Win-Win Gains from a Libertarian Party Cross-Nomination of President Trump

 Dear Mr. President:

Have you thought of negotiating a cross-nomination deal with the Libertarian National Committee?

I am a lifelong supporter of Libertarian Party candidates.  I have since concluded that you can do more to further the cause of freedom than the LP can, so I will support and have been supporting you and the NRCC over the past couple of years.  Why not negotiate the LP's cross nomination of you in 2020?

The following chart shows that the LP won 2.2% to 4.15% in the six battleground states, more than enough to put you well over the top.

Battleground States/ LP Percentage

Florida                    /          2.20%
Wisconsin               /          3.60%
Pennsylvania         /         2.40%
Michigan               /          3.60%
New Hampshire    /         4.15%
Nevada                 /             3.30%

Although I have not been active in the LP since 1983, I can imagine at least two bargaining chips that can result in mutual gains for both parties: first, an agreement to abolish a set of government agencies and programs that you don't mind abolishing (they want to abolish everything) and, second, an offer of placing Libertarians in powerful agency posts in which they can gut government programs.  In exchange, they would throw you the percentages that secure a win.

For example, if you offer to abolish the Department of Education and a list of fluff that Rand Paul or Citizens Against Government Waste provides in exchange for LP support and/or offer them a dozen positions in areas like the NLRB, and EPA, they may be willing to make a deal. You would likely have an additional benefit by having people in positions of power who are hostile to the deep state and have little to lose in attacking it.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.

How Judge Napolitano Got It Wrong

I was listening to Judge Napolitano on Shepard Smith on Wednesday, Sept. 25.  (I have been using Fox as background while I'm entering data.)

There seems to be a confusion on the part of Judge Napolitano and other commentators about the recent Ukrainian issue. This has been caused by a familiar left-wing tactic of taking control of nomenclature, and Mr. Napolitano falls prey to this tactic, for his analysis presumes that there was, in the president's mind, concern for Biden qua candidate and not Biden qua criminal.

The president may have been seeking a quid pro quo only if he was attempting to find information about a political candidate to oppose him. He would not have been seeking a quid pro quo if he was attempting to investigate Joe Biden as a criminal.  

There is plenty of evidence that Biden has behaved criminally, and there is no justification for claiming that the president cannot enforce the nation's laws. Judge Napolitano assumes that the president was campaigning merely because the left has defined the conversation in this way and not  because the president was seeking to drain the swamp, which he has repeatedly stated he aims to do.  

In discussing this issue, the Democrats have staked out the claim that the president was seeking information about a political candidate.  However, there is zero evidence that that is the case. In discussing this issue, it is disingenuous to say "political candidate." It is honest to say that it may be that he was seeking to obtain information about a criminal, Biden, and it may be that he was seeking to obtain information about a political candidate.  Neither is clear.  

Yamiche Alcindor Evidences Need to End 501 (c) (3) Exemption for PBS

Watching the president's press conference on Fox News yesterday, I saw Yamiche Alcindor's insipid question. Alcindor asked whether, because President Trump has said that he is a nationalist, he is a white nationalist.

This is not a question that reflects basic knowledge necessary to be a competent journalist. Hence, the question arises whether PBS is functioning as a legitimate, nonpartisan news organization entitled to tax exemption.  No other major network enjoys a tax exemption.  The presumption is that PBS performs at a higher level than other networks, but the low quality of Alcindor's performance evidences a lower-level, partisan performance.

The term "nationalist" is broad, but its application  to President Trump suggests trade and international relations issues.  Advocates of tariffs in trade and of unilateralism in international relations are traditionally called economic or international relations nationalists. In the 1930s Senator Robert Taft, Herbert Hoover,  and other Republicans were nationalists in opposition to internationalists like Wendell Willkie, and President Trump continues in  this tradition.  This is basic history, basic economics, and basic current events--knowledge that is necessary to competent journalism.

Unfortunately, like many reporters in television news, Ms. Alcindor lacks knowledge necessary to competent journalism.  This raises the question as to why PBS would employ someone who lacks  minimal skills and who instead of functioning as a journalist raises shrill, bigoted questions in a press conference.

PBS is a not-for-profit corporation that claims to be nonpartisan, but it is clearly partisan. It is time to reconsider longstanding subsidization of Democratic Party publicists in the media and in higher education who masquerade as professors and journalists, fraudulently securing tax subsidization through Section 501(c)(3).  Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code is inapplicable to ideological or partisan organizations, and claims that Ms. Alcindor is a journalist or that PBS is nonideological and nonpartisan are disingenuous.

Democrats to Aim to Subvert Democracy

 I was just listening to a briefing by Jim Rickards, who describes this coming election, November 6, as possibly, but possibly not, giving a slim lead to the Democrats in the House.  The likelihood is that the GOP will retain the Senate, although the margins for both are small.  If the Democrats do win the House--whether or not they win the Senate--they will use their slim majority to threaten both Trump and Kavanaugh with impeachment. Never mind that Ruth Bader Ginsburg breached basic canons of judicial ethics and went around advocating for her backward political views.  The Democrats' belief in democracy is this:  Any election they win is fair; any election they lose needs to be overturned.

Without having studied the key districts that are at stake, I'm not sure that polls have much meaning following their failure in 2016.

Res Ipsa Loquitur

The Democrats' War on Rural America

 A piece by Paul Overberg in today's  Wall Street Journal shows 20 charts that indicate how badly rural Americans have fared. The election of Donald Trump, mostly by rural voters, can be interpreted to be a reaction, and the campaign to eliminate the Electoral College a counterreaction.

Inflation-adjusted household income has declined since 2000, and it has declined the most in rural areas. Much of the  decline occurred during the Obama years. That contrasts with the stock market, which has received massive public subsidization.

Those who foot the bill for "too-big-to-fail" banks are the same people who are dying at increasing rates.

Where I live, Olive, NY, New York City has long played an imperialistic role similar to that of any Roman-style power. It has done so to procure virtually free water; it chose to go the imperial route rather than purchase water ethically back in the 19th century.

In his book Empire of Water, David Soll outlines the 100-year history of theft, exploitation, and regulatory caprice that deprived the ancestors of many people I see each day of their homes and businesses, forcing many who had owned family businesses into becoming day laborers.

Environmentalists, dominant in the Democratic Party,  have learned from New York City and since the 1990s have systematically attacked rural areas. This occurred most aggressively during the Obama years.

Not satisfied with increasing death rates in rural areas,  Robert Reich, the American media, and their fellow Democrats campaign for more political power to be concentrated in urban centers by abolishing the Electoral College.

The Disadvantages of Trade Are Due to Federal Intervention

The federal government, not trade, is the source of social losses from the exit of manufacturing firms. Trade always results in making the parties to the trade better off. It may result in one party's being made better off to a greater degree than the other, but without both parties' being made better off they wouldn't trade.

The declining automobile industry and Chinese manufacturing illustrate separate issues. With respect to the US auto industry in the 1960s and into the 1970s, when I was in high school and after, consumer advocates talked in terms of "planned obsolescence"--that American car makers deliberately produced badly made cars so that consumers would be forced to buy new ones within a few years. That was probably an exaggeration of the Big Three's competence: They produced bad cars because their management systems were crummy, not because they consciously made bad cars. The 1979 book by John Z. DeLorean and Patrick Wright "On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors" covers GM's often laughable incompetence.

Thus, global competition has been a boon to Americans. It increased the quality of cars because of the Toyota production system invented by Taiichi Ohno and the Toyoda family. The result is that cars that once had to be junked at 100,000 miles or less now frequently last 300,000 miles.

That means every American who buys a car enjoys three times the value. Although American auto workers lost their jobs (a plight amply illustrated in Michael Moore's best work, "Roger and Me"), Americans have on balance been made better off by trade.

With respect to China, there is a combination of issues. First, labor costs are lower in China, and there is a reason to move labor-intensive plants there and to other low-wage countries. Low labor costs mean lower prices to Americans. One of the reasons we have sustained a relatively high standard of living is the inexpensive merchandise at big box stores due to low labor costs in China.

At the same time, plant relocation requires capital investment, and when capital is at its market rate, there is an impediment to making risky and costly moves. The costs of relocation have been suppressed by the federal government and the Federal Reserve Bank. By keeping interest rates artificially low, firms have been able to invest in plant relocation and make other labor-cutting capital investment at subsidized cost. There likely has been overinvestment in labor-saving technology as well as plant relocation because of suppressed capital costs.

Hence, the relocations and the loss of blue collar jobs are not entirely due to free trade. They are in part due to the federal government's subsidization of capital investment.

That's not the only way, though, that big government interventionists have hurt blue collar workers. During the same period that it subsidized plant relocations, the federal government increased all kinds of regulation, from human resources and employee benefits to OSHA, to environmental regulation, to Sarbanes-Oxley, to product liability. In addition, it raised corporate tax rates. The Democratic Party's policy mix seems designed to force manufacturing to move overseas.

Moreover, and most importantly, the federal government through its protected monopoly, the Federal Reserve Bank, has inflated the money supply while the dollar is used as the world's reserve currency. Foreign holdings of dollars limit the inflationary effect of historically low interest rates. The dollar remains relatively strong despite massive increases in the number of dollars.

In a free market trade regime, if many manufacturers exit a home country and sell their goods back to the home country, the value of the home currency will decline. That has not occurred. Rather, the dollar has retained its relative value despite the exodus of manufacturing to China. The reserve currency status of the dollar allows the Fed to subsidize privileged industries in services, government, education, and health care while it drives productive industry to China.

It is not surprising that President Trump's often-blue collar supporters have been skeptical of trade, for the managed version of it has harmed their interests. In contrast, the well-to-do beneficiaries of Fed policies, stock market investors, Wall Street, government employees, beneficiaries of government welfare plans, real estate developers, professionals like psychologists who benefit from state programs, are key constituencies of the big government economy. Notice that none of these produce much of value. America's has increasingly become a vampire economy.

The Republican Congress Is Allowing the Democratic Media to Set Its Agenda

The Republican Congress is allowing the Democratic media to set its agenda.The investigations and accusations are ongoing but going nowhere. They need to stop.  In 2014 Andrew Cuomo dissolved a Moreland Act commission that was investigating his administration.  In New York the Moreland Act establishes a procedure for the governor to appoint investigative commissions. None of the media that is now so agitated about Trump's interference in the Russian investigation called for Cuomo's impeachment.

The 20th century media, the Democratic TV and radio stations, have proven themselves incapable of reporting news coherently, so it is time for the Congress to assert its legitimate authority and to tell the media that they cannot assert an agenda for the nation.   The media was not elected to do this, yet the Republicans seem confused about that.

Congress can use bloggers and social media to communicate with the public. Television, radio, and the Democratic newspapers have increasingly become irrelevant.  The Republicans made fools of themselves in the late 1990s when they impeached Clinton, and now they are making even bigger fools of themselves.  They control both houses and the presidency, but they are allowing media Democrats to dictate their agenda and focus on investigation of a Republican president. It is time that this circus ended.