December 26, 2021

As Bill de Blasio Prepares To Leave Office

December 26, 2021/ Francis Menton

Here in New York City, political offices change hands on New Year’s Day. That means that, come Saturday, we will finally be rid of Mayor Bill de Blasio.
De Blasio got a full eight years in office to implement his uber-progressive agenda and finally bring perfect fairness and justice to New York City. He was handed by his predecessor (Mike Bloomberg) a government that did have an unreasonably high level of spending, but still was in relatively good fiscal condition, with crime under control and strong economic growth.
With the momentum of the economic growth and a supportive State Legislature and City Council, de Blasio was able to have dramatic increases in revenues, and therefore spending, to achieve his goals. The budget bequeathed to de Blasio by Bloomberg for the fiscal year that ran from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014 was $72.9 billion. The current budgeted spending level, running to June 30, 2022, that de Blasio is bequeathing to his successor, is $102.8 billion.
Surely, you will say, for those huge spending increases, de Blasio must have been able to achieve his goals and more.

December 23, 2021

Vaccine Mandates and the Death of Personal Choice

December 23, 2021/ Jane Menton

The arrival of Omicron is causing COVID déjà vu in the US. With cases surging, many political leaders are considering lockdowns right before the holidays.
Meanwhile, existing vaccines against COVID seem to have no effect on the spread of this variant — and even the New York Times admits it.
Pfizer is already indicating that it will use the occasion to urge a “fourth dose” of the vaccine.
In New York City, where 90.6% of adults are vaccinated, officials have announced that the City has broken its COVID case record two days in a row.
Despite that, officials in the U.S. and elsewhere are imposing new and stricter vaccine mandates, even as evidence against their effectiveness mounts.

December 20, 2021

December 20, 2021/ Francis Menton

Chile held a presidential election yesterday. This was a run-off between the two top vote-getters in a prior round. The candidates were José Kast of the Republican (conservative) Party, and Gabriel Boric of the Social Convergence (leftist) Party. Boric won easily, by about 56/44, and Kast promptly conceded and offered congratulations. Boric will replace Sebastián Piñera, a conservative.
Chile is one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America, with per capita GDP for 2020 estimated at $13,232 by the World Bank.
Chile has experienced enormous economic growth since the 1960s, and its current level of prosperity (as measured by per capita GDP, World Bank figures) puts to shame its main rivals in Latin America like Mexico ($8,347), Argentina ($8,442), and Brazil ($6,797).
You would think that the Chileans, being there in Latin America, could look around themselves, see the failures of leftism everywhere staring them in the face, and want to have nothing to do with it.

December 17, 2021

December 17, 2021/ Francis Menton

In the fantasy of wealthy woke environmentalists, the world has recognized that it is on the brink of an existential climate crisis that can only be avoided by rapid elimination of the use of fossil fuels, and the transformation of the world energy economy to be based upon “renewables” like the wind and sun. The generation of electricity will be “decarbonized” by some time in the 2030s, and the world will reach “net zero” carbon emissions by around 2050.
In the real world, anyone with eyes can see that this is not happening. The countries with the large majority of world population (China, India, the remainder of Asia, and Africa) mouth a few platitudes to appease the foolish Western elites, even as they continue to build hundreds of new coal and other fossil fuel facilities.
Even the U.S. federal government, under left-wing Democrat control, has had its ambitious “Green New Deal” plans stalled in Congress. Worldwide, fossil fuel usage continues on a steady upward trajectory, pretty much as if the whole decarbonization obsession didn’t exist.
But then there is that handful of very wealthy, small population jurisdictions that have convinced themselves that they can save the planet by eliminating their own fossil fuel use and substituting wind and solar power, even as the rest of the world laughs at them behind their back.

December 14, 2021

December 14, 2021/ Francis Menton

Back in college, I knew people who called themselves Marxists. They read long volumes of dense and nearly impenetrable prose expounding the theory in great detail, and thought it was all highly sophisticated.
My observation was that it boiled down to nothing more complex than blaming all the problems of the world on the evil actions of a cabal of bad guys, who however hadn’t done anything specific that was illegal or even unethical that you could put your finger on.
In classic economic Marxism the bad guys were the capitalists, who had somehow hoarded all the money to themselves and were “exploiting” the working class by offering jobs. In the more recent Neo-Marxist derivative of Critical Race Theory, it’s the cis-gender white males, who practice “whiteness” and “systemic racism,” and thus are able to “oppress” people of other races and genders.
But these evil cabals can work in devious ways.

December 12, 2021

December 12, 2021/ Francis Menton

In our wacky world where almost nothing makes sense any more, there is no shortage of examples of politicians, let alone self-important academics, journalists, and wealthy elites, looking foolish with incoherent and self-contradictory policy demands.
My favorite among all of them is the demand for “climate justice” for the poor while simultaneously seeking action that will dramatically increase the price of energy and things derived from it (e.g., transportation, heat) — an increase that obviously will hit hardest on the poor.
The contradiction is so stark that I have dubbed the situation a “looking glass world” and, in a piece this past September, promised a series of posts highlighting the craziness.
But then I have to wait for just the right news to give a perfect illustration of the absurdity. This week has provided an excellent example.