Miscellaneous Thoughts Posted to Linked In Between October and December 2018
By William J. Dodwell
If Trump were serious, he would consider selling some agency assets worth hundreds of billions of dollars, such as a massive portfolio of loans to farmers. This is property of the executive branch. Moreover, he has talked about taking funds for the wall from the military budget and foreign aid, as well as confiscating foreign remittances and imposing a special tariff, but no action. Congress might challenge the constitutionality of these options but they are worth pursuing.
This outcome is most disappointing. It hurts Trump’s credibility. Whether this signature issue now adversely affects his reelection prospects remains to be seen. 12/31/18
“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” at https://youtu.be/rhwyOM_3x5U
“Jingle Bell Rock” at https://youtu.be/EGX-vVWK0_w 12/19/18
2018 Woman of the Year
He exposes the truth that has destroyed men’s careers, reputations,
families and finances in the wake of false and frivolous accusations of sexual
misconduct brought forth by grifters, vengeful colleagues, man-hating lesbians,
spurned spinsters and corporate vestal virgins.
Mr. Dodwell blows the whistle on dubious allegations treated as fact by
a media standard which holds that a woman accuser is always right and due
process be damned. #MeToo fraud was
borne out in the Bret Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and the faltering Harvey
Weinstein prosecution. Of late, the
movement is taken aback by those embarrassments, as well as growing public
support for the accused, and some media acknowledgement of the widespread injustices
this horrible feminist crusade has wrought.
My first selection entitled, “Cute”, is a 1950s Neil Hefti composition and jazz standard I recorded in 1991. Hear it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjSrMs9o2OQ
“You’ll Never Walk Alone” is a timeless inspirational song by Richard Rodgers featured in the 1945 Broadway production, “Carousel”. I recorded it just last week. Hear it at https://youtu.be/ZoODU_aUFys
Finally, I present “A Sunday Kind Of Love”, a 1940s standard I recorded in 2017. Louie Prima wrote it in collaboration with three other composers. Hear it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze_upLUXkxg
For a large sampling of my piano recordings see my You Tube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgNxZBhgoNNZ6nmb7SAKxA 12/12/18
Casualties of the race card
Many absurdly claim that criticism of Obama is racist. In particular is the verboten questioning of his birthplace despite abundant indications of his foreign origin that would have rendered him constitutionally ineligible to be president. But the media and legal authorities never allowed that evidence to see the light of day as everyone on the left and right still shuns the topic because of supposedly racist implications. Anyone who dares to raise the issue is ipso facto racist, the Constitution be damned. In addition, citing any differentiation between races on the basis of physiology, genetics or statistically proven social facts is impolitic. For example, those who contemplate the subject of highly disproportionate black crime and a predisposition for violence are summarily dismissed or vilified. And, of course, they are called racist with all the injustices that might ensue.
Celebrities are especially vulnerable because the racist moniker applied to them sends a message to large populations, even if it has no basis in fact. As such, the left makes examples of them in illustrating the wrath it visits upon those who dissent from its fascist orthodoxy. The media silenced well-known oddsmaker Jimmy the Greek in the 1970s for pointing out certain innate physical advantages of black athletes. Meghan Kelly lost her job for speaking benignly about wearing black face on Halloween as a child. ABC fired Rosanne Barr for a comical quip about Valerie Jarret’s appearance, inferred by the media as a slur on her black heritage. (How many even knew Jarret was black?) Kitchen maven Paula Deen lost her longtime television program because of a racial slur she uttered thirty years prior. Papa John’s co-founder, John Schnatter, had to resign because he used the N word in a conference call about how to deal with the fallout from his public lament about the adverse effect the NFL national anthem protests had on his business. In fact, in mentioning the word Schnatter simply referenced chicken king, Colonel Sanders’ past use of the term with impunity, suggesting the alleged racial implications of his anthem protest complaint were unfounded. Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate, Ron DeSantis took heat for referring to his black opponent’s “monkeying around” with existing good policy. LA Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, was crucified by the media and forced to sell his team. All he did was make a negative comment about blacks to his half-black girl friend in a private phone conversation she exposed in an extortion attempt. The hit list is endless.
The left’s dependence on blacks
Twenty years ago I overheard a long telephone conversation between a college professor and an associate about having to recruit a black instructor. The white speaker kept repeating that a particular candidate was “articulate”. Several times in the course of the conversation he said, “… but he’s articulate”. Desperate to add a black to the faculty, apparently under pressure from the administration, he figured that speaking well was enough to make the candidate seem credible in the position and thus allow the college to further demonstrate its diversity. His background and expertise did not seem to matter as it was not discussed. Surely, if the candidate is articulate everyone will assume he is a qualified academic. Blacks play a major role in the diversity game by which the left tries to divide and conquer. In fact, their grievance is stock in trade for the left.
The left is desperate to maintain the monolithic black Democratic voting block. It is said that if it falls under 85% from the historical 90+%, the party cannot win at the ballot box. Liberals also depend on black pathologies to justify trillions of dollars of government assistance. That largess empowers liberal politicians through the black votes it garners. It also enriches the institutions that get lucrative contracts to deploy the goodies in exchange for political donations. Blacks are a major meal ticket for the left. The last thing it wants is a cure for poverty and other black ills. Indeed, the left uses black voters as pawns, dupes, or as Marx would say, useful idiots. As such, liberals are extremely protective of blacks, vilifying all who refuse to pander to them and their allies. The race card is a major weapon for doing this.
But the black electoral monolith that Democrats have taken for granted for so long may be weakening. Witness the relatively substantial black support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Also consider influential Kanye West’s public support for him in a call for blacks to rethink their political loyalty. On the other hand, this serious threat to the Democrats might cause them to double down in their charges of racism in an effort to curry favor with questioning blacks and thus minimize defections. All the more reason to marshal a resistance to the race card.
Fighting back
The public must fight back against the race card the left uses as a tool to silence political opposition. Rational debate is not enough as the left is wedded to selfishly protecting blacks against criticism no matter what, and it will lie, distort and defame as necessary. Truth means nothing to the left and political expediency is everything in which intimidation is an important propaganda tactic. The solution therefore is to challenge, not shirk from, accusations of racism, not to just disprove it, but to mock the charge as meaningless. (The same resistance model can neutralize the left across the spectrum of intersectional political identities in the battle against institutionalized victimhood.)
Show that the accusation doesn’t faze you and that you will not give in to the intimidation. Respond insouciantly in a firm tone with, “Yeah, whatever you say.” Ask the accuser if he knows what a racist is, or to define one. He will look foolish at his loss for words. Then turn it around by calling him a racist because of some analogous behavior of his. Or, just jokingly call him a racist repeatedly, every time you see him, especially in the presence of others. Say loudly, “Hey racist, what’s up?” That accuser will soon become very defensive and retreat. But even after he relents, keep taunting him by saying, “Aren’t I a racist anymore? I’m insulted. But I bet you’re still a racist.” Use your imagination. The scenarios are limitless.
Those who invoke the race card too much lose credibility. Indeed, they are viewed as having no argument, and even as stupid. That reality must suffuse the public consciousness. Bill O’Reilly when he was with Fox News said his tactic for dealing with the accusation is to look sternly into the accuser’s eye, say nothing, walk away, and never speak to that person again. Good start, but people have to be more proactive to win the war.
Of course, reacting to the R word on a one-on-one basis is one thing. A bigger problem is when an employer or a social affiliation gets wind of the charge. Their dread of guilt by association can result in immediate expulsion for the accused. Not because they think there is anything wrong, but because they have to pretend to think so in order to avoid serious backlash from the left. And if the media get involved, forget about it. A public drubbing is anathema to anyone.
The solution is to effect a popular revolt to get institutions to overcome their fear of media backlash and join the grass roots, bottom up resistance described above. This attitudinal revolution can start with individuals adopting the aforementioned turnaround tactics en masse in their daily lives as to declare a resounding collective No! to political correctness. And blacks can help the cause enormously to the extent they renounce the race card and their historical fealty to the Democrat Party as they embrace political alternatives.
In time, institutions will see that the emperor (the left) has no clothes as critical mass sets in and fear abates among the people. Cowardly corporations will no longer fire employees frivolously accused of racism, and advertisers won’t pull their business when they see that gratuitous charges of racism are not taken seriously anymore by the public. The people have the upper hand if they would use it. If they do, the charge of racism will go the way of “Your mother wears combat boots.” And America will say, Go ahead. Call me a racist. 12/10/18
To be sure, significant demographic changes have contributed to the leftward electoral drift. Witness the growing Latino influences in Arizona, Texas and Florida, all rich in electoral college representation. One wonders how much of this derives from illegal aliens in the voting booths. But liberals from the northeast also are moving in droves to those states, perhaps by some political design. It would seem that ethnic and ideological changes could create certain structural transformation that might interfere with the historical swing of the political pendulum.
Another problem concerns the longstanding collaboration of the media and the educational establishment to suppress serious thinking. This campaign aims to defuse challenges to liberal orthodoxy, in particular the call for the ever-growing size and power of government at the expense of individual freedom and thought. The mass media shroud truth while promoting identity politics to balkanize the country and thus blunt its potential resistance. The schools and colleges have cravenly promoted the liberal agenda, infecting young minds with propaganda and diluting academic standards to quash critical thinking. In particular, the academy has largely ended the study of civics and American history to suppress that which made America great and to extinguish the notion of sovereignty and patriotism. The result is a largely ignorant America that elects far too many radical Democrats.
The left diverts public attention from serious issues by celebrating sports and entertainment to render the populace uninformed and thus predisposed to liberal propaganda. As a consequence, we have a citizenry that wallows in frivolity, shuns reading, and mocks scholarship. Indeed, the culture rejects serious introspection and embraces the interests of the least common denominator in society, all with a new technological impetus. This is not a prescription for preserving American exceptionalism. But that destruction is exactly what the left wants – a borderless, globalist amalgam of insoluble cultures beholden to a few government elites presiding over the spoils that could be a massive underclass.
The country’s obsession with sports is symptomatic of a cultural malaise that undermines a seriousness essential to combating the nefarious incursions of the left. Wherever parents are heard talking about their kids’ school activities it seems conversation always centers on the teams they belong to, including those of the girls, and never their academics anymore. We must revert to the values of yore and forge radical cultural change. Imagine a country engaged in a cultural sea change in which empty sports stadiums and arenas dot the landscape, and sports bars convert to brain bars that feature televisions locked into Fox News, C-Span and InfoWars while Sinatra music streams over the sound system. On a massive scale, that is a recipe for a thoughtful cultivated electorate that will save the nation against the onslaught of the radical left. Election Day would be much different. (I can dream can’t I?)
Make America think again! 11/26/18
The nouveau puritanism imposed by #MeToo denies the natural sexual dynamics of the workplace. Indeed, what was normal male pursuit is now considered sexual harassment. As such, the new mores leave little room for starting relationships. The fact since time immemorial is that women want and expect to be wooed, especially if still disposed while the biological clock winds down. Oftentimes the workplace is the only venue available to them, and men, as time constraints and circumstance preclude alternatives. But for the #MeToo crowd emasculating men to empower women is more important.
Historically, women rely on the workplace to meet men in the hope of marriage, children, and yes, sexual recreation. Middle age women can’t go to clubs anymore. And they may not be interested in adoption, surrogacy, childlessness or maidenhood. Men instinctively initiate the interactive process that accommodates women’s desires. Perhaps, it’s a prolonged gaze, an innocuous touch, mutually furtive knee contact under a conference table, or a slightly salacious double entendre with a smile. This is not sexual harassment. It’s flirting. It’s sexual reality in the workplace. Indeed, it’s life. So, get out of the way #MeToo!
When a few men and women work in close proximity for an extended time, such as a temporary office at an offsite function, sparks will fly. Many men would eventually make a pass at a woman in that circumstance. And many women would be disappointed if they didn’t. But #MeToo makes that quite dangerous today.
I know of one man’s experience that is instructive as a microcosm of sexual reality in the workplace. On three separate occasions in different years, he cautiously indicated sexual interest in a woman colleague. In each case, she appeared with a plunging neckline the next day exposing abundant cleavage. The message was clear: You started it, so you complete it. Today, such a scenario might prompt a woman to cash in through a frivolous sexual harassment lawsuit.
#MeToo deprives women of important emotional experience because of its taboo against sexual expression in the workplace, as it deters many men from behaving normally as women would expect. The movement is supposed to benefit women. But in reality it probably makes many of them quite unhappy.
See my manifesto, “War On MeToo: The Real Story About Sexual Harassment” at https://sites.google.com/site/thecomprehensiveconservative/culture/current-commentary 11/6/18
Here are some hypothetical substitutions that would improve the already good ratings. Retain Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Brit Hume, Mark Levin and Brian Kilmeade, and add Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Mark Steyn, Bill O’Reilly, and Alex Jones. Want gender balance? Keep Jean Pirro, the hottest chick in cable news, and give Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin their own shows. As to the other Foxettes, send them to Naked News. I’ll gladly watch them over there. (Take that #MeToo!) 10/31/18
To stimulate the economy after the financial crisis the Fed kept short-term rates near zero for ten years. It also tried to suppress long-term rates artificially to stimulate consumption and investment. This was achieved through two years of quantitative easing by which it purchased over $3 trillion dollars of Treasury and mortgage bonds, the proceeds of which flooded the financial system with liquidity. As a result of the low rates, investors sought higher returns in risky financial assets such as stocks, exotic bonds and private-equity.
Barring an impending recession, it is long past the time to normalize artificially low rates to redirect capital away from the inflated financial economy and back to traditional bank loans, savings accounts, C/Ds and corporate bonds that finance the real economy of goods and services, as well as to compensate ordinary savers again. That has started to happen in response to the Fed’s rate hikes. For example, safe bank C/Ds now fetch about 3%, enough to compete with volatile stocks, which recently have declined substantially. But eventually, the Fed also has to unwind its $4 trillion-dollar balance sheet bloated by its aforementioned bond purchases. This will almost inevitably raise long-term rates as capital is withdrawn from the financial system to buy the bonds the Fed is selling. The Fed’s need to liquidate such a massive bond portfolio distinguishes today’s monetary circumstance from any in the past.
Why normalize interest rates while the economy is doing fine with 2% inflation, 3.6% unemployment, around 4% GDP growth, a 2.25% Fed benchmark rate, and a still relatively low 10-year Treasury bond yielding a little over 3 %? Because the Fed thinks the economy is flirting with overheating having reached its long-awaited 2% target inflation rate, the central bank wants to nip potential inflation in the bud. To that end, the Fed seeks an equilibrium rate that is neither stimulative nor restrictive. But some argue there is still enough slack in a possibly structurally changed economy not to warrant more rate hikes yet as unemployment has uncharacteristically declined in the face of rising interest rates. Indeed, for the first time on record, available jobs substantially exceed job seekers this year.
However, recent growth is primarily a result of Trump’s tax cut and deregulation that have generated new private capital in the place of banks, as well as the capital markets that have been distorted by a yield-chasing escape from low interest rates. Eventually, the economy will need that diverted capital to support production and consumption for continued growth as the effects of lower taxes and deregulation abate. That means raising rates to make traditional saving and investment in traditional bank C/Ds, money market accounts, bank loans and investment-grade corporate bonds attractive enough again to fund the production and consumption of goods and services. Otherwise, that capital will continue to be locked up in the financial economy in the form of stocks and bonds. Current economic conditions probably call for short-term rates in the 4% range and a 10-year Treasury at about 5.5%. Mr. President, brace yourself. 10/30/18
Here is an excerpt from my manifesto, “War On #MeToo: The Real Story About Sexual Harassment” available at https://sites.google.com/site/thecomprehensiveconservative/culture/current-commentary
“What role does the proverbial man-hating lesbian play in the filing of frivolous and false sexual harassment claims? Is #MeToo a subrosa manifestation of the LGBT community? Does #MeToo plan to emulate the activism and thuggery the gay mafia displays in its promotion of same-sex marriage and other demands? Perhaps when #MeToo’s real identity and motives become apparent, women will realize that the movement might not speak for the majority of them any more than NOW has all these years. No offense to lesbians.” 10/24/18
It’s funny what comes to light when sexual harassment cases go to trial where plaintiff lies are exposed and the rule of law is applied. That’s why only 25% of sexual misconduct cases go to court and only 5% of those result in conviction. The #MeToo modus operandi capitalizes on the reluctance of both the accuser and defendant to bear the cost and humiliation of trial by forcing lucrative settlements that sustain false and frivolous charges. They also encourage more phony accusations that collectively create the inaccurate impression of massive injustice against women. 10/22/18
- “Rally grass roots support for a non-violent insurgency using “War on MeToo” T-shirts, hats, buttons and bumper stickers. Feature man/woman couples arm-in-arm wearing the gear.”
- “Fire suspected troublemakers before they sue for sexual harassment. An employer is legally free to terminate an employee for any reason other than discrimination, barring specific contract proscriptions. Therefore, the employer must ensure that the termination does not appear to be retaliation for an anticipated sexual harassment claim. State of the art surveillance technology is available that could surreptitiously monitor employees to detect brewing sexual harassment lawsuits. For example, employers increasingly use sensors to track working performance, communications, and customer service.” 10/10/18
For background information about the movement and inspiration for defeating it, see my manifesto, “War On #MeToo: The Real Story About Sexual Harassment” at https://sites.google.com/site/thecomprehensiveconservative/culture/current-commentary (It was published two weeks before Christine Blasey Ford came forward.) 10/9/18
Here’s another excerpt from the paper under the heading “What hath #MeToo wrought?”
“The new paradigm is a godsend for feminists, particularly the man-hating lesbians among them that give the movement impetus. #MeToo also invites the pursuit of potentially lucrative paydays for the litigious and their lawyers, and provides an outlet for personal vengeance against work colleagues. Now employers face potential liability amid new workplace conventions that negate natural male tendencies toward women. Indeed, today companies hire women at their own peril.”
As in any war, collateral damage is inevitable. As such, talented, productive women may be caught in the cross fire, even some who may run rings around their male counterparts. But just as war is the price of national security, it is also the price of national justice. 10/3/18
The confirmation spectacle makes my anti-#MeToo manifesto all the more compelling. See the complete paper at https://sites.google.com/site/thecomprehensiveconservative/culture/current-commentary 10/2/18
Christine Blasey Ford
Ever since Christine Blasey Ford came forward she has been coddled ad nauseum by the Republicans and, of course, the Democrats. This includes the Republican senators on the committee, Brett Kavanaugh himself, the interrogator for the Republicans, Rachel Mitchell, and even the president. Indeed, the Republicans have been loath to criticize Ms. Ford at all out of fear of appearing to bully her and thus alienate women against confirmation in the court of public opinion, and as voters in the midterm elections. As such, Senate Judiciary Committee leader, Senator Grassley, bent over backwards to accommodate Ms. Ford’s conditions for testifying, except for an unprecedented demand that the accused appear for questioning first. Meanwhile, the Democrats on the committee and Ford’s lawyers subvert the process through delay tactics in the hope of extending the process to the November elections and thus end Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Under questioning, Ms. Ford appeared weak and childish, but nonetheless credible. In fact, many say she seemed somewhat imbalanced. Besides her odd demeanor before the committee, her statements about her state of mind, supposedly attributed to Kavanaugh’s alleged attack, are telling. One example concerns her paranoia in installing a second front door on her house against her husband’s adamant objection. In addition, some speculate that hypnosis administered during a session with her therapist might have created a false memory involving Kavanaugh. Would any Republican suggest that she submit to a psychiatric examination that might call into question her wholly unsubstantiated claims about the incident in question in the face of Kavanaugh’s categorical denials? After all, Democrats cite Kavanaugh’s alleged vulnerability to blacking out during drinking as a taint on the veracity of his firm denials. Of course, Republicans would not dare challenge Ms. Ford.
Her lawyers
As mentioned, the Democrat game plan is to delay the process past the midterm elections. This affords the possibility of snuffing out Kavanaugh’s candidacy, as well as any other conservative nominee, through a newly elected Democrat Senate majority in January. (A confirmation during the lame duck session is very unlikely.) That Democrat majority could further diminish the prospect of a conservative nominee by keeping the vacancy unfilled until a possible Democrat presidential victory in 2020.
To that end, Ms. Ford’s lawyers, recommended to her by Senator Feinstein in a most unorthodox intervention, have been quite instrumental. They stalled Ms. Ford’s appearance in Washington for ten days while insisting on outlandish demands and lying about her fear of flying. As to the latter, her lawyers withheld from her Senator Grassley’s offer to fly a representative to her home in California for the questioning. Her counsel also refused to present Ms. Ford’s medical records of the alleged assault. And, those lawyers did not present to the committee the complete notes of Ms. Ford’s therapist concerning a 2012 session. Ms. Ford says she mentioned the incident to the therapist then, but admits that Kavanaugh’s name did not appear in the notes. One has to wonder whether these lawyers are the culprits who leaked to the Washington Post Ms. Ford’s letter she sent to Feinstein, thus denying her the privacy she coveted by thrusting her into the public spotlight for purely political purposes.
Committee senators
No Republican on the committee questioned the dishonesty of Ms. Ford’s lawyers in trying to delay the process, because by extension that would impugn Ms. Ford. Might that restraint also be out of some perverse sense of professional courtesy to fellow lawyers? Rather than confront Ms. Ford and invite accusations of bullying, the all-male Republican majority on the committee hired a female prosecutor to interrogate her, while those members remained totally silent. What cowardice. The search for truth should transcend political optics, which were exaggerated anyway.
Most reprehensively, Democrat Senator Feinstein concealed from the committee Ms. Ford’s letter to her about Kavanaugh’s alleged offense for some six weeks, raising the issue just before a committee vote on confirmation was to be taken. This was the most egregious delay tactic. It forced additional hearings and another FBI inquiry that could have occurred much earlier. Now the current one-week FBI investigation of allegations against Kavanaugh could raise additional implausible or bogus allegations in an extended probe that could run out the clock on the confirmation process.
Committee Democrats and Ms. Ford’s lawyers subverted the process through corruption and character assassination amid the total absence of evidence supporting the complainant. And Republicans lacked the courage to call foul on the lawyers’ dishonesty and were too timid to effectively challenge the accuser. In an eleventh hour flourish Senator Lindsey Graham forcefully denounced the attacks on Kavanaugh to good effect. But it was not nearly enough. As many have said, if these hearings are prologue, justice in America is seriously endangered. 10/1/18 Miscellaneous Thoughts Posted to Linked In Between January and March 2019 By William J. Dodwell
Maybe blacks should compensate America for the havoc they have wreaked over the years. Call it reverse-reparations. Consider all their violent crime and other pathologies that cost lives, deplete the national treasure and diminish the quality of life. How about a White Man’s Restitution Fund? Imagine blacks on seeing that item on their pay stubs.
Let’s declare it even and move on. 3/12/19
The nominations were replete with black actors, and black-themed films, including three nominations and Best Picture. Blacks pranced all over the set like gazelles as Spike Lee, Samuel Jackson and others displayed their buffoonery. And all manner of foreign winners boasted their heritage, notably Mexican actor, Diego Luna, who gave his acceptance speech entirely in Spanish in a supposed dig at President Trump for his immigration policy. Sexually ambiguous actor Billy Porter appeared on the red carpet in a dress in support of the transgender set. The diversity festival culminated in an unctuous speech by Queen Bee, Barbra Streisand, lamenting racial discrimination as if it hasn’t changed in 50 years.
For most, Lady Gaga was a much anticipated standout. Her “Shallow” won Best Original Song which she sang with Bradley Cooper in the nominated “A Star Is Born”, as well as on the Oscars stage. I ignored Lady Gaga for several years in the beginning as some deviant decadent nihilist. Then I saw her perform with Tony Bennet a few years ago on television singing my kind of music, that is, standards from The Great American Songbook. Wow! She’s an enormous talent, if only she would stick to that musical genre. See my article about her in The Comprehensive Conservative athttp://www.williamjdodwell.com/archives Scroll down to Culture, December 22, 2014.
A major consolation
is that this year’s Oscars, which attracted about 30 million viewers, was the
second lowest rated show, only to last year’s program which garnered 27 million
viewers. At its peak, the Oscars touted
over 60 million viewers. It seems the
public has had enough of political charade, but Hollywood doesn’t care. Those folks are dedicated to degrading our
culture and dooming the republic. 2/26/19
My comment about net operating losses (NOL) referred to
federal taxes. Your mention of tax
incentives, while legitimate, applies only to state and local taxes. The far greater reason Amazon doesn’t pay
taxes is because of the federal tax code as it relates to NOLs as I
explained. For many years Amazon did not
turn a profit during which it accumulated net operating losses to offset its huge
current pre-tax profits. In addition, Amazon and many other companies paradoxically
reported losses in 2018 because of Trump’s new tax law. Specifically, the
aforementioned losses of prior years (and potential future tax credits) that accumulated
at the old 35% corporate rate had to be reduced in value to reflect the tax
benefit at the new 21% rate. Also,
Trump’s new tax caused multinational companies to pay U.S. taxes for the first
time on repatriated overseas earnings of many years prior, now subject to a
lower tax rate. All this resulted in
large charges to earnings that lowered or eliminated the current tax liability
for Amazon and many other companies. 2/18/19
Not posted. Dick: If government doesn’t borrow another dime, we still have $22 trillion of existing debt that has to be paid. Taxes from economic growth that exceeds the spending rate of increase can produce future budget surpluses but not enough to retire debt before doomsday, especially considering interest. Even more restrictive spending is necessary to pay down the debt to a reasonable percentage of GDP, which is now over 100%. It was 40% when Obama became president. Yes, budget surpluses as you describe can help pay off the debt but more spending cuts are also required. To get debt back to 40% of GDP debt must decline some $14trillion to $8 trillion (even ignoring interest). Therefore, drastic spending cuts are necessary unless ongoing surpluses from growth are huge. Just reducing the rate of spending to below the GDP growth rate for many years would fall short, especially considering inevitable periods of slow growth and recession. Posted. Dick: I see it this way. The issue is not to balance the budget. Rather, it is to retire or reduce the $22 trillion of debt. Let’s look at some quick and dirty numbers. 3% annual growth on $20 trillion GDP = $600 billion annually. Taxing as much as one-third of it = $200 billion of incremental revenue. Compare that income to 2% growth in $4 trillion of annual spending = $80 billion. This leaves a $120 billion annual surplus to retire the $22 trillion debt. That would take some 183 years. And it doesn’t take into account interest on the debt or inevitable periods of slow growth and recession. To reduce debt $14 trillion to bring it to a reasonable 40% of GDP (now over 100%), would still take over 100 years. Economic growth can contain future debt but it is not enough to reasonably mitigate existing debt. We must drastically cut spending to enable sufficient debt reduction to prevent it from eventually swallowing the economy. Agreed. I can’t imagine when the political will for spending reduction will return. There have been proposals in recent years, such as pegging spending growth to GDP growth, as well as the “Penny Plan” that would eliminate 1% of spending every year. But they never materialize. Even Trump has been weak on this issue. 2/9/19
Of course, if blacks were to adopt the values of the white man, they would be better off and would not need ersatz recognition. But black success and assimilation are the last things liberals want, as that would end black dependency on the left, and thus nullify its power.
Black History Month is a convenient backdrop for Jesse Jackson’s “Rainbow PUSH Wall Street Project”. This extortion enterprise occurs every February as it shakes down banks for large donations and affirmative action hiring mainly for the black community. Doubtless under pressure from government, financial institutions readily oblige or face regulatory reprisals and public vilification by PUSH. 2/6/19
The left has
played a similar mind game for years in trying to substitute Celsius temperatures,
as well as the metric system, for English measurements to promote a Marxist globalist,
one-world mindset. The public is
bombarded with constant leftist propaganda from all quarters. Can we not trust even the weather man
anymore? 1/31/19
The Undercover
Boss – Just as The Profit conveys its liberal message by exempting underlings
from criticism, The Undercover Boss sends a similar signal by lionizing and lavishly
rewarding certain under-appreciated low level workers. Every show culminates in a selected employee,
almost always female, tearfully reacting to the boss’ life-changing monetary gift.
The message: Celebrate the proletariat and denigrate the
bourgeois. The show seems also to
promote gender equality by portraying indispensable women mainly who never get
the recognition they deserve. The
program is reminiscent of the 1950s television program, The Millionaire, in
which each episode a particular philanthropist anonymously gives away one
million dollars to a down-on-his luck beneficiary. Come to think of it, Was that program
promoting a wealth redistribution theme?
It aired in the aftermath of the Senator McCarthy hearings that investigated
communist infiltration in the U.S., to include Hollywood productions.
At this point, she seemed impatient tapping
her fingers on the table as if to say, “When are we going to get down to
business?” But she seemed to look at me
as a revenue source rather than an object of affection. I know she’s swinging from poles in the wee
hours of the morning to pay President Trump’s legal fees he incurred defending
against her failed lawsuit. So, I
thought perhaps she’s looking for a job at The Comprehensive Conservative. Then she turned aggressive and lascivious. I sweated profusely saturating three
napkins. At last I got a hold of myself
and asked her what would #MeToo say about this?
Frustrated, she got up and yelled, “Who gives a !@#$^%&(z you wimp?” 1/10/19
This Rodgers and Hart song of the 1930s features
a woman who rejects the customs of the high class set in favor of a simple life,
an independence that renders her a “tramp”.
Actually, the lyric could be viewed as a comment on Marxist class
differentiation. But the term tramp in
today’s parlance is pejorative connoting a loose woman, a trollup, or a
baglady. I would think #MeToo would
object to celebrating such a characterization of women. I await the battle cry.
The song has been a popular classic among men and women performers. See Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald in a duet at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xafBWOxqssg
Buddy Greco gave it his own sexist treatment at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HeQVMMrVKg (Take that, #MeToo!)
Irrespective of the politics, the song is a great jazz standard. Here’s my piano arrangement at https://youtu.be/eGA7mwZN8Rk 1/7/19
Trump’s tax cut and deregulation will
likely continue to support economic prosperity in an over-ripe 10-year
recovery. This, despite the vicissitudes
of the stock market, which is largely driven by anomalous algorithmic trading
formulae that seemingly override positive economic fundamentals to some degree.
However, economic slowdown in Europe and
Asia will challenge U.S. exports and curtail foreign investment here. But Trump’s persistence in trade policy may
finally pay off as China relents in the face of its faltering economy. 1/2/19
By William J. Dodwell
As it happens, in 2015 I published a white paper entitled, “The Developing Federal Student Loan Debacle and the Real Cost to Taxpayers” detailing the anomalous accounting methods of the CBO and Department of Education that grossly understate loan defaults reported to the public. See my report at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2653119. I sent this paper to John Crudele of the New York Post, who dedicated a portion of his column to my thesis without attribution. I also sent it to still Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and then Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Congressman Tom Price, R-Ga. In addition, I sent the report to The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Editor, Paul Gigot, along with a request to write an op ed piece on the topic. Not surprisingly, I never heard from any of those recipients, but a couple of subsequent WSJ editorials some time later seemed to have drawn from my paper.
Interestingly,
I was prompted to write the piece when I heard presidential candidate Donald J.
Trump suggest that the sizable reported profits of the student loan program be
applied to defraying costs for student borrowers. Knowing that the portfolio really posed a
potential multitrillion-dollar cost to taxpayers, I began writing. In view of the McKinsey contract, now Trump apparently
knows the truth about misleading accounting at the CBO and Education Department. Might I be presumptuous about my possible influence
here?
Well informed citizens can make noise in Washington from scoops
appropriately documented and suitably disseminated to have
an impact beyond the ballot box. This
intervention should be encouraged. 5/6/19
This absurd #MeToo influence on our politics, most prominently displayed in last year’s Bret Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, is a corrosive force that must be challenged en masse. Ongoing vociferous grass-roots opposition would show elected officials that they should not fear this leftist cabal because it does not have substantive public support. Rather, media propaganda sustains it and, as such, the Fourth Estate demonstrates it is indeed the enemy of the people. Rise up America! 5/3/19
. #MeToo REARS ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN IN THE BIDEN
FLAP. After a period of seeming
hibernation following the embarrassment of the Bret Kavanagh debacle, the
#MeToo movement re-emerges to capitalize on Joe Biden’s physical proclivities
toward women. During the retreat many
women finally have awoken to speak out about the excesses of the movement. Interestingly, this attitudinal change coincides
with the publication of my anti-#MeToo manifesto last September at https://sites.google.com/site/thecomprehensiveconservative/culture/current-commentary
I like to think that treatise was influential in driving
the movement underground for a while, and inspiring an epiphany among many women. You’re welcome.
Was Biden’s now infamous behavior weird? Absolutely. Is it disqualifying for his possible presidential run? Absolutely not. As expressions of affection, his tactile impulses are anomalous as a matter of decorum, but heretofore considered harmless. Now #MeToo gets involved to construe his physicality as predatory behavior against women, calling for the vilification of any man who would similarly engage. On that front Biden and his fellow grabbers must be defended. Of course, sudden concern about Biden’s behavior is partially borne out of an effort by Democratic presidential candidates to keep him from joining the race. But #MeToo is bent on exploiting the issue to advance its radical feminist agenda.
Men have harbored sexual thoughts about women since the Garden of Eden. It is quintessentially natural. In fact, most women want that attention. But #MeToo and the political left proscribe the so-called objectification of women in order to empower women and disempower men through the hyper-politicization of frivolous offenses. Women who cannot navigate or tolerate common, albeit inappropriate, libidinous forces in their midst should get thee to a nunnery or join the LGBTQ brigade. They should not expect equality in the workplace because in a #MeToo atmosphere they pose a serious threat to men’s careers. As such, those women deserve circumspection, avoidance and even expulsion.
How bad is it? Amazon recently cancelled a four picture deal with Woody Allen because of his comments characterizing #MeToo cases as potential “witch hunts”. Amazon claims that heresy diminished the benefit the films could be expected to deliver. Such is the perverse power of the movement. Fair-minded people must stand up to this rein of terror by ensuring #MeToo gets no further traction through such opportunistic incidents as Joe Biden’s unorthodox touching practices. 4/8/19
Miscellaneous Thoughts Posted to Linked In Between July and September 2019
By William J. Dodwell
Fill all positions from middle management upward with white males. All remaining jobs will go to women of color from around the globe with a mandate to serve their bosses with elan. (Use your imagination.) That leaves men of color and white women who will be assigned to a breeding pool. This is in keeping with the left’s effort to transform demographics through mass interracial propagation, as promoted by Hollywood and Madison Avenue in today’s television, film and commercials. Those employees will be paid in direct proportion to the offspring they produce.
In time, the societal results will be celebrated in a Hollywood re-make of the 1967 classic motion picture, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” starring Sidney Poitier about an interracial marriage. Imagine when the mother is introduced to her white daughter’s porcelain-faced beaux, she turns tearfully to the father and says, “Where did we go wrong?”
Like it? Consult your Chief Diversity Officer. 9/26/19
Immigration and demographics
Consider the sudden call for open borders and sanctuary cities, support for orchestrated caravans of invaders from Central America, as well as systematic voter fraud. The ultimate goal is to create virtually permanent electoral Democratic control of government by capitalizing on a large socialist predisposition that results from chain migration and eventual blanket amnesty with citizenship. This outcome would sustain an ongoing Marxist agenda that would dismiss American sovereignty and culture. Impoverished immigrants from south of the border and elsewhere, having no interest in assimilation, flood communities around the country to strain resources, perpetrate horrific crime, and diminish the quality of life while contributing relatively little as a whole. A society riven by such malaise is destined to collapse. Indeed, the left’s obsession with diversity is a ruse to balkanize America toward that end.
The left hopes to transform American demographics on a grand scale through unrestricted immigration and a naive spirit of egalitarian tolerance. For example, Madison Avenue, a major ally of the left, assists that conversion by subtly promoting mass interracial propagation among citizens in most advertisements today. Of course, that prospect has grave implications for the country’s DNA as to affect global competiveness, economic progress and national security. Countless individual exceptions notwithstanding, the scientific reality of the strategy overall dilutes the fountain of intelligence, industriousness and ingenuity that built America. At the same time, creeping Muslim infiltration aimed at imposing Sharia law overtakes communities and penetrates institutions, even Congress now. The debilitating genetic and social polyglot that results from the left’s transformation plan sets the stage for a docile population that readily submits to the lure of largesse from an unchallenged tyrannical government.
Education
Consider the abysmal quality of public schools as leftist teachers unions deliberately dumb down America through diluted curricula, lowered performance standards and relaxed discipline. In the process, they re-write or eradicate American history to degrade the country’s heritage in the minds of malleable youth, undermining their allegiance to the country. The liberal education establishment vigorously opposes efforts to rectify failed education through decidedly more effective charter schools in order to preserve the power of the teachers unions, a self-interest that far supersedes student well-being. (But, of course, it wants them to be ignorant anyway.) In the colleges, intellectual diversity and impolitic speech have become verboten in the face of relentless left-wing indoctrination aimed at advancing the “destroy America” agenda.
Media and technology
Mass media are already corrupt. The networks and liberal cable outlets distort or suppress news that does not conform to the left’s agenda, such as black crime. Consider that 90% of news about President Trump is negative according to media studies. What is more, 90% of journalists identify as liberal. Media promote outright lies, such as the “Hands up, don’t shoot” narrative that leftist news outlets continue to report as a murder despite rigorous investigations, including by Eric Holder’s Justice Department, that determined a police officer fired in self-defense. CNN and MSNBC present gross hyperbole as legitimate commentary. Publishers and bookstores suspiciously restrict the distribution and availability of conservative works. And most reprehensibly, monopolistic technology companies Facebook, Google and Twitter increasingly quash conservative content on the internet to the benefit of a global socialist order, and the detriment of free speech.
Societal emasculation
The left promotes societal emasculation through pervasive female favoritism in the grade schools, a hiring bias toward women in the workplace, a rejection of the traditional male role in the family, a mockery of men in advertising campaigns, and of course, the weaponization of natural male behavior toward women through the #MeToo movement. Unchecked, all this makes for a castrated, marginally employed American male that is a very prescription for destroying the nation.
The rule of law
The left is trying to abolish the rule of law, a principal underpinning of civilization, to foster the collapse of the republic. Its operatives ignore immigration statutes and allow criminals to re-offend repeatedly with impunity. They hamstring police from enforcing the law for minor offenses resulting in miscreants blatantly avoiding mass transit fares and illegally smoking pot in public places. They permit homeless encampments on public property that threaten the safety, health and viability of surrounding households and businesses. Lawlessness has resulted in stand down mayoral orders that protect marauding Antifa thugs, citizens dousing police with water, open marijuana smoking in inner city schools, and a general decline in the quality of life that continually slides down the slippery slope.
Worst of all, the courts become politicized. Consider the 2018 decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to disallow President Trump’s temporary travel ban applied to several Muslim countries for security reasons. The Court struck it down despite explicit statutes to the contrary. The Supreme Court overruled it, but only in a 5-4 decision. And, of course, many consider John Roberts’ deciding vote to uphold Obamacare in 2010 a gross politically motivated legal contortion. What’s more, the Supreme Court too readily defers regulatory cases to unelected bureaucrats in the agencies because of their technical complexities. As such, regulators often render partisan applications of law in the rulemaking process that result in confiscation and tyranny. This is particularly true in environmental and discrimination cases.
Identity politics
A principal cudgel by which the left undermines American society is through identity politics that promotes an egalitarian utopia that seeks to eradicate traditional and historical boundaries that delineate black/white, male/female, gay/ straight, and rich/poor. By highlighting grievance between races, genders, sexualities, and economic classes, leftists try to create societal conflicts that result in a divide-and-conquer approach to their Marxist goal. The left celebrates diversity as a holy grail branded by the LGBTQ moniker and associated rainbow color scheme. Immigration and class warfare play to race and economic status. #MeToo plays to gender. Gay and transgender rights play to sexuality. A multiplicity of grievance groups results in a hypersensitive society that becomes paralyzed by a fear of offending. A panoply of politically correct dictates codifies the sensitivity as to render the general population acquiescent to the encroachments of the left in a growing tyranny.
The Democrat Party
The Democrat Party has long embraced big government. But now in its lurch to the far left it espouses maximum government control to redistribute wealth in pure Marxist fashion. The left hopes to expand government by nationalizing as many economic sectors as possible, such as health care, education, housing and energy. It does this, not only by means of legislation, but also through executive regulation involving the fatuous expansive enforcement of that law. The Green New Deal, Medicare for all, and free college for everyone are the latest voter gambits among some of the Democratic presidential candidates.
The left also wants to nationalize the energy industry through a chimerical environmentalist agenda that eliminates fossil and nuclear fuels in favor of extremely limited alternatives, including solar and wind. The prohibitive cost of the whole agenda at tens of trillions of dollars would bankrupt the nation. This imperial move is about power and the economic residuals that ensue for those in control from taxation, extreme indebtedness, fees, penalties and confiscation.
In the final analysis, a few elites will rule from the top over a massive underclass robbed of freedoms and possibly consigned to squalor. Just look at Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea to name just a few examples. It is up to an informed and motivated electorate to avoid this Armageddon. A tall order indeed. 9/5/19
At the same time, the left tries to convince the public that the economy is on the brink of a recession despite data to the contrary. Liberals hope to trigger a huge sell-off in the stock market that will cause consumers and businesses to retreat, making recession a self-fulling prophesy.
And there is reparations. It’s a topic much infused in the Democrat presidential campaigns. Look for a show of hands for reparations during one of the upcoming televised debates. What’s more, The New York Times has just launched “Project 1690” invoking the arrival of the first slaves in America 400 hundred years ago. As if on cue, other publications are increasingly featuring articles about slavery to promote national guilt about its history.
The left is beating the drums with this triplet, and it gets louder as the election approaches. Don’t be duped. 8/20/19
Much has been written about the need for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, even beyond the July cut, the first one in eleven years. Indeed, the latest escalation of trade tensions with China and its concomitant currency depreciation might make further cuts more compelling. Or not. The principal purpose of a rate cut is to provide liquidity to foster greater consumption and business investment that stimulate economic growth in the face of sustained opposition forces. But rate cuts without sufficient justification, such as those based on transitory developments, reaction to presidential jawboning, miming other central banks, or inadequate consideration of market fundamentals can thwart economic progress. 8/19/19
NEVER ASKED: DID THE GOVERNMENT ALSO PROD THE MAJOR RATING AGENCIES TO DO THE SAME TO FURTHER ACCOMMODATE LOW-INCOME BORROWERS THROUGH PRIVATE-LABEL SECURITIZATIONS, WHICH AT THEIR PEAK EXCEEDED THOSE OF FANNIE AND FREDDIE? DID GOVERNMENT CORRUPT THOSE AGENCIES FOR POLITICAL GAIN? THEY NEVER HAVE BEEN HELD FULLY ACCOUNTABLE, BEFORE THE CRISIS AND SINCE.
What’s more, over $100 billion of bank settlements compensated (nationalized) Fannie and Freddie, the FHA, public pensions and previously compensated low-income homeowners for losses. But Obama's DOJ left non-public pension private MBS investors high and dry, including 401(k) plans. Even the MBS Trustees charged with protecting them against underwriting fraud sided with the bank issuers who paid their fees and hired them for new business. The politically motivated lending and much of the disposition of bank settlements were a massive wealth redistribution scheme under the affordable housing agenda. 8/18/19
The mental health of certain elderly political figures deteriorates before the public eye. Many say 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden seems visibly dissipated. Some questioned Rudy Giulliani’s mental state when he made some boneheaded statements in defense of President Trump. Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to stammer and sputter frequently. And, of course, many suspected cognitive impairment in President Reagan, possibly affirmed by an Alzheimer’s diagnosis in retirement.
Mental illness looms large among the elderly. Politics aside, Mueller and the other high profile figures cited remind us of a universal vulnerability for which compassion is warranted. 7/26/19
Of course, this deception is designed to make people think that man-made climate change is creating unprecedented adverse conditions. Indeed, many, like my wife, think they’re hearing or seeing the actual temperature reported. Last winter I commented on the same ploy as it relates to the “wind-chill” factor, which has been around for some time. Now we have to be on guard against the weather nazis all year round. 7/22/19
But the fear of being called a racist prevents the proper response to the four renegades. (See my 12/10/18 post “Go Ahead. Call Me A Racist” at http://www.williamjdodwell.com/special-notice-8 .) This is why these anti-American Members are not challenged by the Democratic leadership. The Squad even called ultra liberal Speaker Pelosi racist. Imagine four white freshmen getting away with what these ladies are doing. The race card also intimidates cowardly Republicans into verbally joining the media outrage over Trump’s comments. It is what gave Obama a pass on so many issues. But Trump displays the audacity, candor and political incorrectness to challenge the race-baiting for which he should be roundly supported. This is how to defeat the race card.
Let’s be clear. The Squad hates America and disdains the Constitution on which it is founded, despite claims to the contrary. The two Muslims among them likely would hope to set the stage for Sharia law. Meantime, they join the other two in an effort to plunge the country into socialist chaos as a prelude to that primary goal. This development raises a serious question: How does the U.S. defend itself from foreign infiltration into the political system? We see Muslims creating enclaves that grow to the point of legitimately electing themselves to local office and eventually to Congress in allegiance to Islam, not America. How does the country protect itself from the nefarious intentions of this largely alien force that has no desire to assimilate, and transforms their communities to pig sties? We see a similar threat in the invasion of Central American emigrants storming the border waving the flags of their homelands, who, if Democrats rule, would have voting rights.
The solution, of course, is to keep truly inimical peoples from entering the country through sound constitutional immigration policy. But such a program flies in the face of leftist legislative support and judicial empathy for sanctuary cities and ending border enforcement. Democrats embrace open borders to admit new voters who eventually would ensure their permanent control of government. They ignore the horrific cultural effects that divide and potentially doom the nation. Look no further than Europe.
Ultimate control over immigration policy lies with Congress. The growing open borders crowd in Washington opposes the changes to immigration legislation that would quickly defuse the current border crisis. And for many others, the fear of the race card undermines the effort to uphold constitutional protections against these threats to our security and sovereignty. Imagine if enough politicians would emulate President Trump’s courage to defend the nation from destruction through alien ideology and foreign influences. 7/17/19
But in fact, Biden performed reasonably well. His response to Harris’ challenge concerning his position on school busing in the 1970s and his conciliation with “segregationist” senators was eminently reasonable for the time. In fact, the public overwhelmingly opposed busing, thus dooming it as a policy. And Biden looked decidedly better than he did in the weeks before the debate.
Meanwhile, the media celebrate Harris for her prosecution reflective of her role as California AG. But all she did was raise the busing issue, with faux personal drama, to play the race card. The contretemps with Biden was a nothingberger, but media insist it was a game-changer.
Mass media try to mold public opinion through a constant drumbeat for Harris and against Biden. Since the public is gullible and malleable, Harris’ poll numbers have risen significantly. How much more can the electorate be duped? 7/8/19
By William J. Dodwell September 5, 2019
The leftists are coming! The leftists are coming! Just as Paul Revere alarmed the colonists of the oncoming British Army bent on their destruction, so do Americans today need an acute warning about the nefarious ideological revolution brewing on the political left.
Make no mistake, the goal of the left today, implicit in its evermore audacious policy proposals, is to destroy America and preside over the spoils in the creation of a new globalist Marxist order. It accomplishes this with full complicity of mass media, academia and a growing number of representatives in government, as well as through the worrisome politicization of the courts. The evidence is clear.
Immigration and demographics
Consider the sudden call for open borders and sanctuary cities, support for orchestrated caravans of invaders from Central America, as well as systematic voter fraud. The ultimate goal is to create virtually permanent electoral Democratic control of government by capitalizing on a large socialist predisposition that results from chain migration and eventual blanket amnesty with citizenship. This outcome would sustain an ongoing Marxist agenda that would dismiss American sovereignty and culture. Impoverished immigrants from south of the border and elsewhere, having no interest in assimilation, flood communities around the country to strain resources, perpetrate horrific crime, and diminish the quality of life while contributing relatively little as a whole. A society riven by such malaise is destined to collapse. Indeed, the left’s obsession with diversity is a ruse to balkanize America toward that end.
The left hopes to transform American demographics on a grand scale through unrestricted immigration and a naive spirit of egalitarian tolerance. For example, Madison Avenue, a major ally of the left, assists that conversion by subtly promoting mass interracial propagation among citizens in most advertisements today. Of course, that prospect has grave implications for the country’s DNA as to affect global competiveness, economic progress and national security. Countless individual exceptions notwithstanding, the scientific reality of the strategy overall dilutes the fountain of intelligence, industriousness and ingenuity that built America. At the same time, creeping Muslim infiltration aimed at imposing Sharia law overtakes communities and penetrates institutions, even Congress now. The debilitating genetic and social polyglot that results from the left’s transformation plan sets the stage for a docile population that readily submits to the lure of largesse from an unchallenged tyrannical government.
Education
Consider the abysmal quality of public schools as leftist teachers unions deliberately dumb down America through diluted curricula, lowered performance standards and relaxed discipline. In the process, they re-write or eradicate American history to degrade the country’s heritage in the minds of malleable youth, undermining their allegiance to the country. The liberal education establishment vigorously opposes efforts to rectify failed education through decidedly more effective charter schools in order to preserve the power of the teachers unions, a self-interest that far supersedes student well-being. (But, of course, it wants them to be ignorant anyway.) In the colleges, intellectual diversity and impolitic speech have become verboten in the face of relentless left-wing indoctrination aimed at advancing the “destroy America” agenda.
Media and technology
Mass media are already corrupt. The networks and liberal cable outlets distort or suppress news that does not conform to the left’s agenda, such as black crime. Consider that 90% of news about President Trump is negative according to media studies. What is more, 90% of journalists identify as liberal. Media promote outright lies, such as the “Hands up, don’t shoot” narrative that leftist news outlets continue to report as a murder despite rigorous investigations, including by Eric Holder’s Justice Department, that determined a police officer fired in self-defense. CNN and MSNBC present gross hyperbole as legitimate commentary. Publishers and bookstores suspiciously restrict the distribution and availability of conservative works. And most reprehensibly, monopolistic technology companies Facebook, Google and Twitter increasingly quash conservative content on the internet to the benefit of a global socialist order, and the detriment of free speech.
Societal emasculation
The left promotes societal emasculation through pervasive female favoritism in the grade schools, a hiring bias toward women in the workplace, a rejection of the traditional male role in the family, a mockery of men in advertising campaigns, and of course, the weaponization of natural male behavior toward women through the #MeToo movement. Unchecked, all this makes for a castrated, marginally employed American male that is a very prescription for destroying the nation.
The rule of law
The left is trying to abolish the rule of law, a principal underpinning of civilization, to foster the collapse of the republic. Its operatives ignore immigration statutes and allow criminals to re-offend repeatedly with impunity. They hamstring police from enforcing the law for minor offenses resulting in miscreants blatantly avoiding mass transit fares and illegally smoking pot in public places. They permit homeless encampments on public property that threaten the safety, health and viability of surrounding households and businesses. Lawlessness has resulted in stand down mayoral orders that protect marauding Antifa thugs, citizens dousing police with water, open marijuana smoking in inner city schools, and a general decline in the quality of life that continually slides down the slippery slope.
Worst of all, the courts become politicized. Consider the 2018 decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to disallow President Trump’s temporary travel ban applied to several Muslim countries for security reasons. The Court struck it down despite explicit statutes to the contrary. The Supreme Court overruled it, but only in a 5-4 decision. And, of course, many consider John Roberts’ deciding vote to uphold Obamacare in 2010 a gross politically motivated legal contortion. What’s more, the Supreme Court too readily defers regulatory cases to unelected bureaucrats in the agencies because of their technical complexities. As such, regulators often render partisan applications of law in the rulemaking process that result in confiscation and tyranny. This is particularly true in environmental and discrimination cases.
Identity politics
A principal cudgel by which the left undermines American society is through identity politics that promotes an egalitarian utopia that seeks to eradicate traditional and historical boundaries that delineate black/white, male/female, gay/ straight, and rich/poor. By highlighting grievance between races, genders, sexualities, and economic classes, leftists try to create societal conflicts that result in a divide-and-conquer approach to their Marxist goal. The left celebrates diversity as a holy grail branded by the LGBTQ moniker and associated rainbow color scheme. Immigration and class warfare play to race and economic status. #MeToo plays to gender. Gay and transgender rights play to sexuality. A multiplicity of grievance groups results in a hypersensitive society that becomes paralyzed by a fear of offending. A panoply of politically correct dictates codifies the sensitivity as to render the general population acquiescent to the encroachments of the left in a growing tyranny.
The Democrat Party
The Democrat Party has long embraced big government. But now in its lurch to the far left it espouses maximum government control to redistribute wealth in pure Marxist fashion. The left hopes to expand government by nationalizing as many economic sectors as possible, such as health care, education, housing and energy. It does this, not only by means of legislation, but also through executive regulation involving the fatuous expansive enforcement of that law. The Green New Deal, Medicare for all, and free college for everyone are the latest voter gambits among some of the Democratic presidential candidates.
The left also wants to nationalize the energy industry through a chimerical environmentalist agenda that eliminates fossil and nuclear fuels in favor of extremely limited alternatives, including solar and wind. The prohibitive cost of the whole agenda at tens of trillions of dollars would bankrupt the nation. This imperial move is about power and the economic residuals that ensue for those in control from taxation, extreme indebtedness, fees, penalties and confiscation.
In the final analysis, a few elites will rule from the top over a massive underclass robbed of freedoms and possibly consigned to squalor. Just look at Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea to name just a few examples. It is up to an informed and motivated electorate to avoid this Armageddon. A tall order indeed.
©2019 William J. Dodwell
By William J. Dodwell
May America do it the right way - the right-wing way. 12/31/19
At the federal level, leading Democratic presidential candidates attempt to legitimize outlandish proposals for tens of trillions of dollars of new spending that would suffocate the economy and thereby drastically lower the standard of living for most Americans. Plans include such chimera as Medicare-for-all, free college tuition, student loan forgiveness, and a Green New Deal that would abolish fossil fuels and retrofit all buildings and infrastructure. What’s more, the left wants to relinquish America’s sovereignty in a new globalist orientation and vitiate the education system by lowering academic standards and politicizing curricula and practices that includes eradicating American history. Ultimately, this is to produce docile uninformed Democratic voters. And now, post-birth abortion is acceptable to many liberal officeholders, and the effort to nullify the Second Amendment gains currency among them.
In recent years, liberal politicians have relaxed the rule of law. This comes in the form of support for open borders and sanctuary cities and states that accommodate violent crime, drug smuggling, sex trafficking, opioid abuse, as well as create overcrowding and a burden on the public fisc. Corrupted prison release programs put dangerous criminals on the streets despite promises to the contrary. Law enforcement curtailment gives rise to widespread homelessness that poses threats to community safety and health, and the viability of proximate businesses. Mayoral stand-down orders to police forbid them to engage Antifa thugs in acts of violence, and apprehend shoplifters and fare-beaters at great expense to local businesses and the public transit budget. A look-the-other-way policy regarding water thrown on police officers diminishes respect for them, seriously lowers their morale, and invites escalation. To undermine the rule of law, the linchpin of any civilization, leftist George Soros is funding ultra-liberal candidates for Attorney General throughout the country.
Government is not the only culprit. The left also operates through a now corrupt media, including Hollywood and Madison Avenue, as well as a radicalized academe that promotes societal division and demographic transformation that subvert the nation’s heritage, identity, and ultimate survival. Increasingly intrusive identity politics founded on a proliferation of contrived grievance groups fosters this destruction.
To be sure, the goal of the left is to destroy this nation through insolvency from government largesse, chaos in the absence of the rule of law, social strife from forced heterogeneity, and through an ongoing effort to disarm Americans. Conservatives have to promote acute focus on this reality and constantly highlight its manifestations in drumbeat fashion to help achieve electoral success in November that will render the nefarious Democrat Party a smoldering pile of rubble. 12/30/19
. MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE COMPREHENSIVE CONSERVATIVE. Here are a couple of piano selections from my
Christmas CD to help make the spirit bright. 12/23/19
The Christmas Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GivJtMPobwU&list=PLqHqmHiumqK-vT0oislpcr_UouVo6DDcq&index=79&t=0s
Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlN8YX_uUhs&list=PLqHqmHiumqK-vT0oislpcr_UouVo6DDcq&index=77 . MY EVENING WITH THE 2019 WOMAN OF THE YEAR. As the Comprehensive Conservative’s 2019 Man of the Year, I had the (fictional) honor of meeting my counterpart, Woman of the Year Heather Mac Donald. We compared notes over a piece of cherry pie at a cozy café amid a roaring fireplace, copious Christmas decorations and seasonal cheer. (Tight budget + tight host = Cheap date) In preparation, I sent out my thinking cap for repair and maintenance in order to fully engage this brainy lady. Apparently, she just had a cosmetic makeover – new hairdo, skin treatment, sporty glasses. Looking good! We are both secular conservatives but my views derive mainly from reading, observation and anecdotal evidence while hers rest on research and scientific method. Thus, it is gratifying that her more conclusive empirical analysis often corroborates my intuitive opinion. What’s more, we share the courage to be most impolitic about incendiary issues. Her many media appearances make her an important exponent of conservative thought. Our discussion was wide and varied covering, among other things, race, #MeToo, immigration and law enforcement. She indulged expansive monologues, some that challenged my powers of concentration and comprehension. She even cited a longitudinal study of comparative behaviors in Europe going back to the Peloponnesian Wars. Finally, after one arcane soliloquy she inquired of my opinion. Suffering brain melt at that point, I deftly changed the subject. Feeling a bit amorous, I sauntered over to the grand piano nearby and played an apt Gershwin classic, “I’ve Got A Crush On You” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po9m1y2m7Vg . When I returned to the table she did not seem impressed. Was it my arrangement? The key? The clinker I hit in the third bar? I know. The piano needed tuning. Glancing at the empty plates, I gazed into her eyes, slowly moving closer. Then, lips millimeters apart, I whispered, “How about another piece of pie?” 12/19/19 . 2019 WOMAN OF THE YEAR. The Comprehensive Conservative names writer and commentator Heather Mac Donald 2019 Woman of the Year. She is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. She has written several books on controversial social issues including “The Diversity Delusion”, “The War On Cops”, “The Immigration Solution” and “Are Cops Racist?”
A most articulate spokesperson for the conservative viewpoint, she addresses the issues, not with fire and brimstone, but with sober facts, rigorous reason, and empirical analysis. Accordingly, Ms. Mac Donald exposes truth as she cuts through the political correctness attendant to such lightning rods as black crime, the historical racial gap in academic achievement, #MeToo fraud, LGBT victimhood, and the leftist propaganda consuming college campuses at the expense of academic rigor and intellectual freedom.
Of particular concern to Ms. Mac Donald is the abandonment of traditional academic standards to accommodate underperforming black students, even in medical schools. Colleges jettison such staples of civilization as language, meritocracy, objectivity and discipline for practices that artificially level the playing field. They include significantly lowering college admission criteria, adjusting curricula, and relative grading and assessment in place of what the left considers white appropriation imposed on blacks. Indeed, Ms. Mac Donald believes today’s academe rests on a theme of ersatz racial oppression and a rejection of the cultural past as part of the solution.
Quite visible in the media, Ms. Mac Donald does a service disseminating truth suppressed by the left and engulfed by propaganda and political correctness. Her perspective on social realities is a welcome antidote to liberal excuses for race-based anti-social behavior and failure, and a response to contrived grievances of political identities. Her research and advocacy are testament to conservative principles as a prescription for individual success and national comity. 12/17/19
For the second year in a row The Comprehensive Conservative names William J. Dodwell, its founder and sole content provider, Man of the Year. Once again he is honored for his ongoing assault on political correctness wherever it rears its ugly head. Last year he exposed the #MeToo movement with his shot-heard-round-the-world manifesto. See https://lnkd.in/d_xvnvJ This year he targeted the Diversity and Inclusion racket aimed at destroying America through political, cultural, and economic division, as well as by demographic transformation. His parody, “The Problems of a Diverse Workforce” warns of diversity chaos in the extreme. See https://lnkd.in/eeC5SJn
Always the iconoclast, Mr. Dodwell stands at the vanguard of the anti-PC resistance producing in-your-face writings and rants that uniquely raise awareness of the left’s efforts to create a balkanized multicultural national polyglot ripe for the kill. He excoriates the left for imposing identity politics that undermines national sovereignty and culture, and for promoting a pluralism that dilutes the very DNA that built the nation. In the effort to tear down the old to make way for a new global socialist order, leftists seek to divide America through racial, gender and sexuality conflicts embodied in the nefarious LGBT movement. He denounces their destructive tactics that include open borders, sanctuary cities and states, massive government largess, pervasive affirmative action, large-scale interracial propagation, politicized education, and a break-down of the rule of law.
Mr. Dodwell constantly exposes the evil of the left as it facilitates illegal immigration, dumbs down education, and indoctrinates students at all levels. Hollywood, Madison Avenue and mass media promote widespread miscegenation in movies, commercials and television way beyond natural selection in a pluralist society. Unchallenged, the diversity cabal ultimately feminizes the patriarchy, reduces the national IQ, bankrupts the nation, and ensures a permanent Democratic voting class by maximizing government dependency amid a docile and ill-informed populace. Mr. Dodwell condemns the leftist-inspired corporate obsession with a diverse workforce and decries the inequities of resultant reverse discrimination. And he warns of the ultimate goal of gratuitous diversity that is to reduce America to a third-world nation subsumed into a global amalgam.
Cowed Americans fearful of lame charges of racism, sexism, misogyny, and homophobia readily submit to evermore nonsensical dictates imposed by the left. It takes a staunch proactive conservative like William J. Dodwell to foster a backlash against indiscriminate diversity in a mass awakening from acquiescence. In so doing, he voices the unspeakable truths that put the lie to the leftist egalitarian model that undermines the meritocratic law-abiding standard that has sustained this nation.
Mr. Dodwell cautions against diluting that ideal in blind devotion to gratuitous diversity that creates incongruous forces that weaken the social and genetic fabric. Recognizing a benign heterogeneity that has evolved since the nation’s founding, certain diversity is accommodated out of societal comity. But it should be elective within the discrimination laws, not mandated by PC warriors in contravention to other values, or constantly propagandized by media images. However, even willful diversity is dangerous if naively predicated on leftist influences bent on eroding sovereignty, meritocracy, family, assimilation and the rule of law. Especially reprehensible, is the left’s dedication to disempower white America. To be sure, conservative communication and education are paramount to counteracting the relentless onslaught of the left.
Mr. Dodwell does a public service as a crusader for truth in the face of severe opposition. May his influence grow toward achieving that critical mass that will turn the tide in the restoration of diminished principles that, one might say, will make America great again.
In deference to that past and its prospective renewal here’s Mr. Dodwell’s piano rendition of “America The Beautiful”. See https://lnkd.in/e_RdrNv 12/16/19
And there is the political angle. Might liberal celebrity men who accompany much taller women do so to perversely promote women’s equality, perhaps to make the oddity standard? One cannot trust pernicious leftists. Just as they try to eradicate traditional values, including gender and sexuality boundaries, maybe they want to negate this height convention on the way down the slippery slope. If so, what’s next, dating cows? 11/26/19
Another eyesore is the couple sporting a half-century age difference. The dissipated old man with the young nymph is off-putting and one would think embarrassing for both. Given today’s cosmetics women in their 50s and 60s can be quite attractive to an older man. Consider Jean Pirro of Fox News. She’s pushing 70 but still looks like she could make the bed bounce 9 inches off the floor. 11/25/19
Corroborating the venality of #MeToo, Dershowitz spoke of a multi-billionaire CEO who also was accused falsely in the Epstein affair. That man was told by the claimants’ high profile lawyer that everything would go away with a payment of $1 billion. The billionaire made the payment and his name has not emerged since.
#MeToo fallout is so bad that I’m hearing men are leaving their companies to avoid the risk of working for litigious women. Others now insist they not remain alone with a woman in a room. It will be interesting to see how the growing number of displaced men will retaliate en masse. See suggestions in my 2018 anti-#MeToo manifesto under Counterattack at https://sites.google.com/site/thecomprehensiveconservative/culture/current-commentary It’s time for hardball. 11/22/19
Back in the day the few women employees were mostly secretaries who populated the typing and dictaphone pools. Indeed, the male/female dynamic in the office was quite different.
Men assigned ratings to women. Not performance ratings, but attractiveness scores. In particular, men would rate a woman’s rack and derriere on a scale of 0 – 10. Even the women tacitly went along. The ratings weren’t disclosed to the women but clearly they were concerned about their scores.
Men would be sure to defer to a woman exiting a conference room, not just out of chivalry, but to enable a good view for scoring her ass. There was no interference from Personnel (now HR). In fact, the guys from that department participated in the scoring. In one instance, a woman discovered her breast score. Apparently, a guy inadvertently enclosed his score sheet in a sheaf of papers he presented to her for filing. Insulted by her rating, she appeared at the next meeting with a plunging neckline as if to say, Score this!
As Archie Bunker used to say, “Those were the days.” 11/21/19
- Diversity bunk
- Climate change bunk
- #MeToo bunk
- LGBTQ bunk
- Green bunk
Identity politics and its offspring political correctness, as well as the ideological poison from which they derive, face unmitigated defiance in the expressions of my blog. Join the war against the left. See http://www.williamjdodwell.com/ 11/21/19
Here’s my rollicking piano rendition of “Ease On Down The Road” from the 1970s Broadway production and film, “The Wiz”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nTGXdbgpGU . Largely a ‘30s and ‘40s guy musically, I made a concession to modernity in this selection for wider appeal. 11/18/19
This program endows new masses of minority graduates with nominal degrees, thus enlarging the pool of minority candidates from which corporations may hire for the better positions that require a degree, heretofore unavailable to many minorities. Apparently, the thinking is that more minorities with “degrees” diminish a pretext for legally discriminating against them in the workplace. In fact, their larger presence forces companies to hire more of them to avoid liability. As a result, corporations become more diverse.
Why is this bad? Because it’s a leftist ruse to super-charge the diversity agenda with its goal of balkanizing the country in order to undermine our culture and traditional meritocratic values. All this aims to advance a socialist globalist mindset toward the demise of the republic. And, let’s be clear – it’s about disempowering white America 10/21/19
Fox has portrayed Hunter Biden as a wastrel. In particular, Greg Jarret said his background suggests he is good for nothing but flipping burgers. I am no apologist for Hunter, but on checking his biography, I was surprised to learn that he is a lawyer out of Yale law school and worked in several substantive capacities. Despite his father’s likely influence, the public would be interested in knowing this background and speculate for itself as to its significance. The guy may be a bum, but let's have all the facts.
I have been laudatory of Lou Dobbs. However, his recent interview with trade maven, Peter Navarro, disappointed me. Coming on the heels of highly chronicled declines in the manufacturing and service sectors, I eagerly anticipated a question about how that related to Trump’s trade policy. Dobbs never brought it up! He is purely a shill for the president. And I say that as a supporter of the Trump/Navarro trade policy, regardless of the economic impact heretofore.
I haven’t seen Ann Coulter in ages, not even on Fox. Is she banned again? In September 2015 during a GOP presidential debate she tweeted some innocuous comments that some construed to be anti-Semitic. As a consequence, she disappeared from virtually all media for about 18 months missing the entire election extravaganza. Here’s what she said: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/09/17/ann-coulter-comment-jews-gop-debate-israel-relations/32543837/ .
I thought she had done her penance but it appears Coulter faces yet another blackout in the 2020 campaign, presumably in further retribution for her 2015 “indiscretion”.
I said four years ago that this censorship was OUTRAGEOUS and I say it again. Why is cowardly Fox News, not to mention all other media outlets, afraid to air this woman who had been a staple of the network for years. Maybe it’s because she had a falling out with Trump. If not, certain powers that be have a bit too much clout that should be challenged in the name of free speech. 10/9/19
Note: In keeping with my ongoing visceral dedication to defy political correctness in all quarters, I present the following revelations regarding corporate America’s obsession with diversity.
I just returned from a Diversity Summit in Timbuktu. It was a confab of mostly Chief Diversity Officers seeking to improve their methods for achieving a truly diverse workforce. Most interesting were the comments of one particular corporate manager, Whitey. He told me about his struggles dealing with the diversity policies of his CDO, one Ms. Zgbowgoeiw Poebtyoblbaoetn, aka Ms. Z, who hails from a hut in an Amazon rain forest.
The Chief Diversity Officer
Ms. Z herself is the very image of diversity. This androgynous creature stands 6’9” with one black arm and one white, the result of some body modification. She has a buzzcut on the right side, multi-colored tresses on the left, a chrome dome on top and a pony tail in the back. She flaunts one 51” DDD breast, a tattoo on her neck, and wears combat boots. And God knows what’s under that dress. Even her speech is diverse as she alternates from black dialect to the King’s English throughout the day. She worships at the LGBTQ altar, even painting her office in the emblematic rainbow colors.
All hiring decisions go through Ms. Z to ensure the company maintains an optimal diversity profile, while Whitey functions as her chief operating officer. In fact, Ms. Z strives to register the highest government diversity score in her industry, a feat she hopes would put her on the cover of Diversity Magazine and earn her an EEOC award. She insists that all job candidates submit to skin-tone classification measured scientifically in lumens from 1 to 50 where 1 is the darkest, 50 is the lightest. In addition, everyone must gender-identify on a wide spectrum of genitalia variations. Accordingly, she commissioned the building premises manager to make rest room modifications to accommodate all manner of anatomical anomalies. Says Ms. Z, “We cover every color, shape, form and subspecies in the human genome. Hell, we even got an Irishman on board.”
She also commands month-long classes for all employees in the use of appropriate pronouns, the veritable equivalent of learning another language. Ms. Z especially favors profile characteristics that are heavily weighted in the government diversity score, such as dark skin-tones in high positions. As such, she tries to minimize straight white males because they produce negative points in government reporting. (We get no respect anymore.)
Ms. Z draws from a major source of diversity enhancement that is the pool of illegal aliens who storm the southern border. They not only jack up a diversity score, but some America-hating state and local jurisdictions provide tax incentives for hiring them. The current invasion of caravans from Central America has been like manna from heaven for CDOs.
Problems
Here are some of the problems Whitey experienced enforcing Ms. Z’s diversity program.
Whitey’s heart-to-heart talk with Ms. Z
Exasperated, Whitey arranged a heartfelt talk with Ms. Z about his difficulty reconciling diversity compliance with executive demands for suitable people. He explained that the firm needs dedicated competent employees who can interact well with customers and one another. Instead, everyone hates each other and nothing gets done. The only unity centers on a collective hatred for the lily white CEO. Whitey told her that since implementing her diversity program the company has been constantly in the red and the stock has plummeted 70%. Ms. Z replied, “If people meet my diversity criteria they’re qualified. The rest is for the CEO to worry about. It’s PC over profits for me. Between you and me, let’s hope those losses continue. The CEO would get fired creating a bonanza opportunity to replace the honky with a sub-20 lumens black or Hispanic. The diversity score would skyrocket!”
Whitey seeks refuge
Overcome by the displeasure of his job, Whitey went home to decompress with his family. He summoned his three young sons to resume a recent discussion about career aspirations. One had said he wants to be a fireman. Another had said he wants to be an astronaut. Whitey turned to his previously undecided precocious fair-headed boy, Niles, and asked if he had made up his mind yet. Niles said, “Yeah, Dad. I want to be a Chief Diversity Officer.” 10/2/19
Miscellaneous Thoughts Posted to Linked In Between January and March 2020 By William J. Dodwell
- The demise of the black family 1970 – present - Black crime 1970 – present - Black incarceration 1970 - present - Black homelessness 1970 - present - Urban blight 1965 - present - Drive-by shootings 1965 - present - Poor academic performance 1900 – present - Black illegitimacy and illiteracy 1965 - present - Black drug dealing 1920 - present - Government dependence 1965 – present - Affirmative action 1970 – present - No-bail liberation 2020 - Rampant corruption among black public officials 1965 - present - Rampant corruption in black non-profits 1965 - present - Rampant corruption in black churches 1965 – present - Degrading rap and hip hop music 1985 – present - Black takeover of the NFL and NBA 1980 - present - Beautiful jazz and traditional music 1900 - present Black pathologies, fostered by longstanding Democratic policies, derive largely from personal irresponsibility and moral deficits. I spotlight them here to invite their denunciation in the black community as to encourage a new chapter in black history founded on conservative values. That transformation is essential to black progress. 2/5/20
Well, a true meritocratic standard took over. Perhaps
the comedy “White Men Can’t Jump” suggests why.
That is, team owners recognize the reality of certain race-based physical
prowess. Accordingly, they hire blacks
in highly disproportionate numbers based on corresponding superior performance. But as a byproduct, these players changed the
NFL culture to one often characterized by clown acts on the field, mayhem in
the locker room, and criminal violence in the street. Bye, bye Miss American
Pie. If “white men can’t jump”, could it
be that the paucity of blacks in the executive suite is because “black men can’t
read”, so to speak? A meritocratic model as that properly adopted in
professional sports would support unfettered white dominance in commerce. But instead, government and politics impose diversity
requirements. Why the double standard?
For consistency, either the NFL and
NBA practice affirmative action, or business discontinue it. 1/31/20
The corrupted Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the grossly politicized impeachment process, and the socialist platforms of major Democratic presidential candidates demonstrate how truly serious the leftist threat is to the republic. The Comprehensive Conservative is a self-anointed truth machine that will not relent in exposing dishonesty, fraud and subversion that none dares to broach. In view of a corrupt media, Congress and administrative state, vigilance is paramount. Acquiescence is fatal. Because of his comments on the Kobe tragedy, and due to his many right-wing rants, The Comprehensive Conservative is said to have no heart. Let it be known that his cardiologist just gave him a clean bill of health. http://www.williamjdodwell.com/ 1/28/20
I wrote a piece in 2014 lamenting the media hype about the impending retirements of Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter. Ihttps://lnkd.in/dB59GUR In that article I posed the question whether
the intense media fawning would have occurred if they were white. I raise the same question about Kobe. The leftist media capitalize on the triumphs
and misfortunes of black celebrities to garner mass empathy for that demographic
writ large, and thus the liberal agenda built around it. The more the media can get people to grieve
over Kobe, the more people will tend to support the government social programs,
diversity initiatives, affirmative action, and crime absolution directed to
black society. To that end, to what
extent do the media create sympathy for Kobe beyond what really exists? 1/27/20
In yet another example of the left’s lurch to extremism, its powers-that-be have gone beyond just advocating interracial comity, to promoting genetic integration. This is obvious in Hollywood content, Madison Avenue commercials and general media. In addition, bank ATMs, that have featured interracial couples on the opening screen for some time, have kicked it up a notch. Now, lest the viewer think that the couple are just friends, the woman is visibly pregnant. Message delivered. Yes, even the diversity-obsessed Federal Reserve Bank is in on it. The left is bent on eroding the nation's gene pool in order to destroy America and build a new Marxist globalist social order in its place. The history of behavioral change in the NFL demonstrates what mass miscegenation would do to the social fabric. Through interracial breeding, coupled with open borders, the left aims to transform national demographics. The new DNA inevitably will reduce the nation to third-world status. As the late great conservative radio talk show host, Bob Grant, used to say, “Someone’s got to say these things. It might as well be me.” 1/23/20
The result of liquidity infusions by the Fed is to produce artificially low short-term rates which further discourage banks from lending to each other in the repo market. Once the Fed repo stimulus wears off, market forces raise the rate again to natural and more profitable levels based on the supply and demand for money. CONTINUED AT https://lnkd.in/eP_BPRd 1/14/20
When a male Trumpian engages in a fight with a male leftist out of self-defense, here’s the drill. (Initiating violence is not approved.) In a rapid-fire succession of punches the Trumpian executes the following: - A left jab to the face. - A right upper cut to the chin. - A left blow to the solar plexus. - A right round-house to the head. - A left cross to the face to put him away.
When a crazed female leftist shouts profanities in his face, the Trumpian responds as follows. Woman protestor: “F—k you!!!!” Man Trumpian: “Do you want to? I’ll pay for the room.” After the deed the Trumpian tries to convert her in the ensuing pillow talk. If he’ good, he might even extract a Trump campaign donation. Let’s rumble. 1/6/20
CULTURE
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FINANCE & THE ECONOMY
BELOW-MARKET INTEREST RATES DISRUPT THE REPO MARKET
By William J. Dodwell January 14, 2020 Much has been written about anomalies in the repo market since a sharp spike in the rate last September. Repos (repurchase agreements) are instruments by which financial institutions lend or borrow cash (up to 180 days) to/from one another in exchange for Treasury securities collateral. Indeed, repos are a $5 trillion market that is crucial for funding bank trading and investment activities. Inter-bank cash shortages and Fed intervention But banks also rely on this facility to shore up brief cash shortfalls created by a raft of withdrawals from the financial system. They include large scale collective payments, such as corporate taxes and Treasury auction settlements that transfer cash out of banks to the Treasury. Banks use repos to borrow cash to satisfy more stringent post-crisis regulatory net capital and liquidity requirements. These thresholds are particularly sensitive at year-end because they may determine whether banks have to raise additional capital to qualify for Fed approval to pay dividends or buy back shares. Of late, a paucity of capital
in the repo market has caused short-term rates to rise creating upward pressure
on the Federal Reserve Bank’s federal funds overnight rate which is supposed to
be the designated benchmark for all other short-term rates. In order to keep this rate at the Fed’s
desired economically optimal level, the Fed has been infusing liquidity into
the financial system through repo loans of its own to borrowing banks needing
cash. This reduces the repo rate to
slightly above or below the fed funds rate. Various forces have created tightness in the repo market causing rate increases and volatility that prompt Fed intervention. Since repo activity worldwide is highly concentrated in just four U.S. banks, inter-bank repo lending diminishes when they hoard cash to meet regulatory requirements, or when they opt to invest in Treasuries instead of repo loans. Similarly, many small dealers have stopped repo lending because post-crisis regulation has made cash generally scarcer and thus more costly and onerous to acquire. And, when cash shortfalls in banks arise causing them to scramble for liquidity, the resulting volatility further increases the cost to borrow by repo. In addition, strong demand for cash from hedge funds and money market funds has made it less available for banks, sometimes straining operations. Artificial rates and moral hazard The result of liquidity infusions by the Fed is to produce artificially low short-term rates which further discourage banks from lending to each other in the repo market. Once the Fed repo stimulus wears off, market forces raise the rate again to natural and more profitable levels based on the supply and demand for money. This invites the Fed to intervene yet again and again in a tug of war fashion with the market to lower the rate to maintain its desired fed funds level. The Fed set the current fed funds rate at the 1.5% - 1.75% target range which in real terms (after inflation) is slightly negative. This, while the economy is relatively robust with unemployment at record low levels. Why is the Fed keeping rates so low when the market seems to call for higher rates? Is the Fed skittish about disturbing stock and bond markets? Is it intimidated by President Trump’s jawboning for minimal rates? Superficially low rates created by the Fed’s accelerated repo operations induce banks to retain cash in their riskless interest-bearing excess reserves held at the Fed. Ordinarily, the banks would lend to other banks via higher-yielding repo which carries a modicum of counterparty risk. This partial bank withdrawal from repo lending causes rate volatility that raises funding costs which crimp bank net interest margins. Fed intervention in the repo market is analogous to its much larger quantitative easing program aimed at suppressing long-term mortgage rates in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis. The resulting low long-term rates have encouraged investors to seek higher returns in riskier assets such as stocks, high-yield foreign bonds and private-equity. This practice has misallocated capital to inflated financial assets at the expense of higher-interest bank deposits and business investment that support the real economy of goods and services. Suppressed long-term rates also have encouraged dangerous debt accumulation by government, businesses and consumers. Artificially low short-term rates cause a dearth of inter-bank lending, the lifeblood of the financial system. Consequently, uneven cash flows among banks are insufficiently corrected causing the Fed to lend repeatedly in the place of other banks in order to maintain operating stability. The repo assets on the Fed’s balance sheet and the income that flows from them ordinarily reside with the banks to the benefit of their shareholders and the economy. That income should not accrue to the Treasury via the Fed. Likewise, the Treasury and mortgage securities the Fed owns as a result of quantitative easing could belong to the banks. Thus, the larger the Fed’s balance sheet, the more distorted the financial markets become to the general economy’s ultimate detriment. Right before the financial crisis the Fed’s balance sheet was $900 billion. It subsequently rose to $4.5 trillion through post-crisis quantitative easing. Then the Fed reduced it to $3.8 trillion as it stopped QE in 2017 and allowed the portfolio to run off as securities matured, a process that helps to normalize long-term interest rates. However, in a later stimulus the Fed discontinued the unwinding in 2019 causing its securities portfolio to rise to $4.2 trillion today, including about $250 billion of repo loans (reverse repurchase agreements) to financial institutions to correct their cash shortfalls. In a free market the cost of funds should be determined by private-sector lenders based on their risk-return calculus. The Fed’s job is to ensure short-term interest-rate stability through temporary intervention as needed. Even the salutary long-term intercession during and after the financial crisis should end eventually. Ongoing repo loans from the Fed to banks are a crutch for a systemic problem that suggests that short-term interest rates set by the Fed are too low. The central bank should not become a permanent substitute for financial market participants because this distorts interest rates and asset price discovery. In case of the repo market, the Fed has become the lender of last resort. Ongoing market desperation is not healthy. Correctives There are proposals to revamp the repo architecture to improve the availability of cash to cover bank shortfalls. One is to establish a facility that triggers an automatic release of funds from a bank’s own excess reserves at the Fed when needed. However, such reliance probably would invite a stigma akin to borrowing from the Fed discount window. Another idea is to require banks to transact repos through clearing houses like Dodd-Frank mandates for swaps. However, the added cost is likely unwarranted given that repos are fully secured and mainly about liquidity risk. By contrast, minimally secured swaps involve more dangerous market risk associated with hedging and speculation. Nevertheless, the current problem in the repo market suggests that post-crisis short-term interest-rate normalization has to resume. The Fed’s fear of roiling the stock and bond markets from rate hikes must not impede that necessity. Those asset prices are currently susceptible to some correction because they are inflated by below-market general interest rates. Stock prices hit record highs throughout 2019 despite negative earnings growth all year. And a near-flat, and sometimes inverted, yield curve does not seem consistent with a reasonably growing U.S. economy, notwithstanding the influences of slow global growth. Below-market interest rates have created inflated financial assets for some time. Now they contribute to dislocations in the repo market which cause repetitive operating cash shortfalls at some banks. The Fed needs the fortitude to resist political pressures and normalize rates. Recall the courage of former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker in the early 1980s in raising rates to record levels to extinguish hyper-inflation.
©2020 William J. Dodwell
William J. Dodwell is a retired corporate executive, management consultant and financial writer in the finance industry with particular expertise in the capital markets. Mr. Dodwell has written in professional journals, the trade press and corporate publications. He is a Certified Public Accountant (Inactive) licensed in the State of New York.
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