Fed Chairman Powell "Doesn't Understand Inflation"

 “I think we now understand better how little we understand about inflation,” Powell stated at the European Central Bank forum on central banking in Sintra, Portugal. “This was unpredicted,” the expert admitted.

Everybody involved, including Powell, knows exactly how inflation works. It's been happening since the Roman Empire. Printing, or in this case, enpixelating, trillions of dollars, is going to inevitably decrease the value of dollars already in circulation. It will require more devalued dollars to purchase the same amount of beer, potato chips, Ford pick-ups or aircraft carriers than it did before the amount of money in circulation increased.

 

NY Times.com

Powell, and the other bankers that make up the Federal Reserve, can't admit that they know what causes the value of US money to diminish because then they would be expected to fix the problem or prevent it in the first place. They would be revealed as incompetents or crooks. 

To negate the inflationary monetary expansion it would be necessary to hoover a similar amount out of the economy. One way would be for each and every Yankee to ignite a pile of a little more than $17,000 in US funds on fire in their backyard barbecue. Since much of the monetary expansion initially goes to the Fed member banks, that suggestion would go nowhere. 

In fact, the federal government itself is probably not all that unhappy about an inflationary environment. Since it owes trillions of dollars to holders of US Treasury bonds, simply enpixelating the money to cover the interest becomes much easier than raising the taxes that would otherwise be required to make those interest payments.

The downside to the inflationary spiral is that actual and potential holders of US debt of all kinds will be more and more reluctant to hold that debt. First, interest on Treasuries will increase, as they already have. Naive high school graduates won't become excited by the gift of a savings bond from Grandma. Even if the constructed goal of 2% inflation that supposedly keeps the consumer engine running is successful, it means that non-consumers and those with a fixed income are, in the long run, hosed. If they bought a house for $50,000 in 1970 and it now lists for $350,000, the profit from it's sale will be an illusion.   

The Department of Justice and the Supreme Court

The Levites have spoken and made their decision known. Of the three branches of the US government, the executive, the legislative and the judiciary, the Supreme Court has the final say on the constitutionality of the actions of both the legislative and executive branches. On June 24, 2022 a majority of the court decided in two separate cases that the court itself had no right under the constitution to compel the separate states to address the legality of abortion in any direction. This reverses a decision that was made in 1973 that stated that a right of privacy existed that allowed the practice. Even at that time there was much controversy over that decision.

In an official statement of the Justice Department's most senior official, Merrick Garland, the Attorney General, said:

  “The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Court’s decision. This decision deals a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States. It will have an immediate and irreversible impact on the lives of people across the country. And it will be greatly disproportionate in its effect – with the greatest burdens felt by people of color and those of limited financial means."

Well, yes, people of color and those of limited financial means always suffer the greatest burdens. Isn't it, however, the duty of the Department of Justice, and its administration, to follow to the letter the constitutionality of laws as determined by the Supreme Court? In fact, don't they actually swear to do so? When Garland says the Department itself strongly disagrees with the Court's decision he is moving past his own viewpoint and establishing one that applies to every DoJ employee. Official DoJ activity meant to defy the Court could be considered a federal crime or even treason. 

There is a simple process to remedy this issue. The Constitution can be amended, as it has been in the past. We haven't heard much said about that.

Even more strange is that one very important word in this controversy has yet to appear in the media: contraception, or two words, birth control.

 The techniques of contraception, some effective, others less so, have been known and used for centuries and are today. Ultimately the female is responsible for her pregnancy even though a partner is required. It would be easy to assert that abortion is the most simple solution to irresponsible sexual behavior, if there is now such a thing. But neither a constitutional amendment or contraception have been discussed. Why?

UCI Changes Requirements For Gender Classification In Cycling

 

                                unucycling.com

Female cycling world champion Jolanda Neff

  The Union Cycliste International has decided that their previous standard for determining the gender of cycling contestants wasn't sufficient. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

 

"On Thursday, cycling’s governing body updated its eligibility rules for transgender athletes with stricter limits that will force riders to wait longer before they can compete.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) increased the transition period on low testosterone to two years, and lowered the maximum accepted level of testosterone. The previous transition period was 12 months but the UCI said recent scientific studies show that “the awaited adaptations in muscle mass and muscle strength/power” among athletes who have made a transition from male to female takes at least two years."

The level of testosterone of a male attempting to compete as a female in a UCI event can't exceed 5 nanomoles/liter. The testosterone content in a normal male varies between 8.64 and 29 nanomoles/liter, depending on age and time of day. The testosterone level of an individual can't be determined by appearance or any of the human senses. It is only through a sophisticated serum blood test and laboratory analysis that the testosterone levels of a person can be known, maybe. Tests of this kind are notoriously unreliable. Should the results of such a test indicate a serious health problem the test is repeated or a different methodology is employed. 

Of course, the permitted levels of testosterone for competition as a female are arbitrary, they don't give any real indication of the "masculinity" or "femininity" of the tested individual. 

What we're talking about here is "scientism", a use of the techniques of science, microscopic measurement of invisible molecules and interpretations unavailable to the general population, to address social questions that have no apparent relationship to the substance being measured.

It might be interesting to contemplate other ways such information could be used. Isn't it possible that government agencies or insurance companies or human resources departments could use the information, not only about testosterone levels but about other endocrines and proteins in the body, to make decisions affecting the future of the tested? This very process smacks of an extension of the ideas of eugenics, which survives despite its universal condemnation. 

Since an incredible few are the focus of this problem, it seems that humanity in its current form has such a scarcity of real concerns that it must devote some of its attention to confused athletes in minor sports.   

THE Ohio State University

 

Walmart.com 

 

The US Patent and Trademark Office has granted a petition by Ohio State University for trademark protection of the English word "The" when used on sports apparel. Clothing firm Marc Jacobs had sought the same classification and OSU had negotiated an agreement to share the unusual word. It seems possible that almost every word in the language could soon be reserved for a particular business. Who will be awarded "sex"?

An Anniversary In Okinawa

 

AP photo

Gate at US military base on Japanese island of Okinawa

Today, June 23 on the Gregorian calendar, is the anniversary of the end of the four month WWII battle for the Japanese island of Okinawa. Over 200,000 people died in this episode, many of them civilians, and its memory has been commemorated for the 77 years that have elapsed since. Fifty years ago control over the island prefecture had been transferred from the US military to Japan but the local residents don't seem to enjoy the political autonomy that the change promised.

 The local citizens have objected for these many years to the US military presence with its disruption of the local culture, environmental degradation, crime and the fact that it makes Okinawa a tempting target in a possible international confrontation. The Japanese national government appears willing to accept without objection a situation that increases this kind of peril for a remote portion of their country rather than a similar facility closer to the bigger islands. The majority of the 50,000 US troops stationed in Japan are posted to Okinawa, which is the site of 70% of US facilities in the country. 

According to militarybases.com, US installations in Japan include Kadena Air Force Base: 

 "Currently, Kadena Air Base is home to over 7,500 active duty airmen, soldiers, sailors and marines. Military family members, Department of Defense contractors and Japanese civilian employees bring the population of the base to a staggering 20,000 plus. The base covers over 11,000 square acres between two separate areas, the largest portion of which is used primarily for storage. Kadena Air Base has two nearly identical 12,100 foot runways that are flanked by 15 reinforced and shielded aircraft hangers. The length and construction of the runways allow Kadena to receive any aircraft in the United States or Japanese aircraft fleet."

Nearby is Torii Station:

" Torii Station is currently the most important military base run by the United States of America in Japan. It is the home of the US Army. It is located close to Okinawa, in Yomitan. Although the profile of the base is military, it is also used for civilian needs. It supports most of the operations required in Okinawa, from fuel supply to port actions. The civilians have access to the SCUBA equipments from Scuba Locker, whether they plan to buy or rent such sets. Other than that, since Yomitan is a small village that mostly concentrates on agriculture, a wide area on site is used for farming activities by the natives."

In all, there are fifteen US military bases on Okinawa: Camp Hansen Marine Base, Camp Foster Marine Base, Fort Buckner Army Base, Kadena Air Base, Torii Station Army Base, Camp Kinser Marine Base, Camp S. D. Butler, Camp Schwab Marine Corps Base, Camp Lester Marine Corps Base, Camp Gonsalves Marine Corps, Camp Mctureous Marine Base, Fleet Activities Okinawa Naval Base, Fleet Activities Sasebo Naval Base, Fleet Activities Yokusuka Naval Base  and MCAS Futenma Marine Corps Base. 

According to the US Marine Corps:

  "The U.S. population in Okinawa approaches 80,000. Nearly 30,000 are active-duty military people from all four branches of the armed forces. One thousand, four-hundred Department of Defense civilians, 700 DoD Dependents, Schools teachers and staff, and almost 25,000 U.S. family members form our military community here. Service members reside and train on numerous major installations on Okinawa."

 

A Quote From William Pfaff

International Herald Tribune columnist and frequent contributor to The New Yorker, New York Review of Books, and other publications, William Pfaff was an American in Paris. This quote comes from his book The Irony of Manifest Destiny, The Tragedy of America's Foreign Policy, Walker & Company, New York, 2010, pg. 36.

 

"The irresponsible Western policy of pushing invitations to NATO onto Ukraine and Georgia stimulated destructive forces in those countries, and in Russia as well, by seeming to promise Western military support for irredentist or separatist ambitions that--as a reckless Georgian regime discovered in August 2008--would never actually be supplied." 

Russians Steal Ukrainian Farms

The June 18, 2022 weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal has an article behind its paywall titled Ukraine's Embattled Farmers Say Russians Steal Their Land.  

According to this article, Russian troops, Chechen units of the Russian army and Russians units from the Donetsk People's Republic have illegally confiscated the crops and farms of Ukrainian farmers.

The provenance of the lands in question is an interesting aspect of the situation. 

During the Tsarist era these lands were the property of the nobility, local communes and individuals. While serfdom had been abolished in 1861, the peasants were still in a position where the obligations of land use often were greater than the possible income. The Duma, or Russian parliament, was absorbed with the petitions and problems of the peasantry and the nobles. 

The Bolshevik revolution changed all that. Agricultural land became property of the state and was organized as state farms, collective farms and, as had been in the past, small plots for the personal use of the peasants. The Ukraine was part of the USSR until August 24, 1991 when a plebiscite voted overwhelmingly for independence from the CIS, the political structure that superseded the USSR.

No longer a "communist" country, Ukraine needed to disburse it's agricultural land to private interests. Information on how this was accomplished isn't easy to find. Of course, it was no longer possible to restore the property to its pre-revolutionary owners. A great deal of the Ukrainian agricultural land is owned by absentee landlords, the privatization process is not very transparent. The current owners might be agricultural "oligarchs" as the new proprietors of the Russian state industries are called  by the US media. Redistribution of state lands has been one of the biggest problems for countries that have rejected the communist system.

Americans should be fairly familiar with this sort of issue, having confiscated millions of acres of land belonging to the native Americans, purchasing land from France and Russia that already belonged to natives, acquiring properties that once were colonies of Spain after 1898 and taking over the Republic of Hawaii, among others. The idea that the borders of Ukraine are somehow sacrosanct flies in the face of world history.   

Brittney Griner Detention In Russia Extended

Evidently, American basketball fans are unfamiliar with the concept "turnabout is fair play". In the case in question US female basketball legend Brittney Griner has been held in jail since February 17 of this year for attempting to smuggle cannabis oil into Russia. The latest news is that her detention will be extended to July 2 and what happens after that isn't clear.

 

                  12news.com

 While her case would have been prosecutable in most American communities should the authorities choose to follow federal guidelines, there really is nothing out of the ordinary in the Russian action. But even more significant is the US sentence imposed on Russian national Maria Butina, discussed here. 

 

                      bizpacreview.com

 What happened to Griner is a perfect example of a tit for tat situation. If the US is going to arrest and try a foreign national on the most flimsy of charges, hold her in solitary confinement for months, then coerce a guilty plea from her that means more time in prison before deportation, they must expect some retaliation in kind. And that's what happened. The US didn't have any problems holding Butina hostage. The Russians aren't going to be any nicer to Griner. 

In this on-line media example we see a frequent description of those with some sort of beef with some aspect of the US. That is that those individuals "hate America". That Brittney Griner is somehow of less value as a person because she has a disagreement with the US in a way never revealed. Well, don't we all? Citizens have been disagreeing with various US policies and actions since before the formation of the country and that's sure to continue into the future. Does that indicate that they "hate America"? It's terrifying to consider what the country would look like if no one ever spoke out about the things that disturb them. Maybe, if eradicating those who "hate America" is a noble goal, the country should follow the dictates of happy places like Myanmar, Indonesia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iran, Saudi Arabia and so on. 

The Asian Dress Code

 

reuters photo 

It's difficult to take Asian society seriously when the men insist on wearing clothing based on late 19th century British business attire. When is a significant Asian leader going to demonstrate the cultural independence of wearing clothes with a more "Oriental" flavor? Lose the ties, too.

Saving the Baby Pigs

Immature swine are actually called shoats, female shoats are gilts until they give birth to shoats, when they then become sows. Male swine are called boars at any age unless they've been castrated. They are then known as barrows.

The Animal Alliance Network holds a vigil on every Wednesday outside the Vernon, CA packing house that butchers and processes pigs for its Farmer John products. They refer to immature swine as "baby pigs" rather than shoats. Humans have babies, pigs have shoats. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, on to the story.

 

(Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) 

Smithfield Foods, a global operation with over 50,000 employees and and an annual revenue of over $14 billion, has been owned by the Chinese WH Group since 2013 when it was purchased for $4.72 billion. It is the owner of the Vernon, CA plant, which has been a target for animal rights advocates for some time. Company representatives say that it's no longer possible to operate in the Golden State. Closure of the plant will put 1500 butchers out on the street.

The protesters certainly have a point in their objection to the treatment of hogs, not to mention cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks and turkeys, in their journey from the factory farm to the dinner table. It's a process that most people try to ignore. At the same time, industrial food production has brought relatively healthy, cheap protein to the masses for the first time in world history. Many of those masses prefer to be omnivores rather vegans.

Which brings up another point. Who is to say that the members of the plant world should be exploited for their nutritional value? Just because plants don't seem to have the power of abstract thought, don't mimic the appearance of higher mammals with expressive eyes and mouths and can't show signs of affection toward humans, should they be planted, swathed, ground and turned into bread, mashed potatoes, popcorn and pasta?

It wasn't too long ago that objecting to the use of lower forms of animal life for food would have earned the objector contempt and derision, although at the same time normal folk also tried to be humane to their animal subjects. It is a sign of the change in culture over time that ideas that would never have occurred in the past are now taken somewhat seriously by a vocal segment of society.

Inflation and Sales Tax

No mention made in the national press on-line about the state and local bonanza in income from increased sales tax receipts. The increase in costs of motor fuel and everything else means that sales taxes have gone up dramatically. In a jurisdiction with a sales tax of 7.25% a move upward in the US average price of gasoline from $2.13 per gallon in July 2021 to $4.20 in June 2022 reflects a change of of 15 cents in sales tax per gallon. For a nation that consumes about 9 million gallons of gasoline per day, adding up to an annual amount of 3 billion 285 million gallons, sales tax receipts would climb by just under half a billion dollars this year at a 7.25% rate. California has a state sales tax of 7.5%, counties and cities can add a local tax that can raise the total to 10%.  Colorado has one of 2.9% and after state and local sales taxes are added in the state average is 7.44%.  Five states have no statewide sales tax.   

Saving The US From China

This is how it's done:

1. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announces in a speech on May 26 a plan that "includes building a China house: a departmentwide integrated team that will coordinate and implement our policy across issues and regions, working with Congress as needed.” No specifics on personnel or policy are given. More state department staffers would be needed to monitor Chinese relations with other countries as well as emerging technologies and climate change.

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Michael S. Chase is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China

2. The formation by Biden of a defense department "task force" to evaluate US policy and strategy in countering Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific area. 

3. The adoption of more effective alliances with allies in the Pacific. Taiwan and Japan have been critical components of this effort. Efforts are already underway to counter Chinese attempts to become players in the South Pacific.

4. Michael Pillsbury, one-time adviser on Chinese affairs to the Trump administration and now the head of Chinese study at the Hudson Institute advocates a more unified approach to policy, organized so that the Pentagon no longer sends conflicting signals to China.

5. Congressional Republicans have formed a group of their own to monitor and coordinate response to Chinese activity.

Of course, it remains to be seen if an increase in bureaucrats and bureaucratic activity will result in the wilting of Chinese influence in the world.  

Maybe It Will Go On Forever

On June 6, 2022, one of the businesses that seem to show the most awareness of the dangers of the Wuhan flu, the Hub Bike Co-op in Minneapolis, MN, requires its customers in three different languages to wear their face doily when shopping there for bike parts.
 

Mass Shootings in US Schools

If the population of the country is fed up with psychos periodically shooting up US schools the best answer to the problem is simple. Close public schools. 

The US is supposed to be the epitome of free market economics. At the same time its taxpayer-financed public school system is one of the biggest experiments in socialism on the planet. Even the private, often religiously affiliated, schools and the few charter schools are inspected and subject to control by local and national governments. 

While the public schools are ostensibly administered by locally elected school boards who have the ability to select curriculums and other features like dress codes they must adhere to the requirements of the state for subject testing and results. Teachers unions also have a say in what's taught in K-12 schools. The ideas of the teachers may not coincide with those of the students or their parents.

The motive for a public school education system is to produce productive, tax-paying citizens, people who will be able to perform jobs in the modern economy. But jobs as we know them today are a new concept in the human experience. Seventeenth-century Europeans didn't have employment as we know it and pre-Columbian Americans didn't either. 

Since the idea is that normal Yankees should be able to successfully step into the competitive work environment, what makes us think that the public educational system is the path to this end? There's been a constant complaint about the quality of learning in the US. Maybe there are other ways.

For instance, why should the public itself feel a responsibility to provide educated workers for business? Tax revenues aren't the obvious source for the funding that business uses to build its facilities, maintain and operate them, market their products, etc. Why should they feel that the country as a whole is responsible for providing them with a free, educated workforce? Wouldn't another option be for corporations to have their own educational institutions to teach their future employees everything they need to know to make the business a success, and at their own expense? They could identify prospective candidates for employment at an early age and give them the education they need. Corporations like Boeing or General Electric could have their own primary, secondary and engineering schools that could produce exactly the kind of employees they need. Mass school shootings would be less likely to occur as well.