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AUGUST 23-24,  2023

WHILE WE WERE DEBATING, PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD WERE ACTUALLY DOING OTHER STUFF, AND IT'S SERIOUSLY IMPORTANT.  INDIA, FOR EXAMPLE, LANDED A CAPSULE ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON.  FROM THE NEW YORK POST:

India this week became the fourth nation to land a craft on the moon, and the first to do it on Luna’s rugged South Pole.

Adding to the symbolism: The rising power pulled off its feat less than a week after former superpower Russia failed, as Moscow’s craft crashed while heading to the pole.

The location is a potential gold mine, thought to harbor vast reserves of ice that could yield oxygen and drinking water that now must be hauled out of Earth’s gravity well and enable space-side fuel production.

All of which would boost other space activity.

This success is another sign of a new space age — one with players from across the globe and growing numbers of private-sector ones like SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Orbit.

Cost-competitive engineering is changing the game: India’s Chandrayaan-3 is one of the cheapest lunar missions to date, costing “only” about $75 million.

The mission is to last two more weeks, as a rover leaves the lander to conduct experiments in the uncharted territory.

India’s future plans include a September mission to study the sun and a possible manned lunar mission in 2024. NASA’s also headed back to the moon as part of plans for a manned Mars mission.

Step by step, humanity is expanding its reach and its horizons. Look up: The future is bright.

COMMENT:  It will be bright if we rebuild our educational system and start getting scientifically serious as a nation again.  Remember that Space Cadet Barack Obama told his head of NASA that the main mission of the space agency was Muslim outreach.  No, I don't think so.

Other nations are now going into space, and challenging us technically.  India, a rapidly advancing country, is a prime example.   These rising countries put an emphasis on excellence and pushing their best people forward.  Haven't heard a word about critical race theory.

August 24, 2023       Permalink 

DEBATE REACTION:  So, the first debate is over.  The flag still flies over the White House.  I doubt if any foreign nation will change its policy toward us.

Here are my own reactions:  No one particularly stood out.  There was no sense that "this person must be president." On the other hand, there were no obvious disgraces, although 38-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy sometimes sounded more like a used Buick dealer than a presidential candidate.  Youth and inexperience kept him down. 

Donald Trump was not there.  I've never seen a presidential debate with the frontrunner absent, but now we've had one.  The public got a chance to observe what a post-Trump GOP might sound like, but Trump's absence did make the debate less realistic.  It was the New York Yankees without Babe Ruth.

Eyes were on Ron DeSantis, the secondrunner, but still way behind Trump in the polls.  I thought DeSantis acquitted himself well, but I doubt if he closed the gap with the former president.  He is informed, articulate and smart.  He has been a great governor of Florida.  However, I could see last night why some pundits say that he seems too programmed, stiff and distant.  In some ways he is Ronald Reagan without the charm.  It was the charm, though, the warmth, that made us feel that Ronnie was a personal friend.  The public must feel you, not just know you.  I think, though, that DeSantis has the capacity to improve.

If there was one candidate who had a surprisingly good night it was Nikki Haley, who has campaigned for months without much needle moving in the polls.  I've always liked her, from her fine, sensitive governorship of South Carolina to her triumphant ambassadorship to the UN under President Trump.  She has clearly distanced herself from Trump, which is hurting her with the party base, and, indeed, she was the one candidate last night who had the courage to criticize her own party for going along too often with Biden's policies.   She was also the only female onstage, and she was the adult in the room.  The voice of experience and reason.  I don't know if she'll rise in the polls, but she deserves to.

The structure of the debate, and the partisan cheering and booing in the hall, were not helpful features.  We wanted to get to know the candidates, and audience reactions sometimes drowned out what was being said.  The affair would have been better without an audience.  And the moderators, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum of Fox News, should have controlled events more strongly.  Why have rules if they aren't enforced? 

I mentioned Vivek Ramaswamy earlier.  In every election campaign there's someone who develops what President George H.W. Bush called "the big mo," – momentum – and often that same candidate sees it ultimately melt away.  Going into the debate, Ramaswamy had a bit of the "big mo" because of his personality and energy.  But he was among political pros last night, and the big mo probably went.  The personality was there, but the depth was not.  He is not the man to get that 3 a.m. phone call warning of a nuclear attack.  Give him some years to develop.

One surprise was how good a debater former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was.  He is a talent, but he's also has been carrying on a grudge fight against Donald Trump.  I don't see him making much progress.

There will be another debate in late September.  I look forward to it.  I want to see more because the candidates barely introduced themselves last night.  There were eight contestants, and I hope there are half that number next month.  Eight is too many for a true discussion.

Trump will not participate in September either.  It's his choice.  But he runs the risk of assuming his popularity will last.  Republicans, though, might get used to the idea that they can run a campaign, and debates, and win, without him.   If that idea takes hold, Donald Trump can become history.   

August 24, 2023       Permalink

AUGUST 21-22,  2023

SO WALK THE 30 MILES TO WORK.  WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL?  Gas prices are on the rise again, and we can only imagine the impact this will have on the election.  Gasoline prices are not an abstraction, a statistic in the newspaper.  People actually feel them every day.  From Gateway Pundit:   

California gas prices soared to the highest point of the year on Tuesday, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

The average price per gallon for regular unleaded in California surged to $5.26 on Tuesday.

The national average is $3.85 per gallon, according to AAA.

KTLA reported:

Gasoline prices in California have surged to the highest point of the year and are approaching prices seen last summer, according to the American Automobile Association.

According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded in California was $5.26 on Tuesday, up 10 cents over the past week and 37 cents over the past month. A year ago, drivers were paying $5.34 per gallon.

In Los Angeles County alone, the average price for regular unleaded was $5.36/gallon on Tuesday.

Joe Biden’s first order of business was to kill tens of thousands of jobs.
On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Gas prices were around $2.34 per gallon when Trump left office in January 2021.
Now the national average is $3.85 per gallon.

COMMENT:  Biden claims that inflation has been tamed.  But the fact is that the American people aren't terribly impressed, if the polls are accurate.  They know they are paying 20% more than they were paying two years ago, just to survive.  They are not loving Bidenomics. 

Gas prices alone have the power to bring down the Biden presidency.  Jimmy Carter, another Democratic incumbent, was badly damaged by the energy price spikes of the 1970s.  Ronald Reagan benefited.

And just watch the reaction when Biden announces that the solution is to go out and buy a sixty-thousand-dollar electric car that has to be charged every night. 

August 22, 2023       Permalink

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, IT'S A DOWN-THE-DRAIN TOWN:  One of the biggest stories of our era is the sharp decline of American cities.  Crime is in control.  Pseudo-educators are dumbing down the schools.  Actual people are leaving some cities by the tens of thousands.  And finances are often in shambles.

San Francisco is a prime example.  You've seen the pictures, you've heard accurate stories about hard-left politicians working to wreck the effectiveness of the police.

New York City has a special problem.  It is heavily dependent on Wall Street for its economic survival, and Wall Street is turning into Wail Street.  Things are not good.  Brother, can you spare a billion?  From the New York Post:

A giant, sucking sound is coming out of Wall Street — and it’s siphoning staggering sums of money out of the Big Apple while handing business to Florida and other states.

Nearly 160 Wall Street firms have moved their headquarters out of New York since the end of 2019, taking nearly $1 trillion — yes, that’s trillion with a “T” — in assets under management with them, according to data from 17,000 companies compiled by Bloomberg.

Looking to dodge rampant crime, stiff taxes and an increasingly exorbitant cost of living, 158 fed-up financial firms representing a whopping $993 billion in assets have packed up and left the Big Apple, taking thousands of high-paid employees with them, the data shows.

Icahn Capital Management — headed by billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn — is among the most prominent firms to decamp to the Sunshine State. In August 2020, the firm ditched his posh Manhattan digs atop Fifth Avenue’s General Motors Building in favor of a 14-story office complex in a Miami suburb.

Icahn’s firm, which manages $22.2 billion in assets, now conducts business less than a mile away from his mansion in Indian Creek Village.

Meanwhile, hedge-fund tycoon Paul Singer’s Elliott Management — which commandeers a total of $59.2 billion after shaking up investment targets including AT&T, Twitter and the government of Argentina — moved its headquarters from Midtown Manhattan to West Palm Beach, Fla., in October 2020.

One year later, closely watched tech-stock guru Cathie Wood — famous for her bold, windfall bet on Elon Musk’s car maker Tesla –moved her firm ARK Investment Management — and its $24.7 billion worth of assets — to St. Petersburg, Fla.

In all, 56 of the New York firms have decamped to Florida, while most of those remaining also headed to warmer states such as Texas and the Carolinas, according to the report. New York isn’t the only major loser, with California also having lost $1 trillion in financial assets under management to Florida, Texas and other lower-cost states.

Other major losers to Florida include Chicago, which lost billionaire Ken Griffin’s giant hedge fund Citadel to Miami last year.

The mass migration threatens a crippling economic blow: Last year, Wall Street accounted for 16% of all the economic activity in the city and 7.3% of economic activity statewide. The latter figure is the highest in the nation by far, towering above the national average of just 1.7%, according to an October report by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Likewise, the exodus has grave tax implications for the city and state. Last year, financial firms paid $5.4 billion in New York taxes and accounted for nearly a quarter of all personal income tax collections, according to the report.

COMMENT:   Yes, they say, but New York has been in trouble before, and has bounced back.  But it bounced back at a time when it was truly the Big Apple.  There is a different psychology today.  Even the most parochial New Yorkers must admit that there actually are other great places to live in these United States.  Leaving New York, and thousands have already done so, is no longer considered sinful. 

The City Council is to the left of Lenin.  The state legislature is to the left of the City Council.  Republican headquarters may not actually have a phone.

I'll keep you posted.  And don't give up on New York.  There are great artists in the city, and great sports teams, and actual live theater, where living humans say words on stage, right in front of you.  What is needed are an economy that reaches more people, and a huge improvement in the national morale.   

August 22,  2023     Permalink