a visit to update him on the progress made by his black descendants.

Because of Seth I was able to trace back to my immigrant ancestor Henry Towles born in Liverpool, England in 1651 who died in Accomack County VA in 1721. I discovered that I also have a Towles who fought in the Revolutionary War and one who served in the War of 1812. I guess I qualify to be a member of the National Sons of the American Revolution. I also qualify to join the Sons of the Confederate Veterans – but I’ll pass.

Knoxville Focus

Knoxfocus.com

January 29, 2024

I am a deer hunter and since 1971 I have not eaten any red meat except venison. I have no explanation except that since I can hunt and take enough game to last from the end of deer season to the beginning of the next, I see no need to eat beef or pork. I do eat fish, chicken and turkey and also am a turkey hunter. I have a fairly healthy diet and cannot recall the last time I have eaten fast food – although I have stopped for an early morning biscuit on the way to a hunt. I eat very little processed foods. All this is to say is that I do not understand fake meat. What’s the point of consuming a food like substance that is processed to imitate meat with its texture and smell? Wouldn’t it make more sense just to consume the plant and not all the other stuff that is added to it? Consider that one of the products imitating meat contains 22 ingredients. I would not feed it to my dog – and I bet my dog wouldn’t eat it. My dog is fed raw venison at each meal and venison has no added ingredients.

I presume that the fake meat industry arose from a combination of climate change and PETA activists who seek to decrease the consumption of meat. The PETA folks have been protesting meat consumption for years and just been silly in their protestations. The climate alarmists want to decrease meat consumption because they note that cows farts are a major source of methane in the atmosphere. Scientists report that methane has a warming potential more than 28 times that of carbon dioxide meaning that cows may pose a bigger threat to the environment than internal combustion engines. Who knew? The anti-cow lobby got a boost from the recent UN climate change conference in Dubai (of all places) where the delegates arrived in private jets, ate expensive cuts of beef and recommended that we, the great unwashed, go green and eat green.

A country that has taken seriously the threat to cows destroying the planet is Denmark with its large agriculture footprint and dairy farms. There it is estimated that “total methane emissions from Denmark’s approximately 570,000 dairy cows today amount to 2.3 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents annually. Likewise, the total pig production results in methane emissions equal to 1.45 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents per year.” A tonne is 1,000 kilograms. The Danes are experimenting adding algae to animal feed to reduce methane claiming that the algae are not harmful for human consumption. However, the Danish government has other ideas showing that governments think alike regardless of location. It is proposing a farming emissions tax on cows to force farmers to decrease the size of their herds and substitute non-animal products. The politicians in Denmark have obviously ignored the reaction of the farmers who are loudly protesting the proposed tax. In the Netherlands and New Zealand where similar taxes were proposed farmers staged protests that often turned violent. In the Netherlands, several political parties united to fight the government edicts and its prime minister declared a political crisis. The end result was a collapse of the government and the election of a conservative leader that shook the left wing media and entrenched European politicians.

The question is whether America will reach that point with some governments which seems intent on banning all internal combustion engines (ICE). Their war on stuff is getting absurd with some states proposing fines and jail time for operating gas powered lawn movers and weed eaters. The banning of ICEs comes at a cost. “Renewable” energy is highly inefficient and more costly than fossil fuels. The demands on the electric grid will cause brown outs and black outs. Energy will be more costly reducing consumers’ real incomes and having an adverse effect on the poor. What is particularly vexing is that the banning of ICEs has been shown to have a negligible impact on total CO2 emissions. When Americans come to realize that the climate change efforts costing over $1 trillion is either to make the left feel good and to transfer public funds to the green industry and their friends, perhaps they will follow the lead of the Netherlands in voting for a regime change.

Knoxville Focus

knoxfocus.com

January 15, 2024

It’s Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday as well as my son’s. So Happy Birthday MLK and Happy Birthday Morgan!

CNN ran a story that harkened back to the good old days. It was about Navy Federal Credit Union’s rejecting over half of its mortgage applications from blacks while accepting more that 75% of applications for the same type of mortgage from whites. It was the type of story that was published in big city newspapers during the 1970s and was similar to the ones in Nashville newspapers in the 1990s. These stories looked at the differential between black and white acceptance rates. The earlier studies charged that the differentials were proof that blacks were being discriminated against in the mortgage lending decision. The CNN article states explicitly that Navy Federal may not be discriminating against blacks but the disparity raises that possibility. The earlier studies simply looked at the final accept/reject disparities. The CNN study uses the data mandated by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. These data are publicly available and include applicant’s race, gender, applicant’s income, debt-to-income ratio, the loan amount, the property value and the neighborhood’s socioeconomic makeup. However, the data do not include credit worthiness which is proprietary and why CNN cannot positively assert discrimination although they strongly imply it. CNN states that black applicants were more than twice as likely to be denied as white applicants and “Latino applicants were roughly 85% more likely to be denied than White applicants.”

I must admit some personal responsibility in the analysis of lending discrimination. My study of discrimination in mortgage lending while at the Comptroller of the Currency in the early 1970s was the first econometric studied that modeled the lending decision and used a unique statistical procedure to test for discrimination. That study led in part to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and to the Community Reinvest Act (CRA). The early newspaper articles alleging lending discrimination prompted the Comptroller of the Currency to ask me to determine if the allegations were true for national banks which were regulated by the agency. The problem was that in those days there were no data.  Therefore, we went to interview major bank lenders. We asked what were the important variables in the lending decision and constructed a mortgage lending application form that contained those variables. We did not put race on the application because we felt that a minority borrower would be reluctant to indicate race if it were felt that the lender might discriminate. So we put the demographic variables on a separate tear off form with a number linking it to the application. The borrower was to fill out the information, put it in an envelope addressed to the FDIC which did the data compilation. The FDIC forwarded the data to me at the Comptroller’s office. We then analyzed the data and later published the results in the American Economic Review (May 1978). The results showed weak statistical evidence of discrimination by race but stronger evidence of redlining which is discrimination against the property. That is, if a white applicant applied for a mortgage in a certain geographic area, it had a higher likelihood of being rejected.

Motivated in part by our results, the Congress passed HMDA so that the regulators would have relevant data and passed the Community Reinvestment Act which was targeted at redlining requiring lenders to make loans in underserved neighborhoods. The regulators would be privy to the creditworthiness data and could use it to make a determination as to whether the lending practices were in fact discriminatory.

When we first started the analysis our priors were that discrimination was possible in markets characterized by little competition among lenders. In those days most of the mortgages loans were made by savings and loans and not by banks. Credit unions could not make mortgages. In fact, this was the case and several lenders were punished by the regulators for discriminatory practices. Economics tells us that if there is excess demand for mortgages and few lenders, then the lenders can reject loans that would be profitable because of the limited supply of funds available. However, this is not the case today. Now banks, savings and loans, credit unions and online lenders can originate mortgages. Thus, rejection of profitable loans would be irrational on the part of the lenders. In many institutions the mortgage loan officer is compensated by the mortgages underwritten. It would then be irrational for a loan officer to reject a qualified applicant if it lowered the officer’s compensation. Also, the regulators who examine the lender’s decisions are junk yard dogs looking for discrimination. As a consequence, a lender who discriminates in today’s environment is not only irrational but is also foolish. It would be akin to speeding at 100 MPH with a state trooper at every mile marker. Lastly, Navy Federal should know that its lending disparity is out of line and would warrant more detail examination from the Federal authorities. Other institutions have gamed the system by increasing the acceptances of marginal minority applicants to lessen the disparity. One wonders why Navy Federal did not do the same.

January 10, 2024

Anyone who talks about white privilege has obviously never been to Appalachia.

I’ve always thought it was somewhat ironic that kids in the state with the lowest reading proficiency have to spell Mississippi while kids in the state with the highest reading proficiency only have to spell Utah.

I would hate to be a white kid in a school that teaches Critical Race Theory.

A teacher in a large city in a mixed race school said that CRT provides an excuse for poor black performance but what is he supposed to tell his white students that are struggling? 

Did you read where the climate terrorists in England have taken to deflating tires (tyres if you are a Brit) to protest the use of internal combustion engines? In particular they hate SUVs. Well now they have started deflating the tires of EVs. Reports state that the group called the Tyre Extinguishers said: “Hybrids and electric cars are fair game. “We cannot electrify our way out of the climate crisis – there are not enough rare earth metals to replace everyone’s car and the mining of these metals causes suffering.” Well they do have a point (no pun intended). I guess you can spot them because they must be either on bicycles or skateboards.

I don’t understand how the deflating of tires, the blocking of streets, the gluing of oneself to the pavement, the mutilating of art works and the defacing of property are intended to win converts to the greenie weenie crusade.

When Hamas attacked Israel and slaughtered 1,400 Jews, I stated that the Israelis in their efforts to eradicate Hamas should ignore the reaction from the left wing media and the progressives worldwide who would criticize their response. Predictably, there has been sharp criticism of Israel with the media reporting the civilian casualty figures given by Hamas. I have yet to figure out – much like the climate terrorists – how protests on college campuses and in our cities will have any impact on Israeli resolve. I guess the pro-Hamas crowd thinks that they can pressure their governments to lean on Israel to give up and have a cease fire. However, that will still leave the threat of Hamas on Israel’s doorstep with the intent to kill Jews and eradicate Israel itself. I doubt that there is enough outside pressure for Israel to capitulate to the demands of those who can sleep soundly and safely at night.

It should be obvious by now that I am not a fan of EVs. They are expensive to buy, expensive to maintain and expensive to repair. The production of EVs pollutes worse than ICEs and the rare earth minerals are mined in near slave conditions and are environmentally destructive. That world governments are trying to force them down our throats is a testament to governments’ desires to take away freedoms and impose upon their citizens. But mind you, I am not opposed to EVs if they were just another product produced to satisfy market demand. EVs make ok commuting vehicles and second (or third) family cars. In America, most EVs are owned by people who could charge them at their residences, meaning that thousands of chargers outside the residence are not needed. However, since governments want to ban gas powered vehicles, chargers outside the residence are needed in the towns and on the highways. This is to combat range anxiety allowing people to travel in their EVs. But more chargers are a great idea if the chargers work and if there are not long lines to use them. Regardless, a trip in an EV that requires charging along the way is going to take much more time because even “fast” charging is slow compared to filling up at the pump. I can’t imagine most Americans having the patience to stop every few hundred miles and waiting an hour to get back on the road. On one trip the reported said “Google maps said it would take 13 hours and 20 minutes for our trip. The Tesla map, factoring in charging, said it would be 16 hours. It ended up at almost 17. Tesla’s software does a great job of routing you to superchargers, which are the fastest way to charge but may not be the fastest way to get where you’re going.” If you want to put up with this more power to you. But I bet the vast majority of use wouldn’t unless forced to do so.

Look for EV chargers to be mandated for all new residential construction.