In a piece at The National Interest Daniel L. Davis has words of caution for the United States:

Israel has an obligation to take actions that ensure its security. If Israeli leaders take risks that result in more attacks against Israel, they must be prepared to deal with that situation. What should not happen, however, is for Tel Aviv to expect the United States Armed Forces to fight alongside the IDF. Washington should not be a party in engaging in military operations that run counter to its national security objectives and could draw it into a new Middle Eastern war.

There is nothing for us to gain and everything for us to lose in fighting a war against Iran. It should be a priority for the White House only to risk losing American servicemen and women if U.S. security is put at risk, not because a foreign government, regardless of how friendly, takes action that is likely to prompt an enemy military response. We must stop choosing war—or one day, it may cost us more than we can imagine.

The second paragraph in particular pretty much encapsulates my views.

The Associated Press reports that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has been picked as Vice President Harris’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election:

Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, looking to strengthen the Democratic ticket in Midwestern states.

My wife reminded me that I had predicted that Gov. Walz would be VP Harris’s running mate shortly after President Biden endorsed her. He’s well-aligned with her politically, has experience in areas in which she is could use some bolstering, and, at least notionally, shores up her Midwestern support.

In a pseudo-Rose Garden campaign in which neither the presidential nor vice presidential candidate gives interviews or even appears publically much, he’ll be fine. In a more, shall we say, dynamic campaign there’s a risk that Gov. Walz will outshine VP Harris.

I need to disagree with the editors of the Wall Street Journal on this one. They write, in criticism of President Trump’s recent remarks on abolishing FICA:

Does anybody in politics understand tax policy these days? The Biden-Harris Democrats want to raise tax rates to Thomas Piketty French socialist levels. Republicans want to cut taxes, but they want to do so for specific groups to buy their votes. They’ve all lost the growth plot.

Mr. Trump’s tax fumbling is especially disappointing because his 2017 cut in tax rates was the policy foundation for the strong pre-pandemic U.S. economy. But so far in this campaign he’s proposing hugely expensive tax cuts for different voting groups that won’t do much for growth.

My specific disagreements are:

1. That there was a boom at all between 2017 and the 4th quarter of 2019 and
2. That cuts in the personal income tax had much to do with GDP growth

Courtesy of the St. Louis Federal Reserve here’s a graph of GDP growth:

and here’s a graph of private investment:

What I see in both of those graphs, noisy as the BI graph is, is a continuation of trend. That’s even clearer when you look at GDP in constant dollars:

It’s even more obvious when you look at real personal consumption expenditures:

Back in 2017 I argued in favor of the cut in the corporate income tax but against the cut in the personal income tax and my reasoning at the time has been completely borne out. The really interesting thing in the graphs above is that the Trump tax cuts did not produce more inflation than they did. Could that be because of the shutdowns?

If your plan is to increase GDP by injecting money into the economy (and producing inflation), why does it matter whether (from an economic standpoint) whether the money is going to the elderly or to the highest income earners?

Like, I think, many Americans I am very discouraged about politics right now. Far too many Republicans persuaded themselves that Donald Trump was someone he wasn’t. Now the Democrats are just as eagerly persuading themselves that Kamala Harris is someone she isn’t. If she is elected, expect a rerun of the major media outlets avoiding covering the White House critically as assiduously as possible while defaming any outlets that do.

I plan to avoid writing any posts in opposition Vice President Harris but I won’t write any in support of her, either.

I wanted to make an observation about the Venezuelan election but rather than try to work it into a longer post I’ll just make the observation

Was Hugo Chavez not democratically elected? His election was certified as free and fair by international observers including the Carter Center. I would submit that when you elect a military dictator to the presidency of your country, you should anticipate that it is likely to be the last free and fair election your country will hold. Complaining that Maduro cheated is about 25 years too late.

Let’s turn to the United States. What do Americans, particularly the U. S. press expect us to do? Our choices are to intervene presumably forcefully whenever any country makes what we consider a bad, undemocratic decision whether that decision is made by democratic means or not or accept that other countries will occasionally do stupid, undemocratic things.

If you choose the former, congratulations, you’re an imperialist. If you choose the latter, bad things will continue to happen. There’s a corollary to our acceptance that people in other countries sometimes make bad choices. We shouldn’t subsidize those bad choices. When you subsidize something you get more of it. Letting Venezuelans cut into the line for immigration is a subsidy.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Bjorn Lomborg summarizes my views pretty accurately:

There is ample evidence that man-made emissions cause changes in climate, and climate economics generally finds that the costs of these effects outweigh the benefits. But the net result is nowhere near catastrophic. The costs of all the extreme policies campaigners push for are much worse. All told, politicians across the world are now spending more than $2 trillion annually—far more than the estimated cost from climate change that these policies prevent each year.

Scare tactics leave everyone—especially young people—distressed and despondent. Fear leads to poor policy choices that further frustrate the public. And the ever-changing narrative of disasters erodes public trust.

Telling half-truths while piously pretending to “follow the science” benefits activists with their fundraising, generates clicks for media outlets, and helps climate-concerned politicians rally their bases. But it leaves all of us poorly informed and worse off.

It’s easier for me to suggest some things we shouldn’t do than to tell you what we should do. We shouldn’t cripple our own economy to fend off a catastrophe that always seems to recede into the future faster than mitigation measures can be implemented. We shouldn’t be buying as many manufactured goods from China or India as we are let alone buying more. We shouldn’t impose a carbon tax. It is regressive—it falls most heavily on those least able to pay.

Probably the cleverest approach to reducing carbon emissions was Elon Musk’s: make an all-electric vehicle chic, stylish, and expensive enough to be a good status symbol. That encouraged the wealthiest to reduce their carbon emissions and they are responsible for a disproportionate amount of emissions.

With the assassination of the Hamas commander in Iran and the death of Hezbollah’s top military commander in an airstrike in Beirut it seems that the war in the Middle East is expanding. It is hard to imagine that neither the Iranians nor Lebanese Hezbollah will retaliate.

I also find it hard to believe that anyone will think the Jewish Israelis are the problem The attack by Hezbollah in the Golan Heights which killed 12 Druze children would seem to have put that to bed. For more on the Druze see here or here.

The Druze are an ethnic or ethno-religious minority that are genetically mostly Arabs, speak Arabic, and practice a religion that is an offshoot of Islam, distinct to the Druze. Other Moslems generally consider them heretical. They live in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel. Sir Richard Francis Burton, one of the founding figures in serious Western study of the Middle East called them “the only men in Palestine worthy of the name”. The Druze themselves have rejected retaliation in their name.

But this is the point: they are not colonizers by anyone’s standards. They have as much right to be where they are as anyone in the region. The attack on the Druze confirms that Hezbollah is composed of murderous radical thugs. Hostis humani generis.

In my view the United States should maintain a low profile with respect to this escalating conflict. Given a choice among Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, or the Israelis our preference should be the Israelis but that does not mean that our interests are perfectly aligned with theirs. We should be willing to sell arms to the Israelis but that should be the limit of our military support. I would further suggest that anyone demonstrating in the streets here in the U. S. in favor of Hamas are either our enemies or have been cruelly misled.

We cannot assume the role of interlocutor among these groups: we are too closely associated with the Israelis to be considered impartial.

I honestly have no idea what Donald Trump was trying to accomplish by agreeing to be interviewed by the National Association of Black Journalists here in Chicago yesterday. Consequently, I have no idea whether it was worthwhile or whether he accomplished his objective or not. Here’s how the editors’ of the Wall Street Journal’s read the tealeaves:

Half of politics is showing up, even for a roomful of critics. That’s the best way to think about Donald Trump’s appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in Chicago on Wednesday.

In her opening question to Mr. Trump, Rachel Scott from ABC News told Mr. Trump that “a lot of people” didn’t think he should be invited. “You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals . . . saying they were not born in the United States”; told “four Congresswomen of color . . . to go back to where they came from”; and “attacked black journalists” saying the questions they asked were “stupid and racist,” Ms. Scott said.

Mr. Trump called the question “rude” and “disgraceful,” but he had to know this wouldn’t be a love-fest. Mr. Trump also said, oddly, that Kamala Harris was “always of Indian heritage” and he “didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black and now she wants to be known as black.”

The main thing I can think of that he might have accomplished is that he showed he’s willing to talk to a hostile audience.

I think I’ve mentioned that I do all of the cooking and all of the shopping here at Chez Schuler. It was already becoming harder pre-Covid but it has become much harder post-Covid.

I have quite a few grocery stores fairly close to me:

2 blocks away

Whole Foods

Less than 2 miles away

Happy Foods
Mariano’s

Less than 5 miles away

Jewel
Fresh Farms
Costco
Aldi

Unfortunately, none of them carries everything we buy and they each have their strengths and weaknesses. I would do all of my shopping at my beloved Happy Foods but it doesn’t carry everything we use and there are better places for produce. Pre-Covid its meat was matchless. I believe they changed suppliers during Covid and it just hasn’t been the same. Still, Happy Foods has an amazingly broad selection considering its small footprint.

Mariano’s (acquired in 2015 by Kroger’s) has been declining in quality since its acquisition and the traffic getting there is daunting. I go there because my dogs’ prescriptions come from their pharmacy and they have a few things that Happy Foods doesn’t carry. With the Kroger’s-Albertson’s merger it’s going to get tougher. Our Mariano’s location will close. I don’t know what will replace it.

I rarely go to Jewel. It’s more than twice as far away as Mariano’s and has about the same selection. Like Mariano’s I don’t much care for its produce or meat and poultry.

Fresh Farms is sort of an odd duck. It has an amazing selection of ethnic specialties and its produce is probably the best of any grocery near me. Oddly, it carries Costco-branded items. I find competing with a retailer for stuff I buy at Costco troubling. If you’re looking for goat, Fresh Farms is your place.

Costco is Costco.

Whole Foods is Whole Foods. Its produce is pretty good but limited in variety. Its meat and fish are fine but price-y.

I went to an Aldi’s once about forty years ago. I doubt I’ll go back.

The bottom line is that I need to go to two or three places to get the things we need. I can get the milk my wife drinks at Happy Foods or Whole Foods. I can only get the string cheese she likes at Mariano’s. I get the skyr my wife likes at Whole Foods or Mariano’s. I get the laundry detergent we use at Happy Foods, Mariano’s, or Jewel. I get our dishwashing detergent, paper towels, and toilet paper at Costco. I get the breakfast cereal my wife likes at Happy Foods, Mariano’s or Jewel.

My impression is that Whole Foods, Jewel, and Mariano’s have been focusing increasingly on store-branded items. Items I used to be able to get from several different places I can now only get from one or need to obtain via shopping online.