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I’ve always been an optimist with regards to the country. Even though we sometimes make mistakes with whom we elect president, those mistakes seldom took us down a path that threatens the basic foundations of the country. The electorate is suffering from presidential whiplash. From Bill Clinton to George Bush to Barrack Obama to Donald Trump to Joe Biden the country keeps careening back and forth. It is though we keep saying “whoops” and go from one extreme to the other. Presumably core democrats always vote for democrats and the core republicans always vote for republicans. That’s about two-thirds of the electorate with the other third being independents fliting back and forth. The core of each party has become more dug in as time passes and have scared away the moderates. Today, Senators Joe Manchin, Jon Tesler and Kristin Sinema are “moderate” democrats and in the few times they go against the rest of the democrats, they are badgered, yelled at and vilified by those on the left. Yet all three have voting records significantly to the left of the most “moderate” republican now in the Senate.  The “moderate” senate republicans, Romney, Collins and Murkowski, have ideology scores well to the right of every democrat. There is no ideological overlap. Thus when rabid core republicans refuse to support a “moderate” republican, they apparently rather have in office a democrat who will be much farther left than the “RINO” republican. That makes no sense to me.

The two parties are moving farther apart. I don’t understand the math when I read that Biden’s approval rating is 37 percent and yet 87 percent of the democrats approve of the job he is doing. Shockingly, that is a higher rating than democrats gave either Clinton or Obama. Independents’ approval is 35 percent and 3 percent for republicans. I know several democrats who approve of Biden. They support his actions on the climate, COVID vaccines, the growth of the administrative state, gun control, diversity, inclusion and equity. But it is abortion that drives their support. But they also approve of Biden’s policy on transgenders, immigration and critical race theory but those issues are less important to them. I don’t know a single republican who approves of Biden or any of his actions. So where is that 3 percent?

My optimism about the country’s future is lessened by this polarization of the electorate and that of our politicians.  Consider the House bill on transgender athletes. The bill would ban males from women’s and girl’s sports at schools that take federal money. Every republican voted for the bill and every democrat voted against it. Of course, it has no chance of passage in the senate and even if it did, Biden would veto it. The House vote depressed me. It would appear that at least one democrat would have found the bill reasonable and would have voted for it. If the bill were as awful as the democrat leadership said, then reason would have it that at least one republican would have voted against it. So 100 percent of the democrats thought that transgenders should compete against females despite transgenders being physically stronger and having an advantage over women in most sports. The republicans argued that they are defending of women’s rights because in many cases women and girls are denied the recognition that they would otherwise achieve. Surely at least one democrat woman in the House supports that view, but apparently not. Recall that a soccer team of high school boys once defeated the national women’s team. I am surprised that universities like Penn which had a male swimmer winning women’s races don’t enlist males to compete against women in all their sports. Then I wonder if 100 percent of the democrats would still have voted the same way. 

Democrats in the main support eliminating some of the basic foundations of the country such as the electoral college. Most democrats think that the Constitution should be a living document and is outdated written by slave holding old white men with little relevance today. Democrats also in large part dislike capitalism and favor socialism. Democrats are less patriotic. Republicans feel otherwise. If these positions remain intractable, I fear for the future of the country. Before the Civil War the country was referred to as “The United States are.” Afterwards, it was “the United States is.” Don’t be surprised that in the future it reverts back to “the United States are.”

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 origins of the Melungeons and in particular the strong alliance to the Union during the Civil War. 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. 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, in fact, a direct descendant of a Civil War soldier – no not one of the 100,000 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 met and had a son Milous Towles with one of the cooks. My mother told me that Seth never disowned his black son and visited every other Sunday for dinner at (Pop) Milous’ home. Mom said that once a month or so, he would load Pop Milous’ children 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). Certainly Seth’s behavior showed a brave and defiant soul. Thus, I don’t harbor any ill will toward this white forebearer and do not despise his blood running through my veins. I guess I qualify to be a Sons of the Confederate Veterans – but I’ll pass. Seth’s actions after the war elevated him in my mind and knowledge of his existence was actually of benefit. Because it is virtually impossible for blacks to trace one’s roots (with apologies to Alex Haley) 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.

The Summer 2023 edition of “Georgia” – the magazine of the University of Georgia has as its cover story the university’s Redcoat marching band. The article brought back a rush of memories that had long been forgotten – or suppressed. The article evoked bittersweet memories for me. When I was growing up in Atlanta, we had five year high schools and I was one of only three eight graders in the varsity band. My junior and senior years, I was first chair clarinet – equivalent to concert master. I was really very good and although I could not improvise, I could play anything placed before me.

When I graduated from Booker T Washington High School in 1962 I was awarded five college band scholarships. Four were to HBCUs and one was to Ohio State. All wanted me to major in music and so I turned them down. Instead I enrolled at Georgia. Naturally, I tried out for the band despite their being the “Dixie” Red Coat band and playing Dixie after the National Anthem at football games (which looked like a Ku Klux Klan rally with all the confederate flags). My Dad said “Are you sure you can play Dixie?” I told him yes since I wanted to be in the band. However, the director, Roger Dancz told me after I auditioned that despite the fact that I was probably the best clarinetist on campus that I could not be in his band. The reason? He said we would not be able to travel in the segregated south. So instead I played in the Air Force ROTC band and always resented not being allowed to be a Red Coat. During my four years at Georgia no black athlete played on the Athens campus. However, my senior year NC State played us and there were blacks in their band. They were housed in the basketball arena with cots on the floor and fed in the cafeteria. I visited them and they said that they were the first blacks in the band at their school. When they showed up the band director said that they were welcome to be in the band that that “We will make this work.” I envied them and my resentment of Roger Dancz grew. I love the university but there were four faculty or administrators that I will never forgive. Roger Dancz is one of them.

To this day, when I see black students wearing the Red and Black, I wonder what might have been.

When I was growing up, my parents made me and my brother work. In elementary school, they decided to put in a basement by digging out the dirt under the house. My brother and I had to take out so many wheelbarrows of dirt before we could go out to play. In high school, we were made to work during the summers doing menial work for minimum wages. We washed dishes and bussed tables. We didn’t complain we now had money of our own. I bought books and records. We never thought of those jobs as menial. We knew that we were not going to earn that low wage as adults. We were living at home so any monies earned were disposable and not used for rent or food or utilities. We knew we were going to college. Although my parents went to HBCUs, my brother wanted to be an engineer but was barred from going to Georgia Tech so he went to Purdue. I wanted to follow him to Purdue but was forced to go to the University of Georgia when that university was ordered to desegregate. The state was paying my brother’s out of state tuition when Tech was segregated and took away that funding when Georgia was ordered to admit its first black students. Dad could not afford to send us both out of state and told me to find an alternative. I found the University of Georgia. While at Georgia, unbeknownst to my parents I worked to supplement the money they sent me monthly. One of my closest friends was head waiter at a local restaurant and I waited tables for a couple of years making enough money to buy a motor scooter and later my first car. I never told my parents any of this for they insisted that I devote all of my time to school. When they found out about 20 years later my mother said that she felt like “giving me a whipping.”

Working at low paying jobs proved invaluable. They taught me to be responsible, to get to work on time (Dad used to say that “on time was five minutes late”) and to be disciplined. Today, much of the issues facing our youth, especially our black youth can be traced to the existence of minimum wage laws which limit their employment opportunities. When the first minimum wage law was passed, black youth employment was actually higher than that of white youth. Indeed, the first minimum wages were enacted because black youth were being hired at wages lower than white youth much like illegals will work for lower wages today. The legislation was a success making black youth less competitive with whites at the higher wage. Now for black kids, the unemployment numbers are depression-like. The youth have been rendered unemployable. They have no skills and little prospect for gaining useful skills that are legal. While they would be able to find work at lower wages, the current minimum wage keeps them unemployed. Every now and then a proposal is made to enact a subminimum wage for teenagers. It is always a non-starter. It is argued that this would exploit the youth and would benefit big business. They know better and simply want to maintain the poor as wards of the state. Now Bernie Sanders is pushing an increase in the minimum wage to $17 per hour even though virtually all studies show that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment. Fewer youth will have the skills necessary to merit the higher wage. Although Sanders argues as if heads of households are working at the current minimum, the truth is that only two percent of heads of households earn the minimum wage. The increases in unemployment will be mostly among young people who reside with their parents (or parent). 

But Sanders and his ilk do not care about the consequences of their actions. The minimum wage is anti-poor and racist. It was enacted to lessen the competition by blacks for low paying jobs and to create welfare dependency. It worked. Some states have recently increased their minimum to $15 an hour. The early results show that businesses that employ these workers are forced to automate and replace people with technology. Obviously sanity is missing in the minimum wage argument. 

You can tell who the left fears by the hit pieces that suddenly appear in their newspapers, on their networks and their sycophants like Black Lives Matter, Move on and the NAACP. Make no doubt about it, the object of their scorn (and fear) is the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. How else do you explain their labelling his wife as Lady MacBeth while they put Hillary Clinton and Gisele Fetterman on a pedestal? Moreover, Fetterman’s husband, who somehow was elected to the US Senate by voters in Pennsylvania, is doted on and given loving praise by the left’s media outlets. Fetterman, who is speech impaired, wears hoodies and shorts to the senate has actually been mentioned as a presidential candidate! His clownish attire has been called “stylish” by those on the left. If Fetterman were a republican, he would be ridiculed and satirized by Saturday Night Live and late night comics. 

But Fetterman is the type of politician that the left loves. It can control him which explains why they fear DeSantis. They cannot control him and he revels in that knowledge. The left desperately wants Donald Trump to be the nominee of the republican party because Trump is the only republican they think they can beat. While the left occasionally makes snide remarks at Nikki Haley, Tim Scott and Mike Pence, they look upon the Florida governor as the largest danger to their power. Thus, they sicced the NAACP on him issuing a “travel advisory” cautioning blacks to not travel to Florida which the NAACP says is hostile to people of color (and LGPTQ+). When I first saw the travel advisory, I wondered why the NAACP would do something this stupid. Are they saying that the 3 million black and 6 million Latino residents are in danger living in such a hostile environment? That is probably news to those Floridians of color. Are black tourists being attacked when they cross the state line? I go to Florida three or four times a year and have yet to be attacked by anything other than mosquitoes, black flies and love bugs. I have not been denied service, cursed at or been treated with anything but respect. Maybe I should get the chairman of the NAACP who lives in Tampa show me where he has suffered from living in such a hostile state.

Is Florida more dangerous to blacks than Chicago, New York or Los Angeles? Do blacks in Florida suffer more discrimination than in democrat controlled states? Florida’s blacks have lower unemployment rates than in California and higher median incomes than blacks in Illinois. Are there more hate crimes against people of color in Florida? The data say otherwise. The advisory also said that DeSantis has tried to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools. I’ve written on this before. What DeSantis did was to have the courage to not allow the AP course on black history to be part of the Florida curricula. That course was less about history than it was about Critical Race Theory, “queer” black history and the distortions of the 1619 Project. Florida does teach black history. DeSantis gives an award for the best essays on black history by public school students. The state’s education department says that “Students shall develop an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism, and stereotyping on individual freedoms.” Indeed, the 1920 Ocoee massacre, in which blacks were killed by a mob is a part of the state’s curriculum. No, DeSantis is not trying to erase black history.  He is also has willingly incurred the ire of the left by taking over Florida’s leftist New College and ending funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs which tout segregation and pit races against each other.

DeSantis called the travel advisory a stunt. It is not a stunt. It is worse than that. It is the NAACP being made a fool of by its bosses on the left. The NAACP has long since ceased to be a civil rights organization and has become another organ of the left. It claims to want to enhance black education, yet it strongly condemns school choice which has been able improve the educational achievement of minorities. Not surprisingly, one of the major contributors to the organization is the teachers’ unions. If the NAACP were serious about black progress, it would favor right to work laws, oppose increases in minimum wages and support school choice. But then, the NAACP is more interested in pleasing its funding sources than in advancing the well being of black folks.

The fact that there is only one charter school in Knoxville is not surprising because the system is set up to minimize the number of charters. The applications must be voted on by the local board of education which is akin to asking them to acknowledge their own failure in providing for a quality education. The new charter is patterned after Chattanooga Prep, a successful all boys school. What is interesting about the vote of the Knoxville school board is that all four representatives of the inner city districts voted against the charter while representatives of the five districts outside the city core voted for the charter. Given that the poorest performing schools are within the city’s core, one would have thought that those representatives would have been the most keen on providing promising kids a chance to escape being trapped in terrible schools. Such was not the case.

When the application for the new charter was filed, the local NAACP and black state representative predictably came out against the new school. Their letters were embarrassing and indicated that they had not sat down with the applicants and discussed the school. Virtually every point made in opposition to the school was addressed in the rejoinder by the applicants. Apparently, those in opposition would have opposed the application regardless. Because it has been shown that parents in poorly performing school districts favor educational choice, charter schools and/or vouchers, I would hope that those who live in Districts 1, 2, 3 and 4 will elect representatives that have their children’s best education at heart rather than interested in preserving the status quo. It is time for a change,

I have personally tutored reading to students at one of the poorer performing schools in an afterschool program. We tried unsuccessfully to convince the school system to adopt a reading program called Funnix and demonstrated that kids thought to be poor learners could read if only the method of instruction were changed. By the end of the school year, all our children could read. As a result, the superintendent did not invite us back nor did he change how the students were being taught not to read. I met with several prominent members of the black community and with three different representatives from District 1 where some of the most embarrassingly bad schools reside. None were particularly interested in “rocking the boat” seemingly content to let the status quo continue. Its truly sad. There is no reason why any child should not be a proficient reader by grade 3 unless severely impaired. Even in the “best” performing elementary school in Knoxville there are around 20 percent who do not read at grade level. But at the 4 poorest performing schools less than 10 percent are proficient at the third grade level. This is outrageous. Why does the board of “education” allow this travesty to continue? In the city with the state’s premiere public university, Knoxville’s schools should be models of excellence. Instead they are a pitiful excuse mimicking education. The school board, if it were truly interested in education, would demand from the superintendent that every school should have a proficiency of at least 50 percent or else there will be consequences such a no pay increases and subsequent firing. Only if the administrators have skin in the game will proficiency levels improve. Until then the board of education is simply bored of education.

The old line black establishment has come out against charter schools and choice in education even though their constituents favor charter schools. There are 1 million kids on waiting lists for charters nationwide. Many parents want better education for their kids and with the overall performance of charters contrasting with that of the public schools, its no wonder. However, the establishment favors throwing money at the failed schools affirming the old definition of insanity. Perhaps this is because one of the primary funders of the NAACP is the teachers’ unions which vehemently opposes charters. Ironically, the teachers’ union in New York has its own charter with the president of the American Federation of Teachers sitting on its board! Simply amazing. I guess the education establishment which includes the Knoxville Board of Education is more interested in not educating children than in teaching kids to read.

The fashion police are out for democrat house leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for wearing tennis shoes with a suit to a budget meeting at the White House. Of course it is now common to see men wearing tennis shoes with suits. Just look at ESPN. Little known is the fact that I started the trend. In January 2017, the University of Georgia honored me and two others who entered the university in 1962 as its first black freshman. The morning of the event I realized that I had left my “dress” shoes and only had my running shoes with me. It was too early to go out and buy another pair of shoes so I was forced to wear “tennis” shoes to the event. It felt strange. Little did I know that was was setting a fashion trend. So its all my fault.

There are those who simply on reflex yell for the Federal government to balance the budget. They say that households have to balance budgets (they don’t really) so the government should balance its budget. Ok. Then you ask them “how” and they don’t have a clue because very few people have the intellectual curiosity to learn about how to do it. In reality, there is no reason why the Federal government should balance its budget. Just like households and corporations, the budget can be in a deficit so long as the outstanding debt can be serviced without an adverse effect on the borrowing entity. That is, if the household, corporation or government can increase its income sufficient enough to maintain or increase its well being while servicing its debt then it can run a deficit forever, paying off old debts while incurring new ones.

Yet let’s insist that the Federal government try to balance its budget. That is practically impossible. The two parts of the Federal budget are nondiscretionary and discretionary spending. The nondiscretionary (mandatory) spending is because Congress has made it so and includes the entitlements medicare and social security. The discretionary spending is everything else. Suppose that the Congress decided to balance the budget in 2023 given the spending and revenue levels of 2022. Revenues were $4.9 trillion while nondiscretionary spending was $4.1 trillion and discretionary spending was $1.7 trillion. Thus, if the budget were to be balanced then amount allocated to the mandatory component would be $4.1 trillion of the $4.9 trillion collected leaving only $0.8 trillion. This would mean a 50 percent cut across the board in everything else that the government spends its money on. You can imagine all the yelling and screaming when defense, air controllers, law enforcement, corporate subsidies and social welfare programs are cut in half. 

Of course, nondiscretionary spending is nondiscretionary because the government says it is. Everyone knows that in order to control federal spending then the spending on social security and medicare must be corralled. So I offer a few real solutions of my own that will work. 1. Eliminate duplication in government programs and spending 2. Eliminate automatic escalators in all government programs including social security. 3. Raise the full benefit age of social security to 70. 4. Privatize medicare and medicaid. 5. Privatize social security with a benefit floor guaranteed by the federal government. 6. Institute a flat income tax with no exemptions and requiring a two thirds vote in congress to raise it. 7. Limit the growth in the number of pages in the federal register (this would limit the number of regulations that could be enacted). 8. Institute an aggressive review of all regulations by all federal agencies. 9. Mandate that regulatory burdens must be reduced by at least 5 percent per year. 10. Limit federal pay (including perks) to no more than 10 percent over the average pay for the same position in the private sector. 11. And cap the federal budget to 18 percent of the previous year’s GDP.

Of course, there is virtually no chance that any of this will ever come about because the congress has no interest in curtailing spending and no interest in fiscal discipline. The federal budget is a giant cookie jar to keep constituents and donors happy. Doing so gets politicians reelected and the administrative state in power doling out billions like manna from heaven. There are hardly any positive consequences to either politicians or federal employees for being frugal but severe ones if they try. Politicians would not be reelected and replaced by ones who would promise to restore the largesse of yore while federal employees would be fired and would have to find real jobs. Bummer.

Excellence in higher education is hard to define.  How can you tell if a professor is doing a good job?  I’ve always said that so long as my students didn’t run from the room with their hands over their mouths, I guess that I was doing ok.  Or better still, I guess that I did ok when I get feedback in later years. I heard from a student who had my class 10 years ago and said how much he hated me and hated the class. But now he wanted to thank me for making him work hard for that C. I just heard from a student who had my first class taught at the University of Florida in 1972 who had retired and said that my class was what motivated him to be successful.

I retired ten years ago and even then standards were being lessened by the universities. There were no longer term papers. Exams had become true/false multiple choice. There were no more reading lists and books on reserve at the library. Those professors who refused to dumb down their courses found themselves with bad teaching evaluations, complaints from students and pressure from administrators. The hassle wasn’t worth it for most and they caved. At the undergraduate level I taught seniors. Many were functionally illiterate. They could not spell, write or do basic math. They did not know literature, history, geographic or politics. Many students had no idea how many senators were in Washington or even how many senators did the states have. I said “what have you been taught all these years?” If I had the power I would flunk all of you – not because of what you know in finance but what you don’t know about anything else.” I would not want you to be a graduate of my university. I actually had a student who asked me, “Why should I know anything?” Why should I know math when I have a calculator on my iphone? Why should I know geography when I have mapquest? Why should I know English when I have a word processor with grammar and spell check? Students were not intellectually curious. And these are our best and brightest?

I used to say that the world is made up of three types: the 3 percent that make things happen, the 7 percent that know what’s happening and the 90 percent who haven’t a clue as to what’s happening. I was naïve in thinking that the easy access to information would change the percentages and more people would know what’s happening as people availed themselves to information that was virtually costless. I was wrong. The youth today is no better informed than the youth of my day. I find their ignorance appalling. If these are our college students then what about the masses?

The universities are not helping the situation. In fact they are making things worse with lessened requirements, lower standards and providing less rigorous education. Students today may not know history, English, civics or math but they do know climate change, diversity, equity and inclusion and Critical Race theory. They can’t even define what is a woman! The universities now turn out graduates who do not read, lack writing and communication skills, are short sighted, do not believe in the American dream, have been taught to hate capitalism and are not patriotic. We should not be shocked when our leaders turn out to be ignorant ideologues. 

When I retired I felt I was at the height of my powers. Changes in technology made it easier to research and produce academic articles. Technology also made my teaching more interactive and more fun. My consulting business was thriving. I had been an editor of a first rate academic journal and the president of a major finance association. I had won awards for teaching, research and civic involvement. As much as I love what I did, my undergraduate students were driving me to distraction. Teaching Phd students was not enough to keep me at the university so I let the younger professors deal with the mess. The world is run by those between 50 and 65. Fortunately by the time this bunch gets into power, I should be dead.