Work Doesn't Pay

Go back to work and take a pay cut? In Washington State the jobs would have to pay you $122,000 in order for your family to be better off than not working. No wonder so many jobs go begging. People can't afford to work!

Put a Stake in the Mask Mandate Myth

 Can we once and for all put an end to myth that wearing masks stops a virus from spreading? 

Printing More Money Tackles Inflation. Really?

A recent Newsweek poll found these results. Countering this level of stupidity is a pretty daunting task. And gives you some insight into why politicians keep telling what would seem to be obvious lies. 

The survey found 63 percent of respondents said they agree—with 42 percent saying they "strongly agree"—when asked if the federal government should issue new stimulus checks to tackle inflation.

How Odd. Less Qualified Students Don't Perform As Well In College

Any economist could tell you what will happen when you make less qualified people perform any task. 

Capitalism is Failing?

But the truer you are to capitalistic principles the better off you are. 

We Don't Have Revenue Problem. We have a Spending Problem

Federal tax collections are near an all-time high. 

Middle Class Families Who Work are Not Better Off Than Those That Don't

 After taxes and transfer payments form government, middle class working families are not any better off than those who are working little or not at all. Talk about a disincentive to work!

Paying People Not To Work=Less Work (SURPRISE!)

This study from researchers at Harvard and the University of Exeter brings facts to the arguments about whether government handouts are productive or not. 

During a randomized trial conducted from July 2020 to May 2021, researchers assigned 2,073 low-income participants to receive a one-time unconditional cash transfer of either $500 or $2,000. Another 3,170 people with similar financial, demographic and socioeconomic characteristics served as a control group. The trial was funded by an anonymous nonprofit.

Participants earned an average of about $950 a month and had $530 in unearned income (e.g., food stamps). About 80% had children, and 55% were unemployed. Over 15 weeks they were surveyed about their physical, mental and financial well-being. Forty-three percent also agreed to allow researchers to observe their bank balances and financial transactions.

The top-line result: Handouts increased spending for a few weeks—on average $26 a day in the $500 group and $82 a day in the $2,000 group—but had no observable positive effect on any individual outcome. Bank overdraft fees, late-payment fees and cash advances were as common among cash recipients as in the control group.

Handout recipients fared worse on most survey outcomes. They reported less earned income and liquidity, lower work performance and satisfaction, more financial stress, sleep quality and physical health, and higher levels of loneliness and anxiety than the control group. There was no difference between the two cash groups.

These findings contradicted the predictions of 477 social scientists and policy makers the researchers surveyed. That’s not surprising. Most liberal academics and politicians believe government handouts are the solution to all problems. If transfer payments were a ticket to the middle class, the War on Poverty would have succeeded long ago.

The researchers posited that perhaps the cash payments weren’t generous enough to generate a positive result. “Receiving some, but not enough, money may have made their needs—and the gap between their resources and needs—more salient, which, in turn, may have made them feel distressed,” they write.

“Needs” is a subjective term. The theory is that low-income people who got handouts became more stressed when they realized they still couldn’t afford everything they “needed,” or more likely, wanted. If that’s true, simply giving people even more cash would surely lead to the same problem.

More plausible, the payments made work less rewarding, which reduced feelings of personal well-being. Cash recipients reported less earned income and felt worse about their work. It’s no surprise that people who received a large percentage of their monthly income for doing nothing were less motivated to work and less satisfied with their work. Earning a paycheck can give workers a sense of personal agency that encourages them to make better financial and health decisions. Receiving a handout may do the opposite.

Why Are Americans So Sad?

 Why are Americans so sad? Possible answers:

1. The more you have the more obsessed you are with what you don't have.

2. Easy solutions with a pill mindset (think weight loss)

3. Pharmaceutical companies benefit

The Final Verdict on Mask Mandates

Could there be any stronger evidence that mask mandates did absolutely nothing to alter the spread of Covid?  And yet there are still people defending them -- for reasons that have nothing to do with health.

The Real Racial Statistics of Police Shootings

BLM and their media friends often cite the fact that police shootings disproportionately involve black men more than white men. What they avoid is the data below that show blacks are disproportionately more likely to commit crimes that lead to police confrontations. If I were to point out that crime disproptionately occurs in cities with Democrat mayors, they would be quick to point out that crime is correlated to population density and large cities are disproptionately governed by Democrats. Similarly, police shootings are correlated to the incidence of crime, and blacks are simply more likely to be involved in crime.

Mask Data is Overwhelming

 The data on mask mandates is pretty conclusive -- and one sided. If masks had an effect, those red lines below would be higher than the black one. They're not. Not that anyone at the CDC or the Biden administration pays attending to data anymore. 

Reversing Energy Independence

 After 15 years of moving toward and achieving energy independence, the Biden administration is moving us in he opposite direction. 

Proof How Disconnected From Reality the Population Is

It's always been obvious that the majority of our fellow countrymen are woefully out of touch with reality, but once in a while you come across data that dramatically confirms it. Imagine thinking that 20% of the population earns more than a million dollars. Or that 30% are homosexual and 41% are black. In fairness if you watch TV and advertising a lot, it's easy to see how you might get that impression. 

Covid "Safety Precautions" Do Nothing to Make You Safer

It has been documented that Democrats are still more likely to stay at home than go out to work, shop or eat at restaurants . They are more likely to still be wearing masks and requiring school children to do the same. They obviously believe that these actions somehow reduce the instance of Covid infection, but the charts below say otherwise. As we continue to find out, all the hysterical "safety precautions" may make you feel better about yourself, but they do not actually make you safer. 

Mask Have Nothing to Do With Health

When California lifted its mask mandate, Santa Clara County insisted on keeping theirs. The infection rates in Santa Clara are identical to those without masks. What should that tell you about the effectiveness of mask mandates. They have nothing to do with health and everything to do with political posturing. 

Mask Mandates Did Nothing Positive. Case Closed. Let's Not Make the Same Mistake Again.

We have listened to the lockdown governors tell us to "mask up" for two years. Two years of wearing an appurtenance that does absolutely nothing to stop the virus. This is not exactly new information. Prior to turning masks into a political symbol, public health organizations did not recommend wearing masks.  

"There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program.

Then why were we subjected to useless torture? The most benign answer I can can give is that politicians suffer greatly from the DO SOMETHING Disease. Faced with a problem, they believe the worst possible decision is to do nothing, They knew -- or should have known -- that until some vaccine was developed there was little they could do to actually stop the virus. What to do? Masks have an intuitive appeal. After all surgeons wear them (yes, to reduce the transmission of bacteria, which are many times larger than a virus). They may be useless, but the pubic will see us doing SOMETHING. Like the War on Poverty. It didn't do much about actual poverty, but at least we were seen trying to DO SOMETHING. 

Now that data on the mask mandate is overwhelming obvious and negative, can we officially acknowledge reality so that we don't repeat the same mistake again the next time there is a new virus? 

Do You Avoid Stairs Because of the Risk?

A new report from the CDC, looks at the risks of Covid:

Among 1,228,664 persons who completed primary vaccination during December 2020–October 2021, severe COVID-19–associated outcomes (0.015%) or death (0.0033%) were rare. Risk factors for severe outcomes included age ≥65 years, immunosuppressed, and six other underlying conditions. All persons with severe outcomes had at least one risk factor; 78% of persons who died had at least four.

These are roughly the odds of dying from falling down stairs. Do you avoid taking stairs because they're too risky?

"Corporate Greed" or Basic Economics

 

Representative Pramilla Jayapal (Socialist, WA and whackadoodle chairman of the House Progressive Caucus), blamed “corporate greed” for recent price hikes at Starbucks.

Must be greed. Couldn’t be that the price of coffee has risen dramatically, right? Ms. Jayapal gets awarded an “F” in economics.

CDC's Own Data Shows Masks Don't Stop the Virus

 The CDC's own data shows that masks mandates don't do anything to stop the virus. Why do they keep putting out the mask myth? 

The Poor are Getting . . . Oh, wait.

 

Oxfam’s new report rails against a “40-year period of neoliberalism, during which economic policy choices have been purchased by rich, powerful and corrupt elites”.

But let's not let reality intrude. 

The Media Drives Polarization

 

 

This is pretty clearly driven by the media. The more time you spend amongst a group (like listening to Fox News CNN), the more “extreme” opinions you will develop. Examples that come to mind are racial “oppression”. You might start out thinking that racial discrimination is an unfortunate condition that has been improving slowly over the last 60 years. But if you spend all your time with CNN or MSNBC or Twitter you are now convinced that it is the hidden force behind everything in the world. If you spend your time with Fox News or Rush Limbaugh (RIP), you will become convinced that racism is mostly a fabricated tool used by Democrats and racial groups to gain power and spoils. You might not see anything wrong with Billionaires, but if you spend your time at MSNBC, you will soon grow to actually hate them and resent their success. You might not feel particularly strongly about abortion, but if you spend a lot of your time with Fox or at church, you will start to believe abortion really is taking someone’s life.

To the extent that it makes you aware of pertinent facts, this is a good thing. Maybe there’s more racial discrimination than we see ourselves. Maybe what we’re being told by government about masks and vaccines is really false. But then it also reinforces more questionable issues. Trump would have won the election but for fraud. Global warming is causing more extreme weather. The country was founded on racism in 1619.

I get frustrated because the leftists look at cold facts and ignore/deny them. I imagine they look at people like me and are frustrated that we are not more swayed by the strength of their emotional appeals to “fairness”.

If I’m right about this, I don’t see this changing much. Democrats seem to be out to purge the few “moderate” types left in their party. We’re going to see a wave of GOP primary candidates trying to unseat incumbents who aren’t sufficiently devoted to Trump. The only silver lining I can see is that the drift seems to be more toward the conservative camp than the radical left camp. But then, if we take over all three branches in 2025, we’ll be back to listening to the media create hoaxes about whomever is President at that time (I don’t even want to think about how bad it would be if it were Trump).

Is there a way out of this?

Manipulating Public Heath Officials

 From the wonderful book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (written 10 years ago).

One of the experiments he did was pose this question .

Imagine that the United States is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease (!), which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs have been proposed. If chosen

1. 200 people will be saved
2. There is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no one will be saved.

A substantial majority chose A even though the expected number of people saved is identical.

Then he asked the same question, but put it this way:

1. 400 people will die
2. There is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die.

Framed this way, a substantial majority chose B. The two are obviously identical in outcomes, yet framing it about deaths versus lives-saved radically changed the selection.

He went on to say, that he was even more disturbed when he posed this to a group of public health officials he was speaking to. They chose the same way. As he put it, “It is somewhat worrying that the officials who make decisions that affect everyone’s health can be swayed by such a superficial manipulation.”

 I’d love to know what they think about this now that we’ve seen pubic health officials be manipulated for real.

Update: Government Subsidies Drive Prices Higher

 An update on the relative price change of different sectors. As always, it is goods and services that are subsidized by government that are increasing much faster than the average and dramatically more than goods and services in the private sector that are not subsidized. 

Rule of reference: The more government is involved, the higher will be the price.