The View from Right Field

Fighting Inflation: Biden or the Fed?

In The Wall Street Journal today, William Galston talks about what President Biden needs to do about inflation (“Biden’s Moment to Face the Inflation Music,” Jan. 26):

“If I were president, I would be attacking it head-on, beginning with a major speech explaining what is happening and followed by regular public events highlighting efforts to attack various dimensions of the problem, from reducing the backlog at ports to recruiting and training truckers to making sure grocery shelves are stocked.”

Illinois in 2021 Reminds Us of the Suddenness of Change and the Brittleness of Autocracy

Here’s something I was going to write as an end-of-the-year post, but things got busy, so I’m writing it as a looking-back-at-2021 post:

At the end of last year, the media was full of lists of the biggest stories of 2021.  Most of them were pretty much the same: Covid, inflation, Democrats not being able to pass President Biden’s Build Back Better bill, Vladimir Putin massing troops on Ukraine’s border, etc.

“The Road Less Traveled”: A World War I History of What Might Have Been and Why It Wasn’t

One of the best books I have read recently (actually, one of the best books I have read in a long time) is The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End The Great War, 1916-1917, by Philip Zelikow.¹  The book is a history of diplomatic efforts by leaders of Germany, England, and America to end World War I at the end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917. 

The book is fascinating on at least three levels: First, as a history of an unknown part of World War I.  The prelude to the war, the battles during the war, the peace conferences after the war, have all been studied and studied.  But these peace efforts haven’t been studied – because they were secret and because they failed.

Voting Rights Bills: Democrats Should Be Careful What They Wish For. They Might Get It.

Joe Biden and Democrats are pushing the Senate to kill the filibuster for their voting rights bills, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, and allow the bills to be passed by a majority vote; i.e., 50 Democrats plus Vice President Kamala Harris.

But I wonder if they have thought this through.  If they abolish the filibuster and pass their bills setting up national rules for presidential elections and elections to Congress by a majority vote, what is going to stop Republicans from passing their national election rules in 2025 if Republicans win Congress and the presidency in 2024?

Ukraine. What’s Next?

I was glad to see that the United States and NATO did not give in to Russia on Ukraine in talks last week.  That was good – and important.  But we need to do more than just avoid ill-advised concessions.  We need to help Ukraine defend itself. 

There has been discussion as to what we would do if Russia attacks Ukraine.  I have a better idea: Instead of talking about the things we will and won’t do if Russia invades,¹ let’s start doing things now – so an invasion doesn’t happen.  First, let’s get lots more weapons to Ukraine.  Germany has objected to NATO providing certain weapons to Ukraine because it might provoke Russia.  Huh?  Russia has invaded Ukraine, annexed part of its territory, and now massed 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, and Ukraine might provoke Russia?  If Germany stops NATO from providing weapons, let’s do it ourselves. 

President Biden: Just Because I Disagree With You Doesn’t Mean I Am on Jefferson Davis’s Side.

In a speech in Atlanta on Tuesday, Joe Biden said, in urging the passage of various election law bills in the Senate: “Do you want to be the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?" 

I have news for President Biden.  Just because I don’t agree with him on those bills, doesn’t mean I am on Jefferson Davis’s side.  When I was taking American history classes in high school in the mid-1960s, my heroes were Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.  When I toured Tennessee in 1977, I went to the Shiloh and Chattanooga battlefields.  In Virginia in 1997, I went to the Wilderness and Appomattox.  When I returned to Virginia in 2002, I was appalled that streets and roads were still named after Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.  When other people were telling me how noble Robert E. Lee was, I saw a man who had abandoned his country and committed treason.

The U.S. and Russia Are Meeting, But Are We Prepared?

The first year of Joe Biden’s presidency has been taken up with the pandemic, trying to pass big spending bills through a very closely divided Congress, and an economy nobody expected (jobs going begging and inflation we were told couldn’t happen).  There wasn’t much in it about foreign affairs, except the debacle that was the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

But the Biden administration’s second foreign policy crisis is coming up this week, and it is unclear how prepared the Administration is.¹  Russian President Vladimir Putin has assembled 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s border, a country Russia has already invaded and taken territory from.  President Putin has also issued a series on ridiculous demands (no additional countries can join NATO, NATO can’t base troops in eastern NATO members, and more). 

“Arsenal of Democracy Then. Vaccine Maker of the World Now.” – Again

I posted this eight months ago.  Normally, that would be recent enough that I shouldn’t have to say it again.  But very little about Covid is normal, so let me repeat it.

Back then, I suggested that, with demand for vaccines dropping in the United States, we should take our extra doses and send them to countries that needed them.  Since then, our need for vaccines has increased: boosters and shots for younger and younger kids.  Still, while I don’t know for sure, I would be surprised if we don’t have the capacity to make all the doses we need – and more.  According to the World Health Organization, global vaccine production is close to 1.5 billion doses a month.¹  I don’t know how much of that capacity is in the United States, but it’s probably a fair amount.

Larry Biittner, RIP

April 14, 1978.  Cubs-Pirates.   Cubs home opener.  45,777 paid attendance.  Largest crowd in my lifetime.  I was there.

A see-saw game.  The Cubs scored one in the first and two in the second.  The Pirates tied it with three in the sixth and took a 4 to 3 lead in the top of the eighth.  But the Cubs tied it 4 to 4 in the bottom of the eighth.

“Build Back Better” and Responsible Governance

Following up on a post from October, I wrote this letter to the editor to the Financial Times, which was published today (because of the FT’s paywall, I am setting it out below¹):

"Ensuring spending lasts is key to Build Back Better

In “Trade-offs are needed to rescue ‘Build Back Better’” (FT View, December 22), you say “the legislation is mostly funded (though ‘temporary’ expenditures often find a way of becoming permanent)”.  Which is exactly the problem.

What Christmas Is All About

My annual Christmas Eve post:

Charlie Brown:  "Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"

Linus: "Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.  Lights, please?

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.  And they were sore afraid.  And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you.  Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men.’

"That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

----------
PS: As I have said before, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is also to be treasured because it is one of the too few places today where you can hear the story of our Savior's birth in the words of the King James Version, which have a magnificence of language that is timeless.

Famine in Afghanistan: 100 Years Ago Herbert Hoover Showed Us the Way

Reports out of Afghanistan are that famine is coming, if it is not already there:

“[T]he near complete unraveling of the economy has been sudden and dramatic as the US and its allies enforced sanctions after the Taliban swept through the country and seized control. …

Nato members face re-engaging with Afghanistan or watching civilians starve in a famine that the International Crisis Group warns could kill more people than the two decades of fighting that has raged since a US-led coalition first ousted the militants in 2001. …

Russia, Ukraine, and Why Is Vladimir Putin Doing All This?

Last week, Russia published another set of demands regarding United States and NATO activities in eastern Europe.  The new “red lines” go beyond those that Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously set.  Among the demands are: (i) neither Ukraine or any more former Soviet states may join NATO; (ii) United States and NATO forces may not be based in any former Soviet country (such as Poland or the Baltic states) and military activity in those countries must cease and (iii) the U.S. and Russia must not base any nuclear weapons outside their own territory.¹

We don’t know how strict these red lines are.  Barack Obama weakened the meaning of “red line,” at least for the U.S., when he failed to follow through on his own red line on Syrian use of chemical weapons against its own people.  We don’t know how firm President Putin will be with his red lines.

The High Cost of Johnson. The High Cost of Biden.

In 1966, Richard Nixon crisscrossed the country, campaigning for Republicans and attacking Lyndon Johnson on “the high cost of Johnson.”¹  While we might not see 1966’s 3.0% inflation as no big deal, in 1966, after seven years of inflation between 1.1% and 1.6%, it was a big deal – and an important campaign issue.  The Republicans picked up 47 seats in the House in 1966.

Compare 1966 with today.  The most recent inflation number today is 6.8%.  Democrats are trying to push big spending bills through Congress, bills that could keep inflation high or maybe even push it higher.  “The high cost of Biden” has the potential to be a big campaign issue for Republicans next year.  It ought to give Democrats pause and Republicans hope for 2022, and maybe even 2024. 

Pre-Christmas Break

I'm taking a short break.  See you the middle of the month.

Right to Choose; Right to Life. Again.

The big deal in Washington on Wednesday, in addition to Covid, was the Supreme Court argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case involving the Mississippi law generally prohibiting abortion after fifteen weeks.  Among others things, the question in the case is whether Roe v. Wade (1973), along with Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), should be overturned.

I had several thoughts.  I’m going to just list them, maybe not in the right order, but as I think of them.

1. First, I think Roe v. Wade is a poor decision from a legal reasoning point of view. The Court created the three-trimester test out of thin air. It didn’t really justify it; it just stated it.  Without commenting on whether abortion ought to be legal, Roe v. Wade is just poorly done.

Economic Illiteracy At the Top (Still)

It looks like the Biden administration has found a way to cut oil prices: Come up with a new Covid-19 variant.  More seriously, President Biden said, in addition to just about begging OPEC+ for more production (it’s not a good look for a U.S. president to be publicly asking Saudi Arabia and Russia for, in effect, political help¹), and this gets to the point of this post, that the problem of high oil prices was “because oil supply has not kept up with demand as the global economy emerges from the pandemic.”² 

Except that is wrong.  It’s not that supply is lower than demand.  Supply and demand will always meet³; it’s just that some people may not like where they meet.  Supply might not be high enough for supply and demand to meet at a price people want to pay, but that doesn’t mean they won’t meet.

An Alternate Covid History

Here’s a thought experiment or maybe, more accurately, a possible alternate history of Covid in the United States:

• Donald Trump wins re-election in November of 2020.  (It was possible.  As I noted here, Joe Biden’s margin of victory was only 66,000 votes.¹)

Helping the Rich, Democratic-Style

House Democrats finally passed, 220 to 213, President Biden’s $1.8 trillion¹ “Build Back Better” plan.  You have to be a political geek to know what’s in it, though it doesn’t really matter yet because the Senate hasn’t passed it.  They’re going to make changes in it, and then it will have to go back to the House for another vote.  So, trying to figure out what is in it at this point doesn’t make all that much sense.  The only things we know for sure are that (i) the price tag is totally made up, (ii) the revenue it raises is calculated on bases that won’t actually happen, and (iii) there won’t be any unexpected consequences because if you don’t know what is in the bill, you can’t know what is expected, and if you don’t know what is expected, there can’t be anything unexpected.

Still, one thing we do know about what the Democrats are doing is who is going to benefit.  And that is the upper middle class.  The Biden/Pelosi bill increases the limit on the amount of state and local taxes you can deduct from $10,000 per year to $80,000.  With a standard deduction of about $25,000, this won’t help average people – or even somewhat above average people.  It’s just a tax break for the upper middle class, especially those in states that have high local taxes (i.e., states with Democratic governors and legislatures).

China Does Care (A Little) About World Opinion

In a November 2 post on social media, Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai accused former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli of sexually assaulting her on at least one occasion.  The post was promptly taken down, all mention of Ms. Shuai was taken off Chinese social media, and she went incommunicado.  Pro tennis players around the world started wondering where she was and how she was doing.  And unlike the NBA, which folded like a cheap tent when a Houston Rockets general manager supported Hong Kong in a tweet, they didn’t back down.

China normally doesn’t respond to these kinds of complaints.  Ask the Uighurs.  For that matter, ask the Dali Lama.  But with the Winter Olympics coming up in February and tennis stars continuing to ask where Ms. Shuai was (before China tried to ban tennis players, the Women’s Tennis Association said it would pull out of China), China gave in – at least partially.