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DECEMBER 17-18,  2022

REMARKABLE SOCIAL CHANGE:  Quitting time.  From Fox: 

Hiring freezes and layoffs are on the rise as the uncertain economy drives major players in the tech, automobile, media and food industries to make unprecedented cutbacks in their operations. But now, new data shows nearly half of all workers are looking to quit anyway.

Even with growing concerns of a potential recession, 46% of professionals are already looking to plan to find a new job in the first half of the new year, according to a recent survey from business consulting firm Robert Half. That's up from 41% six months ago, according to the company's biannual Job Optimism Survey.

Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Lyft and Twitter were among technology companies announcing hiring freezes or layoffs in recent months. In fact, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees in a memo made public that layoffs will continue in 2023. 

The media industry was also recently hit hard as hundreds of industry staffers were laid off in recent weeks including those who worked for BuzzFeed, CNN and Gannett, the company that owns dozens of local media outlets and USA Today. Digital media company BuzzFeed, one of the latest media companies to reduce its workforce, said it's trying to "weather the economic downturn" which it projects will extend into 2023. 

DoorDash and PepsiCo have also eliminated jobs in addition to multinational automaker Stellantis, which announced it was indefinitely closing an assembly plant in Illinois. 
Still, 60% of 18-25-year-olds in the workforce who were surveyed said they are likely to jump ship. 

A number of human resources professionals and employees who have been with their company between two and four years are in a similar boat with 58% and 55% of workers, respectively, looking to move on. 

Just over half of working parents are also likely to make a change in the first half of the new year, the survey showed. 

"Noise around hiring freezes and layoffs at some companies hasn't seemed to faze workers – many are just as confident in their job prospects as they were six months ago," Paul McDonald, a senior executive director at Robert Half, said in a statement. 

Given the tight labor market, workers "are curious about exploring new and more fulfilling career paths," McDonald added. 

More than 60% of people say they are seeking a higher salary while 37% said better benefits and perks are the driving factors. Additionally, 36% say they want greater flexibility to choose when and where they work. 

The data also showed that four in 10 employees said they would consider returning to their previous employers if their salary was matched or greater than their current pay. 

About three in 10 employees are even considering full-time contracting, the survey showed. 

A separate report from Intuit QuickBooks also revealed how the current tumultuous economic environment – with high inflation and high interest rates – is motivating Americans to pursue their own business venture.

In fact, business formation hovered "at a historically high level in 2022," according to the Intuit QuickBooks report.

COMMENT:  Our changing economic values.  Lots of employed but discontented people. 

December 18, 2022     Permalink

JUST WHAT WE NEED, A REPUBLICAN MESS:  We count the days until the new, Republican House, is sworn in.  But...who will be speaker?  Is it possible we don't have one?  A small group of conservative GOP representatives is blocking confirmation of Kevin McCarthy.  I hate to see this happen in front of the children.  From the New York Post: 

Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become Speaker of the House of Representatives is increasingly imperiled by a small but growing clutch of hard-line Republicans.

GOP Insiders and operatives say the California lawmaker’s longtime deputy, incoming House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), could serve as an emergency compromise candidate if the caucus’s paper-thin majority fails to rally around McCarthy during their Jan 3. leadership vote.

“Our relationship is on the ascent,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a member of the ultraconservative House GOP Freedom Caucus, told The Post of Scalise.

Gaetz is an ardent McCarthy foe and insiders say he and other “hard nos” on McCarthy would happily back Scalise in the event of a floor fight.

“No one ran against [Scalise] for Majority Leader. He was elected unanimously for that position,” Gaetz noted, speaking to Scalise’s broad acceptance within the party.

The Louisiana congressman is considerably more conservative than McCarthy, and once allegedly described himself as “David Duke without the baggage.” He was shot by a crazed Bernie Sanders volunteer at a GOP baseball practice in 2017.

“Scalise is a party hero. He got shot. He’s a southerner. He’s more conservative than Kevin,” said one Freedom Caucus insider.

According to insiders, Rep. Steve Scalise could become the compromise Speaker candidate if McCarthy fails to gain enough support.

Scalise is viewed as a “party hero” and a more conservative option to McCarthy, according to a House GOP Freedom Caucus source.

The eight-term Congressman isn’t running for Speaker and is officially backing McCarthy, but in statements this week, Scalise has refused to rule out the role of savior.

“I’m not going to get into speculation. Obviously our focus is on getting it resolved by January 3rd. And there’s a lot of conversations that everybody has been having,” he told CNN last week.

McCarthy can only afford four defections from his own party. As is custom, all of the chamber’s Democrats are expected to oppose him. McCarthy received a boost this week after he received the blessing of former President Trump, who said the longtime GOP leader “deserves the shot.”

At least five members have already spoken publicly to declare themselves either hard no, or likely no. At least a dozen other members are said to be on the fence and several responded to inquiries to The Post saying they were undecided.

“I can’t be for continuing with the status quo,” said Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa,) chairman of the House Freedom Caucus. “One way or the other things are going to change. Either we change the way we do business here, or we’re going to change management. Both could happen.”

Perry said he has spoken with multiple people privately interested in the job should McCarthy fall short. He declined to name names.

COMMENT:  With only a small majority in the House, the Republicans have got to get this thing settled and move forward in unity.  They have it within their power to block Biden's leftist program, which is the key objective.   The Republican House is our front-line regiment in preparing for the 2024 presidential election.  If they let us down, we might as well form a new party.

Hmm.

December 17, 2022       Permalink

DECEMBER 15-16,  2022

GREAT MOMENTS IN EDUCATION:  We'll certainly benefit from this one.  Bring your kids.  From College Fix: 

A group of scholars at Concordia University in Montreal have dedicated themselves to “Decolonizing Light.”

The effort is not about banning flashlights, but rather advancing other ways of knowing about light, science and physics.

The group’s tagline is “Tracing and countering colonialism in contemporary physics.”

The effort, funded by the Canadian government, seeks both to explore “ways and approaches to decolonize science, such as revitalizing and restoring Indigenous knowledges” and to develop “a culture of critical reflection and investigation of the relation of science and colonialism,” according to the project’s website.

Led by Tanja Tajmel, a special equity, diversity and inclusion advisor to Concordia’s dean, core members of the group also include physicist Ingo Salzmann and Associate Professor of First Peoples Studies Louellyn White.

You really can't make this up.

As detailed in a 2021 paper the three co-authored with Donna Kahérakwas Goodleaf, Concordia’s director of decolonizing curriculum and pedagogy, the project intentionally targeted physics for decolonization due to the field’s “unique scientific authority.”
“Physics is commonly regarded as the ‘most objective’ and the ‘hardest’ science,” the scholars wrote, “it fundamentally defines scientific key concepts such as energy, matter, force, light, space and time, for all the other sciences.”

“It is the narrative of physics as objective and as socially independent that constitutes and stabilizes its knowledge authority in relation to all other knowledge systems.”

“For our purpose,” they stated, “it is important to understand physics as a social field [italics in the original] rather than as ‘pure knowledge’ independent from social values and decisions.”

The reason they chose to focus on light, the scholars noted, was because of its ubiquity across societies and languages, its importance in fields such as astronomy and spectroscopy, and its value at prestigious, well-funded research facilities like the Canadian Light Source in Saskatchewan.

As part of their effort to decolonize light, the three wrote, they plan to develop courses with indigenous scholars and “Knowledge Keepers” in which indigenous knowledge is elevated and Eurocentric western science is de-centered and scrutinized for its alleged past and present contributions to colonialism.

COMMENT:  I find it exciting, don't you?  Finally, we're taking back science for the people.  You have no idea how long I've waited for this moment.  What a guilt-free life we'll live from now on.

December 16, 2022       Permalink

WE'RE HEARING A LOT OF RECESSION TALK:  The predictions for 2023 are not rosy.  From Breitbart: 

Former National Economic Council director Larry Summers said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Andre a Mitchell Reports” that the U.S. economy will have a recession.

Summer said, “I think the market is expecting, and I think that the market is probably right that inflation will come down from its current levels. There is still a question of whether it will stay down and how much we have to do to make sure that it stays down, I think it’s still a question. And whether it can be brought down to stay down without a recession is a very large question.”

He continued, “My guess is that the Fed will, in the end, half to suffer through a recession if we are going to bring inflation down. Perhaps that was inevitable. Probably that was inevitable given all these stimulus that was provided to the economy in 2021, given that the Fed was late, and very importantly, given all of these supply shocks that the economy suffered. But whereas I had thought that the Fed was very much in the wrong place a year ago, way behind the curve in terms of responding to inflation. I think in very difficult circumstances, they are in the range of having done the right things and pointing towards doing the right things. I think the chairman was right in the film clip. He showed that no one can know what is going to happen going forward.”

Summers added, “My guess is that we will have a recession. That it will not be especially mild as a recession, but there is no reason to think that it will be anything like what happened after COVID, or what happened after the financial crisis, or what happened when Paul Volcker had to slay inflation after much longer period of high inflation at the end of the 1970s. Perhaps the unemployment rate will get in the range of 6%.”

COMMENT:  Many of the quotes that we're seeing are along those lines.  And, of course, warnings of recession are taken seriously by large segments of the public.  That is, in itself, a danger.  There's an old saying that a country can talk its way into a recession, and it may well happen.  People are pulling back, not spending.  Retail sales are down.  And, by the way, the presidential election is only two years out. 

Don't you sometimes wish for some dull days?-16

December 15, 2022        Permalink

DECEMBER 13-14,  2022

OCCASIONALLY THERE IS GOOD NEWS:  It isn't often that we can report something good happening at the vastly corrupt UN.  Today is different.  Iran took a beating, well deserved, and we cheer.  From ABC News:

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Economic and Social Council voted Wednesday to immediately oust Iran from the U.N.’s premiere global body fighting for gender equality because of its systematic violation of the rights of women and girls, a decision the United States hailed as “historic” and Iran claimed was based on “fabricated allegations.”

The U.S.-sponsored resolution was sparked by Iran’s ongoing brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters who took to the streets in September after the death of a 22-year-old woman taken into custody by the morality police. At least 488 people have been killed since the demonstrations began, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that’s been monitoring the protests, while another 18,200 people have been detained by authorities.

The vote in the 54-member council known as ECOSOC to remove Iran from the Commission on the Status of Women for the remainder of its 2022-2026 term was 29-8 with 16 abstentions.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the vote “historic,” the first-ever ouster of a commission member and “the right thing to do.”

“I think we sent a strong message to the Iranian government and we sent a strong message to Iranian women,” she told reporters after the vote.

Before the vote, Thomas-Greenfield cited the death of Mahsa Amini who was accused of wearing her headscarf improperly by the morality police; the solitary confinement of two women reporters who told her story; and the young women and girls who have been killed or disappeared for speaking out along with thousands of protesters reportedly detained and tortured.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the vote shows a growing consensus among the United States and its allies and partners around the world that Iran must be held accountable for “atrocities” such as the recent “horrifying executions” of protesters in Tehran.

Established in 1946, the Commission on the Status of Women plays a leading role in promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives around the world and shaping global standards to empower women and achieve gender equality.

Its 45 members, from all regions of the world, are elected for four-year terms by the Economic and Social Council. Iran was elected from the Asian region with 43 votes.

Before Wednesday’s vote, Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani accused the United States of using its “longstanding hostility toward the Iranian people” under “the guise of human rights” to remove Iran from the commission. He then cited efforts by the U.S. and its allies to topple “multiple legitimate governments,” implying that it is also trying to topple Iran’s.

Iravani said the U.S. resolution would impede the advancement of Iranian women who he said are “strong, dynamic, self-sufficient and intelligent” participants in the country’s economic, social and political life.

COMMENT:  I'm very surprised that the United States sponsored this courageous resolution.  Up to now we have disgraced ourselves by constant appeasement of the Iranian government.  Maybe there's a new recognition that this policy, initiated by appeaser-in-chief Barack Hussein Obama Jr,  has failed miserably. I'm not convinced that the Biden team is entirely on board with this view.  We'll wait and see.

The women of Iran have led the revolution of recent months.  They are heroines.  By contrast, so-called "women's" organizations in the United States have been silent about the courage shown by their Iranian sisters.  Are they really women's organizations today, or merely front operators for the political left.  That is a news story.  I wish someone would tell it.

December 14, 2022       Permalink

DONALD'S FATE:  We always caution that polls are snapshots in time.  However, when a number of polls and surveys start coming together, it may well signal an important change or trend.

For former President Trump, the trends have not been good.  It does appear that his own party is turning against him, and his most enthusiastic supporters are exhibiting an unusual silence.  From USA Today:

Republican support for Donald Trump's presidential bid in 2024 has cratered, an exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds, as the former president is beleaguered by midterm losses and courtroom setbacks.

By 2-1, GOP and GOP-leaning voters now say they want Trump's policies but a different standard-bearer to carry them. While 31% want the former president to run, 61% prefer some other Republican nominee who would continue the policies Trump has pursued.

They have a name in mind: Two-thirds of Republicans and those inclined to vote Republican want Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to run for president. By double digits, 56% to 33%, they prefer DeSantis over Trump. 

"Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.

The findings are a red flag for Trump, whose core support has held remarkably solid through firestorms over his personal behavior, his provocative rhetoric, and his most controversial actions in the White House. But he has become increasingly embattled over his role in fueling the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, his alleged mishandling of sensitive documents when he left the White House, and investigations into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

COMMENT:  The phrase "Trumpism without Trump" is the key here.  Republicans generally like Trump's policies, and surveys show that a majority of Americans like them too.  Statistically, the country was much stronger under Trump.

But Trump is also widely seen as obnoxious, egotistical, mean-spirited and crude.  Other than that, he's a nice guy.  But he seems to have passed the tolerance point with the American people.  They see him as an obstacle to GOP victory in 2024, not an asset.  They want Trumpism without Trump, and they like what they see in Ron DeSantis. 

Can Trump bounce back?  I doubt it.  Remember, he's a known quantity.  He's already been president.  What will he do, announce a "new Trump," just as we had the "new Nixon" in the 1960s?  Will he kiss babies, shed an occasional tear, talk about his mother?  Will he ask Mitch McConnell for a date?

DeSantis is a brilliant politician.  He knows his moves, and Trump may well have met his match.

But, of course, we don't predict here.-4

December 13, 2022       Permalink