I have written at least one letter to every Congressman I have ever had. I have received responses from all of them. The best response I ever received was from Jan Schakowsky; the worst from Rahm Emanuel. What made Rep. Schawkosky’s letter the best is that it was a direct, considered response to the letter I had written; what made Rahm’s the worst is that it was a form letter.

Last week I wrote a letter to my present representative, Mike Quigley. It was my first letter to him. I expect to receive a response. When I do I’ll tell you about it.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman has expressed his support of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in the United States on many occasions. Here’s one of them.

I want to explain why he’s wrong and why I think that a UBI in the United States is highly unlikely for the foreseeable future. Here’s the TL;DR version. UBI only works if implemented globally, because any country that offers a meaningful unconditional income becomes a magnet for global migration. But global UBI is impossible to coordinate, impossible to fund, and impossible to enforce. Therefore, UBI is inherently impractical and cannot be implemented in the real world. Anything less than global implementation is not universal, not sustainable, and ultimately self-defeating.

The economic problems

The price tag for a UBI is staggering. Even for a minimal $10,000 per year program for 260 million adults it would cost $2.6 trillion per year. In the absence of real material production rising that would produce inflation. Indeed, increases in the prices of housing and other essentials diminish the value of the UBI. It becomes a positive feedback situation.

Furthermore, raising taxes to pay for it is not a practical solution. The topmost income earners (or possessors of wealth in the case of a wealth tax) can and do leave.

From a technical standpoint a value-added tax is the only one capable of generating enough revenue and not only has that been historically unpopular in the U. S. it would run into the same positive feedback dilemma mentioned above.

The resistance to cutting presently existing programs is enormous. We are seeing that right now. The costs of a UBI would exacerbate that.

The social problems

The United States is, perhaps, peculiarly ill-suited for a UBI. Here in the U. S. identity, dignity, self-worth, and status are closely tied to work and the income realized from work. A software engineer who loses a job paying $180,000 a year to AI will have emotional and social difficulty receiving the same “basic income” as an individual who never graduated from high school or, possibly, worked a paying job in their lives.

The political problems

There is little or no coalition to support a UBI in existence. At present the overlap among progressives, moderates, and conservatives is so small it’s hard to imagine such a coalition forming. There are already substantial, active constituencies for Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. There aren’t any for a UBI.

The irony of LLM AI

The irony of LLM AI is simple to state. It’s expensive. The data centers required for LLM AI:

• produce huge, concentrated loads
• require constant cooling
• draw power even when human usage drops
• strain transmission lines
• require substation expansions and new peaker plants

Their demands will tend to raise the price of electricity. LLM AI threatens entry-level white collar jobs and the incomes associated with them, popularizing the idea of a UBI among progressives, tech-utopians, displaced workers, and futurists.

It should also be mentioned that a UBI will induce migration from areas of the United States where the climate is harsher, e.g. North Dakota, Minnesota, to places where it is milder, e.g. California, Florida, and North Carolina producing price increases in the destination areas and fiscal collapse in the origin areas. Furthermore, those destination areas are those most vulnerable to increases in the price of electricity and vulnerable to outages.

AI raises the floor of human needs while lowering the ceiling of what society can afford.

In conclusion it should be obvious why I think that a Universal Basic Income is unlikely, at least in my lifetime. More likely will be reinforcement of existing programs, however poorly constructed they might be.

I’ve already expressed myself about the Trump Administration’s attacks on Venezuelan boat whether they’re carrying illegal narcotics or not. I’m against it but I won’t explain that again.

What I do want to remark on is something that is not being mentioned in any of the media coverage I’ve read. The odds are that at least some of the individuals on these boats are armed, they probably aren’t wearing insignia identifiable at a distance, and they probably don’t have a command structure. In other words they aren’t civilians but they aren’t soldiers, either. They’re irregulars.

The laws of war still apply to them (they’re written so as to apply to everyone) but not as civilians. And not the way they would apply to Venezuelan soldiers. That’s pretty limiting.

They can’t be tortured. They must be treated humanely if captured and they should receive fair trials. They aren’t subject to summary execution.

It’s that last bit that might render destroying those boats a war crime. That’s a pretty slender reed.

This week two West Virginia National Guard soldiers were shot in what has been described as a “targeted attack”. As of this morning one of them has died. The editors of the Washington Post lament:

Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, were ambushed by an Afghan refugee while on patrol near the White House. Beckstrom died Thursday. As Wolfe’s family waits at the hospital, it’s worth considering what the tragedy says about the state of the country.

The National Guard’s presence in the capital has been controversial since it began this summer. But blaming the presence for provoking this monstrous act is inappropriate. The Guard has helped reduce and deter violent crime and is far from menacing. At worst, deploying soldiers to pick up trash is a poor use of resources. President Donald Trump’s decision to call up 500 additional Guard members to patrol D.C. is a symbolic gesture, not a prelude to fascism.

Last night after announcing the death of Ms. Beckstrom President Trump declaimed:

Even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many. I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization. These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process. Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!

I have seen the attack blamed on

lax gun control laws (The Guardian)
the presence of the National Guard in Washington, DC (New York Times)
U. S. political culture (WaPo)
President Biden (President Trump)
Third World immigrants (President Trump)

None of these claims is entirely true and none is entirely without basis.

From my perspective this incident confronts us with a worst case scenario. It’s a Rorschach test but it is unlikely to foster support for increased immigration (or accepting asylum-seekers for that matter). It appears to me to be reprising the Immigration Act of 1924, something I’ve been warning about for some time.

This morning I was confronted by one of the more depressing Substacks I have read lately and wanted to comment on it. After a preamble Michael W. Green comes out strong:

And so now, let’s tug on that loose thread… I’m sure many of my left-leaning readers will say, “This is obvious, we have been talking about it for YEARS!” Yes, many of you have; but you were using language of emotion (“Pay a living wage!”) rather than showing the math. My bad for not paying closer attention; your bad for not showing your work or coming up with workable solutions. Let’s rectify it rather than cast blame.

I have spent my career distrusting the obvious.

Markets, liquidity, factor models—none of these ever felt self-evident to me. Markets are mechanisms of price clearing. Mechanisms have parameters. Parameters distort outcomes. This is the lens through which I learned to see everything: find the parameter, find the distortion, find the opportunity.

But there was one number I had somehow never interrogated. One number that I simply accepted, the way a child accepts gravity.

The poverty line.

I don’t know why. It seemed apolitical, an actuarial fact calculated by serious people in government offices. A line someone else drew decades ago that we use to define who is “poor,” who is “middle class,” and who deserves help. It was infrastructure—invisible, unquestioned, foundational.

This week, while trying to understand why the American middle class feels poorer each year despite healthy GDP growth and low unemployment, I came across a sentence buried in a research paper:

“The U.S. poverty line is calculated as three times the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963, adjusted for inflation.”

I read it again. Three times the minimum food budget.

I felt sick.

In the balance of the post Mr. Green analyzes that and arrives at the conclusion that the actual threshold household income below which people are poor is $140,000. Let that sink in for a while. The implications are staggering. By that reckoning not only are most Americans poor but there is no practical, foreseeable strategy for changing it. Contrary to his own criticism in that early passage he presents none, no doubt for that reason.

He introduces some worthwhile ideas. One of them is the “cost of participation”:

To function in 1955 society—to have a job, call a doctor, and be a citizen—you needed a telephone line. That “Participation Ticket” cost $5 a month.

Adjusted for standard inflation, that $5 should be $58 today.

But you cannot run a household in 2024 on a $58 landline. To function today—to factor authenticate your bank account, to answer work emails, to check your child’s school portal (which is now digital-only)—you need a smartphone plan and home broadband.

The cost of that “Participation Ticket” for a family of four is not $58. It’s $200 a month.

The economists say, “But look at the computing power you get!”

I say, “Look at the computing power I need!”

The utility I’m buying is “connection to the economy.” The price of that utility didn’t just keep pace with inflation; it tripled relative to it.

In 1955 (his benchmark year) about 75% of Americans had telephones in their homes so IMO that’s a reasonable factor in the “cost of connection”. I’m not entirely confident in his estimate of the cost of that—the canceled checks I have reflect a figure somewhat higher than that.

A lot more than the things he lists have changed since 1955. For one thing where people live has changed enormously since then. In 1955 35% of the population lived in the South. Today nearly 40% do and most of those live in the major cities of the South, e.g. Dallas, Houston, Miami, etc. The implications of that on his estimate of the change in housing costs is considerable.

Here’s a mind boggling figure:

Healthcare: In 1955, Blue Cross family coverage was roughly $10/month ($115 in today’s dollars). Today, the average family premium is over $1,600/month. That’s 14x inflation.

I think he’s underestimating the cost of healthcare insurance in 1955. I have the check stubs to prove it. I do wonder what the total effect that monstrous growth in costs has on the overall cost-of-living figure he’s coming up with when you consider primary and secondary effects.

I also think that he’s making some bad assumptions. For example, two jobs in a household does not require two automobiles (and maintenance, insurance, etc.) It doesn’t even require one. One or both can take public transportation. For the first several years of our marriage my wife and I were both employed but shared a single car. My understanding is that a lot of people who live in New York City, for example, don’t own cars at all.

Furthermore, averages are not as meaningful when analyzing things that don’t occur in a standard distribution than than they are in things that are. The top-selling smartphone in the country is the iPhone Pro Max ($1,299). The tenth largest seller is the moto g ($159) . Either achieves the connectivity about which Mr. Green speaks. An iPhone is a luxury (and maybe a status symbol) not a necessity.

I recommend reading the whole thing. Despite its flaws, I think he’s put his finger on something, namely the factors behind the widespread insecurity. People with household incomes between the official poverty rate but less than $100,000 have a lot to be insecure about.

And it explains the widespread insecurity about illegal immigration.

Another thing it highlights is how problematic the federal approach to making policy is. Several differing conclusions might be drawn from that. I think that more should be done at the state level and less at the federal level (sadly, that doesn’t help Illinois or Chicago much).

The following data are derived from the Census Bureau’s ACS:

We continue to have race problems in the United States but they are not what many seem to assume as the table above rather clearly illustrates. Yes, some people are discriminated against because of the color of their skin or race. Since “black” is inclusive of both native-born black Americans, the descendants of Southern slaves (whom the sociologist Charles Moskas called “Afro-Americans”) and recent black immigrants, the median household income of Afro-Americans must be even lower than the figure reported above.

My take is that two issues dominate. The first is that immigration does not serve Afro-Americans well. Preferences, set-asides, quotas, and other strategies have preferentially aided immigrants rather than Afro-Americans. The second is that culture, i.e. behavior, is more important than race or color.

I agree with Dr. Gordon S. Wood that America is a “creedal nation” or, as G. K. Chesterton put it more than a century ago, a nation founded on a creed. It is not an ethnic state like Denmark or even a cultural one like France.

The problems that we face today are that a significant number of our own citizens reject the creed and we have the largest non-citizen population of any time in our history many of whom have never embraced that creed. It bears mentioning that even ethnic states and cultural ones are fraying at the edges under the pressures of mass migration.

I have no idea how a creedal nation can survive under such circumstances.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal observe the argument going on in Chicago between the City Council and the mayor with bemusement:

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson thinks a new “head tax” on corporations is the way to balance the budget, but again Mr. Johnson’s own head seems to be lost in the progressive clouds. The City Council’s finance committee voted 25-10 on Monday to reject his revenue package, amid criticism that included some of the Mayor’s allies.

“I am not a supporter of the head tax at any level,” Alderman Pat Dowell, whom Mr. Johnson appointed to the finance committee, told reporters this month. Alderman Timmy Knudsen said the mayor’s office had falsely claimed he was a supporter of the head tax. That was a “complete lie,” he told the press: “I have been a ‘heck no’ the whole time.”

Mr. Johnson’s idea is to levy a tax of $21 per employee on businesses with more than 100 workers. This would punish companies that are doing Chicago a favor by staying in downtown offices despite the city’s dysfunctions, rather than fleeing elsewhere. Only three other big cities have a head tax, according to the Chicago Policy Center, and Mr. Johnson’s plan has a far higher rate than the ones levied by Denver, San Jose and San Diego.

I don’t think the editors understand what is going on. The argument is a microcosm of the argument ongoing within the Democratic Party. The mayor is considerably more progressive than all but a few city council members. He has views, ideas, and objectives all of which involve spending more money.

The mayor believes that Chicago is not spending nearly enough, this despite Chicago’s already exorbitant spending and high taxes and fees. He doesn’t believe he was voted into office to cut expenses but to expand them. He is outraged that “the rich” (whether companies or individuals) “aren’t paying their fair share” whatever that may mean.

In that context he doesn’t really care about Econ 101, the city’s high expenses and taxes, or even the city’s longterm viability. Using an expression borrowed from the financial sector, his view is strictly IBGYBG (“I’ll be gone; you’ll be done). A short term one. He’s looking at things from the standpoint of what he wants to do today not what that will do tomorrow.

Unfortunately, Chicago has been taking that view for decades and after years of kicking the can down the road we’re running out of road. Just to give one example take the Chicago Public Schools. According to the NCES in 1990 about 400,000 students were enrolled in the CPS compared to 350,000 now. Nonetheless fewer Chicagoans are spending almost twice as much per student as we were then. We’ve got to bring wants into alignment with our decreasing ability to pay. The same case can be made for the police department, fire department, and every other city department.

Last week I lamented that no one had produced a plan that would allow Ukraine to prevail in its war against Russia. Yesterday seven “experts” put forward their plans in a piece in the New York Times. The only expert calling for victory for Ukraine was a former Ukrainian foreign minister. Another of the experts, a Russian, placed the blame on the present situation on NATO. The consensus among those who were neither Russians nor Ukrainians was mildly supportive of the Trump Administration’s 28-point plan which others have condemned as being pro-Russian.

The closest thing to such a plan was produced by Bernard-Henri Lévy in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. After complaining about Ukraine’s allies:

The problem is the allies. For nearly four years and through four films, I have said this, repeated it, and shown it again and again: From day one, all of the allies have systematically been one step behind—they sent helmets when Javelin missile launchers were needed, Javelins when artillery was needed, howitzers when trench warfare was giving way to war in the sky, antiaircraft defenses when long-range Scalp or Storm Shadow missiles were required, tanks when planes were needed, planes after the enemy had adapted its air defenses. . . . Always the right weapon, always six months late.

He singles out France:

And there is the Nov. 17 agreement signed by France’s President Emmanuel Macron, providing for the delivery, within 10 years, of 100 Rafale aircraft, 600 long-range AASM bombs, and 8 SAMP/T batteries, similar to the American Patriot.

But alas, within 10 years. Why? The urgency is now.

He might consider the possibility that France is incapable of providing the promised support any faster than that.

Here’s his plan:

And the absolute priority is to respond to the request President Volodymyr Zelensky has been making since day one, to which we have all remained more or less deaf, and on which the outcome of the war depends: Close the sky; prevent Russian bombs, missiles, drones from targeting our civilians, pulverizing our cities, and destroying our infrastructure—and then we will win.

Doing this requires three crucial steps: First, for France to set an example by delivering enough Patriot-type batteries to protect all major cities urgently, not in dribs and drabs. Second, for the U.S. and other allies to assure that the weapons provided are allowed to strike deep into Russia. Third, to finish integrating Ukraine into the network of radars, sensors and satellites that allow NATO armies not only to jam the sky but to detect incoming missile salvos.

As it’s been explained to me what he’s proposing cannot be done without the direct participation of American soldiers which, remains, correctly, off the table. If that’s an incorrect understanding, I would have no problem with providing those capabilities to the Ukrainians (with appropriate oversight) for the reasons I have enunciated in the past.

Lately some have been making the analogy to Yugoslavia and I think that’s correct. Just as with the Yugoslavian civil war the Russo-Ukrainian War is taking place entirely within Europe. It is a European war. If providing the resources necessary for the Ukrainians to prevail requires the European countries to go on a wartime footing, so be it. That’s what they should do. Our role should be limited to providing support and deterring the Russians from attacking our NATO allies directly. Personally, I think the specter some have raised of Russian troops marching into Berlin, Paris, and Rome is laughable.

The distance between Moscow and Kiev is roughly the same as that between Chicago and Kansas City. For going on three years Russia has been stalled in a strictly regional conflict with a hugely smaller foe. Russia’s attack on Ukraine was wrong and unlawful but is hardly a global threat.

I believe that ending the war is the highest priority with preserving Ukraine’s dignity a much lower one. Like it or not Trump’s plan is realistic and a step towards that end. As the “experts” (other than the Ukrainians) in the NYT piece affirmed, a ceasefire is the immediate necessity to save Ukrainian lives.