Social Security

Fake News Alert: C2A

It’s election season, and the poorly-fabricated false memes are spreading. Be on the lookout, because they are definitely planning to lie to you.

This one’s almost believable unless you think it through: It’s a fake version of the Republican “Commitment To America” that has absolutely nothing in common with their actual platform, or for that matter their policies.

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There Is No “Great Resignation”

Twitter and Reddit are celebrating a national victory of labor over employers, who are forced to increase the wages they offer in order to fill an estimated 10.4 million job openings with 7.4 million available workers. Meanwhile, with such a high number of open positions, employees are moving on from their jobs in droves. There’s a nationwide shortage of truckers, nurses, and fast-food workers, grocery shelves are routinely empty, and retailers hoping to ramp up for the holidays are having to pay massive bonuses to get help.

This has been labeled the “Great Resignation”. It’s not.

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Once More With Rhythm

It’s like a bad divorce, and we’re the kids.

Mommy and daddy are sitting in the courtroom, contentiously splitting up the old Lionel Ritchie records and bickering over every meaningless detail. Two lawyers are each buying a new Porsche out of our college funds before this is done. And our only purpose for being in the room is to act as another token to be battled for.

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Whose Fault Is The Debt Limit?

At 2 p.m. today, the NBER will release the monthly Treasury update of debt relative to credit. (Here’s a spoiler: It won’t be anything we didn’t see a month ago. We’re up to our ears in debt.) Meanwhile, Congress is rushing back into emergency session for a quick fix to stave off default as our spending continues to increasingly exceed our income. At a time when every politician is casting blame about the rapidly ballooning national debt and the continual political struggle surrounding raising the debt limit, it’s worth our while to examine the larger picture: Whose fault, really, is the precarious condition of our national finances?

It’s tempting for partisans to each blame the other party; it’s easily done, too, as government waste has become proverbial and inefficiency is automatically assumed without the bother of proving it. It’s equally simple for a certain class of people to throw up their hands and blame all politicians, as though they themselves would do better if they were in charge. But even a little brief reflection will show that, while these are satisfying accusations, they can’t possibly have much merit.

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Healthcare: Tear It All Down

I’ve never understood why it is that otherwise intelligent people instantly assume that a simple, massive change is the only solution.

(Brace yourselves. This rant has been building for a while.)

It’s a truism that every single complex problem has a simple, easy-to-understand, common-sense wrong answer. What’s wrong with complex solutions for complicated problems?

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More Important Than A Wall, Part 3

It’s been a month now since I first posted my “Dispassionate Look At A Border Wall”, with the intent to provoke reasonable discussion on the issue.  Because this, like most issues, is not a simple one, I’ve also written a short series on things that we need to do either before, alongside, or even instead of such a wall.  These explain why it’s in the national interest of the United States to support the Mexican economy as well as compelling practical reasons to increase legal immigration.

In this article, I intend to demonstrate the absolute necessity of a new, modern, and effective approach to the War On Drugs in order to address the intolerable conditions along our southern border. (more…)

More Important Than A Wall, Part 2

Nearly two weeks ago, I posted an article in support of a border wall with Mexico, one I still hold to.

The following day, I began writing about other things that were at least as important as border defenses, and here we’ll discuss the second of them in more detail.  Remember:  This is not an either-or situation (more…)

More Important Than A Wall, Part 1

Yesterday, I posted an article in support of a border wall with Mexico.  I stand by that article; it was honestly written and well researched.

My conclusions mentioned other things that were at least as important as border defenses, and I’d like to discuss them in more detail.  Remember:  This is not an either-or (more…)

Reality Check

It’s getting so I hate to turn on the news.  I physically cringe.  Bear with me here.

Here’s a quick recap:  There was a shooting yesterday, a man I think can best be described as a domestic terrorist plinking away at a Congressional charity baseball team at practice.  There was a horrific fire at a London apartment highrise where, apparently, the sprinklers malfunctioned and dozens of people were killed.  (It’s been called “corporate manslaughter”.)  Congress approved a multibillion dollar arms sale to Qatar, a nation presently (more…)