Ex VP, Joe Biden has a long history of touching people in uncomfortable ways. He does it with men and women, and has a particular problem with children. As bad as it is to grab a sheriff on the leg, or Hillary Clinton when she clearly does not want to be grabbed, it’s quite a lot worse to fondle the hair and face of a child you are not related to (above). An expert reviewing the video of his many grabs, pats, and hair sniffs, came to conclude that Biden behaves like a predator.
Biden grabs a sheriff in a ways that most find inappropriate. He says’s its just his way to make a connection. Others say it’s ‘his power move.’
Adding to Biden’s touching problems, Tara Reade, one of Biden’s staffers has come forward to say that Biden not only made her feel uncomfortable, but pinned her to a wall at the capital building, penetrated her with his hand, and asked for sex. When a panel of experts went over her testimony and Biden’s denial, they came away believing Tara, and not believing Biden. Here is a video with them discussing the various tells that cause them to doubt Biden. Here is another video with the same individuals discussing Reade’s accusation.
Biden applies his power move on Secretary of State Clinton.
What’s to be done? There are still may in the Democratic party who would like to see Biden drop out in favor of someone less tainted, like Bernie. Others, like Illan Omar have concluded that despite Biden being a predator, she supports him as providing the best chance to defeat Donald Trump.
Brazil has decided to go its own route in response to the Corona virus pandemic. They’re using minimal social distancing with a heavy reliance on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a cheap drug that they claim is effective (as has our president). Brazil has been widely criticized for this, despite so far having lower death rate per million than the US, Canada, or most of Europe. In an open letter, copied in part below, 25 Brazilian scientists speak out against the politicalization of science, and in favor of their approach to COVID-19. The full letter (here). The whole letter is very worth reading, IMHO, but especially worthwhile is their section on hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), copied below.
….. Numerous countries such as the USA, Spain, France, Italy, India, Israel, Russia, Costa Rica and Senegal use the drug (HCQ) to fight covid-19, whereas other countries refrain from using HCQ as one of the strategies to contain the pandemic, betting on other controversial tactics.
Who then speaks here in the name of “science”? Which group has a monopoly on reason and its exclusive authorization to be the spokesperson of “science”? Where is such authorization found?One can choose an opinion, and base his strategy on it, this is fine, but no one should commit the sacrilege of protecting his decision risking to tarnish with it the “sacred mantle of science”.
Outraged, every day I hear mayors and governors saying at the top of their lungs that they “have followed science”. Presidents of councils and some of their advisers, and of academies and deans in their offices write letters on behalf of their entire community, as if they reflect everyone’s consensual position. Nothing could be more false.Have they followed science? Not at all! They have followed the science wing which they like, and the scientists who they chose to place around them. They ignore the other wing of science, since there are also hundreds of scientists and articles that oppose their positions and measures.
Worse, scientists are not angels. Scientists are people, and people have likes and dislikes, passions and political party preferences. Or wouldn’t they? There are many scientists, therefore, who do good without looking at whom, I know and admire many of them. But there are also pseudoscientists who use science to defend their opinion, their own pocket, or their passion. Scientists have worked and still work hard and detached to contribute to the good of humanity, many of whom are now in their laboratories, risking their lives to develop new methods of detecting coronavirus, drugs and vaccines, when they could stay “safe at home”. But, to illustrate my point, I know scientists who have published articles, some even in major journals such as “Science” or “Nature”, with data they have manufactured “during the night”; others who have removed points from their curves, or used other similar strategies. Many scientists were at Hitler’s side, weren’t they? Did they act in the name of “science”? Others have developed atom bombs. Others still develop chemical and biological weapons and illicit drugs, by design.
The Manaus’ study with chloroquine (CQ) performed here in Brazil and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) [1], is emblematic to this discussion of “science”. Scientists there used, the manuscript reveals, lethal doses in debilitated patients, many in severe conditions and with comorbidities. The profiles of the groups do not seem to have been “randomized”, since a clear “preference” in the HIGH DOSE group for risk factors is noted. Chloroquine, which is more toxic than HCQ, was used, and it seems that they even made “childish mistakes” in simple stoichiometric calculations, doubling the dosage with the error. I’m incapable of judging intentions, but justice will do it. The former Brazilian Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta quoted this study, supported it, and based on it, categorically stated: “I do not approve HCQ because I am based on ‘science, science, science’!”.
Another study published by Chinese researchers in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and which is still persistently used against HCQ was also at least revolting [2]. In it, the authors declared: “we administer 1,200 mg for 3 days, followed by 800 mg for 12 to 21 days, in patients with moderate to severe symptoms”. In other words, they gave a huge dosage of the drug that could reach the absurdity of 20 grams in the end, and it given was too late to patients (HCQ should be administered in the first symptoms or even earlier). And even worse, overdosing on HCQ or any other drug for severe cases is poisonous. What do you think, was it good science? The recommended dosage in Brazil, since May 20th, 2020, by the new Ministry of Health, for mild symptoms is 2 times 400 mg in the first day (every 12 hours) and 400 mg for 5 days for a total of 2.8 grams.
In other published studies, also in these internationally renowned journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and BMJ [3-5], once again, “problems” are clearly noted, since or the patients were randomized in irregular ways, placing older, more susceptible or most severe and hypoxemic patients in the higher (lethal) dose groups, or more men (almost 3 times more deadly by covid than women), or more black people (in the USA, black people have displayed higher mortality) and more smokers, and where most of the deaths occurred in the first days of the studies (signs that were deaths of critically ill patients, who at this stage would be more “intoxicated” than “treated” with HCQ), or they administered HCQ isolated, when it is known that it is necessary to associate HCQ at least with azithromycin. One of these studies [5] administered HCQ only on the sixteenth day of symptoms (for really early treatment, HCQ administration should be started up to fifth day), in other words, at the end of the disease, when the drug can do little good or nothing to the patient.
These studies indicate that some scientists either forgot how “science” is done or that there is a huge effort to disprove, whatever it takes, that HCQ works. How can someone or even Councils and Academies of Medicine cite such studies as the “science” of their decisions? How can that be?
On the contrary, the study published – and today with more than 3 thousand patients tested – and carried out by Dr. Didier Raoult in France [6], using the correct dosage and at the right time, with a very low mortality rate (0.4%), and the Prevent Senior’s clinical experience in Brazil – also quite encouraging – are disqualified with very “futile” arguments such as: “Didier Raoult is a controversial and unworthy researcher”, “At Prevent Senior Clinic they were not sure of the diagnosis” (but none of the hospitalized patients with clear COVID symptoms died), “Placebo effect” (what a supernatural power of inducing our mind that reduces mortality from 40% to zero, I want this placebo!), “Study performed by a health plan company” (I do not doubt that this people indeed want to save lives, because the patients were their customers who pay their bills), and similar ephemeral arguments.…
I admire the spunk of these fellows going agains the doctors, WHO. Beyond being a critique of bad research on a particular drug, it is a defense of science. Science is a discussion, a striving for truth. It is not supposed to demand blind allegiance to a few politically appointed experts. They’ve convinced me that the tests sponsored by the world health organization seem designed to show failure, and reminded me that there is rarely a one-size-fits-all for problems and all times.
I also find striking the highly critical response of my local newspapers and TV reporters. While they both like to highlight efforts by South America as they try entering the first world, with help from Bill gates and leftist politicians, they have been uniformly condemned Brazil for its non-left approach and now for use of HCQ. They want Sous Americans to think, but only if their conclusions are no different from those of their favorite, liberal thinkers.
There are many books on how the atom bomb was made. They are histories of the great men who succeeded at site Y, Los Alamos, usually with a sidelight of the economics and politics in the US at the time. It’s sometimes noted that there was an equally great German group working too, and one in Japan and in Russia, that they didn’t succeed, but it’s rarely discussed what they did wrong. Nor does anyone make clear why so many US scholars were needed. What did all those great US minds to do? The design seems sort-of obvious; it appears in the note Einstein sent to Roosevelt, so what were all these people thinking about all that time, and why did the Germans fail? By way of answer, let me follow the German approach to this problem, an approach that won’t get you anywhere, or anywhere that I’ve seen.
It seems that everyone knew that making a bomb was possible, that it would be fearsomely powerful, and that it would be made using a chain reaction in uranium or plutonium. Everyone seems to have understood that there must be a critical mass: use less and there is no explosion, use more and there is one. The trick was how to bring enough uranium together make the thing go off, and as a beginning to that, there is the concept of “a barn.” A barn is a very small unit of area = 10−24 cm², and a typical atom has a cross-section of a few barns. Despite this, it is generally thought to be very easy to hit an atom at the nucleus, that is, at the right spot, as easy as hitting the board side of a barn (hence the name). The cross section of a uranium atom is 600 barnes at room temperature, or 6×10−22 cm². But each cubic centimeter of uranium holds .5 x 1023 atoms. Based on this, it comes out that a thermal neutron that enters a 1 cm cube of uranium has a virtual certainty of hitting an atom — there are 3 cm² of atoms in a 1 cm² box. You could hardly miss.
Each uranium atom gives off a lot of energy when hit with a neutron, but neutrons are hard to come by, so a practical bomb would have to involve a seed neutron that hits a uranium atom and releases two or more neutrons along with energy. The next neutron has to hit another nucleus, and it has to releases two or more. As it happens uranium atoms, when hit release on average 2.5 neutrons, so building a bomb seems awfully easy.
But things get more difficult as the neutron speeds get greater, and as the atoms of uranium get hotter. The cross-section of the uranium atom goes down as the temperature goes up. What’s more the uranium atoms start to move apart fast. The net result is that the bomb can blow itself apart before most of the uranium atoms are split. At high speed, the cross -section of a uranium atom decreases to about 5 barnes you thus need a fairly large ball of uranium if you expect that each neutron will hit something. So how do you deal with this. For their first bomb, the American scientists made a 5 kg (about) sphere of plutonium, a man-made uranium substitute, and compressed it with explosives. The explosion had to be symmetrical and very fast. Deciding how fast, and if the design would work required a room full of human “computers”. The German scientists, instead made flat plates of uranium and slowed the neutrons down using heavy water. The heavy water slowed the neutrons, and thus, increased the effective size of the uranium atoms. Though this design seems reasonable, I’m happy to say, it can not ever work well; long before the majority of the reaction takes place, the neutrons get hot, and the uranium atoms fly apart, and you get only a small fraction of the promised bang for your bomb.
How fast do you need to go to get things right? Assume you want to fission 4 kg of uranium, or 1 x 1025 atoms. In that case, hitting atoms has to be repeated some 83 times. In tech terms, that will take 83 shakes (83 shakes of a lamb’s tail, as it were). This requires getting the ball compressed in the time it takes for a high speed neutron to go 83 x 3 cm= 250 cm. That would seem to require 1 x 10-7 seconds, impossibly fast, but it turns out, you can go somewhat slower. How much slower? It depends, and thus the need for the computers. And how much power do you get? Gram for gram, uranium releases about 10 million times more energy than TNT, but costs hardly more. That’s a lot of bang for the buck.
The rifle Oswald used was a Modello 91/38, Carcano (1938 model of a design originally used in 1891) with an extra-long, 20.9″ barrel, bought for only $19.95 including a 4x sight. That’s $12.50 for the gun, the equivalent of $100 in 2020). The gun may have been cheep, but it was a fine Italian weapon: it was small, fast, pretty, manual, and unreliable. The small size allowed Oswald to get the gun into the book depository without arousing suspicion. He claimed his package held curtain rods, and the small, narrow shape of the gun made the claim believable.
The first question, the fast shooting, is answered in part by the fact that loading the 91/38 Carcano rifle takes practice. Three American marksmen who tried to duplicate the shots for the Warren commission didn’t succeed, but they didn’t have the practice with this type of gun that Oswald had. The Carcano rifle used a bolt and clip loading system that had gone out of style in the US before WWI. To put in a new shell, you manually unlock and pull back the bolt. The old casing then flies out, and the spring–clip loads a new shell. You then have to slam the bolt forward and lock it before you can fire again. For someone practiced, loading this way is faster than with a semi-automatic. To someone without practice it is impossibly slow, like driving a stick shift car for the first time. Even with practice, Americans avoid stick shift cars, but Italians prefer them. Some time after the Warren report came out, Howard Donahue, an American with experience on this type of rifle, was able to hit three moving targets at the distance in 4.8 seconds. That’s less than the shortest estimate of the time it took Oswald to hit twice. Penn of Penn and Teller recreates this on TV, and shows here that Kennedy’s head would indeed have moved backward.
Oswald’s magic bullet, shot two.
That Oswald was so accurate is explained, to great extent by the way the sight was mounted and by the unusual bullets. The model 38 Carcano that Oswald bought fired light, hollow, 6.5×52mm cartridges. This is a 6.5 mm diameter bullet, with a 52 mm long casing. The cartridge was adopted by the Italians in 1940, and dropped by 1941. These bullets are uncommonly bullet is unusually long and narrow (6.5 mm = .26 caliber), round-nosed and hollow from the back to nearly the front. In theory a cartridge like this gives for greater alignment with the barrel., and provides a degree of rocket power acceleration after it leaves the muzzle. Bullets like this were developed in the US, then dropped by the late 1800s. The Italians dropped this bullet for a 7.5 mm diameter version in 1941. The 6.5 mm version can go through two or three people without too much damage, and they can behave erratically. The small diameter and fast speed likely explains how Oswald’s second shot went through Kennedy and Connolly twice without dong much. An American bullet would have done a lot more damage.
Because of the light weight and the extra powder, the 6.5 mm hollow bullet travels uncommonly fast, about 700 m/s at the muzzle with some acceleration afterwards, ideally. Extra powder packs into the hollow part by the force of firing, providing, in theory, low recoil, rocket power. Unfortunately these bullets are structurally weak. They can break apart or bend and going off-direction. By comparison the main US rifle of WWII, the M1, was semi-automatic, with bullets that are shorter, heavier, and slower, going about 585 m/s. Some of our bullets had steel cores too to provide a better combination of penetration and “stopping power”. Only Oswald second shot stayed pristine. It could be that his third shot — the one that made Kennedy’s head explode — flattened or bent in flight.
Oswald fragment of third bullet. It’s hollow and seems to have come apart in a way a US bullet would not.
The extra speed of Oswald’s bullets and the alignment of his gun would have given Oswald a great advantage in accuracy. At 100 yards (91 m), test shots with the rifle landed 2 1⁄2 to 5 inches high, within a 3-to-5-inch circle. Good accuracy with a sight that was set to high for close shot accuracy. The funky sight, in my opinion , explains how Oswald managed to miss Walker, but explains how he hit Kennedy accurately especially on the last, longest shot, 81 m to Kennedy’s head
Given the unusually speed of the bullets (I will assume 750 m/s) Oswald’s third shot would have taken 0.108 s to reach the target. If the sight were aligned string and if Kennedy were not moving, the bullet would have been expected to fall 2.24″ low at this range, but given the sight alignment we’d expect him to shoot 3-6″ high on a stationary target, and dead on, on the president in his moving vehicle. Kennedy was moving at 5 m/sand Oswald had a 17° downward shot. The result was a dead on hit to the moving president assuming Oswald didn’t “lead the shot”. The peculiarities of the gun and bullets made Oswald more accurate here than he’d been in the army, while causing him to miss Walker completely at close range.
comparison of the actual, second shot, “magic bullet,” left, with four test-shot bullets. Note that one of the test bullets collapsed, two bent, and one exploded. This is not a reliable bullet design.
We now get to the missed, first shot: How did he miss the car completely firing at the closest range. The answer, might have to do with deformation of the bullets. A hollow base bullet can explode, or got dented and fly off to the side. More prosaically, it could be that he hit a tree branch or a light pole. The Warren commission blamed a tree that was in the way, and there was also a light pole that was never examined. For all we know the bullet is in a branch today, or deflected. US bullets would have a greater chance to barrel on through to at least hit the car. This is an aspect of Italian engineering — when things are light, fast, and flexible, unusual things happen that do not expect to happen with slow, ugly, US products. It’s a price of excellence, Italian style.
Another question appears: Why wasn’t Oswald stopped when the FBI knew he’d threatened Kennedy, and was suspected of shooting at Walker. The simple answer, I think, is that the FBI was slow, and plodding. Beyond this, neither the FBI nor the CIA seem to have worried much about Kennedy’s safety. Even if Kennedy had used the bubble top, Oswald would likely have killed him. Kennedy didn’t care much for the FBI and didn’t trust Texas. Kennedy had a long-running spat with the FBI involving his involvement with organized crime, and perhaps running back to the days when Kennedy’s father was a bootlegger. His relation with the CIA was similar.
The Mateba, Italian semi-automatic revolver, $3000, available only in 357 Magnum and 44 magnum.
I should mention that the engineering styles and attitudes of a country far outlast the particular engineer. We still make big, fat, slow, ugly cars — that are durable and reasonably priced. Germans still overbuild, and Italian cars and guns are as they ever were: beautiful, fast, expensive, and unreliable. The fastest production car is Italian, a Bugatti with a top speed of 245 mph; the fastest rollercoaster is at Ferrari gardens, 149 mph, and in terms of guns, let me suggest you look at the Mateba, left, a $3000 beautiful super fast semi-automatic revolver (really), produced in Italy, and available in 357 magnum and .44 magnum only . It’s a magnificent piece of Italian engineering beautiful, accurate, powerful, and my guess is it’s unreliable as all get out. Our, US pistols typically cost 1/5 to 1/10 as much. A country’s cars, planes, and guns represent the country’s aesthetics. The aesthetics of a county changes only slowly, and I think the world is better off because of it
Robert Buxbaum, February 14, 2020. One of my favorite courses in engineering school, Cooper Union, was in Engineering Aesthetics and design.
The following is Elizabeth Warren’s law registration for the state of Texas, 1986 claiming she is an American Indian. There was very little evidence for it and an genetic test showed she was somewhere between 1/256 and 1/1000 Indian. My son was determined to have 1/1000 Indian blood in a similar test, and we have no Indian ancestors at all, as best as I can tell. Still, as an Indian Ms. Warren is entitled to affirmative action; she’s to get preferential hiring financial, and educational treatment over someone more qualified, but without Indian blood. Affirmative action was institute as a way to redress the suffering of Indians and other minorities, but it is not clear that is serves this purpose when someone with so little, or no blood can take the advantage. There is no requirement of proof that you are at all Indian by blood, and even if you are 1/1000 Indian, what about the other 999/1000? Why don’t they count to give yo lower standing than someone who is 1/10 Indian, say. How indian should you have to be to get benefits.
Related to the question of how much Indian blood you should have to have to get benefits is the question of making other folks suffer to provide this benefit. Many of the people who suffer because of affirmative action are dependents of immigrant minorities, Jews, Italians, and Chinese, and these folks have not had it that well. The Italians were discriminated against in hiring, as mandated by the city council, see announcement below, and Chinese immigrants had very limited migration and work rights, as specified under The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This act was not repealed until 1943 as part of our war against Japan.
In the late 1800s anti Italian discrimination was common. In part this was the Tammany Hall Irish doing their best to keep out an upstart immigrant group. Should Italians have affirmative action preferences?
At maximum Ms. Warren is less than 1% indians and thus over 99% Texan. This is to suggest that the majority of her bloodline is descent is from those who displaced the Indians, but her preferential hiring was likely in preference to other minorities who suffered too, and who likely have a purer bloodline to that suffering and exclusion than Ms Warren has. Is this what we want from affirmative action? The form we’ve got benefits, for the most part, only the most crooked, connected members of society. People like Ms Warren. I think this has to change.
Some days, I spend hours at a time on facebook, and when I’m done, I often feel it was a complete waste of time. I do not make friends this way, and I have little evidence that I’ve convinced anyone. Still, for some reason, I can’t seem to stay off for long, so I figure I might as well look for the attraction.
One positive thing I do (did) with FB was to run for office. I lost, but I was able to speak to more people using FB in a day than I could have otherwise. Another thing I do is to spread articles — those I find interesting, and my own writing, blog posts, mostly. I write these posts for free, and while I imagine my blog posts do some good. I sometimes get nice comments suggesting people read the blogs and think about what I say. Still, it does not make money, and takes a fair amount of effort.
I can imagine I help mankind in some subtle, long range way, or perhaps gain some long-range fame. But who cares about long-range fame? And, as for helping people, it is also possible I will hurt them too. Computers sit analyzing my words, and everyone’s, tracking their views and using the data for what. I’m just feeding the computer, and that makes me think my writing may harm more than help. What I write on FB is owned by FB. It’s free content for the owners of FB to re-use to sell: my personality, capsulated, my friends likes and dislikes, for sale at a price. My posts turn me and my friends into commodities — and there isn’t even remuneration.
It is claimed that, in the 2016 election, Trump was able to win, at low cost, through a Russian-managed facebook campaign. The educated elites of politics were not able to come with the wiley Russians, for all their brain-power, and despite help from the FBI, or so the theory goes. If so, it’s a warning that all the information I provide to facebook is available to Trump and the Russians to use against me. The management of facebook was committed to Ms Clinton in 2016, and is completely committed to Trump’s removal as best I can tell. If they are not able to beat the Russians, maybe I should not try. Then again, maybe they’re not as elite as they think.
Sometimes I imagine that the alternative of not-posting is worse; it is to have no voice at all, and to have no information of the common discussion. The newspapers seem no less biassed than those on my FB. I write then in a bizarre chasm between hope for posterity, and a better world, and out of desperation that to be an unheard, quiet one, is to be dead. I suspect I’m not unique here.
Free will is generally considered a good thing — perhaps a unique gift from the creator to man-kind. Legal philosophers contend that it is free will that makes us liable to legal punishment for our crimes. while piranhas and machines are not. We would never think of jailing a gun or a piranha even it harmed a child.
It’s not totally clear that we have free will, though, nor is it totally clear what free will is. The common test is that no one can tell what I will do. If this is the only requirement, though, it seems a random number generator should be found to have free will. One might want to add some degree of artificial intelligence so that the random numbers are used to make decisions that are rational in some sense, say choosing between tea and coffee, for example, and not tea and covfefe, but this should not be difficult. With that modification, we should find that the random device would make free decisions as boldly or conservatively as any person.
The numbers should be truly random, but even if they are not quite, this should not be a barrier. We generally take statistical things to be random, the speed of the wind tomorrow at 3:00 PM for example even though there is a likely average, and 500 mph is exceedingly unlikely. And, if that isn’t quite random enough, one could use quantum mechanics. One could devise a system that measures the time between the next two radioactive decays to an accuracy many times greater than the likely time between. If the sample has a decay every 100 seconds or so, the second and third digit of this time after the decimal is random to an extent that most would accept, and that one can predict it at all — or so we understand it. (God might be an exception here, but since He is outside of time, prediction becomes an oxymoron). Using these quantum mechanic random numbers, one should be able to make decisions showing as much free will as any person shows, and likely more . Most folks are fairly predictable.
Since God is considered to be outside of time, any mention of his fore-knowledge or pre-determination is an oxymoron. There is no pre or fore if you’re outside of time, as I’d understand things
I notice that few people would say that a radioactive atom has free will, though, and that many doubt that people have free will. Still no one seems interested in handing major issues to a computer, or holding the machine liable if things turn out poorly. And if one wants to argue that people have no free will, it seems to me that the argument for punishment would get rather weak. Without free will, shy would it be more wrong to kill a person than a piranha, or a plant.
One big danger of political humor is that some folks just don’t get the joke. You say something outrageous and they don’t get that you were exaggerating, but think you were lying, or ignorant, or worse yet they take you at your word, and think you were telling the truth.
Daniel Boone liked to claim things that were not true; he claimed he jumped the Mississippi and that he lassoed a tornado and that he killed a bear (with his bear hands) when he was three. The joke was on anyone who took him seriously, and I’m sure there were those who did: “Why that’s not true!” “You’re a liar!” or worse yet “Wow, how did you do that!” It’s a sort of brag-joke that, today is called “trolling.”
H.L. Menken on the fake news of the early – mid 20th century.
But there is a bigger danger with political jokes, and that happens when you’re not quite making a joke and folks realize you are telling the truth, or at least that there is a dagger of threat thats being passed off within a joke, or as part of an exaggeration. Basically, they realize that this joke was no joke at all.
A recent case in point, two weeks ago Trump was speaking to Jewish businessmen, and told them about his troubles building the US embassy in Jerusalem (read the whole speech here), but within the funny story is a hook:
Bob Hope told the truth but hid it in a funny delivery.
“And I called David Friedman. I said, “David, I need some help. I just approved an embassy, and they want to spend $2 billion to build the embassy. And I know what that means: You’re never going to get it built. It’ll take years and years.” I said, “You know what’s going on here? …. So we’re going to spend 2 billion, and one of them was going to buy a lousy location. A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers. (Laughter.) Not nice people at all. But you have to vote for me; you have no choice. You’re not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. (Laughter and applause.) You’re not going to vote for the wealth tax. “Yeah, let’s take 100 percent of your wealth away.” No, no. Even if you don’t like me; some of you don’t. Some of you I don’t like at all, actually. (Laughter.) And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’ll be out of business in about 15 minutes, if they get it. So I don’t have to spend a lot of time on that. But David calls me back and he goes, “Sir” — he always used to call me “Donald.”
The press claimed the above was vile and anti-semitic. It almost sounds otherwise when quoted in context, but they are not totally off. There is truth inside that jest. Such truths lose the humor, but they do get the message across. A lot has to do with the delivery. Ideally the folks that you want to get the point will, and the rest will think you mean nothing by it. It’s a hard act.
A common opinion of Samuel Johnson was that “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money”. It’s recorded by Boswell on April 5, 1776 well into the revolution, and applied equally to the American revolutionaries and all other unpaid enthusiasts. Johnson wrote for money. He wrote sermons for priests, he wrote political speeches for Troys, he wrote serialized travel logs, and at one point a tearful apology for a priest about to be hanged for forgery. That he was paid was proof that he was good at writing, though not 100% convincing. The priest was forgiven and acquitted in the public eye, but he was hanged for the forgery none-the-less.
Some Samuel Johnson Quotes about America
Johnson was unequivocal in his opinion of American independence. His pamphlet ,”Taxation no Tyranny” 1775 (read it here) makes a semi-convincing Tory argument that taxation without representation is in no way tyranny, and is appropriate for America. America, it’s argued, exists for the good of the many, and that’s mainly for the good of England. He notes that, for the most part, Americans came to the land willingly, and thus gave up their rights: “By his own choice he has left a country, where he had a vote and little property, for another, where he has great property, but no vote.” Others left other lands or were sent as criminals. They “deserved no more rights than The Cornish people,” according to Johnson. Non-landed people, in general had no vote, and he considered that appropriate. Apparently, if they had any mental value, they’d be able to afford an estate. His views of Irish Catholics were somewhat similar , “we conquered them.” By we, Johnson meant Cromwell over a century earlier, followed by William of Orange. Having beat the Irish Catholics at the battle of the Boyne meant that that the Protestants deserved to rule despite the Catholics retaining a substantial right to land. I am grateful that Johnson does not hide his claim to rulership in the will of God, or in some claim to benefit the Irish or Americans, by the way. It is rule of superior over inferior, pure and simple. Basically, ‘I’m better than you, so I get to rule.’
One must assume that Johnson realized that the US founders wrote well, as he admitted that some Whigs (Burke) wrote well. Though he was paid for writing “Taxation no Tyranny”, Johnson justifies the rejection of US founding fathers’ claims by noting they are motivated by private gain. He calls American leaders rascals, robbers, and pirates, but is certain that they can be beat into submission. The British army , he says, is strong enough that they can easily “burn and destroy them,” and advises they should so before America gets any stronger. He tells Boswell, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.” Even after a treaty was signed, he confides, “I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.”
I’ve come to love Johnson’s elitism, his justification for rule and exploitation based purely on his own superiority and that of his fellow British. It allows him to present his prejudices uncommonly clearly, mixing in enough flattery to be convincing to those who accept his elitist perspective. That makes his words eminently quotable. It doesn’t make them right, nor does it mean that his was a useful way to deal with people or problems. Adam Smith was willing to admit that the Americans had a gripe, and suggests the simple remedy of giving Americans a voice in Parliament. His solution might have kept the empire whole. Edward Gibbon, an expert on Rome who opposed rights for Americans, at least admitted that we might win the war. Realistic views like this are more productive, but far less marketable. If you are to sell your words, it helps to be a pig-headed bigot and a flatterer of those who agree with you. This advantage of offending your opponents was not lost on Johnson as the quote below shows.
Johnson writing about notoriety, a very American attitude.
I’m left to wonder about the source of Johnson’s hatred for Americans though — and for the Irish, Cornish, and Scots. In large part, I think it stems from a view of the world as a zero-sum game. Any gain for the English servant is a loss to the English gentleman. The Americans, like the Irish and Cornish, were subject peoples looking for private benefit. Anything like low taxes was a hurt to the income of him and his fellows. The zero sum is also the view of Scrooge in a Christmas Carol; it is a destructive view.
As for those acted in any way without expectation of pay, those who would write for posterity, or would fight the Quixotic fight, such people were blockheads in his view. He was willing to accept that there were things wrong in England, but could not see how an intelligent person would favor change that did not help him. This extended to his beliefs concerning education of children: “I would not have set their future friendship to hazard for the sake of thrusting into their heads knowledge of things for which they might not perhaps have either taste or necessity. You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets, and wonder when you have done that they do not delight in your company. No science can be communicated by mortal creatures without attention from the scholar; no attention can be obtained from children without the affliction of pain, and pain is never remembered without resentment.” This is more of Johnson’s self-interest: don’t teach anything that will bring resentment and no return benefit. Teach the sons of the greats that they are great and that they are to lead. Anything more is a waste or an active harm to the elite.
But what happens when America succeeds? Johnson was still alive and writing in 1783. If the Americans could build an army and maintain prosperous independence, they would have to be respected as an equal or near-equal. Then what of the rest of the empire? How do you admit that this one servant is your equal and not admit that your other servants may be too? This is the main source of his hatred, I think, and also of the hatred the Scrooge has for mankind. It’s the hatred of the small soul for the large, of the sell-out for the enthusiast. If the other fellow’s sacrifice produces a great outcome, that suggests a new order in the stars — it suggests that everything you’ve done was wrong, or soon will be. The phrase “novus ordo seclorum” on our dollars alludes to just that idea, ‘there is a new order in the heavens.’. He must have realized the possibility, and trembled. Could there be something to the rabble, something beyond cash, safety and rule by the elite? I suspect the very thought of it insulted and angered poor Samuel. At his death, he could be comforted that, at least the Irish, Indians, and Canadians remained subservient.
Robert Buxbaum, December 2, 2019. This essay started out as a discussion of paid writing. But I’ve spent many years of my life dealing with elitists who believed that being paid proved they were right. I too hope that my writing will convince people, and maybe I’ll be paid as an expert (Water commissioner?) To hope for personal success, while trying to keep humble is the essential glorious folly of man.
Before Brexit, I opined, against all respectable economists, that a vote for Bexit would not sink the British economy. Switzerland, I argued, was outside the EU, and their economy was doing fine. Similarly, Norway, Iceland, and Israel — all were outside the EU and showed no obvious signs of riots, food shortages, or any of the other disasters predicted for an exited Britain. Pollsters were sure that Britain would vote “No” but, as it happened, they voted yes. The experts despaired, but the London stock market surged. It’s up 250% since the Brexit vote.
Lodon stock market prices from January 2016 through the Brexit vote, August 2016, to the Boris Johnson election, August 2019. The price has risen by more than 250%.
A very similar thing happened with the election of Trump and of Boris Johnson. In 2016 virtually every news paper supported Ms Clinton, and every respectable economic expert predicted financial disaster if he should, somehow win. As with Brexit, the experts were calmed by polls showing that Trump would, almost certainly lose. He won, and as with Brexit, the stock market took off. Today, after a correction that I over-worried about, the S+P index remains up 35% from when Trump was elected. As of today, it’s 2872, not far from the historic high of 3049. Better yet, unemployment is down to record levels, especially for black and hispanic workers, and employment is way up, We’ve added about 1% of adult workers to the US workforce, since 2017, see Federal Reserve chart below.
Returning to Britain, the economic establishment have been predicting food shortages, job losses and a strong stock market correction unless Brexit was re-voted and rejected. Instead, the ruling Conservative party elected Boris Johnson to prime-minister, “no deal” Brexiter. The stock market responded with a tremendous single day leap. See above
Ratio of Civilian Employment to US Population. Since Trump’s election, we’ve added about 1% of the working age US population to the ranks of the employed.
You’d think the experts would show embarrassment for their string of errors. Perhaps they would save some face by saying they were blinded by prejudice, or that their models had a minor flaw that they’ve now corrected, but they have not said anything of the sort. Paul Krugman of the New York Times, for example, had predicted a recession that would last as long as Trump did, and has kept up his predictions. He’s claimed a bone rattling stock crash continuously for nearly three years now, predicting historic unemployment. He has been rewarded with being wrong every week, but he’s also increased the readership of the New York Times. So perhaps he’s doing his job.
I credit our low un-employment rate to Trump’s tariffs and to immigration control. When you make imports expensive, folks tend to make more at home. Similarly, with immigration, when you keep out illegal workers, folks hire more legal ones. I suspect the same forces are working in Britain. Immigration is a good thing, but I think you want to bring in hard-working, skilled, honest folks to the extent possible. I’m happy to have fruit pickers, but would like to avoid drug runners and revolutionaries, even if they have problems at home.
I still see no immediate stock collapse, by the way. One reason is P/E analysis, in particular Schiller’s P/E analysis (he won a Nobel prize for this). Normal P/E analysis compares the profitability of companies to their price and to the bond rate. The inverse of the P/E is called the earnings yield. As of today, it’s 4.7%. This is to say, every dollar worth of the average S+P 500 stock generates 4.7¢ in profits. Not great, but it’s a lot better than the 10-year bond return, today about 1.5%.
The Schiller P/E is an improved version of this classic analysis. It compares stock prices to each company’s historic profitability, inflation adjusted for 10 years. Schiller showed that this historic data is a better measure of profitability than this year’s profitability. As of today, the Schiller P/E is 29.5, suggesting an average corporate profitability of 3.5%. This is still higher than the ten-year bond rate. The difference between them is 2%, and that is about the historic norm. Meanwhile, in the EU, interest rates are negative. The ten year in Germany is -0.7%. This suggests to me that folks are desperate to avoid German bank vaults, and German stocks. From my perspective, Trump, Johnson, and the Fed seem to be doing much better jobs than the EU bankers and pendents.
