On Track to Run Dry

Every year ’round about this time give or take the Social Security trustees provide their annual report. Sometimes they have good news. Others, like this year, they have bad news reports Julie Zauzmer Weil at the Washington Post:

The trust funds for Social Security and Medicare will run out of money in less than a decade, according to a report released Wednesday, as the programs’ trustees warned that the funds’ depletion date is significantly closer than predicted a year ago.

If Congress does not overhaul the programs’ financing, automatic cuts will slash Social Security benefits by 23 percent and Medicare hospital benefits by 11 percent in 2033, the report said.

Read the whole thing. My prediction is that Congress will not overhaul Social Security and Medicare until it’s absolutely necessary which will be too late to do much about it. As I’ve said before my proposals for reforming those systems are:

  1. Make all wage income subject to Social Security withholding
  2. Reform the retirement ages to make the actuarial assumptions resemble those at the inception of the plan more closely

To those I believe that employers should be required to report how many jobs they are outsourcing and pay a tax of roughly 30% of the gross to make domestic jobs more competitive with offshore employees. I don’t know who first made the wisecrack. I’ve heard it attributed to Joe Kennedy, father of JFK, Bobby, and Teddy:

When my shoeshine boy was giving me stock tips I knew it was time to get out of the market.

Offshore outsourcing isn’t just for enterprise-sized companies anymore. Even very small companies are offshoring software development these days. When a $10 million company is offshoring jobs, it’s time to start keeping track of the practice and controlling it.

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Where Does It Stand?

I don’t think that the Iranian regime is nearly as shaky as some seem to believe and I also don’t believe that the Israelis are in nearly as strong a position as some seem to be claiming.

With respect to the mullahocracy, I suspect its support remains quite strong among the rural and urban poor. Yes, they’ve taken substantial losses of leadership personnel. I have no idea how deep their “bench” is.

And with respect to Israel I have no idea how many offensive and defensive weapons remain in their arsenal. A serious depletion of the missiles that constitute their “Iron Dome” would have dire implications. Neither they nor we can replenish them particularly quickly. The advantage they have there is that the Iranians’ inventory is being depleted too and it can’t be replenished particularly quickly, either.

What I do know is that we have a recent history of underestimating the staying power of our opponents.

Please don’t construe this post as my declaring defeat. As the title of this post indicates, I’m asking a question rather than making a claim. The more opinion pieces I read that say the Iranian regime is on the verge of collapse the more I suspect propaganda at work.

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What 80% of Us Believe In

In a piece at Liberal Patriot John Halpin reproduces a graph illustrating some things that 80% of Americans believe in:

Examining a range of polling from the past few years and trying my best to use reputable polls and exclude ones by activist groups pushing questionable opinion data to defend their issue, I put together this table below showing the contours of what public agreement among eight in ten Americans looks like on basic tests of supporting or favoring various policies. This exercise does not include other areas of potential 80 percent consensus, such as desiring less divisive politics in America or viewing the economy as the most important priority—clearly things most people would like to see their government focus on.

and here’s the table:

I can’t honestly say that I support all of those but I do support the majority of the items with 80% support. In fairness I suspect that were one to change the phrasing or narrow some of those items extremely slightly they would garner less support.

It does bring up a question, however. Why don’t either of our major political parties support all of those measures? Here’s my guess. Their donors and activists don’t support them.

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Misunderstanding America

I encourage you to read Yascha Mounk’s consideration of whether the United States is headed towards dictatorship. I think he has a number of thought-provoking observations. Here’s his conclusion:

So: Is America about to turn into a dictatorship? Not today. Not tomorrow. But the danger is real. And the ultimate outcome, far from being predetermined, may not be knowable for decades to come.

Ask me again in ten years.

For some reason everything seems to remind me of Tom Wolfe these days. For example, here’s what Tom Wolfe said about fascism in America:

The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.

I think there’s a reason for that. America is an outlier. Freedom of speech, religion, the press, etc. are more extreme here than in the United Kingdom, in France, in Germany, or anywhere in Europe. Historically, that has been one of our strengths. China seems to be using them against us these days.

I know I don’t entirely understand Trump and think he puzzles Dr. Mounk as well but I think he understands part of his appeal: he’s a populist. Full stop.

I would like to offer some additional thoughts about the Trump phenomenon. I think he’s a vision of things to come. He’s the first truly post-literate president. As I have mentioned in my many posts on the subject of what I have called “visualcy”, the brains of pre-literate and post-literate people are structured and work differently than those of literate people. Let me summarize.

Literacy is inherently linear in nature and it promotes thinking in abstractions. In pre-literate and, I believe, post-literate cultures people do not turn to books for knowledge. They rely on experts and visual sources of information In a literate culture public communication is abstract and literary. In a post-literate culture it is less logical, more emotional, and more extreme.

Trump exemplifies that beautifully. He is not an abstract thinker. His communication is emotional and extreme. I suspect his highly transactional approach can be related to that as well.

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What Are They Actually Worried About?

I’m seeing a rash of articles this morning complaining about emerging Israeli regional hegemony. Nothing could be more absurd or farther from reality.

It may be that some Israelis long for such an outcome. It maybe that nothing short of regional hegemony will give some Israelis the security they want. Let me remind you that Israel is a tiny country the size of New Jersey and smaller than some of our counties without natural resources.

Israel may be able to destroy Iran’s warmaking capability. It may be able to destroy its nuclear program although I doubt its ability to do even that. Conquering Iran is beyond its competence. Iran is too big and too isolated by its ring of mountains. That’s why conquering the Persians eluded the Romans for 1,500 years.

The reasons for the Israelis’ success against Iran are:

  1. U. S. support
  2. Some very smart very capable Israelis who are afraid of their neighbors for reasons based on experience and willing to devote the resources to doing something about it.
  3. General Iranian incompetence or perhaps overconfidence.

So, what are the Arabs and Iranians who are writing these jeremiads afraid of?

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Better Late Than Never

At Time Miranda Jeyaretnam reports on the multiple bipartisan efforts in Congress to limit the president’s warmaking authority. Here’s a snippet:

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) announced plans to introduce a resolution on Tuesday that asserts the requirement of Congress’ approval if Trump wants to commit armed forces to military action in the region.

“This is not our war. But if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution,” Massie posted on X.

The resolution has already gained the support of progressive Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who replied “Signing on” to Massie’s post.

It’s also not the first proposal by a lawmaker seeking to limit U.S. military engagement in the conflict.

I sincerely hope that the Congress acts on this matter with some sense of urgency rather than its ordinary, leisurely pace. Such a move is long overdue and it looks like it took their corporate uncertainty about Trump to rouse them from their accustomed lethargy. There are many more similar actions that need congressional attention.

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Suspect Arrested in Minnesota

The man suspect of murdering a Minnesota state representative and her husband and two other individuals has been arrested by Minnesota law enforcement. Nathan Layne and Tom Polansek report at Reuters:

MINNEAPOLIS, June 15, (Reuters) – A massive two-day manhunt ended on Sunday with the arrest of Vance Boelter, 57, for allegedly killing a Minnesota Democratic state lawmaker and her husband while posing as a police officer, Governor Tim Walz said.

Boelter allegedly shot dead Melissa Hortman, the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark, in their home on Saturday – a crime Governor Tim Walz characterized as a “politically motivated assassination.”

This whole matter has been horrid and reprehensible. One of the things that has struck me is the pains to which both Democrats and Republicans have gone to cast political blame for the crime on the other side. Can’t we just acknowledge that these murders are horrible and unjustified and leave it at that? We’ll know more about it soon enough.

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Iran’s Very, Very Bad Week

Iran has had a very bad week and it looks as though that will continue. That began, propitiously enough, with the International Atomic Energy Agency informing Iran that it was out of compliance with its Safety Agreement with the agency. Reuters reports:

VIENNA, June 11 (Reuters) – Below are key passages from a four-page resolution on Iran that diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed on Thursday. The text is still confidential and was seen by Reuters.

Here are some key passages:

(e) Regretting that despite the above resolutions by the Board and numerous opportunities provided by the Director General since 2019, Iran has failed to provide the co-operation required under its Safeguards Agreement, impeding Agency verification activities, sanitizing locations, and repeatedly failing to provide the Agency with technically credible explanations for the presence of uranium particles of anthropogenic origin at several undeclared locations in Iran or information on the current location(s) of nuclear material and/or of contaminated equipment, instead stating, inconsistent with the Agency’s findings, that it has declared all nuclear material and activities required under its Safeguards Agreement,

(f) Noting the Director General’s conclusion … that Iran did not declare nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at three undeclared locations in Iran, specifically, Lavisan-Shian, Varamin, and Turquzabad, and that, because of the lack of technically credible answers by Iran, the Agency is not in a position to determine whether the nuclear material at these undeclared locations in Iran has been consumed, mixed with other declared material, or is still outside of Safeguards,

and

(h) Noting with concern the Agency’s conclusion that Iran retained unknown nuclear material and/or heavily contaminated equipment, and other assets, arising from the former undeclared structured nuclear programme, at Turquzabad in the period 2009 until 2018, after which items were removed from the location, the whereabouts of which remain unknown,

The emphasis is mine. What the IAEA has acknowledged is what I’ve been saying all along. We have never known the extent of Iran’s nuclear development program. That includes during the period in which the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was in force.

I don’t believe that apologists for the Obama Administration recognize what the IAEA has done to them. The JCPOA could not accomplish its objective because the Iranians have never been forthcoming. They merely revealed what we already knew. Their compliance with it was limited to that.

That is not to say that I think the Trump Administration acted rightly in abrogating the JCPOA. I think it acted foolishly. Limited as Iranian compliance was we had already materially borne the costs of the JCPOA and abrogating it just threw that investment away. What I think the Trump Administration should have done was work to limit expectations of what the JCPOA could accomplish.

Then only a day later the other shoe dropped. The Israelis attacked Iran’s known nuclear development facilities and made a special point of “decapitating” Iran’s nuclear development and military. The exchange of hostilities between Israel and Iran continues. Alexander Cornwell, Parisa Hafezi and Jeff Mason report at Reuters:

TEL AVIV/DUBAI/WASHINGTON, June 16 (Reuters)
Iranian missiles struck major Israeli cities on Monday while Israel’s prime minister said his country was on its way to eliminating “threats” from nuclear and missile facilities in Iran and civilian casualties mounted on both sides.

After four days of conflict between the regional foes, Iran said its parliament was preparing a bill to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) adding that Iran remained opposed to developing weapons of mass destruction.

By most accounts Israel has done substantial damage to Iran’s nuclear and missile development programs and has substantial control of the skies over Iran so expect Israel’s attacks on Iranian infrastructure to continue.

All of this is completely consistent with what I have maintained for the last twenty years: far from being a deterrent any nuclear development program on Iran’s part would be a target.

We don’t know what will materialize from the conflict. Perhaps Israel knows where all of Iran’s nuclear development facilities are located but I doubt it. Iran is unlikely to be deterred by its losses and possibly not even slowed down. I suspect that the likelihood of the U. S.’s being drawn into the conflict are high, something President Trump increases by hinting at American cooperation with Israel in Israel’s attacks on Iran.

I don’t believe that an Iranian attack on the U. S. will be a conventional one. I suspect that Iran will stick to its strengths which are in supporting terrorism. Such an attack could be in the Middle East, in Europe, or here in the United States.

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Sentencing the King of Illinois

Former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan has been sentence to 7.5 years in federal prison and a $2.5 million fine after his conviction on charges of corruption. ABC 7 Chicago reports:

CHICAGO (WLS) — Former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan was sentenced Friday to seven and a half years in federal prison and a $2.5 million fine in his corruption case.

The hearing lasted hours, starting around 1 p.m. at the Dirksen Federal Building. The sentence came down about 4:30 p.m.

Though it’s unclear where he’ll serve time, Madigan was ordered to report to prison October 13, almost a year to the day jury selection in his trial began.

Judge John Robert Blakey spent hours Friday discussing his reasoning for the sentence and enhancements on bribery, conspiracy and wire fraud charges.

“Judge Blakey is sending a very powerful message, not only to Speaker Madigan, but to the entire political establishment here in Illinois. Don’t engage in corruption,” said Chris Hotaling, former federal prosecutor.

The judge also touched on the ComEd Four conspiracy case and whether Madigan perjured himself, when he took the stand. Blakey said he believed he did.

Madigan was convicted in February of bribery conspiracy and other corruption counts, including the scheme with ComEd that enriched his allies in exchange for favorable legislation.

“We saw the public get a corruption tax for years and years, and we’re still paying that tax, frankly, when you look at the legislation that was passed,” said David Greising, President of the Better Government Association.

Apologists masquerading as analysts continue to prate about the good that Speaker Madigan did for the people of Illinois. As the late Mayor Daley used to say, let’s look at the record. Over a period of 40 years as Illinois House Speaker and chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party he enriched himself and his cronies. Illinois went from having a high credit rating to one of the lowest in the country. It went from being a low tax state to a high tax state. Businesses and people left in droves for more favorable, less corrupt states.

There have been hundreds of federal convictions of office holders for corruption. Nothing seems to deter it. Barring an amendment to the state’s constitution Illinoisans will continue to be yoked to high public employee pension payments.

Chicago went from “the city that works” to its lowest population in a century. Until the Republican Party become completely supine there was incessant inter-party conflict. Now there’s incessant intra-party conflict. In short most of what Speaker Madigan championed was wrong.

Mr. Madigan was only convicted of his latest misdeeds so the sentence is relatively light. Considering his age it is likely to be a life sentence.

I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop. I doubt we have heard the last of Mr. Madigan.

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What Will the Protests Accomplish?

I want to ask a question. What will the protests against ICE raids accomplish?

IMO if the protests were to remain entirely peaceful there is an outside chance that they could turn public opinion against Trump on immigration enforcement. The enforcement hasn’t been 100% just or equitable. It should be easy to build opposition to something that isn’t 100% just or equitable.

On the other hand protests that escalate into riots and looting will increase public support for Trump’s immigration enforcement. It doesn’t make any difference whether the violence is confined to five square blocks or 500.

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